Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on what we informally call the late show to ask for an answer to a question that I have previously asked in the House.
The question was put to the minister of fisheries. It was:
--since the minister still refuses to assert Canadian custodial management outside the 200 mile limit, will he agree to increase coast guard and DFO presence inside the 200 mile limit?
I went on to say:
It is absolutely shameful that the minister expects one coast guard vessel to patrol all of the Grand Banks inside the 200 mile limit. What is he going to do about it?
The minister's reply was that he knew it was a serious problem, he would look into it and he would do something immediately.
The issue, especially on overfishing and on surveillance, is an important issue for Atlantic Canada. The entire DFO fleet for surveillance in the country consists of 27 rotary wing aircraft or helicopters stationed at 11 bases and 5 DFO regions specifically in Atlantic Canada.
In the maritimes region alone, we have only four helicopters. There is one at Saint John, there is one at Charlottetown, there is one at Yarmouth, which is a secondary helicopter, and there are four based out of Halifax.
Certainly if we are ever going to attempt to control the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap, we will need to have more long range helicopters, not small choppers, and fixed wing airplanes and some type of geographical positioning instrumentation on board all ships fishing on the Grand Banks. There are a number of things that could be done and implemented immediately. None of these have been done.
We have a total of four coast guard vessels on the east coast. We have one stationed in Newfoundland to patrol all of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. It is absolutely impossible. When we go to the NAFO meetings in Europe, we come back with our tail between our legs. We cannot reach an agreement. We do not get the assistance from those who should be our European allies.
Certainly the 10% of the Grand Banks that lies outside the 200 mile limit is a major problem. We have complete overfishing, which even the government admits has increased since 1995. We need something that can be done today, immediately.
Let us look at a couple of things that we can do. We can go to the NAFO meeting and ask for assistance to curtail overfishing. We can put observers on every ship fishing off the Grand Banks, including Canadian ships. We can check for netliners. We can make sure undersized species are not caught. We can make sure that moratorium protected species are not ground into fishmeal. There was a Russian trawler in Newfoundland with 35 tonnes of fishmeal on it. No one knows what that fishmeal was made of, but I will guarantee that a lot of it was made out of undersized fish. That is what fishmeal is made out of: heads and undersized fish.
Let us do something about this. Let us do something about this right away.