Debates of Feb. 26th, 2003

Fisheries

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to deal with eight points tonight, but, unfortunately, I could deal with just one in my ten minutes. I figure I would need 70 minutes to talk about the rest of them, but I know you will not let me have all that time. So, I will try to summarize my eight points, and talk about them at least briefly.

Obviously, my first point, which is the one I talked about during my ten minutes, is the assistance plan we should provide to those affected by a possible moratorium on cod fishing. It is an important issue, because it concerns the well-being of real people. Some 4,000 families on the east coast could be affected by such a moratorium. It is crucial that they get a good assistance program.

My second point concerns the importance of providing an adequate and secure infrastructure to the fishing and shipping industries in eastern Quebec. We have been discussing this seriously for two years. What I have in mind is ports for small boats.

Of course, some money has been invested, but ever since this program has been implemented, whatever has been done has not been done quickly enough.

As a result, we still find ourselves today with infrastructure that is in poor shape. We need to invest, and if memory serves well, during the discussions we had with the previous Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the number that was mentioned was $400 million. That is the money needed to repair all of the ports, alienating many ports to wind up with a final number of approximately 800 ports that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans would keep and that could provide adequate service.

Unfortunately, this program is not making progress fast enough, and most of the infrastructures are still in bad shape. There needs to be a lot more work done and investment made both in Quebec and in the maritime provinces. We toured some of the infrastructures in Newfoundland and Labrador that were in disrepair and that needed work. That was my second point.

I touched on my third point briefly at the beginning. In my opinion, fisheries management by the federal government in the past has seriously hurt fishers, plant workers and coastal communities. I am not just talking about the current government. I am talking about all governments since the time the federal government took over responsibility for the management of the resource.

The resource has been mismanaged, and entire populations affected as a result. Take the Gaspé and Newfoundland for example. For the people in these regions, the fishery is their main industry. It is the biggest industry. Today, because of mismanagement, this industry is shrinking, while the people in these regions, particularly in the Gaspé, which I am more familiar with of course, are getting poorer.

I did not address the next point previously, but it would have been interesting for the federal government to look into the possibility of giving these fishers a capital gains exemption similar to the one granted by the Government of Quebec.

If we want to encourage people to continue in the industry, it seems important to me that a tax exemption be granted when, for instance, a father sells his fishing boat with all the gear to his son. This is done in agriculture and other sectors. A tax exemption would be important, and the Government of Quebec just announced it will be granting this kind of exemption to fishers to make the transition from one generation to the next easier and ensure that fisheries remain an industry. This was one of the points I wanted to address.

That is the position we have defended as members of the Bloc Quebecois. We want marine resources to be equitably distributed while respecting Quebec's traditional quotas. This does not mean taking from others what is theirs.

Traditionally, each of the Atlantic provinces was assigned a share of quotas, and we are asking that this share be respected even in the event of a reduction. The government should not start playing with the quotas of the individual provinces to try to please people right and left, as it did in the past, giving to the fishers in one province what it had taken away from the fishers in other provinces.

I think one of the worst approaches to managing the resource is to create divisions between the provinces. Perhaps it served the purposes of the federal government at the time, but to create divisions between the provinces that way in order to manage the resource is, in my opinion, one of the worst things the federal government has done in the past, and this has been done in certain sectors.

We in Quebec are asking that our traditional quotas be respected, and I touched on that earlier, quoting figures. The fact that quotas were not respected in the past is posing a very serious problem, particularly in Quebec and in provinces like Newfoundland. Because of the 1992 moratorium and the potential moratorium on cod, it is imperative to at least maintain traditional quotas in other fisheries. This appears very important to me, and it was one of the points I wanted to raise earlier.

Reference was also made to the Coast Guard. Personally, I did not make any reference to it, but there were extensive discussions about it in a debate held in November. Very clearly, the Coast Guard has been underfunded, and mistreated by the government; it has really taken a beating from this government.

For many years, the government did not make any investment in this organization, with the result that it now has to invest billions of dollars in it to improve the fleet and replace infrastructure, among other things. Sadly, it took the events of September 11 for the government to wake up and see that the Coast Guard was in terrible shape.

This led the government to decide to invest in an organization that, in my opinion, was completely inadequate, both on the east and west coast. We must remember that, for fishermen, the Coast Guard is important, particularly when boats are in trouble and lives are at stake.

This is important to the fishing industry and I believe the federal government should have begun re-investing in the Coast Guard much sooner and ensured that this organization had proper and adequate resources to operate.

Something else that I mentioned earlier is that we believe that the federal government must provide the sealing industry with access to the American and Korean markets.

As I mentioned to one of my colleagues, seal quotas cannot be continually increased without developing other markets. Of course, right now, the market is probably able to absorb the current quota of 350,000. This quota does not reduce the population and, as the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council said in one of its press releases in April 2002, and I quote,

Predation by seals continues to be the dominant sourceof exploitation on groundfish.

We are told that this 350,000 quota will not prevent the seal population from growing, but merely stabilize it.

As my time has run out, I hope I will have the opportunity to speak later.

[Georges Farrah, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to our colleague who talked, among other things, about certain government policies with respect to small craft harbours. At least he acknowledged that there was an increase in the budgets. Obviously, it is never enough, but it must be admitted that in last year's budget, another $100 million was added over five years in addition to the regular budget. I think this is important.

One way of softening the blow of a reduction in groundfish fishing, or a possible moratorium, is to try to set up a compensation program. If there is a moratorium, I can tell you that obviously we will work very hard to try to put together a compensation package.

One of the problems is that people are currently buying cod permits at very high prices, $50,000 or $60,000, when there are no cod in the gulf. It is illogical. Permits are renewed yet there are no fish, or very few. Why is this happening? People do this in order to have a share of the crab. The minister reserves a quantity of crab. He doles it out to fishers who are having difficulties. Then these fishers buy high-priced permits and pay with the crab they receive.

The question I would like to ask my hon. colleague, the member for Matapédia—Matane, is this: given that it is very likely that crab will continue to be shared among groundfish fishers, does the minister have any thoughts on who should be entitled to the share and whether he thinks that those who purchase permits at a high price at the last minute should be entitled to a share?

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I think the answer is no. I do not think speculation on licences is possible. We should not forget what a licence is.

The resource belongs to the community, quite clearly, and not to individuals. The department is responsible for the management of the resource and the delivery of licences. The department should be diligent enough to prevent this kind of occurrence.

Our basis should be those who had fishing rights last year. Let this be clear. If somebody sold a licence, hoping to get a licence to fish crab, it is totally wrong. We should not help the fisher who had the licence during the previous year. It is that simple.

People who were allowed to fish last year and would unfortunately be affected by a moratorium this year should be the ones getting assistance or benefits from the department.

[Loyola Hearn, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask one or perhaps two questions of my colleague.

Does he think the government should allow fishers to continue to fish, or perhaps provide them with some federal programs? Does he think the government invests enough money on the scientific level to know what it is doing with the fishery?

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate my colleague for making the effort of putting his question to me in French. If memory serves, he once was minister of education in Newfoundland. He just proved his openmindedness, and for that I congratulate him.

Indeed, in managing the fishery, knowledge of the resource is essential. To manage any resource, one has to have a good knowledge of that resource. I think that, in the past, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the whole government probably, or I should say certainly, did not put enough money into research to have a good knowledge of our fish resources.

This is one of the problems that we are facing today. After the lesson learned in 1992, the government should have invested heavily in research in order to acquire a good knowledge of the resource, but it did not. Had it done so, maybe we might not be facing the possibility of another moratorium today.

We must invest heavily in research. When we have a good knowledge of the resource, we will be able to manage it properly. I think that this is very important. It is something that we have not done in the past and that I hope we will do in the future.

Of course, we have started to invest again, but so far these investments are very small compared to the enormous needs. We have not built up knowledge in the past and we have not invested enough, which means that we have a lot of ground to make up. That is the problem that we are facing now.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member from Quebec and the parliamentary secretary for fisheries for bringing the issues of the Quebec region to Parliament, because in a lot of cases we think about Atlantic fisheries and we think of the four Atlantic provinces. In many cases we inadvertently do not discuss the issues of Quebec, the Îles-de-la-Madeleine and those issues, for example.

Being the only one from Nova Scotia participating in tonight's debate, apart from the Minister of Fisheries, what I would like to ask him is this. We know that DFO science and research have been cut drastically. We know that the budget did not address that issue. What suggestion would he and his party make to the government to address this serious issue?

We know that whatever information is gathered now will only be helpful down the road. The reality is that we need that information now. We simply do not have it. We have an awful lot of people out there who can give us the information if we would just allow them to access the resources that are required and to work in a co-operative, co-management way in order to deal with the issues of, for example, environmental concerns, ice floes, seals, and dragging, et cetera. I would like him to comment on that, please.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Chairman, in answer to the question of the hon. member, I could give you some very concrete examples. Let us take aquaculture, for instance.

In the area of aquaculture, the main purpose of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was to carry out research. We now realize that we do not know much about aquaculture. Besides our capacity to farm fish, our knowledge in that area is quite limited.

We have paid the price for that lack of knowledge in the Gaspé area. A plant opened its doors about ten years ago, but then had to close down. Nowadays, we have changed direction and turned towards other sectors.

We do not have adequate knowledge. One of the roles of the department is to invest enough in research so that it knows what the impact will be.

Some people mentioned Atlantic salmon farming on the west coast. My hon. colleague talked about it. What do we know about the impact of Atlantic salmon farming off the coast of British Columbia? Not much, right now.

We are starting to find out about it, but unfortunately, we should have invested much more money in research to determine the impact early on before any industry became overdeveloped and too many problems resulted.

When talking about the U.N., some people mentioned earlier the precautionary principle that was approved in Rio. The Government of Canada knows about it. It signed these agreements in 1992, in 2001 and again in 2002. None of this was implemented however, because we have not invested enough in research. It is as simple as that.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Chairman, we have heard many very important speeches tonight, and we have heard talk of numerous different issues related to fisheries in Canada. We were reminded earlier that the topic of fisheries is very broad and just recently we heard it mentioned that some topics perhaps get forgotten. I would like to talk about something which I think gets forgotten, and that is the fishery of the Great Lakes. I would call the Great Lakes our fourth ocean, after the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and I will offer just a small geography lesson. They are bordered by eight American states and, interestingly enough, only one Canadian province, the province of Ontario, from where I hail.

Is the Great Lakes fishery important to Canada? The answer to that is very simple: absolutely. In Canada, the average landed value annually from the Great Lakes fishery is about $40 million, which translates into approximately $100 million annually to the Canadian economy. In addition to that, we have recreational angling, which provides a further $350 million a year to the Canadian economy, for a total of $450 million annually. All together, the combined value of the Canadian and American commercial and recreational fisheries in the Great Lakes has been estimated by the American co-chair of the International Joint Commission, Dennis Schornack, to be worth roughly $7 billion Canadian and 75,000 jobs.

There are three important treaties between Canada and the U.S. which help to manage and administer the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. The first is the Boundary Waters Treaty and the second is the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. These two combine to create the International Joint Commission. Third is the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, which created the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.

On February 11 of this year, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans heard important and, in my view, very troubling testimony from the joint chairmen of the International Joint Commission, the Right Hon. Herb Gray and Dennis Schornack, and their officials, as well as Madam Johanne Gélinas, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development for Canada, and her officials.

The gist of the testimony was that the Great Lakes fishery is gravely threatened by invasive species. What are invasive species? Very simply, they are organisms that are not native to the Great Lakes. Examples can be briefly summarized as the zebra mussel, the round gobie, which came with it, Asian carp, and in areas outside the Great Lakes, for example, the green crab.

[An hon. member]

Lamprey.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

And sea lamprey as well.

Commissioner Gélinas, in her testimony and in her 2002 report to the House of Commons on the subject of invasive species, had some very troubling things to say. I cannot say them any better than she did, so I am not going to try. I will simply quote her. I want to get this on the record, if I may, because I think it is very important, and quite often in the very legitimate debate about fisheries on the east and west coasts we do not pay enough attention to the Great Lakes fishery.

She said:

As members may know, more than a decade ago in the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, 167 world leaders recognized invasive species as “one of the most serious threats to our health, and to our ecological, social and economic well-being. They said, “Addressing the problem is urgent because the threats increase daily.”

That was over 10 years ago.

She continued:

In signing the Convention, the Canadian government formally pledged to prevent the introduction of alien species that threaten Canada's ecosystems, habitats and other species or to control or eradicate them.

Three years later, in 1995, the federal government published its strategy for honouring its pledge. It stated, “Control or elimination of harmful alien organisms is necessary to conserve biodiversity and prevent the further destruction of ecosystems.” The government's 1995 strategy set out a number of actions it considered essential to the task.

Madam Gélinas has found a problem, though, and she stated:

The federal government has still not identified the invasive species that threaten Canada's ecosystems or the pathways by which they arrive. Human and financial resources have not been co-ordinated. There is no consensus on priorities, no clear understanding of who will do what to respond, and no capability to gauge progress on the government's commitments.

Finally, she stated:

In short, Canada has left the door open to invasive species that threaten our ecosystems.

That is troubling testimony, in my view, and indeed, she says that all Canadians should be concerned, because one of the points she wants to make in her report is that invasive species affect all of Canada, not just the Great Lakes, but I am talking mainly about the Great Lakes tonight.

She said further in her evidence to us:

Aquatic invaders not only threaten the Great Lakes but are a clear and present threat to many of our inland lakes and rivers and to the ecology and economies along Canada's coasts.

That is, the east and west coasts. She did offer some solutions. She said:

Given the threat they pose to biodiversity and the clear potential for their further introduction, alien invasive species must be targeted immediately with preventive action.

She gave three suggestions:

First, the federal government needs a concrete, adequately resourced action plan for invasive species... Second, progress toward expected results must be tracked. Third, ministers and departments must be held accountable for their performance.

I could not agree more.

We also heard from the chairs of the International Joint Commission and, lest anyone think that Madam Gélinas was perhaps overstating the problem, I would like to quote from a little bit of the evidence that we heard from the joint chairs. The Right Hon. Herb Gray said:

In the Great Lakes, costs for treatment and control of zebra mussels and sea lamprey over the last decade have exceeded $100 million dollars... The damage is at least as much environmental as economic. Since biological pollution's effects are often irreversible, any future introductions of alien invasive species could permanently harm the biological and ecological diversity of the Great Lakes, the world's largest surface freshwater ecosystem.

Mr. Schornack was equally blunt and to the point. He said:

Let me be clear, invasive species are the number one threat to the biological integrity of the Great Lakes.

They are the number one threat to biodiversity, pushing some native species to the brink of extinction.

They are the number one threat to our biosecurity, putting cultures, lifestyles and economies that are tied to the Great Lakes at risk.

In short, invasive species are the number one threat to the ecological and economic health of the Great Lakes.

That is a clarion call for action, it seems to me. It is a shame that matters have gotten to this degree in the Great Lakes. Before we know it, there is going to be a crisis. These people are telling us that we should be aware of it and that the Canadian government, along with the American government, should be taking immediate and effective action to protect the environment of the Great Lakes and thereby protect the Great Lakes fishery on both sides of the border, which generates, as we heard, something in the order of $7 billion annually to both sides and produces a great number of jobs.

It is very important that we not lose sight of the threat that invasive species pose to the Great Lakes. I want to urge those who are listening, and in particular the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to recognize this as a problem, to recognize it as a very dangerous and growing problem, and to work with other departments, because it cannot all be on the back of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

There are other departments, notably the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport, that must also take responsibility, perhaps even the lead responsibility. I am not suggesting that this is entirely up to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but clearly, because its responsibility is to look after fish, it must take its responsibility as well.

We need to protect all of our fisheries, not just the Great Lakes fisheries but the east and west coast fisheries as well, from invasive species before it is too late.

[John M. Cummins, Canadian Alliance, Delta—South Richmond, BC]

Mr. Chairman, the member raised the issue of the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes fisheries. Indeed they are important contributors to the economy of Ontario and they are fisheries which should be encouraged and developed to achieve their potential.

The member discussed invasive species. One of the problems I have in these debates at times is trying to understand totally from where government members may be coming from on some of the issues that are raised. On invasive species, we did, as the member suggested, discuss this matter in committee. What I have not yet heard clearly from the government side is a definition of invasive species. What do we mean by invasive species? Once we have established a definition, I wonder if the hon. member could tell me if Pacific salmon in the Great Lakes are an invasive species? Are Atlantic salmon, which are escaping from fish farms on the west coast, an invasive species in the eyes of the government on the west coast? If the answer is yes, that Atlantic salmon are an invasive species on the west coast, why has nothing been done on this matter as far as putting in place regulations by government?

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I do not speak for the government; I speak for myself. I have no authority to speak for the government, so I will answer as best I can as the member for Scarborough Southwest.

I gave a definition of invasive species which was the definition given at the committee hearings: organisms that are not native to the area that we are talking about. If, in fact, a particular organism is not native, then it is an invasive species.

The next issue is, does the mere fact that it is an invasive species by definition cause a problem? In the examples of sea lamprey, zebra mussels, gobies, and Asian carp, it is clear. I am not so sure about the issue of Atlantic salmon in the Great Lakes. It is something that we need to study.

As far as the Atlantic salmon on the west coast, we have heard testimony in the fisheries committee on more than one occasion about the variance in scientific expertise or knowledge as to whether or not released Atlantic salmon can survive. If they can survive, can they breed? If they can breed, can the fish find their way back to rebreed?

It seems from the latest testimony that at the present time there is no evidence that Atlantic salmon can continue a viable population on the west coast. If that were true then I would think it is not the kind of invasive species I am talking about when I refer to zebra mussel, for example, which causes hundreds of millions of dollars of damage throughout the Great Lakes, including clogging the intake pipes of energy producing factories, which thereby translates to higher heating costs and energy costs to each and every one of us.

[Loyola Hearn, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the quite capable and competent chair of our standing committee a couple of questions in relation to the invasive species.

He mentioned the group that spoke about green crabs in committee. In Newfoundland and Labrador we do not have green crabs. We may see a few perhaps the day after St. Patrick's Day, but other than that, we do not have any. It is becoming a concern in New Brunswick. Could the member elaborate on the effect of such a species on the feeding grounds for lobsters which was the main concern?

There is a common theme in what many members are talking about tonight, which is a complete lack of science. We do not know what is going on in the Great Lakes. We do not know enough about invasive species and it will be to our loss. Does the member think that if we were to beef up our scientific knowledge, not only by an infusion of money, but by some way bringing together that great advice and scientific information that is out there, that we would all be a lot better off?

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for his question and also acknowledge his valuable contribution to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

As we heard from Commissioner Gélinas, she reminded us that the landed value of Atlantic clams, mussels and oysters in 2000 was about $57 million on the Atlantic side and that catches of Atlantic lobster in 2000 were worth over $500 million. They may very well be threatened by the colonization of the green crab and, lest the west coast feels slighted by being ignored, the green crab is an equal opportunity invasive species. It is also going to the west coast where it is starting to colonize.

Do we need science? Of course we need science. We always need more science. We need more of the best information possible because, as we heard from one of the eminent scientists in committee, there is a symbiotic relationship quite often between different invasive species, one that people would not think works in collaboration with another invasive species to provide a triple threat. There is always a need for scientific evidence and investigation and that takes money.

As with anything, as with all governments, there has to be an allocation. These are tough choices. One can always second guess whether the line was drawn too high or too low, but one thing is certain. There must be money to encourage and continue scientific evidence, particularly in the areas of the fisheries because so much is unknown. What is so irritating to me as an ordinary person on occasion is to hear that a scientist has been asked a question and responds by saying, “I don't know”. If the scientists do not know, how can we possibly make policy?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for raising the issue of the Great Lakes. He knows that in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, a bit of Alberta and northern Ontario, as well as the Northwest Territories, in combination with the Great Lakes, we have the world's greatest inland commercial fishery. All of it is at risk in terms of invasive species.

One of the things we heard was ballast exchange. Although the member was not on the committee in 1998, the east coast fisheries report came out with recommendations regarding ballast exchange water and how the government had to react to that serious issue. Five years later we are still debating it. It was five years ago that we raised the issue of ballast exchange water. I am sure previous committees made similar recommendations, yet the government dithers around on these things.

The former finance minister is the owner of CSL ships. His ships come in as well and there is concern with ballast exchange water. I thank the hon. member from the Alliance Party for raising that as well.

With the position he is in, what can he do to advise the government once and for all to take the issue of ballast exchange water seriously? Many of the invasive species enter our waters from foreign ships entering our ports.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for his question. Clearly he has been on the committee longer than I have. What can we do? We have to continue to raise the profile. Mr. Gray said:

We are pleased to note that this committee [Fisheries and Oceans] for the first time is holding hearings that specifically focus in on this serious issue.

That is one of the reasons I raised it in this debate. It was to focus in on it because sometimes it gets lost with all the other huge problems that are involved in the fishery of a country that has three oceans and really a fourth ocean of fresh water. It is a matter of focusing attention in this area.

As a matter of fact, a lot could be done and should be done on the issue of ballast. Mr. Schornack, the joint chair of the IJC, congratulated the Shipping Federation of Canada for being the first to adopt voluntary ballast exchange guidelines in 1989. We are told that the American regulations are based on the Canadian voluntary exchange guidelines.

What can we do? We can raise the issue, continue to give it a high profile, ring the alarm bells, and ask the various departments to deal with this issue in a serious way.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to enter the debate tonight with so many other members who, by and large, are members of the fisheries committee. They are members who take these issues to heart because they have studied these issues. I know that members from all parties are concerned.

We have heard a lot of issues addressed tonight, but I would like to bring a perspective from my party and from my own riding of Nanaimo--Alberni on Vancouver Island.

There are some serious issues here. These issues involve the livelihoods of men and women, and communities who draw their life from the sea. Each of these issues is serious to those individuals directly involved by them. The members from the east coast have addressed the crisis in the ground stocks in the cod fishery. It is a serious situation there right now and the minister is facing some important decisions. Communities no doubt are in angst about them.

I regard the time that I spent on the fisheries committee as some of my most meaningful and enjoyable time in the House of Commons since I was elected. The committee heard from witnesses and prepared a fine report on the issues relating to the Grand Banks and the east coast fishery.

There are two main issues. First, is the custodial management issue that the committee addressed. We felt there was a huge problem with the Grand Banks because the nose and tail are not within Canadian jurisdiction. This is part of our continental shelf. It has been abused by international fishers because it is outside the 200 mile zone. It has been abused by overfishing, by bycatch, and sometimes even targeted catch for moratoria species.

Because it is our continental shelf, it is time for Canada to take action and do what is right, and manage this for the people closest to the resource and the ones who manage it with the future in mind. I support our members and the committee report because it was excellent work and something the government should take seriously.

The second important issue involves the seals and we have heard other members address this as well. Many Canadians need a reality check regarding these sea predators. The minister has allowed a cull of about 350,000 seals per year over three years. Herds of seals range from 6 to 8 million, and a sustainable herd is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2 to 2.5 million. Seals eat tonnes of fish a year, but they do not eat the whole fish. It is not like they take one and take it up on the shore to have a barbecue with their friends and be satisfied with one fish. They take the choice parts out of the belly and the liver, but the fish dies, leaving most of it to waste in the sea. There are about 4.5 to 5 million seals each eating a tonne of fish a year. Is it any wonder the ground stocks have not been re-established?

People in Newfoundland and Labrador and the other Atlantic provinces who depend on these resources ought to have access to these resources. As Canadians, we ought to make decisions that will make it possible for them to benefit from those resources.

My colleagues from Delta and Skeena talked about the disaster on the Fraser River this year. This is a management issue. Some 15 million salmon returned to the river and yet the catch that was allowed was only about 3 million, allowing some 12 million to escape past Mission and up into the spawning grounds. This was a terrible loss to our fishers and the commercial fishermen who depended on salmon for their livelihood. Fishing has been withheld for years now because of wrangling with the department.

This has gone to the point where we wonder what the department's mandate is. Is it trying to drive people out of the industry? We estimate there was about a $200 million loss to the industry, but not only did it damage the people who depended on the industry, it also damaged the spawning grounds. Surely, we can do better than that.

I would like to address a smaller but an important issue to the people involved in my own riding, and that is the rock cod fishery on the west coast. There is also pressure on this resource, but we do not know a lot about the rock fish. It is an interesting species that dwells very deep. There are some scientific things we do not know about this species, but some concerns have been raised recently about the sustainability of this fishery.

There are presently about 70 rock cod boats, many of them from my riding. These are boats that fish the inside waters. For the past year and for current and projected allotments, they are just not sufficient to sustain a livelihood.

I know the member for Vancouver Island North presented a request to the minister recently about a buyback program that perhaps could be supported even by stamps that would relate to the sport fishery that also takes these fish. This is an important issue and I hope the minister will address it. It is a small number of people but when it is one's livelihood it is just as important. Therefore, on behalf of the rock fishers on the coast, I hope the minister will take this issue seriously.

I would like to address the Pacific hake fishery briefly. Our committee had a lot of discussion about this recently and the minister made a decision to see this resource processed on shore. I certainly heartily endorse that. Processors were under great stress in my riding and they have benefited from handling this resource on shore in Ucluelet and Port Alberni. We applaud that decision, but at the same time there are big concerns that there is a problem with the scientific joint review group which recommended a total allowable catch between 96,000 tonnes and 133,000 tonnes for 2002.

The U.S. simply would not agree with the joint scientific review. It went ahead and set a quota at 130,000 tonnes, basically scooping the whole of what was recommended by the scientists. Canada allowed 40,000 tonnes plus an additional 10,000 tonne carryover because of what was not harvested the year earlier. The total catch was about 180,000 tonnes and this has put the resource in an unacceptable stress. We have to get this sorted out. I hope the minister is working on this now to see that this is managed properly so that the resource is available for years to come.

I cannot enter this debate without addressing the issues that are related to the coast guard: MCTS, Marine Communication and Traffic Services, the dive team, and the government's chronic failure with regard to the coast guard.

In 1995 the coast guard was dumped from Transport Canada and landed in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I guess it made sense to some people because they both use boats, but frankly their mandates are quite different.

MCTS, in particular, has gone through downsizing, amalgamation, cross-training and repeated least cost analysis. Our committee tabled an excellent report just recently on this issue recommending at least a $2 million infusion to enable MCTS centres to do their job. I hope the minister will take that seriously. We do see more money coming into the budget but where it is allocated is not specified. There is a great concern to see this money appropriated to this service so the officers, who are under such stress, will be given the tools they need to do their jobs properly.

I would like to address the aquaculture issue. It certainly is a topic that inspires spirited debates on both sides of the issue, both for and against. It seems that if people have an opinion at all on aquaculture, it is either very strong on one side or the other.

In my riding of Nanaimo--Alberni we enjoy unparalleled natural beauty. That is one of the reasons that many people, including my wife and myself, moved out to this area. It has the mountains and the oceans, and it was a lifestyle choice when we moved out there. We are concerned about the health of the environment, the habitat and the future of our precious resource, the pacific salmon. However we also have small communities that look to the ocean for their livelihoods and we want to ensure an adequate standard of living and employment for their citizens.

There are some very important issues at stake here. I personally believe that we can achieve both a healthy environment and sustainable employment, but we need to use good science.

A conference was held at the University of British Columbia just last weekend to discuss the effects of sea lice. The effect of sea lice on wild salmon stocks is a big concern in my riding right now and on the entire coast. As a result of the conference, we have a made in B.C. solution to achieve a better understanding about these complex issues surrounding farm and wild salmon, a better understanding of the factors that affect the wild stocks.

We know that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a plan to address this and I am sure they also will be considering the information that has come out of the conference at UBC. It has a plan for increased scientific scrutiny of the issues in the Broughton archipelago. We hope it will use the insight from the UBC conference and apply this with some wisdom. I believe that if we look at the science seriously and work together we can find the answers that are necessary to see sustainable employment and see our wild fisheries protected as well.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Chairman, one thing that has not been mentioned tonight is the possible effects of oil and gas exploration off the east coast, but also of the potential on the west coast. We understand that there are discussions ongoing about the possible seismic and possible exploration of oil and gas quite inshore within the British Columbia coastline.

I would like the hon. member to elaborate a bit more. Has he heard those concerns from people in his riding? Exactly what should the government do to proceed in order to maintain its main priority of the protection of fish and fish habitat from the possible effects of oil and gas? We know it has had effects on the east coast. We are very concerned about what it may do on the west coast as well.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chairman, in addressing that I have to say that British Columbia has gone through a very difficult economic period, beginning about 1995. The B.C. economy was very much hinged to the Asian economy, Japan and Hong Kong. Around 1997 we all remember that Hong Kong reverted to China and there was a lot of money being exchanged.

B.C.'s economy was doing very well up until about 1995. As the Asian flu hit, as the Japanese market for our softwood products largely dried up in Hong Kong, and as the transfers of money diminished, B.C.'s economy really plummeted.

Of course, there were the problems in the fishery. We have a lot of displaced workers. There were problems in the forestry. Now of course we have had a great softwood lumber problem for the last two years. Our economy is in great distress.

With regard to oil and gas exploration there is certainly hope. Frankly, in my riding we have seen de-population. Many people from across the country retire in my riding. In fact, my riding has two of the six oldest communities in Canada within a few kilometres of where I live.

People like to retire in my riding but many others are seeing members of their families, who used to work here in fishing and logging, moving off to Alberta for jobs. We have grandma and grandpa here on the island but their kids and their grandchildren are off in Alberta because that is where the employment is.

Many people are looking to oil and gas as a possible spark plug, as they are in Atlantic Canada, for an economy that has faltered. We are hopeful this can be done. It is not as though we are the first people in the world to do this. We are hopeful that we can do exploration in a responsible way and develop our resources in a manner that will not disturb or damage the fisheries.

[Georges Farrah, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the hon. member on his remarks. I must say we miss him on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. He did an outstanding job when he was a member of this committee. I think his presence here tonight shows how much he is interested in fisheries, and I congratulate him.

Maybe the hon. member did not have time to elaborate on aquaculture. He said, and rightly so, that there are often opposing views on aquaculture. Some are very much in favour, and others opposed.

I would like to know the hon. member's personal position on this. Should we go ahead and develop aquaculture, in particular on the west coast?

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chairman, the aquaculture debate is certainly one in which people are interested. Aquaculture is a new industry. We also want to differentiate the shellfish aquaculture from fin fish on the farms. Most of the controversy, frankly, other than the interruption of the beautiful coastal views that shellfish farms represent in the disturbance of the natural scenery, is about the fin fish.

As an early industry, like any industry, there are things we are going to learn. There were a lot of mistakes in siting, problems with the nutrification of the sea floor and problems with inadequate flow in shallow bays initially.

The industry has recognized the great problems with predation, with predators getting in the nets and with nets and equipment that basically did not handle the storms well. Some of those problems have been handled by industry with better nets, double walled nets now that are much more predator proof for example, and they are anchored by great big weights that handle the storms better, so escapes are down for that reason. I think that improvements in the industry and the way it manages things have helped.

However we went through a moratorium under the previous provincial government that prevented new sites. This caused problems because although some of the farms would have liked to have moved their farms to other sites to reduce the challenges of nutrification, they were not allowed to have a new site. That compounded some of the problems that might have been eliminated with better management.

My personal view is that these industries can be developed in a manageable way but we need to have honest discussions. There are other issues like the arc lamps, the use of lights at night. There are still some issues related to that which need to be sorted out. Some simple science should be able to answer that. It appears that the farm fish are not eating the small fry coming through that might be attracted by lamps but there are other concerns that the lamps may attract predators.

There is the great concern about siting near rivers, especially during migration, and whether they should be fallowed and moved to an alternative site while the fish are migrating.

Those are all important questions that we hope will be answered very quickly with the appropriate science. I am glad DFO is going to invest in further scientific studies. Hopefully we will find the answers to help develop sustainable employment. Many people in our aboriginal communities are even finding employment in my riding working with the aquaculture industry. That certainly is something that we want to see developed in a manner that does not harm our wild stocks but provides employment opportunities so that we can do both in a responsible manner.

[Loyola Hearn, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Chairman, when the member was speaking he mentioned the hake fishery. I want to compare that to what is happening in Newfoundland.

Let me also thank the member, who was a great contributor to our committee, for coming to Newfoundland last year and listening to the presenters and, from that, gained a great knowledge of our fishery, our problems and our challenges, and has been very supportive.

In British Columbia the hake fishery has changed. Right now more of it is being landed and processed locally, creating jobs on shore. In Newfoundland with our shrimp resource, which is abundant, very little work is created on shore. Even with our crab now, which is harvested and brought to shore, it is mainly exported in sections, and certainly the meat is not extruded as it was before, or cooked, and employment has gone down considerably.

Does the hon. member think, where at all possible, that regulations should be put in place to make sure we maximize every possible job, any that we can extrude from a resource, for the people who are adjacent to that resource?

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chairman, the problems faced by our Newfoundland fishers and fisheries is not dissimilar to what we have on the west coast.

In the case of the hake, it was an abundant resource but it was a resource that Canadian fishers were not that interested in while there was an abundance of other fish stocks, like salmon, halibut and other species which were more desirable. However, as we ran into problems with other fisheries, suddenly hake came up in importance. The plants had to convert to be able to process the hake.

Certainly there was a promise made that if the plants made the investment to process the hake they would be given more of the resource. I am very pleased that the minister followed through with that, so that we could have employment. These were coastal communities that basically were facing de-population without some kind of employment. I know now that people are working again. The plants are working. The money that is coming from the plants goes into the town coffers for infrastructure, sewers, water supply and so on. It is benefiting the community greatly.

Yes, I think value added is really important in the softwood industry. Whether we are talking about softwood or our fisheries resources, we should be trying to maximize employment for our people so that we all prosper from the resources that are available to us.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Chairman, as an avid fisherman and passionate admirer of the Yukon, I want to talk tonight about a great industry that has existed in the Yukon for over a century while at the same time our natural, healthy fish stocks have continued. I implore everyone here tonight to do everything in their power to ensure this part of Yukon life, of our Yukon heritage, survives.

In the 1890s the world was in a great recession. In August 1896 Skookum Jim, George Carmack and Tagish Charlie discovered flecks of gold in Rabbit Creek, subsequently named Bonanza Creek, and started the world's greatest gold rush.

Dawson and Yukon did their part for Canada. They pulled us out of that great recession and now it is our turn to do our part for them. Miners, 30,000 of them, rushed from all over the world. Dawson became the largest city west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle, and the salmon survived.

When the thousands left for Nome, the great dredges came and mechanically washed thousands of tonnes of earth, and the fish survived.

Mr. Chairman, let me tell you why the fish survived and why this is such a clean industry compared to others that can dump chemicals, fertilizers and carcinogens into our water. Placer gold is just nuggets and fine gold-like sand. The process of cleaning it out is to wash it. Because gold is heavier than the other elements, it is taken out by gravity. That is all there is to it. There are no chemicals, no poisons and no carcinogens as there are in other industries, just water. So of course the fish thrive.

For all the history of European settlement in the Yukon, the famous creeks primarily around Dawson, Mayo and Haines Junction, have nurtured many of the great Yukon families. There are the great Yukon creeks of Eldorado, Bonanza, Dominion, Hunker, Sulphur, Indian River, Klondike, Black Hills, Thistle, Scroggie, Vancouver, Bear, All Gold, Too Much Gold, Gold Run, Forty Mile, Sixty Mile, Mazy May, Henderson, Haggart Creek, Burwash, Livingston, Duncan, Thunder Gulch, Seattle and 4th of July. And the fish thrive.

The gold rush brought the great Canadian poet Robert Service who wrote of the people and beauty of the Yukon and helped Canada become famous and brings thousands of tourists even today and helps build Canada's economy.

Placer gold mining is the heart and soul of the Klondike. Gold runs not only in the beds of the creeks but in the spirit of the people. Our placer mining must survive if we are to survive economically and with the soul of our heritage. And the fish thrive.

What of placer mining today? Placer gold mining occurs in less than .3% of Yukon's land mass. Yukon has one of the highest rates of unemployment in Canada right now. We all know how hard it is to create any type of employment in small remote communities anywhere in rural Canada. Yet after a century, placer mining continues to feed families of the Yukon.

The income and other taxes from $50 million yearly in the economy contribute to our ability to fund our schools, our health care system and our poor. And the fish thrive.

It is critically essential for our people that the placer mining industry survive. The Tr'ondek Hwech'in first nation is at Dawson City where most of the mines are. Its chief tells me that placer mining is important to the success of their great treaty with Canada in which they have potential placer gold, and the businesses they have just purchased that depend on the placer gold industry to survive.

Peter Nagano of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in first nation, after a century of washing hundreds of tonnes of gravel and earth, says that the highest densities of wildlife are all in placer mining areas. For the Arctic grayling there never was a decline, past or present, in the history of the Dawson first nation.

Parliament just passed a bill on endangered species wherein we enshrined traditional knowledge. We said it was important to put in a law because it is important in making decisions.

We should continue to listen to that traditional knowledge in this respect. The chief of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in, Darren Taylor, writes:

The Tr'ondek Hwech'in are descended of the Han Indians who are people of the river.

Our nation has relied on salmon stocks for thousands of years for our basic sustenance and continues to do so.

We could never knowingly support an industry that significantly damages those stocks.

He goes on to say:

Many of our citizens are placer miners or work in the placer mining industry. Our economic development corporation, Chief Isaac Inc., operates businesses that service and depend on the placer mining industry.

Many of our settlement lands were selected for placer mining potential.

The other largest placer major area in the Yukon is near Mayo in the traditional territory of the Nacho Nyak Dun. One of the most passionate defenders of placer mining I have heard, as I travelled around Yukon listening to people, was the former chief of the Nacho Nyak Dun, Robert Hager. The present chief, Steven Buyck concurs and states in a letter:

The Nacho Nyak Dun traditional territory is rich in mining history, and placer mines in particular have contributed significantly to the economic stability of Mayo.

The First Nation intends to build this capacity to generate the income necessary to be a strong, viable government serving the long term needs of our people.

How clean this gravel must now be. It has been processed over and over and some of it washed many times. That is why it is such a clean industry, when just earth and gravel are just washed.

There is not a single person in Canada who would suggest that there are not many other industries that have the authority through section 35 of the Fisheries Act or other regulations that add much more deleterious substances, such as oil, carcinogens and chemicals to the water.

Many modern placer miners have spent thousands of dollars to build settling ponds to produce the very clean, low sediment levels that they must now follow to meet the very strict water quality objectives before putting this clean water back into the stream, and of course, the fish thrive.

How many more hundreds of hours do I need to strive to make this point? How many more times can I say that this industry, at the heart of our heritage and economy, must survive and cannot be unnecessarily regulated out of existence? How many times must our senator, Ione Christensen, the KPMA president, Tara Christie, the mayors of Yukon and hundreds of placer miners and all the businesses they support and the thousands of Yukoners protest until we can democratically choose the way we want to live.

And the fish thrive.

If excessive regulations cause this industry, our industry, to go extinct, the results will be devastating.

I will close with quotes from two of hundreds of letters I have received from passionate Yukoners, from our families.

The first letter says:

I am just writing this letter on Christmas Eve. I just heard the most devastating news, and you are the only one I know that has the power to avert the tragedy in my life. I'm not sure how to go through Christmas and keep a good face for my 3 children when I don't know how we will be able to keep our house or vehicle, or even feed them in the New Year.

The second letter is from Axel Riemer, age 7, of Dawson City. He says:

My Dad works as a miner. His job is a good job. Why are you taking his job? I don't want my dad to leave. Please don't shut down mining. I like my dad at home. Thank you.

And the fish survive.

[Loyola Hearn, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Chairman, I listened to the passion exemplified by the member. He is talking about something that is happening in his area which is directly connected to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Yukon is known for its mining, its wildlife and its fishery. We have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at present that does not know or understand why or how these people live and operate. What is worse, it does not care. It goes in with its bureaucratic regulations, undoubtedly concocted down the street here, where several hundred congregate, rather than going out and getting the experience necessary to make the right rules and regulations.

Several hundred people in Yukon could be put out of employment and their livings could be taken away because of the nonsensical bureaucratic regulations being made by the department. Once again it comes back to what we talked about, a lack of scientific knowledge of what is going on around the country, whether it be offshore in Newfoundland, the Great Lakes or placer mining in Yukon.

Could the member tell us how the Department of Fisheries and Oceans could settle this issue for the benefit, not to the detriment, of his constituents?