Mr. Speaker, it is not with a great deal of pleasure that I rise to speak to this issue because it is one that we addressed not that long ago in the House, the concerns that many of us had about the fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador and elsewhere in the country. It is also a problem in a sense that is symptomatic of the fisheries department. That is what disturbs me the most.
I have been in this place almost 10 years and during that time there have been five federal ministers of fisheries. On the west coast, the sockeye salmon has a lifespan of about four years. It is said that the average fisheries minister does not last half the life cycle of the odd sockeye salmon. That is part of the reason we are standing here today. It is because there is no commitment on behalf of the government to putting in place the kind of leadership that is necessary to manage the fisheries resource in this country.
It just does not stop there. If we look at our fisheries committee, I have sat on the fisheries committee for the best part of the last 10 years. Certainly fisheries issues have been at the forefront of my interests in Parliament, aside from other constituency matters. Yet there are members in the House who have been here much longer than I, and unfortunately when I look at that committee, I am probably the senior member on it. That is not healthy because it says that there is a lack of corporate history and understanding of these issues and that is reflected in the very committees of the House, the committees that are charged with the responsibility of managing the fisheries resource.
It goes on from there. We have a new deputy minister now and this deputy minister is not a man who has a history in the fishery. He was a rear admiral, a navy man. I have not a clue what to say about the talents that individual will bring to the table when it comes to managing the fisheries resource. I have not a clue what to say about the kind of leadership he will be able to exert on the department. He is not somebody to whom I would want to go for advice if I were the minister of fisheries for this nation. I certainly would not be looking to an admiral for advice about fisheries matters.
However it just does not stop with the deputy. If we look at the assistant deputy ministers here, again they are largely inexperienced when it comes to management of the fisheries. They are people who may have demonstrated the ability to manage elsewhere in the government, and for some reason someone in the Liberal government feels that they are capable then of being a manager in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. However what do they bring to the table when it comes to accepting the advice of those people in the department who are working the field, who have a knowledge of the fishery and who have made it their life's business?
Of all the deputies in the department now, the only one that I can think of who has dedicated his civil service career to the fisheries is Mr. Chamut. Lord knows I have had many a battle over the last 10 years and before that with Mr. Chamut but for sure he has dedicated his civil service career to the fishery, he is knowledgeable and when we engage him in debate we know that we are debating someone who understands the fishery. He may not come to the same conclusions as us but at least he has some knowledge. Unfortunately, because of the requirements in this department, he is precluded from accepting or being promoted to the lead position in the department.
We have a problem in the fishery on the east coast and we have a problem in the fishery on the west coast because there is no competent leadership in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. There is no competent leadership at the political level. There is no competent leadership within the department.
As a way of an example, a couple of years ago the department put in place a manager whose career before that had been in the Coast Guard. The previous year this individual had been running a boat for the Coast Guard and all of a sudden he was deemed fit to be a manager of the Fraser River fishery. With that kind of leadership, I see the troubles continuing.
I am bothered by what I see here today. I am bothered by the decisions the minister had to make. I do not agree with many of the decisions he has reached but he certainly has my sympathy because he has a huge job and he does not have the troops backing him up.
It is common knowledge that some of the largest Newfoundland towns are now located in Alberta. That is a sad commentary. It gets to the very heart of what it means to be a Canadian and what it means, I am sure, to come from the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador because there are no job opportunities there. One of the major industries is being run by people who really have no business being in the position of managing a fishery because they do not have the experience and they do not have the background. However that is part of the problem we are facing in this country, and this lack of leadership is largely the reason why we are here today.
I mentioned that I had some sympathy for the minister and I do. However I have to be very critical of the decisions he has made recently and of the failure of the Liberal government over the past 10 years to make decisions that should have been made.
We know, as one of the members previously said, that the cod stocks on the east coast are in worse shape now than they were in 1992. In some areas they are only a fraction of the level that they were a decade ago. The reason for that is the government has taken no aggressive conservation measures to aid in the rebuilding of fish stocks on the east coast.
The government has allowed other fisheries to disturb cod spawning areas. Seal populations have mushroomed, moving in like a pack of wolves on a herd of unsuspecting lambs, attacking cod spawning and nursery areas, all without any response by the federal government. In fact this decade of moratorium has really become a free lunch program for seals.
The information that the department gives us, for example, on the harp seal population shows that in the 1970s the seal populations were at their lowest. In 1972, according to DFO estimates, the seal population reached a minimum of 1.85 million seals. By the 1990s, the harp seal population was increasing, it claims, at a rate of 5% a year, reaching 4.4 million seals in 1992. In 1999 the population had reached the level of 5.2 million seals.
I would like to know this from the government. What level of seals it feels is appropriate for the east coast? Is it the not quite two million that were there in the 1970s or is it some other magic number? If we are talking about two millions seals or three million seals, I would like to know how the government intends to get there because the plan that the minister has offered, the $6 million to examine this problem over the next couple of years, will not do the job. What is needed is some action on that front now. I would like to know just what direct action the government intends to take on this very critical area.
We have had a decade of seismic testing that went forward in fragile spawning stocks throughout the coastal waters on the east coast. Foreign fishing continues just off the continental shelf. The fisheries committee of the House and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador both called on the federal government to take over responsibility for the fishery on our part of the continental shelf extending beyond our 200 mile limit. That notion was rejected by the minister, and quite incorrectly so.
The support the minister had from all parties in the House of Commons and from the Newfoundland and Labrador government would have served him in good stead if he had decided to take it. However he chose to ignore that support and it weakened dramatically his efforts or influence at NAFO. That was a sad mistake by the minister.
The government, in making the decisions it did with this closure, failed. It took the advice of the scientists but it failed to take into account the vast knowledge of many of the people and fishermen living in many of the coastal communities of Newfoundland and Labrador and elsewhere had and were prepared to offer to the government.
The FRCC did not make that same mistake. It took the advice of the scientists and then went out and listened to the people. The decisions it made and the conclusions it came to were remarkably different from the conclusions the minister arrived at. Most important, the ban that the minister placed on fishing was not one that was supported by the FRCC.
I, and I am sure other members in the House, support a science-based fishery. I do not think there is any question about that but we also have to look elsewhere. There are other people who have a good handle on what is happening and those are the people who also manage the fishery. Those are the people who fish, as well. They have something to say because they have seen what has happened.
That is what the FRCC did when it took into account all the information it had that was available to it. It came to the conclusion that the best solution was a small ongoing fishery based on the information the fishery could provide to the scientists on an ongoing basis. Also it was to convince people that there was some hope.
If the fishery is shut down entirely, people will come to the conclusion that after 11 years of a moratorium it is not going anywhere and that the stocks are worse. If it is completely shut it down, it says to them it will continue to go downhill and there is no hope for the future.
The small fishery that was recommended was to serve two purposes primarily. One was to provide some ongoing scientific data. The second was that it would provide some hope to people that the fishery could survive and if the department was prepared to pay attention to the other issues, the fishery could revive.
One of the main issues was the seal predation. This is not something new. It is something the FRCC called for before. It is saying that there are certain spawning areas that must be seal exclusion zones. I heard members opposite laugh at the notion of a seal exclusion zone. They said that we could not put fences in the water or we could not do this or that. I understand that fully but I also know we have to somehow make the effort to ensure the spawning stocks are not preyed upon by the seals.
The kind of action that has to be taken will not be pretty perhaps to many people. We sure are not going to do it by running around trying to neuter seals. We will have to do it the old way and that is to have a cull. That to me, Mr. Speaker, is as plain to me as I am standing here and you are sitting there. The cull is especially needed in the seal exclusion areas about which the FRCC is talking.
The other issue that is most important is the one of seismic testing. Seismic testing is a critical issue and we have not done much in the way of science on that. However work has been done elsewhere and it is fairly conclusive, much of it done in Norway.
DFO scientists have advised the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board that seismic shooting kills plankton, including eggs and larva of many fish and shellfish species. The scientists noted that little scientific studies have been done on the spawning areas in Canada. However, they pointed to Norwegian studies on cod which they believed would be applicable to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
This is what the Canadian scientists told us. They said that cod moved at least 30 kilometres from the air guns that are used during this seismic testing. They noted the abundance in catch rates of cod did not return to levels observed prior to the seismic testing over the five days of observation following the testing.
They said that in other areas fisheries catch rates have been depressed by 50% within tens of kilometres of seismic shooting in certain areas. Similar effects have been reported for cod and the snow crab fisheries on the St. Pierre Bank.
The scientists noted that the west coast of Cape Breton and the Sydney Bight are key spawning and feeding grounds for cod. They warned again that any impacts from oil and gas exploration will be amplified due to the small, shallow, and closed nature of the environment there and of the high biomass and diversity year round.
This is compelling evidence that we have from Norway and yet it is ignored. It almost brings to mind the department's failure to look internationally for scientific evidence on other matters, including the aquaculture that we have talked about in the House.
Recently, Norwegian fisheries scientists reported in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences that seismic shooting severely affected fish location, local abundance, and catch rates in the entire investigation area. They noted that troll catches of cod and haddock declined as well. They said that abundance of catch rates again did not return to pre-shooting level for five days.
Why is it that the minister is prepared to force fishermen off the water when he is not prepared to take action against this seismic testing? Why is it that he is not prepared to call to account and hold to account this type of testing in these critical areas? Why is it that he is ignoring the advice of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council?
I find it bothersome and troubling. As I said, the three issues here are that the minister has forced fishermen off the water against the advice of the FRCC. He is ignoring the recommendations and failing to take action now on the seal issue, one that is crying out for need. He is ignoring the advice on the seismic testing.
Without those three components the hope for a recovery is pretty slim. What is needed in this area is leadership. That leadership unfortunately has been lacking in the government for the past 10 years that I have been in this place. That leadership is not evident at the department right now because of this process of bringing managers in from elsewhere, rather than promoting from within the department and demanding excellence in fisheries management and an understanding of the fisheries resource within the department. It is exasperated as well by the minister's failure to take into account the knowledge that is out there about scientific testing.
I hope beyond hope that somehow the government will pay some attention to the debate. I hope that the minister will take another look at the decisions he has made. One of the best premiers that British Columbia ever had was W.A.C. Bennett. Bennett was a strong man and he made good decisions. He was always there and always willing to take a second look. That is what made him a great premier of British Columbia.
I would like to see this fisheries minister be remember as a great fisheries minister. I would like to see him take a second look.