Mr. Speaker, you may think it a little unusual that a member of Parliament from southern Ontario should want to take part in this debate but a problem in one part of this country, a serious problem, is and should be of concern to all of us. I do not see any fences between provinces or between areas of the country that prevent one MP from one region engaging in a debate about a problem in another region.
In fact I took a very active part in trying to come to grips with the disappearing fish stocks on the east coast in particular because soon after I was first elected as MP in 1993, the major issue of the day was the effects of the cod moratorium that had been brought down by the previous government and was affecting the east coast fishery. One of the first things that the Liberal government of the day did was bring in an Atlantic assistance program aimed at the fishermen who had lost their livelihoods and who required some kind of financial assistance.
Also, that was the time of the famous Spanish fish war where this government seized a Spanish trawler on the high seas and towed it into port because it had been overheard through our intelligence services, in fact, that the captain of that ship had been on a radio telephone to his home port in Spain and had been heard to mention that he had undersized fish behind false bulkheads. That Spanish trawler was seized on the high seas and taken into port.
This is relevant to the subject under debate. I remember vividly meeting the Irish ambassador at a reception soon after Canada had seized that trawler. That particular diplomat was quite outraged at the thought that Canada, or any nation for that matter, should seize a ship on the high seas because it was apparently violating the conservation measures with respect to a resource that was shared by the world, and that particular trawler was on the high seas.
As the cod war, so-called, unfolded and public opinion around the world latched on to what the Canadians had done, it was interesting to see the way public opinion did change. Six months later, around the world it was acknowledged that states did have a need and a right even to protect international resources because the destruction of a food stock fish in international waters was exactly equivalent to dumping pollution in the high seas.
We went through a period at the end of the cold war, with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, when there was an attempt to dump nuclear waste. Even now today there are companies in various countries around the world that specialize in collecting all kinds of dangerous garbage and taking it on the high seas to dump. This of course endangers a resource of the planet.
We have here an issue which is actually a revisiting of the problem of the cod wars of 1995. We have this issue again where it is perceived that international fishing fleets are over-exploiting the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. Just as eight or nine years ago, the assumption, the connection is that by exploiting the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, they are adversely affecting the total fish stocks, not just cod. As has been mentioned many times, fish swim and they swim in circles, and while fish may be off in the nose and tail at some time, they will be within the 200 mile limit as well, so it is the total stock of fish that is at risk.
So here we have a report of the fisheries committee that suggests as a solution to this problem, instead of sending in one of Canada's frigates and shooing everyone away, that we make amendments to the appropriate legislation and attempt to achieve some kind of custodial control over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
Custodial control basically means extending the state's jurisdiction beyond the 200 mile limit and enforcing conservation measures, again in what are seen to be international waters. I should note in passing, Mr. Speaker, that a lot of Canadians think the 200 mile limit as we know it is some sort of absolute zone of control belonging to nations. In fact, it is merely a zone of economic control that, by consensus in the United Nations, and I suppose now under the UN convention of the law of the sea, represents a zone of economic control of nations. It is not territorial waters in the most strict sense. I do believe territorial waters are only about three miles offshore, a very short distance, and a lot of Canadians do not realize that.
With the fact that nations around the world do generally respect the right of countries to oversee and police conservation measures within the 200 mile limit, we have an international consensus that has been arrived at, but obviously in this particular case we have to go further. We have to try to get control of the nose and tail.
Here is the dilemma, and it is very relevant to what is happening in the world today. Canada has for many years been committed to multilateralism to try to solve problems through either the United Nations or suitable international bodies that are set up to meet and agree to try to come to some kind of agreement on how to manage what is essentially an international resource. The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization is the particular organization involved here, and not just the committee but the fishermen of Newfoundland have for a long time now been expressing a lot of concern and even despair that the members of NAFO are not respecting the agreements, even the agreements that are brought together by the various memberships. The memberships of NAFO, of course, are the various countries that are coastal to the Atlantic, on both sides of the Atlantic, and have an interest in the fish stocks.
There certainly are situations where small countries like Estonia are on the nose and tail and taking fish in a way that, according to NAFO, they should not be. It is ignoring the regulations.
It is very hard to police that kind of thing, because we do not have the ability to implement meaningful trade sanctions on a country like Estonia or any of the other small countries that are exploiting international waters adjacent to our 200 mile limit, so the question becomes, what do we do? The reason why this question is so pertinent now, and I hope people do not feel this is too much of a stretch, is that we have a situation in Iraq where a decision has been made to act unilaterally because of impatience with the process of multilateral agreements.
I suggest that in regard to the difficulty of trying to get custodial control there is a genuine block here, because Canada's long tradition of respecting multilateral solutions does make it very difficult for us to impose a solution on the nose and tail, particularly in the current international climate where there is a lot of criticism against international institutions and, even worse, outright attempts to dismantle international institutions, including the United Nations.
I can only speak for myself, but I cannot see the solution, quite frankly. I think we have to take this as a nation to the very highest level. We certainly have to take it to the United Nations. I cannot see any unilateral solution that works, but I really do think that in this particular international climate this is the time to put severe pressure on the United Nations to adopt enforceable conservation measures, which would affect not only the nose and tail of the Grand Banks but other areas of the world where there is incredible destruction of fish stocks in boundary waters and on the high seas.
All kinds of things are going on now. They are taking shark in the Far East. Shark is a higher order animal on the food chain in the oceans. Sharks take a long time to mature. They are selling shark for peanuts in comparison to the sophistication of the animal that is being destroyed.
At the other end of the scale, and what really disturbs me, is the fact that countries around the world are destroying the food stock fish like caplin. I have heard various comments from members here who have alluded to the fact that here in Canada we still maintain a commercial fishery of caplin. I deplore that. It is one thing to say, and I agree, that we have to cull the seal herds because of the pressure they are putting on all fish, but to be taking caplin is equivalent to cutting a person off at the ankles. These are the fish that feed all the other higher order fish, going up to the very top of the chain, which of course is the seal.
I find it incredible that the government has not acted to close down that industry. Even if it does not take a high proportion, there is the very principle. If we are going to talk conservation, I would think no one on the east coast would argue that taking caplin is in the interests of conservation. I would suggest that the fisheries minister could begin there. I know he might not be popular in some areas of Newfoundland and in other areas of the Maritimes where there are caplin plants, but again this is a food stock fish that is being taken and sold for peanuts. It is extremely destructive.
This debate gives me a chance to also talk about a few other things pertaining to conservation in the waters off the east coast. I should tell the House that after the cod wars, when the Liberal government put out what I think was about $1 billion to assist the east coast fisheries industry to help it ride through the period of the cod moratorium, which was thought at that time would be of very short duration, my wife and I travelled to Newfoundland for a couple of weeks for three consecutive summers. I did not go as a member of Parliament but just as an ordinary person. We travelled around the various coasts. I have been all around the coasts of Newfoundland and to Labrador.
We stayed at the bed and breakfasts and talked to the people there. We went down to the docks as well and talked to people there. One of the things about the people from Newfoundland is that they must be one of the friendliest groups of people on the planet. They always welcomed strangers. It was a wonderful experience.
But some things came clear to me as we travelled around. One of the interesting things, and it is as an aside to this debate, was that much of the money going to help the jobless fishermen in Newfoundland was not reaching them. It was going off to other people.
The people I talked to in Newfoundland were themselves critical of the way that money was dispensed. The problem is that one cannot address the collapse of an industry by giving people money. The fishermen themselves wanted to fish. They did not want to sit there and receive money. In the end, what was happening was that a lot of that money was going to plant workers and the periphery of people associated with plant workers. It went on and on.
The point of it all is that it was not a program that I thought was working very well. If we do have to go that way, I hope we manage a program much better than that.
One of the things that struck me, and it may be controversial for my colleagues who are from Newfoundland, one of the things that struck me historically is that it was not just a problem of the nose and tail, as I saw it, as I came to learn it, it was also a problem of the way the inshore fishery had developed. There had been huge government subsidies over the years. What was originally a fishery, which was a small operation with open boats and hook and line, had been developed because of government funding. Through loan guarantees and various other government incentives, there was a huge expansion of people going from open boats to powerful trawlers and to fishing vessels that enabled them to take enormous amounts of fish and sell it. There is very clearly a bulge in that people did get more affluent in Newfoundland, these fishermen who were able to take advantage of these programs.
It is only a theory, but it made me wonder, though, whether or not part of the problem is not just the overfishing of the international fleets but overfishing on the inshore.
One of the things that struck me, and I could never understand it, is that we could go around Newfoundland and it was very hard to get local fish in the restaurants, because what was happening was that people would go out and fish the fish, the fish would go to the fish plant and the fish plant would send the fish to Toronto somewhere. They would send the fresh fish or they would send the fish in cans to Toronto. There is hardly any fish to be bought by tourists roaming around Newfoundland.
One of the things that struck me, and it still strikes me today, is that I can never understand why the Newfoundland government did not attempt to marry the food fishery with tourism. It is one thing to go to Newfoundland and look at whales jumping and that kind of thing, but the fact of the matter is that the only way my wife and I could actually try the famous dishes of Newfoundland was to go to a bed and breakfast where the host of the particular house would make these dishes for herself. In the restaurants, we would get food that we would find in Toronto. I have never understood that. But I digress.
The other area that I think we should look at very carefully with respect to what may be happening to the collapse of the fish stocks on the east coast, which I think has so far been overlooked in this debate, is the dumping of chemical warfare munitions during the second world war. I have some familiarity with that, because I did some research on Canada's role in chemical warfare weapons development during the second world war. After the second world war, a lot of these munitions, a lot of mustard gas, a lot of nerve agent that had been brought over from the Germans, was then taken out to sea and dumped. Also, for the ships returning from the war theatre at the end of the second world war, almost all of them that were carrying munitions also carried chemical munitions, again usually mustard gas. All this material was dumped at sea, much of it in the shallow water of the Grand Banks, but some of it, perhaps, in deep adjacent water
I have wondered for a long time whether or not after 50 years the containers are secure. They were just simple oil drums that the mustard gas was contained in. There were thousands and thousands of tonnes of it, many thousands. I think we are looking at maybe about 30,000 tonnes, much of it produced here in Cornwall, Ontario, some of it produced by the Americans as well, who also dumped it at sea.
The question is whether this mustard gas is finally getting into the water after 50 years. If I understand it correctly, we are not entirely certain of the life cycle of the cod. If that life cycle in some way intercepts something like mustard gas being released into the deep water of the ocean, or even the shallow water, that may be one of the reasons why there is such a crisis in the cod all along the east coast. I would suggest that it is very suspicious that the cod disappeared almost simultaneously all along the maritime seaboard, including offshore Maine. I would suggest that this may be the problem.
