Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleagues in the New Democratic Party. I can see they wish I were still a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
As I begin, like many of my colleagues here in the House, I would like to thank my constituents; the voters of Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia have given me a very clear mandate and entrusted me with a second term.
I do not have much time left, just about five minutes. I wanted to talk about ten different things, but I will not be able to get to them all. But there is one issue that I care deeply about and it is the first I will raise—the fisheries.
I went on a tour with the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine before returning to the House, and we realized once again that the situation in the fishing industry is a complete mess; in the east it is almost a catastrophe. I know that on the British Columbia coast they have the same problems, but perhaps at a different level.
There is one thing the people mentioned over and over—protecting the resource. Since the federal government has taken responsibility for managing it, the resource has continued to shrink and its protection has not really been guaranteed. People want us to insist that the federal government assume its responsibilities and protect the resource to allow it to regenerate and allow the industry to continue.
Perhaps we should remind people that groundfish, particularly cod, have just been under the second moratorium in 10 or 12 years, which means that in those years we have learned nothing about managing the resource and the federal government has not taken steps to protect it and allow it to regenerate. That is one issue.
There is another very important issue threatening the safety of fishermen, right now, and that is the question of small craft harbours. We heard it everywhere along the Lower North Shore, the mid North Shore and all through the Gaspé. I am sure they are saying the same thing in Newfoundland and in the Maritimes, too. Never has anyone seen government infrastructure abandoned like this.
This does not come from me but from a study commissioned by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and recently released. We learn that, in the short and medium term, the government cannot meet the needs of the fishery because insufficient investments were made over the years. Today, it would cost something like a billion dollars just to upgrade the necessary infrastructures. We are talking about infrastructures designed to provide some protection to fishers. When you set sail with a fishing boat and the nearest port is 60 nautical miles away, you have very little chance of making it home safely through a storm.
That is the situation fishers are facing at present. All Fisheries and Oceans Canada is doing right now, since there is no government funding available, is to put up fences and close down wharves. People are tearing down the fences or making holes in them to have access to their boats. I saw a fine example of this in Grande-Vallée. Come fall, how are people expected to hoist boats onto the wharf when the fence is padlocked? They are forbidden access to the wharf with a truck, a crane, anything. How will the boats be taken out of the water? Tell me how a government can act like that with its own infrastructures.
This government has been irresponsible. I am referring to this government, because hon. members will recall that the present Prime Minister was finance minister as far back as 1993. He is one of the ones responsible for the cuts in the fisheries. These he imposed upon us without proper thought. A government's primary role is of course to look after its citizens, but it also has to look after its responsibilities.
Instead of invading areas of provincial jurisdiction, as it has in the past and aspires to again according to the throne speech, it ought first to look after its own infrastructures and ensure that they are in decent operating condition, so that fishers and pleasure boaters can make safe use of them.
The government has just introduced a bill that also concerns the coast guard. It deals with safety, another very important element. Over time we have become aware that the Coast Guard is underfunded to such an extent that it has become incapable of fulfilling its various missions.
Today, instead of putting funding back, what we are hearing in the projects presented to us, and reading in the ministerial press releases is “But it won't cost a penny more”. If it does not cost any more, that is because it does not solve the problem. All that is happening is a transfer from Fisheries and Oceans to Transport.