Debates of Dec. 9th, 2004

Supply

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

Mr. Speaker, the whole caveat is that we heard from the government that an inquiry would to be headed by an esteemed gentleman. We have a whole group of stakeholders involved in that. They have a short period of time to do this.

We heard previously from the Parliamentary Secretary of Fisheries and Oceans that this was a very difficult and very challenging aspect. One concern I have is the short timeframe and the number of questions that need to be answered. Because of that I am of the perception that a lot of things could have been missed. I am not sure why the government is afraid or concerned about a judicial inquiry when I believe we can have both.

We have the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans doing its report after the recent hearings they had on the west coast. The government has an independent review going on with the stakeholders to discuss what happened. A more indepth judicial inquiry could go into the management practices of what happened with the salmon stocks.

I am hoping that it would expand not just on what happened to the Fraser River, but on other issues within the DFO. Would the hon. gentleman comment on that?

[Bob Mills, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member put it very well. If this inquiry were genuine, we could say fine, this would be good. Too often we have seen inquiries that are rigged to take care of the turf wars of a particular department. They are set up by the department. The people are chosen by the department. I do not know these individuals, but they are there to protect the department. How often have we seen that, where the department can do no wrong. Yet I can give hon. members many examples in Alberta where they have done wrong.

Now, with the fish stocks the way they are, I think they have done things wrong there as well. I do not believe the Environment Commissioner is using a bunch of bafflegab when she says that DFO has failed totally. She condemns them totally in her report. If she does that, the government will try to cover it up.

Let us have an independent judicial inquiry outside of politics. It can examine all aspects of it and come up with a report--

[The Deputy Speaker]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Newton—North Delta.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in our supply day motion debate on the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery.

For the benefit of those who are watching, the Conservative Party motion states:

That the House recognize that the maintenance of the sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River is crucial for conservation and for commercial, recreational and aboriginal users; that the Government's investigation into the collapse of this resource cannot be considered independent; that this resource has been mismanaged; that past decisions have been made without the proper science; and that, as a consequence, the House call on the Government to establish an independent judicial enquiry to determine the cause of the collapse of the sockeye salmon stocks on the Fraser River.

Let us consider for a moment what is at stake here. Salmon are an integral part of life for British Columbians. Not only are salmon a symbol of the province, but they have an important economic value as well, both in a commercial sense and a recreational sense.

Due to its superior taste, the sockeye is the most valuable species of the salmon harvest. The sockeye is the third most abundant salmon species and ranks second in commercial landings.

Last year the sockeye harvest totalled 6,300 tonnes, a total landed value of $24 million, representing 16% by weight and 50% by landed value of the wild salmon harvest in British Columbia. Last year sockeye generated close to $72 million in wholesale value, followed by chum at $43 million, pinks at $33 million, chinook at $17 million and coho at about $14 million.

The main spawning grounds of the sockeye are in the Fraser River system. As a result, this is where salmon fishermen gather each year, including commercial fishermen, aboriginals and recreational fishermen.

The loss of the sockeye in British Columbia equates to the loss of the cod for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The counts of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans show that only a small fraction of the predicted number of sockeye salmon reached their spawning grounds this summer. DFO officials predicted earlier this year a run of 4.5 million sockeye, of which about 2.25 million would survive to spawn. Now fewer than 400,000 are expected to make it to the spawning grounds. The failure of these salmon to reach their spawning grounds is a disaster that will likely result in no commercial sockeye fishery in four years from now.

Preliminary observations by fisheries officials found that the number of salmon arriving at the mouth of the Fraser corresponded to expectations. However, for some reason, huge numbers, much greater than expected, failed to reach their spawning grounds.

Federal fisheries scientists claim that record high water temperatures in the river, which weaken sockeye and make them susceptible to a number of diseases and parasites, were probably responsible for massive in-river mortality.

If it is true that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans knew by early July that high water temperatures and low water levels in the Fraser River could be lethal, then why did it allow the fishery to open despite those warning signs?

Warm water was blamed when populations crashed in 1992 and 1994, but subsequent inquiries indicated that nets in the river were really to blame.

There are also unanswered questions about the impact of legal and illegal net fisheries in the river this year. We know that illegal fishing is taking place on the river, but the impact on salmon stocks is unknown.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, under the auspices of the Fisheries Act, has the senior responsibility for managing all wild salmon, including allocation, inventories, escapement and habitat management.

The federal government is failing to meet its obligations to conserve and scientifically manage this fisheries resource. Attention to wild salmon is diminishing and it appears that the fisheries department as a whole is lacking in direction. The fisheries department failed to provide enforcement. In fact, it has reduced the number of enforcement officials and the equipment available for that purpose, and the illegal net fishing is continuing.

The Auditor General of Canada has conducted three reports dealing with the B.C. salmon industry: in 1997, 1999 and 2000.

In 1997, the Auditor General's office reported that Pacific salmon stocks and habitat were under stress. In 1999, it reported that the Pacific salmon fisheries were in trouble and their long term sustainability was also at risk because of overfishing, habitat loss and many other factors. In 2000, it reported that the fisheries department was not fully meeting its legislative obligations to protect wild salmon stocks.

After each report the fisheries department promised action, but little or nothing was done. Notably, the fisheries department has failed to finalize its wild salmon policy.

The Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery suffers from no clear objectives for the conservation of wild salmon. There are no goals for escapements and acceptable risks for managing the fishery. Concerns have been raised about the transparency, participation in and timeliness of consultations on pre-season management plans and in-season decision making.

There is also a lack of comprehensive information, which prevents a complete assessment of the status of Pacific salmon stocks. There are no formal assessments for the majority of Fraser River sockeye stocks. In addition, there are concerns about whether the in-season estimates of abundance, migration timing, route, stock composition and catch reporting of Fraser River sockeye are timely, adequate or accurate.

The fisheries department needs to develop a clear vision with goals and objectives for sustaining wild salmon and to provide public policy direction about what is an acceptable risk to salmon habitat and what is an acceptable loss of salmon run. Is there a plan to maintain our salmon stocks? I do not think so. Is it to rebuild to previous levels or is it to allow depletion?

That vision needs to be set out clearly to guide our actions, policies and programs. For too long, British Columbians have been waiting for this department to finalize a policy to clarify how conservation should be implemented and how the fisheries should be managed. Today we may be seeing the consequence of this department's and this weak government's inaction.

Following the 1994 salmon disaster, the fisheries department launched an investigation to uncover answers. The Hon. John Fraser, a former fisheries minister, headed the investigation. He warned the fisheries committee earlier this month that he was unable to get the whole story of what happened because he and his colleagues could not compel people to testify. Mr. Fraser thought the work of the commission was hindered as it was unable to obtain evidence to confirm strong suspicions.

The investigation announced last month by the fisheries minister is headed by a former B.C. chief justice with strong ties to the federal Liberal Party. It is not a judicial inquiry and it does not appear to be independent.

As I said in this House two weeks ago, we need a judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of what happened during the 2004 sockeye salmon harvest. Such an inquiry is essential to get to the real reasons for why salmon stocks are in such bad shape and to get the recommendations we need to deal with this disaster.

We need to discover what really happened on the Fraser River this summer. If we do not come up with answers, it will be almost impossible, even with appropriate resources and even with a proper management plan and strategy--if we ever get it--to come up with an effective response to ensure this disaster is not repeated.

The Fraser River sockeye salmon are in danger of being mismanaged into extinction. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been asleep at the wheel. It lacks a proper management plan for Pacific salmon. It knew by early July that high water temperatures and low water levels could be lethal but allowed the fisheries to open, particularly the illegal nets. Officials have done little to stop illegal net fisheries on the river, even returning confiscated nets to their owners.

Let us imagine this: enforcement officers going to the river, catching the illegal nets and in the evening returning those nets to the illegal fishermen so they can go back again the next day. It is shameful. It shows that the government does not have the backbone to control the illegal fisheries on the Fraser River. The enforcement officers were not doing their job and there were not enough enforcement officers because the government reduced the number of enforcement officers and even the number of helicopters, which were supposed to monitor to stop this theft. The more we need, the less we get.

To conclude, it is time to question how the Department of Fisheries and Oceans manages this vital public resource. My constituents want to avoid the disaster they saw in Atlantic Canada. They want solid and truthful information. They demand a full judicial inquiry into the mismanagement of the fishery by this weak--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

Questions and comments? Resuming debate, the hon. member for Victoria.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this debate and to focus on the areas that I think are most important. To do that, I look back at some of the material that has come before us in the past.

First of all, I had a look at the letter to the Prime Minister of Canada from the Newfoundland member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, who has spoken and is sitting right here.

In his letter he correctly pointed out there had been a substantial loss to the cod stocks of Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada by reason of mistakes made in management. What better source, thought I, than the book by Mr. John Crosbie, the former minister of fisheries and prominent Newfoundland politician over the years, a man who I am sure everyone in the House is well aware of.

I looked at his book and what he said was perfectly clear. The title of the chapter is “Who Hears the Fishes When They Cry?” It is clear that he felt compelled to have a total allowable catch of virtually double what was being recommended by the DFO scientists. This was even before he became fisheries minister, when Mr. Siddon was fisheries minister under the Mulroney government. That continued over the years, as is well documented in his book.

He made it perfectly clear that it was political pressure and the concerns of his constituents--and I understand this, as I think everybody in the House would--that led him to ignore the scientific advice and to have a total allowable catch of double that what was recommended. I believe the recommended figure was 125,000 tonnes and the actual amount that took place was 235,000 tonnes, almost double.

I am not here to criticize decisions of the past. I think we should, however, learn from them. It is important to recognize that there was major pressure from interest groups which led to the decisions that ultimately led to the destruction of the cod stocks. That was at a particularly critical time, 1989 to 1991. Of course similar decisions had been taken in years previous to that which had led to the reduction in the stocks and indeed to the problem that Mr. Crosbie was faced with at the end of the decade. It is important to recognize that.

Mr. Crosbie made clear that it was political pressure in Newfoundland from fishing interests that led to the political decisions that ultimately destroyed the cod stocks. This is not a value judgment of mine. These are the words of the man who had to make the tough decisions at the time. He admits quite honestly in his book that he probably made the wrong ones from the point of view of the fish.

In the letter to the Prime Minister the hon. member correctly made clear that we do not want a similar situation to arrive on the west coast, which is certainly true. We want to make the correct decisions. The issue before us is fundamentally the issue of whether we have a commission of inquiry with all the trappings of lawyers and cross-examination, the whole nine yards of the legal process, as opposed to a former chief justice of the province adopting a less formal process which would be quicker.

Why do I think it is important to make this distinction? If we followed the procedure recommended by the Conservative Party opposite in this resolution, we likely would have some years of hearings of the commission. They would undoubtedly go into great detail. There undoubtedly would be many lawyers protecting the rights of their clients, quite properly, I am not criticizing that, but it would take a long time.

We had a few examples of this. In British Columbia we had the APEC commission. This was in fact under the RCMP legislation, but it is a good example of the type of judicial process that is being recommended here today. I believe it had to hear 139 witnesses and it took three months to hear the first nine. Why? Because there were 22 or 23 lawyers in the hearing room asking questions, cross-examining, defending the interests of various people, determined to make sure they did a good job as lawyers on behalf of their clients. I am not criticizing that. I am simply asking if that is what we want.

The APEC inquiry went on and on. It took three years. It cost close to $5 million. I cannot quite remember what was said at the end of it. I am not sure many people here do either because it took so long and ultimately got lost in the mists of history.

The Krever inquiry on tainted blood went on and on. I checked on that one. I have a press report here on the cost of it. The press were only able to determine that it cost somewhere between $10 million and $30 million, according to the story I have here, and indeed it took years.

The Somalia inquiry went on for a couple of years. I think it cost $10 million and was finally terminated. The commission was instructed to write a report because Parliament and the government simply got tired of waiting and waiting on the process that it in fact had put in place.

This is not to be critical of any individuals or indeed the commissioners of these inquiries. I am sure they all did a good job. However for us, concerned about a problem with fish this year, and very concerned about what might happen next year, to set up a process that may not report until 2006 or 2007 does not make a great deal of sense to me.

We need information fairly quickly. We do not need to have every single Indian band that fishes on the Fraser River with legal representation; we do not need every single commercial interest with legal representation; we do not need every sports organization with legal representation at this judicial inquiry as is proposed. We know that is what is going to happen. We know there is no way that under that judicial process we can in any way anticipate an early decision.

That means the minister, the department, ourselves as members of Parliament will be going into next year without the best information we can get.

It is true that if we have this judicialized process we may get a little extra after enormous expenditures. We would get 90% of the information in the first 10% of the expenditure and the last 10% of the information would come with 90% of the expenditure, and similarly with time. We would get 90% of the information in the first few weeks and we would spend years getting that last 10%.

That is why lawyers do so well. Of course my wife is a professor of law and she obviously wants her former students to be employed, but as a parliamentarian I do not think it is necessarily the best way to go, to create such a system to look into a matter of fact: what happened in the river. We know certain things happened in the river, and I will speculate in a moment, but I think it is really important.

The second point is the issue of the aboriginal fishery. Once again I was interested in Mr. Crosbie's book. Mr. Crosbie is a very engaging writer. I recommend his book. It is cheap at the price. I think it cost $39. It is No Holds Barred by John Crosbie. Christmas is coming. Buying a couple of dozen copies for friends would do the former minister a lot of good. I certainly believe that former ministers' books should be bought and read.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Why not borrow them from the public library?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague says to borrow it from the public library. That may not be what Mr. Crosbie would like best, but I will point out the suggestion by the hon. member for Peterborough.

In any event, on the issue of the aboriginal fishery, it was Mr. Crosbie who started the aboriginal sales on the Fraser River, the legalization of the sales of what was previously considered to be poached salmon. It was 1991, and he said at page 390 of his book:

I decided to allow B.C. natives to sell salmon legally.

He went on to say:

Massive military style patrols of the three vast river systems in British Columbia would be necessary if we were to stop the illegal sale of salmon by natives.

Then he went on to say, a little bit critical here:

But all the media attention was focused...[on] the relentless, racist bullying of the Native communities by some spokesmen for the commercial industry.

It is worth reading his book to get the history and background. The problem we are facing today with respect to fishing on the Fraser was the direct decision of a Conservative government and a Conservative minister then on the cod, as well as of course on the Fraser River. It would be worthwhile for the hon. members opposite to look at that carefully because that is where the problems have arisen from. That is what we are dealing with today.

I have suggested that we get the process chosen by the minister. It is the best one in terms of the best balance between speed and cost effectiveness.

Whom has he chosen? He has chosen an outstanding British Columbian, a chief justice of our appeal court. As a British Columbian, I do not like the patronizing way this man has been characterized in the House by the opposition. He is a first-class jurist with an international reputation. The attempt to denigrate him really was not very respectful and it certainly did not do any honour to the House of Commons. I regret that as a British Columbian.

We have someone who can do the job and do it well. The process chosen can do the job and do it well. The proposals of the opposition to turn this into a judicial inquiry would simply be the wrong way to go because it would not provide the minister with the information he needs and in the timeframe that he needs that information.

The situation is fairly clear to me. On one hand, we have a proposal which is unrealistic, expensive and cumbersome. On the other hand, we have the minister's proposal which is efficient. Of course the fisheries committee will be looking at some aspects as well. To say that we should go the route suggested by the opposition is simply wrong. There is my suggestion.

The question is, what are we dealing with on the Fraser River? This is not the first time this has happened. We have had problems in the Fraser with sockeye before. The problems are temperature and poaching.

The party opposite should understand that we are getting more years of high temperatures, i.e., 22°C and 23°C because of changes in precipitation, an increase in terms of elevation of the snow line, and less snow pack to keep the river cooler in the summer. It is not possible to prove this of course, but these are all the indications that scientists have suggested are likely to occur because of climate change.

It seems to me that if we are going down to fundamentals, we should recognize that there are major conditions changing on the west coast. It is detrimental. We should look carefully at some of the less rational approaches to climate change that have been adopted by the official opposition. It is happening there just as it is happening on the east slope of the Rockies as well, which is going to dramatically affect agriculture in Alberta.

We have to take measures now across the country to deal with this fundamental issue. If we do not, the predictions are that Pacific salmon will wind up in the Bering Sea and probably not on the British Columbia coast at all.

Whether those predictions will materialize, I do not know. But I do know that we cannot simply pretend that there is no connection between those higher river temperatures and the loss of fish. That is the problem. We need to wake up to that fact in the House and be a little more realistic about saying that by having more judges, more lawyers, more judicial processes, we can deal with a problem as fundamental as climate change.

I commend the minister for starting the process. My candid opinion is that I think in British Columbia we have far too many consultation processes and we do not have enough clear direction. The minister knows my views on this point. He might strip down some of the consultation processes and increase perhaps the value of the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, which could do more and some of the others could do less.

This is not a question of lack of consultation. It is a problem that we are facing with consultation, which perhaps is now leading to a certain amount of, I would not say rigor mortis, but let me say slowness, in decision making on important issues, and of course, this constant effort by particular interest groups to advance their particular interests over those of other groups.

My view is that the process should be allowed to work, the committee should be allowed to work--I have a pun here--and the red herring in the Fraser River, which is this idea of a judicial inquiry, should be put to rest.

[John Cummins, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am amazed at the comments of my friend and colleague across the way. This is not a political issue. I have read Mr. Crosbie's book and I reject many of his premises and the conclusions he reached on this particular issue. He is not accurate, in a word, and I think anybody who is familiar with the circumstances when Mr. Crosbie initiated the separate commercial fishery knows that he is inaccurate.

I have stated publicly before that this is not a political issue and that the first disaster we talk about happened in 1992 on the watch of a Conservative government. I am not denying that. In 1994, it happened under a Liberal government. And we had better inquiries then than the one the minister is proposing now.

Let us look at the people who supported Mr. Fraser in 1994. They were outstanding academics, people who were well recognized in their fields, not only nationally but internationally. In fact, one American, Lee Alverson, was on that particular committee. They looked at it and did the best job they could, as Mr. Fraser admitted to the committee the other day when he said, “We did the best job we could. We couldn't answer all the questions because we didn't hear the testimony”.

That is a problem. This issue is not an aboriginal issue, as members across the way would have us believe. This issue is about the management capabilities of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and we have said so every year since 1992. People in the commercial fishing industry talk about the department's ability to manage their fishery; it is the department's responsibility to ensure that sufficient spawners get to the gravel and it has not done it.

Why do we want a judicial inquiry? We want it because the other inquiries were unable to expose the management problems of the fishery. It is not a higher temperature issue. Mr. Fraser was able to address that issue and so was Dr. Pearse in 1992. They dismissed this notion that higher temperatures were responsible.

The issue is a management issue. The only way we will get to the bottom of it is through a judicial inquiry. The judge has the right to limit the number of interveners. We are not going to end up with 99 aboriginal interveners and an intervener for every commercial and sport group in the province. The judge has the right to limit it. He will do that. There would be agreement among those interveners to move this issue quickly because it is in the best interests of the resource.

That is what this is about. Let us forget the red herrings that the minister talks about in saying that somehow it will just go on like the Somali inquiry and another minister like Doug Young will come along and kill it. We want answers. That is what we want.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to find the question in that, but I assume the hon. member is saying that the question is this: how can we expect a judicial inquiry on this issue to be like the other ones? Well, because that is how they work. That is what they are for. They are to allow people whose interests may be affected to have full legal rights of representation. They are to allow full cross-examination. That is what they do, and as for saying that there is going to be agreement, all he is arguing is that they can have equal agreement under the proposal of the minister.

It is just not logical to say this one will be different from the others because people would like to see an end to it. If that is the case, let them work under the inquiry set up by the minister, because people do have the right for legal representation. These are judicial inquiries. They are judicialized. That is what the member is asking for.

You do not seem to understand what you are asking for.

[An hon. member]

You don't understand.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

That is why we are telling him to think well before he asks for it, because he is not going to get any real happiness out of what he is asking for. He will get the reverse.

You will get delay, high costs and a system that will not provide answers that will assist fishermen.

[An hon. member]

You just don't care.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

May I remind members that they are to address their remarks through the Speaker, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly this debate raises the ires and passions in the House like few others. In my riding of Skeena--Bulkley Valley, this is the most despised federal agency we have, the one that has the least amount of credibility on the ground and the one that has managed its file most poorly, and that is saying something when we get to federal agencies.

I have a question for the hon. member. We have a case before us right now with the Tlingit First Nation, which has gone through a consultation with this particular department. The nation has stood out very strongly in objecting to a proposed mine that is going to have a 160 kilometre road.

DFO appears to be ready to sign off on this certificate for a mining project that it knows very well will last for decades, not for the proposed eight years. If there is too much consultation in B.C., is it not the effectiveness of the consultation of this agency which would be studied through this inquiry? Would it not be looked at through this inquiry in an effective, oath-bound way to see that this department has no legitimacy on the ground when it comes to the point of consulting with local communities and local first nations groups, as in the case of the Tlingit?

I wonder if he could speculate on the legitimacy of the department and whether that would not be alleviated somewhat by having a full inquiry into the mismanagement of the Tlingit file.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has referred to a report, which will be a report of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and which is not yet out. Neither he nor I know what the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is going to come up with, so we cannot really comment on a report that is non-existent.

He may be right in his suspicions. I cannot judge that, but as far as the fundamental thrust of his argument goes, let me say flatly on the floor of the House that our people who work for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as scientists are among the very best in the world.

The problem is that the science is extraordinarily difficult. It is not easy. If one is watching birds, observation systems can be set up quite easily. How can one do that 1,000 feet under the water? It is not the same. It is difficult. They have to rely on secondary sources such as catch data. They are first class people.

The problem comes, as is described by Mr. Crosbie well in his book, when we start listening and we get the political interference into the science, because our interests are for fishermen who vote, not for the fish that do not. That is the fundamental difference. Who speaks up for the fish? I went to the fisheries committee this morning. I have listened to debate here this afternoon. There is next to no speaking up for the fish. It is all about catch quotas for fishermen.

[An hon. member]

That is just outright garbage.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the fish, it does seem to me that all animal life cycles are very complicated, but salmon is the most extreme case.

My colleague mentioned the question of temperatures in the river. It seems to me that in a life cycle as complicated as the salmon's, at least one important trigger at various stages of that life cycle must be temperature. He has mentioned the temperature of the rivers, which has been disputed here and I know this is a matter of science. However, he also mentioned the oceans. In climate change at the moment it is becoming increasingly clear that critical changes in temperature in various parts of the oceans are partly triggers and partly a result of climate change. A very significant feature of the current change in climate is changes in the temperature of the oceans.

I wondered, and I know it is science, if the hon. member has any thoughts about the effect of changes in temperature in the ocean part of the cycle of these fish.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am at a disadvantage because my hon. questioner is a Ph.D. of considerable scientific distinction in glaciology, but nevertheless a man of great scientific ability. I can only say as a person whose graduate work was in the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Hong Kong, I am not a scientist. I can suggest, however, having listened to many scientists, that the issue of ocean temperature is going to be a very important factor, not only for the stress level of the fish itself, but also of course with respect to feed and the current changes that may take place.

Fish go on a gyre. Salmon on their time out a sea are in a gyre. They are in that great sort of swirling of ocean currents. When those currents are affected, they can simply disappear. That is why we have had such uneven success on reintroducing chinook or coho in rivers in New Zealand or other parts of the world. The current system does not suit the fish that we put out there.

All I can say is that this is another major factor. Overall, based on the reading I have done and the consultation and discussion with scientists that I have had, we are facing a gloomy future for Pacific salmon unless we are able to do something more effective about climate change, and obviously that is global, not only in Canada.

It seems to me that those of us concerned about salmon, and I think everyone in this room that has spoken has concerns of one sort and another, should recognize that this is perhaps one of the key--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be a part of this debate. The encouraging presence of many members in the House is admirable and shows the passion that arises from this important debate.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.

It is most remarkable to hear the Liberal government members talking about their admiration and respect for the DFO frontline workers and what excellent quality of science is being performed in the field. It is remarkable in the sense that there are 1,600 supposedly very fine people working here in Ottawa.

While I suppose the Ottawa River is a very important river and the fish stocks in it are very important, we on the west coast find it rather strange and perturbing that the DFO consistently finds the funds available to make sure that the staffing requirements here in Ottawa are exceptional, while it also finds room in its budget to cut 55 seasonal workers on the west coast. These are the same seasonal workers, who they find of such excellent calibre, who simply do not have the resources to really understand what is happening in the water. They say that fish swim deep and that they are very hard to count. I find this excuse specious, with no pun intended.

We are talking about a judicial inquiry at this point. The government has come forward with the excellent notion of setting up its own committee, appointing certain members and telling us not to worry about any patronage appointments because the committee will be unbiased and very clear and prescient in its arguments.

What we find difficult in the far stretches of the Skeena—Bulkley Valley in the northwest of British Columbia is that we have had these reports and these studies. I would suggest that we could almost fill this chamber with the number of studies on what is wrong with particular aspects of the DFO.

Now we stand in support of the motion that has come forward today from the Conservative Party but with a couple of cautions, which we presented and I will present again. With all of the studies available and all that we know is wrong with particular aspects of the DFO, we still have a ministry operating in such a way that the fish are depleting, with several million of them missing this year. It is blamed on the fact that it was a warm season or even that the waters might have been a touch low.

It is funny that in 1992 and 1994, in all seasons that we find these stocks off, the DFO is very quick to find another reason why it is not its fault. The government finds a reason to suggest that it is others, such as the first nations, or the gillnetters, or the Alaskans.

What this inquiry needs to look into is what is wrong with DFO as an agency. When we have an agency that is meant to protect fish, that is meant to protect the communities that rely upon these fish for food source, for ceremony, for commercial use, how can our fish be under such threat.

The lack of credibility has become so fundamental in the communities that I represent that to put a DFO sticker on one's car is to take one's life into one's own hands in my riding. The animosity and lack of fundamental respect for this agency has come to such a point that the credibility is lost. The agency no longer holds the position of an honest broker. It no longer holds the position of an agency that is able to defend the interests of those communities, to defend the interests of those fish that the hon. member mentioned before.

For example, this past summer a crabfest was held in a very small Nisga'a community in the Nass Valley in northwestern B.C. Residents notified officials at DFO several months before that they would be selling crabs. Everything was kosher until the moment of the day. I arrived just after officials from DFO had arrived in their large trucks wearing flak jackets, carrying large weapons and ready to bust the place up. They told everyone that they had to shut down immediately. They went after grandmothers and grandfathers who were selling these fish and told them they had to stop and that they were shutting the place down, batons in hand.

This is a community of 200 people on the far north coast of British Columbia. We had grandmothers in tears and grandfathers furious and ready to get their shotguns. This was an attitude brought forward by the department, completely disjointed from the local community. The department completely misunderstood and misrepresented the interests of this country and failed to represent the interests of that local community.

The department needs to go through this review because it has lost its way. We have the reports and the studies. We know the department has screwed up on the east coast. If we are looking to replicate DFO's performance on the east coast fishery on the west coast, I, and I hope every member in this House, will stand in the way of that action. What we have seen on the east coast is community after community dying because the fish have not been managed well.

I think it is wrong for anyone to suggest that we should simply sit back and trust a Liberal appointed committee to go through the processes, to look at DFO and to come up with a list of recommendations that we know full well will be ignored, and that the fishery will then rest in the hands of DFO, and we should not worry about it. I represent communities that rely heavily on these fish stocks.

For the last three months I have listened over and over again to the Gomery inquiry and to the revelations that have been coming out. While the government refuses to comment until it is over, what I have learned is that what we heard prior to the election being called was not all that the House needed to hear, that witnesses were not entirely forthcoming in the panel that was presented. The inquiry has allowed us to look further into the sponsorship scandal which pales in comparison to the travesty and the scandal that is happening within our fisheries and oceans.

If we lost $100 million through the sponsorship program, then we are losing tens and hundreds of millions of dollars more through a fishery that has the potential of collapsing under DFO mismanagement.

What is the problem with DFO? Some concerns have been expressed in the House that this will become a witch hunt against first nations. This is a concern that I must express forcefully to the members promoting this motion. We need to look at this situation from the view of all the players who are involved in the fisheries on the west coast on the Fraser River.

We in the north look at the Fraser as a canary in the mine and that river is in trouble. The Skeena, the Stikine, all of the rivers in the northwest face similar difficulty. If I were to go back to my constituents and tell them not to worry, to relax because DFO has it under control, I would never be able to keep a straight face. I also would never survive at any town meeting if I were to make such a suggestion. The people in my riding have had those face to face interactions with DFO. They realize that, while there are many competent frontline officers, when decisions head up the pipe to the 1,600 people working in Ottawa, they get skewed around and politicized and we would have what happened on the east coast. People do not trust this department in a fundamental way.

I mentioned the first nations that I am dealing with in the northwest of my riding right now who have talked to DFO. DFO made its initial assessment of the area and said that since there were no fish bearing streams in the area that it would allow the 160 kilometre road for the mining project to go ahead. The first nations then brought in their own fish biologists and stood over the streams as the fish came up spawning. It is either a lack of will, a lack of intelligence or human power on the ground on the part of DFO to not simply recognize what a salmon looks like when it is going up a stream. To suddenly be issuing certificates or to be considering issuing certificates for such projects, shows that the consultation process that DFO now has is not working.

On the lastest trip to Vancouver, which I happened to be on, we heard that the commercial, sport and native fishers who are on the river 200 to 220 days of the year have no credibility with the department. The department does not seem to think that they have any viability or that their arguments make any sense and it needs to rely on the 6, 7, 8, 10 officers that it has on the entire Fraser River.

It is a complete joke if the DFO actually expects those few people on the ground to understand. There is a fundamental understanding that DFO does not get. People who work on the river every day, rely on the river and live by the river need to be consulted and the consultation needs to be acted upon, not simply paid lip service to.

The Cultis Lake and Sakinaw salmon are now at the point of extinction. We heard from many interest groups that said that we cannot allow this to happen and others who said that it would harm too much of the fishery. I stayed silent on that. I wanted the House to understand in that moment that the federal government was making a decision that would allow species to become extinct due to the mismanagement of the agency.

Here we are at the end of the pipe saying that we are in a crisis and that we simply cannot do anything about it because it will threaten the industry. The decisions had to be made months and years prior to not end up at the point where we are losing entire species of fish. We were forced between the industries that needed to be able to fish and two species that are now sentenced to extinction.

Some weeks ago I asked officials at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans how much we were spending on fish farms in B.C. It is a simple question. I just wanted to know the dollar figure. I am still waiting on the answer.

If this was a parliamentarian asking this question in committee and this was the response time from department officials, I only hesitate to think how long it takes them to answer to communities' interests and concerns.

While the DFO promotes wild salmon stocks, supposedly, it is also promoting fish farms which threaten those stocks.

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

Mr. Speaker, on the east coast, I would like to remind my colleague from the west, some people call the DFO the department for oil because it has allowed a lot of seismic testing to go on in the Cape Breton area where there are very fragile fish stocks. We asked the government if it had done the environmental work and it said that it had not and that it was the responsibility of the Canada-Nova Scotia Off-shore Petroleum Board.

A scientist within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said that seismic testing within the in-shore waters of Cape Breton may harm stocks. The Canada-Nova Scotia Off-shore Petroleum Board said that was fine, but that it would proceed anyway.

I was under the assumption that the Constitution of Canada states very clearly that DFO's only responsibility is the protection of fish and fish habitat.

Whether it is the west coast, the east coast or within our central waters, the premise of my hon. colleague's speech here today was that nobody trusts the DFO. Nobody has any confidence in the DFO.

The hon. minister, who is a good friend of mine from Nova Scotia, says that he is encouraging DFO employees to come before the independent review to state what is going on. However, unless we have valid, in law, legislated whistleblower protection and unless these people can be guaranteed that their futures will not be crippled in any way, then I would say that simply will not happen. Any member of the DFO who appears before a committee and actually tells the truth about what is going on, will find it to be a very limiting career move.

I would just like the hon. member's comments on that, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are at the point now where I receive e-mails and letters from people from inside the department asking that they be subpoenaed and asking if they can be put under oath. The hon. member is correct when he says that it is a career limiting move to actually go ahead and speak the truth about what is happening within the department.

With respect to fish farms, we are hearing the same thing. DFO officials are sliding me reports and saying that they are not permitted to release them. They want to know if they can do anything about it. These are DFO people working and understanding the issues on the ground, but because of the politics of the day and the politics here, they are unable to perform their duty which, as my hon. colleagues has said, is to defend the interests of fish, period. Their job is not to worry about the oil and gas industry. It will take care of itself. Their job is not to worry about the fish farm industry, which can somewhat take care of itself. Their job is to defend the interests of wild fish.

My belief is that this inquiry needs to look at the entire structure and functioning of the DFO. For a department to have lost this much credibility with the people, the constituents whose interests it was meant to represent, needs a full and complete overhaul. It does not need a committee appointed by the government. It needs a full and complete overhaul, and this inquiry, I believe, will do that.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I really want to draw attention to my colleague's statement about the change in staffing and the huge increase in staffing in the DFO in Ottawa, while at the same time staffing for local inspections has been reduced out in the field. It is really hard to understand how a 23% increase in the departmental bureaucracy is appropriate, given the kinds of problems that we are experiencing on the ground in British Columbia.

I understand that some members in the debate this afternoon raised concerns about jurisdictional disputes and that somehow this inquiry might encroach on the authority or the independence of the provinces. I want to ask him to comment on that.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent point. Some reservations have been expressed by certain members in the House that somehow this judicial inquiry would impede upon the rights and privileges of certain provinces, but that is not our belief. Certainly we are seeing through the Gomery inquiry that there are no such concerns or reservations.

The hon. member also mentioned the deplorable 23% increase in federal staff since 1990 here in Ottawa. It is an absolute shocking figure when we get out to the west coast and realize how limited DFO staff is.

We had a constituent from another riding actually phone the DFO to report some bad management on the river. Someone was fishing where they were not supposed to fish. The DFO official replied that they simply could not go out on the river because they did not have the boats. The DFO official then asked the person on the phone if he wanted a job and maybe get in a boat and go out and look on behalf of DFO. It was a serious request. This is simply because the DFO does not have the people on the ground.

If we cannot measure, we cannot manage. This department cannot manage because it does not measure.