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.