Debates of Dec. 9th, 2004

Supply

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about corporate concentration and trust agreements. He elaborated on some of the problems experienced by the fisheries on the east coast. I was part of the fisheries committee over the weekend for three days. This is a very complex issue in the Fraser River. It is difficult and challenging. It involves, to a certain extent, some environmental issues and allocation issues between the original commercial fishers who fish in the mouth of the Fraser River and the aboriginal bands who live along the river, and who now have a certain amount of access.

I do share a lot of the member's concerns. The department has a number of processes in action. We have the Williams commission, which is out there now doing a timely report. Everyone is invited to appear before the commission. Our committee will be releasing a report, which I hope will be unanimous. We had the B.C. salmon panel and the B.C. salmon commission.

Given everything, and given the complexity of the whole issue, will this judicial inquiry not just be a forum to allow one segment of society to pit itself against another segment and accomplish nothing, with all the other things that are going on in the fishery right now?

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

Mr. Speaker, the recent comments of my hon. colleague from Charlottetown, for whom I have great respect, about pitting one aspect of the fishery against the other is completely off base. I am hoping that it is not correct. If it is, then I would be very concerned about that and would raise very serious issues about pitting one aspect of the commercial fishery against another.

The hon. member has just said that this is a very difficult and challenging subject to discuss. If I am not mistaken, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has asked for a report within a few months. If the hon. member is correct, that it is very difficult and very challenging, that there are lots of unanswered questions that need to be dealt with, and that a very thorough review needs to happen, then how can the Willliams commission do that in the span of a few months?

I question the timing and the rapidity of that. I understand there are seasonal openings and quotas to give out, methodology of fishing, and all those concerns. I wish Mr. Williams and the group of people working on that inquiry all the very best of luck.

I hope they are very successful and give their recommendations to the government, which would be binding, but they are not. They are only recommendations to the government and the government can choose to accept them or choose to ignore them, just like a unanimous report from the committee.

I wish the Williams commission luck. I am rather concerned about the quickness with which it has to bring in a report, considering the difficulties the commission has to face, but I wish them good luck. I hope and pray that it is not an avenue of separation between people in British Columbia.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I share the opinion of the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore with the respect that he holds for the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I have had the pleasure of being a member of that committee on several occasions over the last number of years. Each member of that committee can stand in the House and take a great deal of pride in the fact that very few times do the discussions splinter down partisan lines.

We agree and we disagree. Sometimes we agree to disagree. For the most part, the committee moves forward in the best interests of fishers and fisher families and communities. That is what drives the work of the committee.

That being said, the committee has just come back from a study out west. The committee invested a lot of time and money, and it heard witnesses. It received the testimony of those witnesses. Now that the researchers have that kind of information, they are in the process of making a compilation of that information, and recommendations will come from that.

Is it not in the best interests of the committee, and the issue in general, to sit tight and wait for the recommendations coming from the committee? Are we showing a disregard and a disrespect, and are we undermining the work and effort put forward by that committee by accepting the supply day motion today?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from Cape Breton used to represent the community of Canso. I am sure he could have represented that community alone and been very busy. However, he knows all too well what happens to a fishing community that is on its last legs. I say in a non-partisan manner that I thought he treated the people of Canso with great respect and dignity. Although he did not solve all the problems and serve all their concerns, he at least brought their issues to the forefront. For that, I commend him for his effort in that regard.

I will respond with a question. If he assumed that a judicial inquiry would superimpose or possibly have an effect on the committee's recommendations, then why did the government ask the public accounts committee to deal with the sponsorship scandal and then call an inquiry at the same time? Would the sponsorship inquiry not affect the public accounts committee's work in the same way?

I believe that the committee's report, chaired by the member from Edmonton, and quite possibly the judicial inquiry may all have positive effects on the Government of Canada. Hopefully, in a non-partisan manner, we can deal with the very serious issues, come up with recommendations that the government will accept, and move forward to enhance fishing opportunities for many years to come.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to participate in this debate, as I am sure you, sir, are probably delighted to be here to witness this debate today because it centres on your very area, the Fraser River.

I have some concerns about the interpretation of the resolution given by government members. I heard the parliamentary secretary talk about the concern he would have about the judicial inquiry because all it would do is pit one side against the other. I also heard him talking about the department and asked if we wanted the army sent in.

At no time in any of this debate or in the wording of the resolution have we talked about pitting one side against the other or about any disputes between the various users or stakeholders in the Pacific fishery. I want to clearly outline what the resolution is about. The resolution 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--

--which it slapped together and is still not off the ground by the way--

--into the collapse of this resource cannot be considered independent; that this resource--

Here is the key part, the crux of this resolution, the resource, and we could say all fishery resources in the country, but in this case it is the sockeye salmon in the Fraser River.

--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 inquiry to determine the cause of the collapse of the sockeye salmon stocks on the Fraser River.

The parliamentary secretary also said that the department had assessed various reviews to bring together recommendations to deal with this issue. What a pile of baloney.

First, very good studies have been done into this issue. We had the Fraser report because of problems in 1994. We have had several audits by the provincial and federal auditor general departments dealing with concerns about this issue. We also had a report tabled in 2003 by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, which, by the way, went out to B.C. on the weekend.

Before I go any farther I would like to remind the House that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kootenay--Columbia.

During the latter part of last week and over the weekend, the standing committee went to British Columbia and held hearings on the concerns about the sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser. Before I get into what happened at the hearings, I want to give a couple of examples of what we are talking about when we talk about the complete collapse.

This year, about 4.5 million salmon returned to the Fraser. Of that, only about 200,000 reached the spawning grounds, a minuscule percentage of what is necessary to guarantee a fishery four years from now.

With one particular part of that stock, the early Stuart run, with which you are quite familiar, Mr. Speaker, the powers that be within the department felt it necessary that at least 90,000 of that run should reach the spawning grounds. They made allocations to the various users, the food, social, and ceremonial fishery, the commercial fisheries and the recreational fisheries. They left the 90,000 salmon there to get to the spawning grounds.

However we saw a slight rise early in the year of the water temperatures, not what we saw later in the summer but the early run might have been somewhat affected. Therefore, to err on the side of caution, they added an extra 29,000 salmon to the escapement, which means that 119,000 salmon should have reached the spawning grounds. In reality, only 9,000 reached the spawning grounds, less than 8% of what was needed in order to guarantee any kind of a fishery in 2008.

We have seen people scrambling to explain what happened, not only in the early run but in the total run. They talked about water temperatures. We heard evidence from practically every stakeholder group in British Columbia during our three days out there. All of them stated that there was no evidence whatsoever that the increased temperatures had any effect on the disappearance of that number of salmon.

At no time did anyone see any amount of carcasses on the river, on the banks or being eaten by birds, all the signs that would be there if there had been a massive kill in the river. Could the higher temperature have had an effect? Yes, it certainly could. Could it have killed some salmon? Yes, it certainly could. It would have weakened the salmon anyway. Did it destroy 1.8 million fish? Absolutely not.

Where did they go? Most of the groups that came before us looked inwardly and said, “ mea culpa ”, meaning that it was their fault and that they all contributed. We know that is true to some degree but any amount of overfishing or misreporting would be a minuscule amount.

It comes down to the fact that someone has to get to the bottom of why so many fish disappeared. There could be a number of reasons. It could be overfishing, misreporting, water temperatures or predation. We do not know. However, more important, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not know either despite the fact that we had a similar catastrophe in 1992 and another one in 1994. Studies have been done. The auditors general have made reports, the standing committee has made recommendations but the Department of Fisheries has completely ignored everything.

When we asked for a judicial inquiry, the department, through the parliamentary secretary, said that an inquiry was not needed because the minister had set up a committee to study it.

Because of the pressure, the minister has pulled together an ad hoc committee, under all kinds of questions by stakeholders, but no one at this stage has a clue who will be on the committee. We have heard talk of about 30 or more groups being represented. Then there are talks about picking, choosing and involving others from the side, and yet the committee is expected to report by February or early March in order to make recommendations for the coming season.

Knowing where the members opposite come from, they know that is not going to work. Nobody else thinks it will work. None of the stakeholders thought it was a practical way to address the problem.

What we have is a committee, which right now is not even operable, and it is questionable at best as to what will happen. Even if it were to come out with a few recommendations about next year, which would be very important, our standing committee recommendations will be important because we must save next year's stock. If we do not, half the cycle will be gone. However in the long term we have to get to the root of the problem.

Mismanagement and lack of science is at the bottom of this. The responsibility for this rests solely with the department. The only way to get to the truth about what happened this year and what is happening generally is through a judicial inquiry, for which we have a lot of support.

It is very interesting that a motion at the standing committee this morning was turned down because the Liberals brought in five goons, who had never heard about this before, to make that decision. A number of them will be voting on this very issue again tonight and I am sure the same thing will happen. It will be interesting to see where our Liberal colleagues from British Columbia sit, or more important, where they stand tonight.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps this morning the member, along with all other B.C. Conservative members, would have received a package of information on our fax machine from a senior advisor, Pacific agriculture and ocean action plan.

This gentleman, on behalf of the Department of Fisheries, and presumably the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, told us, as members know, the Conservatives have put forward a votable motion calling for a judicial inquiry into the Fraser River sockeye salmon run of 2004.

However, the fisheries minister recently announced an independently led post-season review, chaired by former Chief Justice Brian Williams. He went on about the fact that work has begun and that significant recommendations will be produced by March 31, 2005, in time for implementation for the 2005 season.

I know our fisheries critic has already referred to this, but I wonder if he could give us an idea of how practical this is. In other words, I hold in my hand a tremendous number of documents that arrived in my office, as a member of Parliament, that seem to indicate that everything is fine, that there would not be any difficulty to get this report out by March 31, 2005.

I would expect that my friend would have a contrary opinion. I wonder if he could outline why he would hold that contrary opinion.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am familiar with the document. It is basically a document sent by representatives of the minister, undoubtedly at the request of the minister.

There is no way to answer his question, and I will tell him why.

There is no way in such a short timeframe that a committee representing so many diverse stakeholder groups can be put together, get to the bottom of what has happened here and get a report done that would be of any value whatsoever or any credibility.

The minister is in a panic. We saw a fishery disappear on the east coast. We see problems in the Great Lakes. Wherever there is a fishery, we see problems because of the complete lack of science, the cuts, which the department will be doing again this year, and because of complete and utter mismanagement. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

Why are we seeing this come in? It is imply to deflect attention and try to affect the vote of people in this House who, because of their concern for the fishery generally but mainly because of the Fraser River, they want to say that everything is okay and that we do not need it.

Why do they not want a judicial inquiry? It is because, in the words of a great actor in a great movie, they cannot handle the truth.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was reading the report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans from June 2003, which, by the way, was unanimously supported by all parties, and I noted that there were a number of recommendations.

Recommendation No. 1 states:

That DFO return to a single commercial fishery for all Canadians, in which all participants in a particular fishery would be subject to the same rules and regulations. Consequently DFO should bring to an end the pilot sales projects and convert current opportunities under the pilot sales program into comparable opportunities in the regular commercial fishery.

That was one of 10 recommendations. I wonder if our fisheries critic would be able to tell us, considering that this was an all party unanimous report, including the government of the day, the Bloc and ourselves, how many of these 10 recommendations were actually acted on by the Department of Fisheries. Once we have that answer, perhaps he could tell us why he thinks the DFO responded in the way it did.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for St. John's South--Mount Pearl will have to do it quickly, because he only has about 25 seconds.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it does not take long to say that DFO basically rejected all the recommendations. As we know, it did very little to implement any of them. Pilot sales have now been changed, but we are hearing about an economic opportunity, and that is causing some concerns. The aboriginal people who are also affected by this are suffering under this complete and utter mismanagement. The fishery out there has to be clarified. Our recommendations would have helped do it. They were ignored completely. We will see what happens today. Maybe a judicial inquiry can solve our problems.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the B.C. Conservative caucus has been seized with this right from the word go. The 21 Conservative members who come from British Columbia recognize this as being one of the key issues, not only for people in our province but indeed for the environment, for ecology and for a major world food source. This is not an incidental problem.

Right now we have wiped out fully 25% of the Fraser River salmon run, and I repeat, 25%. If this should continue to go awry, if we do not get this right, by next year we will have wiped out half. If we do not get this right the following year, three-quarters of all of the salmon in the Fraser River will be gone. This is not a political problem. This is an environmental disaster.

Going back to October 7 of this year, our B.C. regional caucus put out a news release stating that we wanted action on the Fraser River salmon fishery. At that time we were not talking about a judicial inquiry. In fact, we were saying something had to happen a whole lot faster. Our reaction was that the federal Liberal government was dithering while salmon fish stocks on the Fraser River face extinction. The government received warning after warning that the situation could happen, but failed to do anything about it.

I note that the member for Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon said, “I repeatedly urged the government to implement the recommendations of the 2001 salmon fishery report. The government refused to take this advice and now look at where we are”.

We should understand that the impact on the economy and aboriginal communities of such low salmon runs is devastating. The British Columbia fisheries, both recreational and commercial, are currently the province's fourth largest industry, generating approximately $2 billion a year for B.C.'s economy. Many aboriginal communities also rely on the resource for food and ceremonial purposes. Our natural resources critic from Vancouver Island said, “Jobs will certainly be threatened if the problem isn't fixed”.

“It's also evident that aboriginal groups may not receive the resources they need for food and ceremonial purposes” was a comment from our Indian affairs critic. That would be truly devastating to their culture and way of life.

Our B.C. caucus has been seized with this issue right from the beginning of this Parliament. It was our B.C. caucus and these efforts, with the cooperation of members from other parties, I must say, on the fisheries committee, that got us to the point where the committee actually had the hearings in Vancouver and gave the opportunity for people to have input.

If I may say so, it was a bit of a disappointment, this being as serious an issue as it is, that we got such minuscule coverage from the news media, whether television, radio or print, about these hearings, because indeed that was part of the solution. With the kind of pressure that can only come when we have proper exposure in Canada's news media, I would hope that pressure on the fisheries minister would continue.

Our fisheries critic said that the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans needed to reconvene immediately, which it did. This goes back to October 7. He said, “We need to examine this issue and provide advice to the government that is objective and credible”.

I note that our associate fisheries critic, the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, proposed this motion today along with our natural resources critic, who is a member from Vancouver Island. We are trying to force this issue. It should be noted that of the total of 99 members in the Conservative caucus in Ottawa, they were in agreement with us. Whether it was a member from Newfoundland and Labrador, the members from Ontario or the members from Prairies, they were in full agreement that although it is a regional issue there has to be pressure from the House of Commons, and it is the Conservatives from B.C. that are bringing this pressure to try to create a proper situation.

I did a little research. I went back to a parliamentary report prepared for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, dated April 7, 1995. One might wonder why I went back as far as 1995. This is sort of déjà vu, because on page 14 of this document the recommendations are as follows: “In the end the Board concluded there was no definitive answer as to exactly what went wrong in the 1994 season. According to the Board, in many respects the frustration of 1994 lies in the fact that no one, including the authorities, the experts and this Board, knows precisely what happened or exactly how it happened. However, this is no excuse for not taking action to ensure that what happened in 1994 does not happen again”.

That is wonderful, Mr. Speaker. That was the recommendation from 10 years ago and do we know what? It did not happen again; it happened worse, far worse than what they were actually faced with in 1994. The report goes on to state that, “To this end, the Board made 35 recommendations in dealing with a series of issues including institutional problems, quality management, enforcement, the aboriginal fisheries strategy, the environment, and responsibilities of user groups. Among the 35 recommendations made by the Board were the following highlights”, and I have all the following highlights.

This was 10 years ago. What was the government response? In response to the recommendations of the Fraser River Sockeye Public Review Board, the minister announced a five point action plan for the 1995 Pacific salmon fishery. Wonderful. We have an action plan from only 10 years ago. It said:

--a more conservative approach to management; increased enforcement and compliance; better integration of science and management priorities; a tough stance on the conditions of agreements under the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, particularly with respect to pilot sales; and, necessary measures to build a fishery of the future based on recommendations from industry on fleet capacity.

This is what all those recommendations are worth: here we are fully 10 years later with exactly the problem that we had before, only this time the problem has been magnified. This is grossly inadequate.

This is an environmental disaster. To this day I do not understand it, with the supposed power and strength that the Liberals now have. They have five ministers on the front bench, although I must say I believe it was the member from Sarnia who just yesterday was in the press as saying that he questioned their intellectual capacity and their ability to be able to fulfill their job. That was a Liberal member talking about the Liberal front bench, but we will leave that one aside.

The point is that we are supposed to--

[An hon. member]

I wouldn't bring that up.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

No, I wouldn't bring that up.

We are supposed to be seeing representation of British Columbia by these Liberals. This is what the Prime Minister promised during this last election campaign: “If I do not get over the whole issue of alienation of people from the west, then I guess I'm going to be a failure”.

The dithering Prime Minister is a failure because the people who are currently in his cabinet are incapable. Either that or they are gagged in not being able to bring this issue to a head, in not being able to bring this issue to resolution.

This is absolutely inadequate. The reason why now we are calling for a judicial inquiry is that in the longer term this must be removed from the political process. In the longer term, there must be someone who is fully competent and fully capable of shedding a light on this. Hopefully from that this government will end up doing what is necessary to avoid a continuation of this environmental disaster.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his presentation. I must say first of all that I certainly agree with a lot of what he said, and this is a very important and very serious issue. I did spend the three days in Vancouver and I agree with the member that perhaps it would have been better if the committee hearings and testimony had had more coverage, not only in Vancouver but perhaps across Canada. I certainly agree with him on that.

I believe the committee will act quickly and come forward with a report. I hope the report will be unanimous. I hope the report will be followed up on.

As the member knows, back about a couple of months ago the minister appointed a commission to, on a timely basis, do a post-harvest review to try to identify some of the problems. He appointed a retired chief justice of the member's province, Mr. Justice Bryan Williams, to chair the commission. Of course a number of stakeholders are involved in the commission and they are at work as we speak. It is my understanding that the commission is going to do its work and report in several months.

But also as we speak, we have a very concerted effort from the member's party to get rid of Mr. Williams. In fact, we have a motion before the fisheries committee asking that he be replaced--

[An hon. member]

No, no, wrong--

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

--although his appointment is supported by the environmental groups, by the aboriginal groups, and by a whole host of other groups in British Columbia, and the commercial fishers are participating.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we cannot let the remarks of the hon. member stay on the record. There is no motion before the standing committee to get rid of Mr. Williams. I ask the member to retract his statement.

[The Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order. It is a point of debate. I would ask the member from Charlottetown to continue, please.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I was there yesterday, and the motion may have been withdrawn today, but here is my question for the member. Why are the members of that party so intent on derailing the Williams commission?

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the vice-chair of the committee sitting behind me who says that they are not. I have the representation from our fisheries critic who says that they are not.

What this is about is bringing as much pressure as we can possibly bring to this issue. There must be a solution to this that is going to be a long lasting and complete solution.

It may be that the work of Mr. Justice Bryan Williams will be able to shed some light on it. It may be that in the course of time there will be some work toward coming to a solution, but what the motion today is about is specifically to get an independent light shed on this.

It is not exclusive. Our motion does not say that everything else is shut down and that we will go exclusively for a judicial inquiry. We are simply asking for a judicial inquiry because we must have a bright light on this topic. We must have the details of what is going on so that there will be pressure on the department to bring corrective resolution to this desperate situation.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my colleague from Kootenay—Columbia if he thinks that we have taken the right approach.

First of all, let me clarify that there is no motion to get rid of Mr. Williams. There is a motion asking the minister to review the decision to appoint him in light of the fact that a majority of the stakeholders in British Columbia has expressed concern about his chairmanship.

Our comments about the commission, and I will ask the member if this is not true, have been that we do not think it can in such a short length of time with such a diverse commission get to the bottom of the major problem here. What we do hope it will do, it is the same thing as when we asked the standing committee to go to B.C. It was to get an interim solution to save this year's fishery. Is it not right that we ask for a judicial inquiry to deal solely with the overall problem so that we can correct it in depth?

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the position of my friend is absolutely accurate. I should mention, and I speak as the B.C. caucus chair, that the B.C. caucus is fully aware of the interest in this issue by the citizens in British Columbia. This motion is in response to a groundswell of interest and of wanting a judicial inquiry.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, before I get speak to the motion, I would impart the sad news of the death of Sergeant Roy Overfors who worked on the Hill, honourably, for many years. Sadly, he died at the age of 47. Today is his funeral. On behalf of all our colleagues, we send our deepest condolences to the wife and family of Sergeant Overfors on their loss.

On the motion, I want to assure all the members that we too are seized with this issue. I and my colleagues from British Columbia are working hard to deal with the problem, which is very important, not only to our province but to our country.

There is no question that the salmon populations on the west coast have been and are under threat. The last thing we want is to see the salmon population on the west coast go the way of the cod fishery on the east coast. It is our responsibility to ensure that does not happen.

Contributing factors are environmental challenges which include raised water temperatures, poaching, overfishing and habitat degradation. These factors have all contributed to this loss. It is important for us, whatever we do, to we base our decisions on the facts, on the science and on the information we receive on the ground. We need to address those by working with all players in this important area.

My friend from the NDP mentioned that science was being altered. If that is the case, then he is welcome to give us those facts so we can look at them and deal with them. The last thing we want to see is the science, on which we base our ideas, altered in some way. That is not acceptable.

The scope of the problem is quite significant. We expected four and a half million salmon to reach the Fraser River this year. Unfortunately, only 200,000 salmon made it. This is a staggering difference and it affects many people. For our province, the fishery is the fourth leading industry, representing $2 billion per year and jobs for all manner of people, aboriginal, non-aboriginal, sports fishers and commercial fishers. The user groups and other industries around it are attached to this industry. We have to deal with this for the sake of those people.

The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is committed to dealing with these issues. He has come up with a number of initiatives that I will get to in a while. He has read the reports by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and the report of the Commissioner of the Environment, Madam Gélinas, who is under the auspices of the Auditor General. She has articulated a number of serious challenges with which we have to deal.

I met with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He has been very open to ideas and solutions. He is committed to getting those from members across party lines. I would recommend to anybody who has some ideas and solutions to give them to the minister. He also recognizes that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the fiduciary responsibility to manage these resources by working with all user groups.

We also want to ensure that our enforcement officers have the power to enforce the law and have the back-up to do that. It is a significant group of people who have worked for decades in the protection of our fisheries resources. They are a committed group of individuals who perhaps do not necessarily receive the thanks that they should. On behalf of my party, I would like to thank them for the work that they do on the ground, day in and day out.

As I said before, we have to base our solutions on science, listening to all groups and officers who are working on the ground. We have to use that information accurately and effectively. Certainty and sustainability are important and we have to address the issues of environmental degradation, other environmental challenges and poaching.

I would also like to talk about the commitment our government has to the fisheries on the west coast. Of the total budget of $150 million, $80 million goes into the salmon fisheries and $40 million of that goes into the Fraser River. What is more important than how much money we spend, is how we spend it. We have to use that money wisely and effectively.

In 2000 DFO began to implement an integrated salmon management plan, and we have built on that plan. We are considering the factors of science, enforcement and the people who use this. We have three such plans: one for Yukon, one for northern B.C. and one for southern B.C. It is important that we have moved to a consultative approach to dealing with this issue. In the past there were numerous disputes, as there are today, and we have to sort those out. The only way we can do that is to bring all groups to the table and deal with their concerns.

We have read the Pearse-McRae report and the first nation panel report. We are using those solutions to save our fishery. In particular, the Pearse-McRae report has five key elements.

The first is to build a fully integrated commercial fishery with all participants operating on equal footing.

The second is to introduce a more flexible and responsive management system.

The third is to adopt co-management and provide stakeholders with meaningful decision and role making. We have to listen to people.

The fourth is to enhance fishermen's security of access and allocation. This is so important. In the past we have had problems with the timely administration of information. We have to do better. I think this is part of the solution.

The fifth is to ensure that we have an orderly process that is consistent with the treaty process occurring now.

The minister has said that an implementation strategy for these recommendations will be forth coming.

We also have the very important independent post-season review, chaired by former B.C. Chief Justice Bryan Williams. I know there has been some criticism on that. However, the purpose of this is to get quick, accurate information and implement it in a timely fashion before the fishery starts next year, so all the user groups know what the allocations are. If we wait too long, it is not useful or effective. We also want to ensure that we have an impartial assessment on this issue to explain the poor spawning return on the Fraser River sockeye.

The long awaited wild salmon policy is another important link. We have been asked to implement the wild salmon policy in the near future. The minister will be releasing an implementation plan on this very quickly.

Another important thing that no one has really spoken about is the importance of changes to the Fisheries Act. The Fisheries Act is 136 years old. We cannot have a 136 year old act to deal with the challenges we face today. The minister will bring forward a new Canada oceans action plan that will replace the Fisheries Act and make it relevant to the challenges of today.

In the end, we need an integrated management and that the ecosystem and precautionary approach be applied. This plan will help to ensure that Canada continues to play a leadership role on the world stage. By working with our partners, we can save our fishery, so it has a long term life.

I want to emphasize that at the end of the day the importance of this to our province is quite significant. If we do not act on this issue, jobs will be lost. As a B.C. member for 11 years, it has been very disheartening to see the friction and the lack of cooperation that sometimes occurred. I am glad the minister has taken the role to try to bring the groups together, to find out their plans and determine what their needs are. Above all, we need to ensure that our fishery is put on a sustainable footing based on fact. We have to apply the law to the our rules. If we do not do that, we will be in trouble.

There are a number of other challenges. Habitat destruction has been a significant problem not only in my province but also on the east coast. The destruction of habitat is relevant to the spawning grounds and it extremely important. If that habitat is destroyed, the spawning fish do not have a place to lay their eggs and, as a result, we see a massive degradation and destruction of the fishery. The reclamation of those habitats and spawning areas is critically important.

I wish to inform you, Mr. Speaker, that I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough East.

All of us in the House are committed to saving the fisheries on the west coast, as we are on the east coast. We are dependent on receiving good solutions to that. We will back up the department and get the right people in the right places. We will back up our fisheries officers on the ground and ensure that we have a sustainable fishery for aboriginal communities, non-aboriginal communities, sports fishers and commercial fishermen. At the end of the day, if we accomplish that, we have done a huge service and we have done our duty.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious as to whether the member thinks a judicial inquiry is ever a good idea? The way I see it, a judicial inquiry is not something we want to use often, but there are times when it is needed. One of those times is when public confidence is at an all time low in any particular department or if there is some sort of crisis. It seems to me the case in B.C. meets all of those criteria. We need something that would give us credible fact-finding and something that could produce forceful recommendations. That is the whole purpose of a judicial inquiry. I do not see that coming out of this post-season review.

To get back to my colleague's first point, if there were any point that received unanimous support in the hearings, it seemed to me it was the lack of confidence in the ability of DFO to manage this resource. To restore that in B.C. we need this inquiry. I would appreciate my colleague's comments on that.

The member referred to the Pearse-McRae report and all the great recommendations in it, and there are many. He did not mention one significant one and that was the call for individual quotas in the salmon fishery. Does he and his government think that would be a good idea as well?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, our objective is to restore public confidence and to have credible solutions and implement those solutions. I completely agree with my colleague. That is why we have asked Justice Bryan Williams to do this.

I have not heard a retort as to why certain members think Justice Williams cannot do this. I have not heard a logical reason as to why they think asking Justice Williams to do this is a problem. He has been tasked to accomplish the exact objectives for which the hon. member has asked. I think that will be an effective solution.

It is not that we will ignore other solutions that are put forth. Madam Gélinas, who works under the Auditor General, has put forth effective solutions. The standing committee has put forth effective solutions. All those will be used by the justice and also by the minister in implementing solutions. If all we have are ideas and solutions and they are not implemented, then they are not worth the paper on which they are written. Implementation forthwith is a key element to saving our salmon fishery.