Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking the member for St. John's West for once again bringing this issue before the House for debate. I want to thank members who have contributed this evening to this very important discussion.
I want to say to my friend from the NDP from the outset that I do not want to blame the foreigners for all of the problems with our fishing resources. They are certainly a very important factor but there are other factors as well that have led to the demise of many of our fish stocks.
I wonder if members would consider a vote in the House some day to turn over to NAFO the management of the exploding seal herds off our coast. It has done such a dismal job of managing the resources in the NAFO regulated areas that if it took over the management of the seal herd, we would not have about 10 million seals off our shores eating tonnes and tonnes of fish resources.
I want it on the record that I will support this motion. I have been a consistent supporter of Canada taking action to extend custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap for very good reason. I listened to hon. members such as the parliamentary secretary, but they should go along the south coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and visit communities such as Port aux Basques, Rose Blanche, Burnt Island, Isle aux Morts, Burgeo, Ramea. All the way along the coast people once worked for 12 months a year in a very productive and prosperous fishing industry. A significant outmigration has taken place and today the age of the people left in those communities is not very comforting. Those communities were founded on the fishery. People spent their lives working in the fishery.
The member for St. John's West rightfully said when Canada joined Newfoundland, and if it had really happened that way, things may have been different today. The Government of Canada was given the management of our fisheries resource when we joined Confederation and successive federal governments have failed in their management responsibilities. I would like to say to the hon. member for St. John's West, it was a former member of St. John's West, the former minister of fisheries, John Crosbie, who in 1992 announced a shutdown, a moratorium on our northern cod fishery.
Successive federal governments have failed on this issue. Having said that, it is incumbent on the government of the day to deal with this issue. People living in those communities who want to continue to make a living there have run out of patience. Canada has a great record in the world for diplomacy and peacekeeping, but the people in those communities are tired of diplomacy and have lost patience on this issue.
There is only one thing that will cause a positive change in the NAFO regulatory areas. That would be a Canadian management regime where Canada would set the total allowable catch, where Canada would have observers on the vessels and we would enforce any violations in those zones.
There is a misconception that the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has recommended that we kick the foreigners out of the territory. That is not what we are recommending. We are recommending that Canada manage the resource in those areas or that those countries which have traditionally fished the areas for centuries be allowed to fish their traditional share of whatever the total allowable catch would be.
Nothing else will work. The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization has been in existence for 25 years. For the last 10 years or so there have been some serious flaws in the NAFO management. We attend the NAFO meetings annually and talk diplomacy. We ask them to be good boys and girls. They tell us they will be but in another year's time we find that nothing has improved. What is happening in the meantime is that those once prolific fish resources, as the member for St. John's West has said, the greatest protein resource in the world, are being decimated.
It is 2004 and with the environmental concerns, concerns, the concerns about the ecosystem and other issues that we hear about in this place on a daily basis, imagine that as Canadians and as a government we are content to sit here and watch this go on and on. This is a great resource, a world resource. It is a protein resource not just for Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada, not just for Canada but for this great world where there is a shortage of protein.
I listened to the parliamentary secretary say on behalf of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that we have to be diplomatic, that we have to show more patience and maybe it will work. I do not think that the people in the communities I represent have the time to be patient any more. They are tired of being diplomatic. They want someone to take charge of the issue and it is time we took charge of the issue.
I said that the foreigners are not all the problem. I mentioned the seal herd, the eight to ten million seals that consume something like a tonne of fish a year per seal. With all due respect to my friend from the NDP, if only he would show the same concern about dealing with the seal population as he showed about dealing with the foreigners. We can deal with the foreigners and we can deal with the seals and we can deal with some other conservation issues because it is going to take a combination of all those to bring back that resource. It is not going to happen by kicking the foreigners off the banks. We need more than that.
We need to deal with the seal issue, I say to members of the New Democratic Party, whom I have accused at times of caring more about seals than they care about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I do not say that lightly. I hear the talk about a coming election and how they are going to go on the campaign trail. Well, I invite all members of the NDP to come down to Newfoundland and Labrador and tell the people that they care more about seals than they care about the people who are going hungry in those communities.
Let us call a spade a spade. If we are serious about addressing the issue, we must deal with NAFO, we must deal with the foreigners, we must deal with the seals. As well, there are things that we must clean up in our own back yard. It is not only foreigners who have caused the problem. We have to take some of the responsibility ourselves.
If we are really serious about dealing with this issue, let us be mature. Let us be sincere about it. Let us hear the NDP tomorrow get up and say that they are prepared to deal with an exploding seal population where every seal eats a tonne of fish a year. Let us hear that if they want to deal with the issues in Newfoundland and Labrador, or do they just want to pay lip service to it?
I want to provide my colleague from Newfoundland with some time so I will conclude by saying that I have continuously supported this issue. Custodial management, in my view, is the way to go. I call upon the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister of the country to come to the table in a very serious manner so that we deal with it and we do have a custodial management regime on the nose and tail and the Flemish Cap.