Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the member for St. John's West and all members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for this recommendation.
Those of us who went to Newfoundland and Labrador on repeated occasions heard this from the fishermen and from the previous Liberal government in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Conservative and NDP opposition parties in Newfoundland and Labrador were unanimous that this is what we should be doing.
I want to nudge the parliamentary secretary who I know is a descent person. The problem parliamentary secretaries have, when they represent the department, is that they bring bureaucratic notes with them and they read them.
I would like to see the parliamentary secretary go to St. John's West, to the riding of the member who moved the motion, and hear what he says when he is there. The reality is that he said the government would not support the motion. Does that mean that the Minister of Natural Resources, who is from Newfoundland and Labrador, will not be supporting the motion?
The Minister of Natural Resources, when he was a regular member of Parliament on our committee, fully supported and in fact actively argued vehemently for the motion and for the recommendation to happen. Now that he is in cabinet, will he be here for the vote? Will a free vote be allowed or will he skip out?
This is something we will watching carefully because in 1998 we presented the east coast report by the fisheries committee. We moved consensus of that report in the House. Nine Liberals signed that report. When we had a vote on that report in the House, those nine Liberals voted against their report. It is hypocrisy every single time.
I remind the parliamentary secretary that we do not have much time left. Every single scientific status report of those stocks show them dwindling. They are in a precarious position.
It took the government over 23 years to sign the law of the sea. Why would any of us on this side of the House have any confidence at all that the government cares about Newfoundland and Labradorians, the fishing industry itself or the stock itself?
He said the Government of Canada does not want to turn its back on the international community but has absolutely no problem turning its back on Newfoundland and Labradorians. We will come back and haunt the government on that in the next election. The election can be called sooner. We'll be ready and waiting.
There are a couple of other concerns. The merger of the Coast Guard and DFO in 1995 has been an unmitigated disaster. We have 1,600 people working for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at 200 Kent Street and nobody is fishing for cod or lobster in the Rideau Canal.
Those 1,600 people may be fine people, but I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, the centralization of that office needs to be torn down, broken down and those people should be put where the resource is. That would give confidence back to the industry. Maybe, instead of having decisions come from Ottawa to the water, we for once could have decisions on the fishery come from the water and go to Ottawa, which is exactly how it should be.
There is another agreement called UNFA. It should be torn apart and thrown away. The international community laughs at Canada. It comes here to rape and pillage our stocks. We used to have observers on board the ships. Try to get an unedited observer report from one of those international expeditions. It is literally impossible.
When Mr. Baker was the chair of the committee, we got one but it was so blacked out and edited, it meant absolutely nothing to us. After the agreement, they had to get more observers on board. Now they are saying, get rid of the observers and put a black box on these international vessels. All a black box will do, if we have anybody monitoring it, is tell us where the boat is. It does not tell us what is in the boat, how much fish it is raping and pillaging from the ocean.
May I remind the House that the OLGA was caught a few years ago for oil pollution. When it came into St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, it had 49 metric tonnes of moratorium cod in its hold. What happened? We could not do anything about it. We had to let the ship go because international rules stated that the flag state had to be the one that metes out any punishment to the captain and crew.
When we were in Iceland, we found the Olga . A Russian ship was in Iceland. We have no idea what happened to the fish. It was a fluke that we caught the
Olga.
However, how many fishing vessels are out there now cheating the system. We all know Mr. Tobin. When he was here, he had the little net saying that the turbot are hanging by their fingernails. It was a great presentation. It was very well done.
However, the Liberal government still does not get it. This is a unanimous recommendation by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. There were nine Liberals on that committee. They all agreed with the opposition that this is what we should do.
I do not have confidence that the government will even think about this. It will just ignore it. The government's answer to solutions in the fishery is delay every single time. It is absolutely incredible.
In terms of observance and enforcement, the morale of our Coast Guard, the great men and women of the Coast Guard, is completely broken right now. What do we hear from the department? It says that 600 positions will be eliminated within that department.
The government is basically saying to forget fisheries patrols, forget observers, and to forget about it. It is going to rely on the good graces of the Spaniards, the Portuguese and everyone else to come in and rape and pillage the stocks. It will continue to talk and hopefully it will have a glass of wine and a nice chat, but nothing will get done.
I can assure the House that if the discussion was in Ontario, if the situation was reversed, we would have action from the government. Unfortunately, Newfoundland and Labrador only has seven representatives. Many friends in the parliamentary system across the country support the men and women of Newfoundland and Labrador on this important recommendation.
Basically, we will actually be saving the international community a lot of money. We are not saying to the foreign vessels to go away, get lost and never be seen again. We are saying that they can come in. They can fish their historical quota. All it means is that Canadians are going to observe what they have on board those vessels. We are going to ensure that what they catch is exactly what they are allowed to have. That is it.
We already pay 50% of NAFO's costs and it is not working. Foreign fishing vessels are taking advantage of us because we do not have patrols and we have a government that is extremely weak when it comes to enforcements or discussions of this nature.
We as a committee are constantly frustrated by government delays. Again, the government does not want to turn its back on the international community, but it is willing to turn its back on fishermen and their families. That is a sin.
We are recommending custodial management. Let us take control of those stocks. Let us say to the international community that it can still fish, but we are going to check what it has. That is all. If we do that, I assure the House that those stocks will come back and they will rebound.
The beneficiaries of that will not just be Newfoundland and Labrador. It will be the international community. If it keeps going the way it is going, years from now this discussion will be muted because there will be no fish left.
Years ago, a former Liberal leader, Pierre Trudeau, was asked a question about fisheries and his answer was “The problem with fish is that they swim”. Yes, they do. The reality is we need to have enforcement out on the water. We believe that Canadians are the ones to do that. If we were to do that, we could assure the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that their initial resource, their offshore resource, belongs to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and for that matter to all Canadians.
On behalf of our party, I again thank the hon. member for St. John's West and his party for bringing this motion forward. We in the federal NDP and our provincial colleagues across the country completely support the motion.