Mr. Speaker, broadly speaking, there are two problems. One is the application of some of the existing regulations. Certainly on the issue of maintaining fish habitat at times I think the department is overzealous. There are farmers in the Fraser Valley who have created a ditch in the back of their property and all of a sudden that ditch becomes fish habitat because water flows through it for two or three months. The farmers are being forced to comply with regulations which prohibit farming within, I do not know, 30 feet of the ditch. It is this sort of thing. There is an overzealousness on that level.
On the other hand, my friend from Winnipeg Centre and others have raised the issue of Devils Lake in North Dakota. There is an issue where Canadian waters are going to be impacted by an action taken by our neighbour and the government is not acting vigorously enough to defend Canadian interests.
We can take a look at our oversight. Our fisheries department has not been enforcing regulations relating to aquaculture in a way that endears us to our friends in Alaska. They look at us and say, “You guys are impacting on our fishery”.
The bottom line is that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has a fair amount of authority. He has the authority at times in a way that no other minister has. I think that is good in many respects. But the issue is, is that authority being applied in a judicious fashion? Is it being applied in an open fashion and in a fair way, so that when regulations are put in place, people have the ability to respond in a fair and open way?
In essence if the act is followed as it is written, they do. If this bill passes, they will not. The public will be precluded from having a say in the management of fisheries because, I will say right now that we have seen a growth in licence conditions over the last 10 years in the fishery. If this bill goes through, we ain't seen nothing yet. They will be using licence conditions for simply the management of every aspect of the fishery. The regulations that are in place will gradually fall into disuse. The only operative method of dealing with the fishery will be licence conditions. Essentially that is ruled by the bureaucracy and this place will have very little say in it.
To get any kind of a change will take some kind of majority consent of this Parliament, which will be almost impossible.
Do we need more licensing conditions or more regulation? In a sense, yes, but what we need to do is enforce what we have in a more vigorous way in some respects, but certainly in a more reasonable way in others.