Mr. Speaker, I rise not only as chair of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans but also as a member of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.
I want to bring to the attention of the House the fact that we are having a very historic debate. This is the first time that we have come up with this kind of situation. That is why the House of Commons convened one hour earlier than it normally would. That is why we are going to be voting on this subject matter this evening: because of the provisions of the Standing Orders and certain sections of the Statutory Instruments Act.
This procedure has been put into place to in fact empower members of Parliament, I believe, and I think it will be demonstrated how that has come about.
The report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations was unanimous. That committee is composed of members of all parties of the House of Commons. It is chaired by an official opposition member and a Liberal senator. There are Liberal and Conservative senators on the committee. The committee issued a unanimous report, which was presented in both Houses of Parliament.
I want to read a few excerpts from the committee report. First of all, in a nutshell, the report stated the following:
--the Joint Committee resolves that subsection 36(2) of the Ontario Fishery Regulations, 1989, as enacted by SOR./89-93, be revoked.
The committee recommended unanimously that this particular section of the Ontario regulations be revoked. Subsection 36(2) is very simple. It states:
No holder of a commercial fishing licence shall violate any of the terms or conditions of the licence.
That is a provision in a regulation, not a statute.
The joint committee stated as follows:
This provision was enacted with a view to making the contravention of a term or condition of a licence an offence under the Fisheries Act...
The committee went on to state:
It is accepted that regulations imposing sanctions or creating offences must be authorized by Parliament expressly or by necessary implication. Nowhere in the Fisheries Act is the making of regulations creating offences expressly authorized, nor can the existence of such a power be said to be necessarily implied.
Members have made reference to the letter from the Ontario minister in charge of fisheries. The committee was also apprised of the minister's views and dealt with them in the report which was filed with the House. I want to briefly reference what the committee said about that letter. The committee stated in regard to the proposal of the minister:
To the extent this comment suggests that disallowance of section 36(2) would impair the ability to impose terms and conditions of licences, it does not reflect a clear understanding of the nature of section 36(2). Disallowance of that section may change the manner of enforcing compliance with terms and conditions of licences, but would certainly not affect in any way the ability to impose such terms and conditions.
The committee concluded:
While your Committee understands that the federal and provincial Ministers favour the enforcement of terms and conditions of licences through fines and imprisonment rather than licence suspensions or cancellations, the Committee would be remiss in its statutory responsibility if it allowed this policy preference to override the principle that the Executive may not create offences punishable by criminal sanctions without clear authority granted by Parliament. It is the responsibility of the Executive to ask the Houses for that authority.
I agree 100% with what the committee has said.
Bill C-52 is the minister's response. It is the request of the executive to this House to give power to do what the executive wishes to do. In that way, Bill C-52 is responding to the report.
Unfortunately, a deadline has passed and if the minister's motion is not supported today, then a countdown begins, or may begin, to deem this regulation revoked, in which case there would be no regulation. This would have serious ramifications for the fishery in Ontario in the summer.
I am running out of time, but I just want to say that because of this deadline we face I am going to support the minister's motion to refer this matter back to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, because if the minister and the government then do not proceed with Bill C-52, the committee can bring back another report identical to this one and then not budge.