Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion. I will begin my comments with some understanding of our role on this committee.
I am new to this place and therefore new to this committee but the committee is extremely important. It deals with all the legislation that has been passed in this place and through the Senate and ensures there is fair measure in terms of how the legislation is being implemented, that there are no problems in terms of the law that exists and the legislation that would be brought in. In other words, we need to ensure things are congruent and fair and, hopefully, to do no harm.
When we look at legislation it is important that we look at its purpose. Legislation normally exists to solve a problem and not to create problems. This committee, which is made up of members of Parliament, as well as members from the other place, scrutinizes, as is in the name of the committee, all legislation so there are no bumps along the road.
As with any legislation that is done by human endeavour, there are problems from time to time. Our role, hopefully, is not to get into a heated debate on a bill that will be coming to this place. What we have today is a motion questioning, in many ways, the work of the joint committee, and I say that without prejudice. I say that as an observation because the motion asks that the recommendation of the committee be sent back to the committee because the government believes it will be able to deal with it in its proposed legislation to deal with the Fisheries Act. In a nutshell, that is what is occurring here. No argument there.
For the record, I would like to bring forward some comments that were made by the hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans when he came to committee recently on this very issue. He said:
I want you to know that my department and this government value your insight and views, and we thank you for them. That is why I was eager to appear here before you, because I am committed to resolving this long-standing issue.
He was talking about the longstanding issue that we are dealing with in terms of the disallowance of subsection 36(2) of the Ontario fishery regulations. He acknowledged the concern and he wants to work to solve this problem.
He goes on to say:
You have told me and my predecessors that it is your view that the Fisheries Act does not provide legislative authority to enforce licensing conditions. The committee believes this subsection of the Ontario Fishery Regulations trespasses unduly on rights and liberties and makes an unusual and unexpected use of the powers conferred by Parliament. It allows officials to determine licence conditions, which are administrative decisions that, if breached, can land someone in jail.
He was simply paraphrasing our point of view. I will skip down to later in his commentary where he says:
In my previous role as fisheries critic, I stood in the House to debate against Bill C-52 a little more than a year ago. The bill would have amended the Fisheries Act to address the issue of concern to the committee, but would not have addressed outstanding issues of significance for our fisheries and Canada's fishing communities. You may recall that, during the debate in the House, I, too, questioned the value of a federal minister and his officials to throw people in jail. I believed then, as I do now, that there are other ways to enforce the rules that provide for orderly fisheries.
I mention that commentary because it is the minister acknowledging the problem that we are trying to grapple with and have grappled with at the joint committee. He acknowledges that this is something that needs to be dealt with. The debate perhaps here is how that should be done and when it should be done.
I believe those of us on the committee, as was mentioned by my colleague, the chair of the committee, would like this to be done quickly. Our concern and the debate in committee was that to wait for the overhaul of the Fisheries Act, which, as the minister said, is something that has not been done since Confederation, is no small task. In fact, it is something that requires diligence and will require a lot of scrutiny and debate.
As committee members, we needed to deal with due diligence. I felt strongly, as I do today, that we need to deal with this now because we can. To put it off again would not be doing due diligence. We would be throwing up our hands and abdicating our responsibility as members of Parliament to ensure we have the proper scrutiny of regulations and where there are problems we propose solutions. I am sure members in the other place would say the same thing.
When a committee proposes solutions it often needs to send correspondence to the relevant ministries and ministers stating that there was a problem with x, y or z. This has been going on, as has already been mentioned, since 1989 when I was a student at the University of Winnipeg.
We are asking the government to remedy this situation. If the government sends it back to committee it would be predictable. It would be a boomerang effect. We will debate this in committee again and say that it is still disallowed and make no changes and then we will be waiting for Godot.
What we need to do is be responsible. This is not, in my opinion, something that should be charged around the whole issue of the overhaul of the Fisheries Act. It should be taken as a separate piece to say that there is a remedy required and it has been going on since 1989.
When the minister was in opposition and certainly when I read his comments from the committee, he suggested there was a problem. Officials suggest there is a problem. The legal team that we are well served by on the committee knows there is a problem and is essentially saying that we need to remedy it now.
With all due respect to the government, I say without prejudice as a member of the committee on scrutiny and regulations that we cannot support the motion. What we need to do is provide a remedy that will not take long and will get through the House quickly to ensure we are doing our job as parliamentarians and that we are acting on the recommendations of a joint committee, recommendations that were unanimously agreed to by all parties, that the government and this place remedy the situation that has existed since 1989.