Yes, probably around the world.
I rise today to speak against the government's proposed fisheries act, Bill C-45.
As members know, my riding of Vancouver Island North has a long history in the fishing industry and, in particular, in the salmon fishery. It has been an integral part of the culture of my riding for thousands of years and a way of life for many first nations for countless generations and, hopefully, will continue into the future, although we are not quite sure.
Bill C-45 would have a negative impact on those fisheries in my riding.
Since I was elected about a year and a half ago, I have talked to fishermen across the riding, from north to south. They have told me that changes are needed in the way that Canada, in particular on the west coast, manages its fishery. Issues of co-management, habitat and species protection and enforcement are front and centre in people's minds and yet most of these people felt that there were problems within DFO itself and did not require a whole new act.
After seeing the act, I can now say that it would do very little to solve all these problems. It is just, plain and simple, bad legislation, just like the softwood lumber deal and the inadequate climate change program. The Conservative government has sold out ordinary Canadians and given to large multinational corporations.
What has angered many people in my communities has been the total lack of consultation with local stakeholders. Time and time again we hear that this House, this government wants to listen to ordinary Canadians but then it goes about and does the exact opposite.
With its climate change plan, it talked to the oil and gas industry rather than consulting ordinary Canadians.
With electoral reform, a subject that is very close to my heart, we saw that the government relied on focus groups in very small pockets. It held one meeting in each province and called that consultation. It would rather do that than hold public meetings and let people know exactly what we are talking about.
It is no different with Bill C-45. There was no consultation. The government may have had meetings around the country on different topics around fisheries. I know in my riding that many meetings were held but there was never any talk or discussion about changing an act and no one was requested for input on a fisheries act. To me, that is not consultation. That is just a meeting to talk about what is going on in the fishery. We have those all the time.
One would think that with such a proposed monumental change in the way Canada manages its fisheries, the government would have talked to fishery workers and gathered their experience and their views in creating this new act. It said it would. In a media release back in December 2006, DFO stated that the new act came from extensive cross-country consultations and discussions but it did not.
There were no direct discussions, consultations or meetings about new ideas and changes within this act. As I said earlier, if one attended a meeting in the last couple of years that was called consultation.
However, ordinary people in the industry know that they were left out. Recreational and sport fishers, local commercial fleets, aboriginal people, environmentalists and conservation groups were not asked about the creation of Bill C-45. In fact, practically every environmental organization on the coast have denounced this bill saying that they were not asked about it and that they saw many flaws within it.
However, the government did listen to one group. It listened to its friends in large corporate fleets. As my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore pointed out, the government listened to the mining industry. We heard that it was quick off the mark in saying what a wonderful bill this is. After I think only 12 hours it managed to read this lengthy document and come up with a full report.
I wonder if it had insider information on what was in the bill. Maybe it even had a hand in writing it, I do not know. However, the bill definitely reflects the concerns of those organizations. It is almost a wish list for the corporate interests over the public.
I have talked to many ordinary fishermen in my riding. I have gone to the docks, processing plants and fish farms. There are not very many processing plants left on the coast and hatcheries are in a sad state of repair. They have been neglected for so long. I have met with many men and women who work in these places and have listened to their concerns. They are almost unanimous in their opposition to the bill.
The current Fisheries Act has held up well for the past 139 years, adapting and changing with the times, as one would expect of something that is a very large piece of legislation. Most would agree that it is not perfect legislation. It has many strengths and also some weaknesses in the eyes of the front line workers, but it is far better than what is proposed here today.
Again, if the government would have listened to average fisheries workers, to the men and women on the coast in my riding and on the eastern coast, it would know that the problem is not all with the act, there are also many problems with the DFO. Budget cuts and a centralized bureaucracy are what people tell me are the biggest problems facing fisheries management today. For example, while the DFO might say it would like to protect species and habitat, the fact is that it does not have the resources that it needs to do the job. At the current level on the west coast, it is ridiculous to think that these people can effectively protect the entire area.
The other problem is that the DFO is too centralized in Ottawa to understand local concerns and listen to the front line workers. Fishers in my riding feel as though their insights and their concerns are not listened to, especially when it comes to how to manage the fish stocks. A prime example is the collapse of the east coast cod fishery in the late eighties. Local scientists and fishery workers were raising alarm bells for years about the state of the cod fishery, but Ottawa did not listen until it was way too late. Those same alarm bells are ringing in my riding right now and the DFO still seems to be deaf to them.
We all know that buying a new house will not fix a bad marriage, but that is what the government is trying to accomplish. Rather than sitting down and really working on the issue of fisheries management with all the stakeholders, the Conservatives have gone out and bought a new Fisheries Act. However I, as well as those fisheries workers in my riding, know that the core problems still remain.
The lack of consultations were not the only problem with the new act. If passed, the act would go a long way to remove the public nature of the Canadian fishery and place it in the hands of corporate fishing interests. Much of what is in the act, coupled with its weak and ambiguous language, allows for less public control over the fishery and gives more control to the DFO and big business.
Bill C-45 does not acknowledge the fishery as a common property resource. Nor does it recognize the public's right to fish as a key value. In a meeting with sport fishermen in my riding, and this was before the bill was proposed in the House, they said that if the government were ever to change the act, they wanted to ensure that it would entrench the principle of personal use access of ordinary Canadians to a share of the common property fisheries resource. For them, that was fundamental.
They talked very strongly about how we need to maintain the common property resource of the fishery. If these people were asked, they would have presented this to the government, but unfortunately, they were never asked. It is a very important principle. It is the key value of the fishery in Canada, especially on the west coast.
The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that fishing is a right, not a privilege, and that the fishery is a common property resource. The government claims that Bill C-45 confirms this ruling saying, “Nothing in C-45 contradicts this. In fact, C-45 is based on this very premise”. However, the bill in itself says, “Parliament is committed to maintaining the public character of the management of fisheries and fish habitat”. This is an entirely different concept. The public character can mean many different things, whereas the public's right to fish is pretty definitive in its meaning.
We can see the increasing corporate control over the fishery spelled out in the changes to the licensing programs. The government plans not only to change the length of the licence, but also who can give them out and whether fishermen can pass it along to their children or sell it to pay for their retirement.
Most of the fisheries workers who I have talked to believe that 15 year terms of licences are far too long. Longer allocation periods lead to greater corporate control. Large fishing enterprises can have access to the resource for longer periods of time, essentially shutting out other interested individuals, enterprise or community for a whole 15 years. I think it is more than a generation. This extension also does not take into affect the ecological reality of fish stocks and the natural fluctuations in the stock. Fifteen year licences do not make sense for the fish, but it does make sense for business.
While increasing the length of the licences, Bill C-45 also threatens to eliminate the intergenerational transfer of licences and the financial and social security of many independent fishers, their families and their communities. Licences are financial security for many fishermen. It gives them something to hand off to their children or to sell off to provide them with money for their retirement. We all know that most fishermen do not have a pension plan. Not only does this mean that the government can refuse a sale or transfer of a licence, but it can then redistribute it to whomever it wants. Members should not think this will not happen.
One of the other clauses in Bill C-45 allows the minister to designate DFO officials to grant or refuse licences. This gives more control over the handing out and denial of licences to DFO bureaucrats and eliminates the opportunity for politicians to question licence decisions. Others worry that this downloading of power will create a system ripe for abuse, which will mean a relationship with the DFO and connections to the minister will become the preferred means to get a fish allocation instead of simply being a Canadian citizen.
Many of the changes seem to actively work against local and small fishermen in favour of large corporate fleets. Yet the small and local fisheries are the backbone of many communities across Canada. That is especially true in my riding where many small operators are trying to make a living and it is becoming increasingly difficult. By stacking the deck against them, we are not only putting the future of the fishery at risk, but the livelihood of countless small communities dotted along the coast, rivers and inlets.
The bill fails to strengthen conservation and protection measures for fish and fish habitat. What we have here is a bill that is more focused on economics than on ecosystems. There are few guidelines in the legislation. What is there is weak and ambiguous, allowing for loopholes and grey areas. While there are parameters for co-management of the stocks, they are quite flawed and actually have the potential for more creeping corporatization of the resource.
Bill C-45 grants too much discretion to the minister by using the word “may” over “must”. I know about weasel words and that is a weasel word if I ever heard one. The use of this language opens up loopholes that would allow for multiple contradictions and vagaries.
I just spoke about habitat protection and measures for protecting fish habitat. In my riding we have a current issue with the Courtenay River. The Puntledge River Restoration Society is a small group that has been looking after and trying to help with habitat protection and management for more than 10 years. It has been fighting a seal problem in the river. The seal population has been allowed to grow and they are eating the salmon on the way out of the river in the spring and on the way back in the fall.
The DFO was working with the Restoration Society. It said it would help with the seal population, that it would complex the river and take some measures to reduce the population. Ten years ago it did a cull of the seals, which was a sad thing, but in order to save the salmon that was something that happened at the time, and it caused quite a controversy in the community. However, the DFO never did follow through on what it said it would do.
Now 10 years later the seal population is back again. It is causing another problem. The minister says that this small group of volunteers should be looking after things. By this act, it would be these small organizations that would be relied upon to look after fish habitat. All these volunteers have said that they give up. They are tired of raising salmon for the seals when they want to be raising them for fishermen to go out and catch.
While we do not have a problem feeding seals, it is sad to see all one's work go down into their bellies. The seals have no natural predators in this area. Again, the volunteers of these organizations across my riding, and this is just one example, are saying that they are not getting any help from the DFO, that there is a big problem there. If they are going to be left to be the managers of fish habitat without any assistance, they are not going to do it, plain and simple.
With the bill, if they are relying upon these organizations, they are not going to be there. That is a big problem and I cannot see who would take this on. I would hate to see the bill passed in that regard.
Suffice it to say, the bill would favour corporations over the small fishermen, corporations that only look out for their bottom line. We should not expect anything else from them. That is what they are good at, that is what they do and that is okay. However, we cannot privatize fish and fish habitat management to people who only care about making money.
Fish and their habitat are part of an ecosystem that supports all kinds of life, commercially viable or not, and the bill is not one to increase environmental and fish protection. It is designed to download and outsource it. It has no standards or criteria. It is filled with loopholes and contradictions and ways not to protect fish, the ocean and the environment.
All in all, if the bill were to pass, it will be a disaster for the fishery industry.
I end by reinforcing some of the comments that were made by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, in saying that the bill should not be passed. It is something on which we have heard from many members of society, and they are all opposed to it.