Mr. Speaker, I move that the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans presented on Wednesday, November 18 be concurred in.
I will be splitting my time this afternoon with the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.
I wish to raise on the floor of the House of Commons the serious issue of the revised NAFO convention and the effect on Canadian sovereignty on the capacity of Canada to manage fish stocks not only domestically, but on the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks as well as the Flemish Cap. These are very serious issues that are conjured by the revised NAFO convention. Quite frankly, we have had quite a discussion outside of the House on this issue.
The government tabled the revised NAFO convention on June 12 as a sessional paper, invoking its new procedure for parliamentary consideration of international treaties and conventions. On several occasions, post that tabling, my opposition House leader attempted to bring forward debate in the House on this important treaty, however, was met with no success, even with actual interference from the government itself.
However, we were able to circumvent the government's intent not to allow debate on this issue to occur by bringing the matter to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to have the matter debated. There we heard expert witness testimony from people such as former deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and former director generals of international policy, all of whom told our committee that this revised NAFO convention was not in the Canadian interest. It is a direct affront to Canadian sovereignty and will provide significant negative impact on the capacity to properly manage fish stocks with the point of view of conservation in mind.
Canadians call on their government to ensure that Canadian sovereignty is protected and secured. They call on Canada to use all legal instruments, those that were provided such as in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to take advantage of any and all new opportunities for increasing Canadian sovereignty over our current coastal limits.
A point in case is this. One such expectation that is top of mind with Canadians is the issue of Canadian Arctic sovereignty in the Northwest Passage. We expect the extension of Canadian jurisdiction to beyond our current recognized international limits to include a huge area of sea and subsurface area of the Arctic stretching toward the North Pole.
We also expect our government to entrench exclusive Canadian sovereignty over the area of the fabled Northwest Passage, the body of water inside the Canadian 200 mile exclusive economic zone that meanders through an Arctic Archipelago of islands, all claimed by Canada.
Let me put in perspective what the revised NAFO convention will do. It is the equivalent of our Conservative Canadian government standing in the House and saying to the people of Canada that it is no longer asserting a greater jurisdictional control over the waters extending toward the North Pole beyond our 200 miles, that Canada is now abandoning our policy of Arctic sovereignty.
Regarding the Northwest Passage, it is also the equivalent of Canada saying that it no longer views this as an exclusive Canadian jurisdiction, that it is actually now providing a right for the circumpolar Arctic council to come forward with a proposal that we will jointly manage the Canadian Northwest Passage. That resonates with Canadians as being wrong. It should resonate with the government as being wrong.
The problem is that exact same model is being applied to the waters of eastern Canada from Baffin Island right to the southern tips of Nova Scotia, our entire exclusive economic zone on the east coast, an area of equivalent size.
The particular offensive passages within the revised NAFO convention include the following. The inclusion in the rights of NAFO, an international management body, a legal tool for NAFO to enter and manage inside Canada's exclusive economic zone, our 200 mile limit. That right does not currently exist under the NAFO convention. If NAFO tried to do such a measure at this point in time under current circumstances, it would be barred from doing so under the NAFO convention itself. Under the revised convention, article VI, paragraph 10, that legal opportunity, that tool, would actually exist at the request of the Conservatives.
The measures of the revised NAFO convention also include a continuation of the objection procedure that would allow contracting parties to fish unilaterally set quotas throughout the entire fishing season. Fishing industry stakeholders understand extremely well the consequences of the current objection procedure.
After NAFO makes a decision, any contracting party, any member of the 13 members of NAFO can simply say that it does not accept the decision and that it is filing an objection. That party can begin immediately to fish unilaterally at its own set quotas, well above the conservation limits.
In this revised NAFO convention, the objection procedure is not done away with. In fact, it is legalized and institutionalized. The objection procedure still exists. The contracting parties can still file an objection and still continue to fish unilaterally at their own pre-set quotas. The only difference is that three years down the road, after the fishing season is over and the consequence of the decision is already exhausted and expired and the fish are now gone, a legally binding tribunal under the International Court of Justice or some similar international legal mechanism can present a binding ruling.
The problem with that is very clear and obvious. The consequences of the decision take less than 12 months to extract. However, the process of resolving the objection proceedings, under this guiding set of rules under NAFO, takes three and a half years to complete. That is what makes the objection procedure a non-answer to the current problems of the NAFO convention. They tout it as being the answer or solution. It is definitely not.
There is also a change in voting structure within NAFO from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority requirement. That has a huge impact on conservation. Some stakeholders have pointed out that, in their opinion, it does provide increased protection to Canadian shares as shares increase in stocks that are rebuilding, that Canada gets to assert its traditional share structure by moving to the two-thirds majority.
The problem is obvious to anyone and everyone who understands the past track record of NAFO. The problem arises when stocks begin to decrease through overfishing. The problem is that certain NAFO members, distant water fishing nations that have no true coastal state incentive adjacent to the waters themselves to actually embark on and enact conservation measures, are the very ones that simply say that they will not subscribe to any reduction in quotas.
That is the past track record of NAFO. It will be entrenched as the rule of thumb of NAFO, the guiding principle of NAFO under a two-thirds majority rule. It will be tougher for NAFO contracting parties, our supposed partners in conservation, to arrive at a binding consensus to lower quotas when they are needed most.
In fact, recently the government has touted a new revised and strengthened NAFO and a new understanding and culture within NAFO. Just a few short days ago, the government brought forward to NAFO a request to suspend fishing of shrimp on the Flemish Cap. The NAFO Scientific Council itself recommended such a measure. What did NAFO do? The European Union and all of the other contracting parties said, “No, thanks. We are more interested in taking fish until the last fish is gone”.
That is not good enough in this current environment. An ethos of environment and conservation has to persevere.
The government has wasted a tremendous opportunity. Canada could have re-bolstered itself, reinvigorated its capacity as the coastal state to protect our fish stocks and those offshore. It failed to do so.
Imagine Canadians' contempt for a decision of the government to say that it is no longer acting to extend Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, that it is no longer acting to enforce exclusive jurisdiction over the Northwest Passage, that it is going to allow foreigners to totally control the Arctic and that it is going to allow joint management of the Northwest Passage. That would meet with outrage from Canadians. That is what Canadians have to know. That is exactly what it has done on the east coast of Canada for an area just as great and just as significant.