Debates of March 26th, 2018

Oceans Act

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the parliamentary secretary for fisheries and oceans, and formerly the parliamentary secretary for science, could help to bridge the investments that budget 2018 has in science, the $3.8 billion going into research, where scientists will be working on fisheries and oceans research around protected areas. How do those two areas fit together?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question and also for the great work he has done on his sub-caucus. I participated in many of the sessions and it has been a great way to drive innovation and scientific activity. I thank him very much for his good work there.

The last budget made sure that we had the investments and tools we needed to make sure that Canada can return as a scientific powerhouse. If we think about what makes an economy relatively more successful, there are two things in the history of developmental economics that really provide the kind of environment that allows us to compete relatively better than other nations.

The first is that we need to produce goods that other countries want. In the olden days that might have been fish, silver, or gold, but more and more today it is technology. That means we need to invest in science and education, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The second thing that we need to have a relatively more successful economy, to make sure that Canadians are better off and that our kids have better opportunities tomorrow than we have today, is a strong and empowered middle class. I think the member will agree that almost all the policies the government is pursuing are to ensure that we are strengthening that, so that every individual's children have more resources and more opportunities than their parents did before them.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I refer to the comments made by the parliamentary secretary about the areas that are now protected. A major portion of those areas that have recently been claimed as MPAs were actually considered as protected under other protective measures. They were there for fisheries closures to protect specific habitat. They were not specifically set out, identified, and all of a sudden appeared on the map as something from the current government.

There were directives, protections that were put in place by the previous Conservative government as part of our targets that we set for the 2017 and 2020 targets of 10% and 20%. Those were Conservative targets.

How much of that seven point something percentage that the parliamentary secretary referred to was actually already under some form of protection?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is correct in that the previous government was really good at setting targets. In fact it said that 10% should be protected by 2020, a commitment that our government is going to not only commit to but follow through on. Despite the target that the Conservatives set, in the first five years in which they pursued that target, they achieved protections of less than 1%.

The way that the minister and the government have pursued this, and we have been very open and transparent about it, was as part of the five-point plan that the minister put into place and talked about very early on in the mandate. We have followed that plan. We have consulted broadly. We have worked with industry. We have worked with stakeholders. We have worked with environmental groups. We have worked with indigenous peoples.

Due to all that good work, we are now having some success in actually meeting those targets.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a pleasure for me to rise and to consume about 30 minutes of this House's time on this issue.

I will couch my opening remarks by saying it was a privilege for me at one point in time in my life to earn a zoology degree in fisheries and aquatic sciences from the University of Alberta. I worked as a fisheries technician and on many fisheries experiments. I worked as a national park warden in Parks Canada enforcing the Fisheries Act, among other things, and of course as a conservation officer in the province of Alberta doing much the same, so I have a little working knowledge on this. I am proud to have folks like Dr. David Schindler as one of the professors I learned something from. If I told people when I was going to school, that would probably date both of us and I do not think that is a particularly constructive thing to do at this point in time.

Suffice it to say, I remained active. I was a fishing guide in the Northwest Territories while I was going to university. I spent a lot of time on Great Bear Lake, and of course on the north coast where the Coppermine River flows into the Arctic Ocean. I have maintained my love of the outdoors as an avid hunter and angler ever since. These kinds of issues are near and dear to my heart, especially when it comes to recreational fishing, or as it is more affectionately known, sport fishing.

These issues are very important. I will start by making some comparisons. When I was going to the University of Alberta years and years ago, there was a plan at that time by the World Wildlife Fund and the Canadian wilderness societies and so on that they wanted a 12, 75, 12 plan. They wanted to have 12% of all the land mass in Canada protected under the same kind of statutory protection a national park would have. That meant there would be no opportunities to do anything, no development and so on. There would be complete protection for that area. I do not want to call it conservation. I call it a preservation type of protection that they would have in these areas.

The other 75% of Canada would be considered areas that would be managed, like forest management areas. These would be areas where we would have human activity that would go on, but there would be zoning. Activities would be permitted, but they would be heavily regulated by the federal, provincial, or municipal government. Then about another 12% of our land mass at that particular point in time would be a complete disturbance areas. This would be areas for our cities, roads, major industrial developments, and so on.

I remember asking the question when I was in university if 12, 75, 12 was going to be enough. That adds up to 99, but members will get the point. As we have seen evolve through time, those numbers no longer hold true today with what certain groups are asking for. They are asking for more of that preservation land. They are asking for stricter regulations on the 75%. Of course, nobody wants to take responsibility for the 12% because that would mean we would have to tear down cities and do all those kinds of things in order to restore it back to its natural habitat, which is not a reasonable thing to ask people to do.

Who bears the burden then every time somebody asks for more protection? We have to take that protection out of that 12% or out of that 75% to add to the 12%. I am talking about the preserved areas. Who suffers the consequences of that? I am using this as an example on land to make my point later on about the protected areas and the marine areas. Who bears that price? It is everybody who lives in rural Canada. It is everybody who farms, everybody who relies on forestry, and everybody who is a fisherman, or a fisher person, or fisher peoplekind, depending on what the moniker of the day is.

The point is that everything we ask to happen in the natural environment generally happens outside the confines of city limits. This is not an aspersion on folks who live in cities, and I live in a city myself. However, having grown up on a farm, I understand every time somebody has to pay a price out in our so-called natural areas that price is borne by the people who live there or make their livings in these rural, remote, or non-city areas.

The same is going to actually hold true for those who earn a living in our marine areas. This would be our commercial fishermen. This would be anybody who does any tourism, anybody who does any type of business, and of course first nations people who earn a living off the coastal waters of our country. We have seen the absolute damage, the economic damage, that can be done to these communities when we do not get things right.

As we know, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is tasked with maintaining fish stocks. We know in Atlantic Canada, going back to the early 1990s, some of the issues that happened there when we applied a purely political decision over good science and technical information. I am referring specifically to the collapse of the cod fishery.

I was a fairly young man at the time. I was studying in university in the late 1980s and early 1990s at about the same time that the cod fishery was closed. I believe it was in 1993 when it was closed. It was closed because it was mismanaged. At that time there were over one million seals in the Atlantic Ocean. Today we have six million or seven million seals there. It was a big problem. The fishermen had to move to other resources, such as herring, lobsters, and other fisheries. They had to adapt to overcome the loss of the cod.

To this day we have had a moratorium. I want to talk about what it means. The moratorium on the cod fishery means that no one is allowed to do it, so the cod for all intents and purposes are preserved. The cod population stocks are under a preservation style of protection. Have the cod stocks actually come back? No, they have not. We have moved this from a managed fishery into a completely protected class and even that movement in and of itself has not had the desired effect or outcome that we wanted.

We have not stopped any of the other activity that happens off of the east coast. There are still ships coming in and out. I would argue we have lots of ships with foreign oil coming into the east coast. It would be nicer to have a pipeline going from Alberta to our friends in the east, but I digress. It is a much easier thing to manage than tankers full of oil coming in on the east coast. It would be interesting to see if we had a tanker ban on the east coast the same as we do on the west coast. It seems to be a bit of a double standard there, but I am getting off topic and I will come back to marine protected areas.

When we moved from a management mode of the cod stocks into a preservation mode, it did not solve the problem. I am not saying it was not the right decision, but it did not solve the problem because all of the other aspects of managing the cod fishery have now fallen by the wayside. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, rather than restoring the cod stocks or managing the cod stocks, and I am not saying they are not doing some of that work, but now it is more interested in working the fisheries currently before it.

Now the Liberal government has proposed moving to a massive increase of the marine protected areas in our coastal waters. I was lucky to be a member of the fisheries committee in previous Parliaments because of my experience. As a matter of fact, people used to laugh when they found out a farm boy from central Alberta was a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for all those years, until they found out I actually knew a little about fisheries, other than how bad a fisherman I am.

Notwithstanding that, I learned a ton over the years and I was very honoured to go with the standing committee on a trip up north. We went to places like Prince Rupert, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Paulatuk. We talked with the people who are going to be impacted by these marine protected areas there. The impacts and concerns are very real. People from local hunting and trapping associations up north came in droves to those meetings and made their voices heard. They are very concerned because they feel there has not been adequate consultation regarding some of the areas being proposed. There are very good questions about the risks of what is going to happen in the marine protected areas.

This is where we get to the conversation about what the international standard for a marine protected area is and how Canada is going to define a marine protected area. If we ask someone from the United Nations, that person would consider the marine protected area to be a no activity zone whatsoever. This is complete protection or what I referred to earlier as that preservation mentality. I am not saying it is right or wrong; I am just saying that is the mode most people would see when they hear about a marine protected area. They would see it as having the same protections that a national park would have.

Everyone knows that we cannot hunt in a national park. We cannot drill for anything in a national park. As a matter of fact, I have been an MP for 12 years and resort owners and so on in our national parks have not seen any changes over the last 12 years because it is so hard to get approval to get anything done in a national park. I am not saying it is right or wrong; it is just very difficult to do that because of the mandate Parks Canada has on its preservation, ecological integrity, and the other types of goals and ambitions that are laid out in the Canada National Parks Act.

Those same goals and ambitions are laid out in the legislative changes that are currently before the House with Bill C-55 and Bill C-68, which the government opposite just moved time allocation on, a bill that might be disastrous for the Alberta economy. It is just another straw on the camel's already broken back when it comes to the energy sector. However, I digress again and must return to Bill C-55.

With Bill C-55, the aboriginal groups, the Inuit, the people at the Prince Rupert Port Authority, the first nations groups, the Lax Kw'alaams and all the other groups we talked with out there are very concerned. PNCIMA was brought up. They are very concerned about the amount of foreign money that is coming in to influence policy decisions. The money coming in has been used by some aboriginal or indigenous groups out there to inadvertently stop what they thought was going to be an increase in the conversation. They realized they have sided with people who took money from a bunch of organizations that actually have a completely different mandate than what the first nations have. There is a court action happening right now where first nations groups in B.C. are raising funds to take the Government of Canada to court, citing all of the barriers it has put in place in the name of standing up for first nations, which will deprive them of economic opportunities going forward. This is something that is of very legitimate concern with Bill C-55 and the marine protected areas.

We have a tanker ban off the northern part of the west coast. Most people think that the entire west side of B.C. is coastal, but it is not. Just a little over a third of the west side of the province of British Columbia has access to the coast. The rest of it is in Alaska. We would have to go through Alaska in order to get some things done if we wanted to use the coastline in that case. We have a very small area to use along the British Columbia coast to begin with, and now a significant part of that coast is denied access, depending on what one is trying to ship or move.

I might be a bit cynical, but this is what the folks on the west coast and on the north coast who we met at committee are thinking. The folks up north want to be able to continue to hunt whales. One of the marine protected areas that the government is considering putting in place is right in the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the delta where it comes in. That happens to be an area of shallow water where the belugas come in. It is a safe place for the Inuit hunters to go. They go there every year to hunt belugas. If it becomes a marine protected area to protect the belugas, which seems to be a noble cause, it would exempt the Inuit from harvesting in that area. They would have to try and find those belugas somewhere else in order to maintain their traditional hunt. That is a problem for the first nations people there.

Are we going to create marine protected areas in Canada that do not actually meet the international standard of what is expected of us with respect to marine protected areas, or are we going to have a made-in-Canada solution, forgo our international obligations and then do our best? I am not sure what the government's intentions are with respect to that. It would be great to see. However, we seem to have a lot more questions than we do answers, and the legislation is not particularly clear on some of these questions.

I will go back to the port in Prince Rupert. We met with the port authorities there. They are already very much concerned. Most people in Canada do not know that most of the container goods that we see going through the western part of Canada on their way east—and a ton of containers that come to the west coast come in through Prince Rupert, which has a great container ability—go by rail through Canada all the way down to Chicago. This is supplying goods from the Asia-Pacific marketplace into central North America as a distribution hub. It is an amazing facility. It is a very small community. It is a great provider of jobs. There are great economic opportunities there.

There was a proposal for an LNG terminal in Prince Rupert. We know what happened with the LNG proposal. That seems to have gone by the wayside. Given the fact that there will be a tanker ban, there is no way anybody would even consider moving forward with an LNG terminal in that area.

If I were the kind of person who wanted to be bitter and vindictive about making sure that the tanker ban held its way for all time, I would consider putting a marine protected area across the Dixon Entrance and across the Hecate Strait. This would pretty much mean that particular area, depending on the provisions that were put in place for the marine protected area, could shut down shipping altogether in those areas, or at least really restrict what one is able to do.

This again brings me back to my point. What is a marine protected area supposed to do? Is it supposed to protect the water? Is it supposed to protect the species living in the water? Is it supposed to protect the benthic area directly below the water column along the sea floor? These are all questions to which we do not have answers.

If we look at the sunlit zone, which is the area where the human eye can see sunlight at the top of a water column, there is not a whole lot of activity there. There are some fish species, some algae, and some plankton. However, all of the stuff is very much moving as currents move in and out. Does it make any sense to try and protect a wave while it is a-wave? It does not make any sense at all. These things are going to move around the ocean. Are we protecting that area? Some would say yes. Some would say no.

Are we protecting a rearing area for whales or other types of migratory species that use the water? Are they going to be birds, fish, aquatic mammals, or terrestrial animals, where a certain part of their life cycle relies on the marine environment? Are we adequately taking into consideration where those protections should be best placed?

Are we taking a look at the littoral zone, and are we going to protect it? Are we going protect the benthic zone? Are we going to shut down commercial fishing, for example? Are we going to be shutting down dragging or trawling along the bottom of the sea for fish species? That is maybe a good thing, but maybe it is not. I happen to believe that, in certain cases, if it is done in the right place, protections on the bottom of the sea floor are great. They are great for the groundfish that live there, especially if it is an area rich in groundfish that usually stay in that area. An area of refugia actually creates species all around it.

I will go back to one of my jobs as a park warden, which was to patrol the north boundary of Jasper National Park on horseback. Why I ever gave that job up in the glorious Rocky Mountains riding horses, to this day I do not understand. However, my job was to protect the park boundary from poachers. Where did everyone go hunting for trophy rams or bighorn sheep? Well, they would go hunting where the rams were. The rams were in the national park, because they understood the refugia, and they would go back into the park any time they felt threatened. They knew where the boundary was. It was an interesting thing to watch. That area of refugia continued to populate the sheep populations as they migrated out, which is the same thing with other species.

This is not necessarily bad policy, but it is not an effective one-size-fits-all policy. It is going to work well for some species of groundfish, but it is not going to do anything for some species of fish that might migrate through or that do not use the area on a regular basis. We have to ask the question of whether the marine protected area is in the right spot.

I have a lot of questions about this proposed legislation and what the consequences of it might be. I have highlighted the fact that the cod fishery, taking the protectionist approach, has not exactly worked if we are not taking a serious look at management. When we put things into that category of preservation, it becomes very difficult to do any management, because we have to get double approvals for everything.

Imagine if Parks Canada said we need to shoot grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions in order to protect caribou. It is not unfathomable that this might be a desperation policy at some point down the road, as growth of the wolf, grizzly bear, and mountain lion populations continues to explode in the eastern slopes region of Alberta. These animals are everywhere, so much so that, in some cases, we cannot find any ungulates anymore. Rather than stopping economic activity such as oil and gas exploration or forestry, we are going to shut those industries down and not do anything at all about predator control.

I do not see some of my colleagues from Atlantic Canada who were here earlier, but I know that a lot of them, even though they might not say it in front of a microphone, hear the same things that I hear. I have been there many times with fisheries, and they are asking for control of the seal population in order to allow the cod stocks to come back. However, imagine a situation where we create a marine protected area around some of the islands where grey seals or harbour seals rear their pups. It comes down to the point that someday somewhere, someone will say we have to have the courage to manage these populations and do what is right.

Imagine trying to manage predator control in a protected area where the needs of the wildlife are put before the needs of everybody else, a fishery, or whatever the case might be. I have news for members. It is romantic to think we have the ability to have these protected areas and that they can operate in isolation from the rest of the world, but that is not the case. The bill before us could seriously limit the ability of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and other organizations to effectively manage wildlife populations and allow other economic activities to grow. Therefore, the bill should not be rushed through Parliament. It should be given every opportunity, which is why I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:

“Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, be not now read a third time but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for the purpose of reconsidering all of the clauses.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I see the hon. government House leader rising on a point of order.

Bill C-71—Notice of time allocation motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-71, an act to amend certain acts and regulations in relation to firearms.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

Oceans Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate the background knowledge the member brings to the table when addressing the legislation before us. In listening to a number of his Conservative colleagues and to a certain degree him, I get the sense that they do not recognize the benefit to society with respect to how and why it is so important that we bring in legislation of this nature.

Does the member not believe that there is a strong role for the government to play in terms of protecting our coastlines or protecting endangered species? Obviously Canadians want to see that happen but Conservative members appear not to, or they do in a different bizarre way. I am interested in the member's personal opinion on this.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are rightly concerned about the pace at which the current government is ramming legislation through the House. This is about the fourth time allocation motion that we have heard today and now it is going to ram through the gun registry bill without even one hour of debate in the House. We have received notice of time allocation on that bill as well.

Notwithstanding that, the hon. member has been here for a while, longer than I would like I will admit, but he was here during the last Parliament and Parliaments before where we created marine protected areas in the Great Lakes and in other parts of the country, and we took a slow, methodical approach that resulted in buy-in from everyone.

The Liberal government is the most ideological government I have ever seen. We just need to read the articles that Chantal Hébert, a well-known Conservative, has written about the ideology of the government. The Liberals rammed through the tanker ban, and it is going to get sued on that by first nation groups on the west coast. If they ram this legislation through, they will get sued on it too.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member brought up some issues around the concept of protecting no-take zones. These are called marine protected areas, so one would think they would be protected from something.

The member said maybe in some situations it might be worthwhile, for instance, to ban bottom trawling, one of the most destructive methods of harvesting animals from the ocean floor. Being in a marine protected area, should that not be the obvious first choice, and if we wanted exceptions, we would talk about them later? I am just wondering under what conditions would he think bottom trawling would be good in a marine protected area.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I talked about the fact that it is a good idea to protect some areas. I talked about the “12, 75, 12” plan. That was a policy that I lobbied for a long time ago. The context of my speech was in making sure we get the right areas protected, that we have halibut spawning areas protected, certain species of groundfish. Most of these fisheries that are on the bottom are not generally migratory. I am speaking in generalizations right now. These are species that stick around in the same general protected areas. I do not have a problem at all with protecting some of those areas. I have great concerns with the pace that the current government is going about doing this, not taking in the scientific or technical aspects.

There are parts of our oceans that we have not even mapped yet, and we are creating marine protected areas without fully understanding if we are putting them in the right place. My fear, given the government's agenda to shut down the energy sector, is that the marine protected areas are going to be put in places to stop shipping lanes and prevent a future government from some day opening them up. I know this to be true, because in the legislation for the cancellation of any energy projects, the Liberals would compensate those interests based on the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act. If that is not an admission that they are going to shut down the energy sector, I do not know what is.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's well-thought out comments, and his education background and practice.

On the environment committee, we heard from Inuit people from the north. I know the member has been to that area. Those witnesses said that what was being proposed to them was another form of colonization. They were opposed to this. They want to have the right to develop their own resources, both fishing and on the land. They are very opposed to this, and they believe this is another form of colonization. It is not reconciliation at all, but much worse. I wonder if you heard similar things being expressed in your trip to the north.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I am not sure if he is referring to your trip to the north, Mr. Speaker, but if he is referring to my trip to the north, this is exactly what we heard. I was there with some of the colleagues from our side of the House on the fisheries committee, and we heard exactly those concerns. The people who live in the north, particularly in the Arctic and High Arctic, live right along the coast. They live along the coast for a very good reason, as that is where almost all of their food comes from. It is where all of their activity is, and where they get their provisions for the upcoming winter season. They need to have access to seals. They need to have access to the pack ice in the winter. They need to have access to beluga whales, and the char fisheries and salmon fisheries and so on that are up there.

While we were up there in Paulatuk, in Tuktoyaktuk, and in Inuvik, we talked to the hunting and trapping associations, to the chiefs and the elders, and to all the stakeholders who were there. Virtually all of them in each of those communities had a vested interest in being able to continue on with their traditional way of life. The previous New Democrat MP asked me a question on wanting to protect these areas 100%. I wish them luck if they are going to slap a marine protected area right in the middle of some place where the Inuit are harvesting their beluga whales as a matter of tradition, because that is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, New Democrats have concerns about this legislation, certainly around the failure to set minimum protection standards and targets for zoning for marine protected areas. We have concerns about oil and gas exploration being conducted in these marine protected areas. In fact, that is supported by the World Wildlife Federation of Canada, as follows:

The government is planning to create a marine protected area...around the Laurentian Channel, where North Atlantic right whales are known to frequent. But proposed regulations will still allow oil and gas drilling and seismic blasts in 80 per cent of the MPA. These activities threaten whales and other wildlife. An oil spill would be even more devastating.

Does the member agree with the Liberals that oil and gas exploration should be permissible in a marine protected area and that we should be gutting environmental regulations in favour of industrial development?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not see how a single New Democrat could stand up in this House and accuse the current government of putting forward legislative changes that are in any way, shape, or form benefiting the oil and gas sector. I have been here and watching this economic disaster in progress for the better part of the last two and a half years, and I simply do not know where the hon. member is sourcing his questions.

What I do know is that the price of gasoline in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia right now is about 30¢ to 40¢ a litre higher than it is everywhere else. It would be a shame to shut off that pipeline from Alberta and watch the price of gasoline go to $2.50 a litre.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am listening to the discussion today, thinking there is a classic situation unfolding again. The NDP thinks the government is doing too much and the Conservatives think we are not doing enough.

I will go back to the discussion around the protection of the oceans. Would the hon. member agree that protecting the wildlife in the oceans will protect the upstream wildlife as well and that the entire ecosystem, where he used to fish in the Northwest Territories, will benefit from protecting the oceans that those rivers feed into?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that my colleague has asked me a forthright question out of concern. I do not disagree with the premise of his question at all.

The issue I have is with the rapid pace that the legislation is going to be put in place and the massive amount of power the Governor in Council is going to have now to make the regulations. My NDP colleague who asked me a question earlier was right in the fact that the legislation does not clearly define some of the things it should be clearly define. I will give my NDP colleague that.

However, the problem we have is this. The rapid pace at which we are going ahead with the legislation, the agenda of having almost 10% of marine protected areas protected by 2020 without even having a basic understanding of the science we need to ensure we actually protect the right areas, is going lead to political decisions and those political decisions will not be in the best interests of Canada. That is my concern.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to provide those who are watching, and members, with a number of points about what we do and do not support in the legislation. The bill would provide some new legal tools that would speed up the creation of marine protected areas, but it falls far short of Canada's international commitments to protect our marine biodiversity.

The bill fails to set minimum protection standards, and I will speak a little more about that, and targets for zoning for marine protected areas, which renders the designation inconsistent at best and meaningless at worst. It would give the minister far too much latitude to decide what activities would be permissible in an MPA. If oil and gas exploration can take place in an MPA, what is the point of the designation? Those are some of our concerns.

I want to talk about the NDP's proposed amendments at the Standing Committee for Fisheries and Oceans. We had five major themes. All were supported by witness testimony.

Our first theme was focused on establishing minimum protection standards. It makes sense that if we do not have a minimum basic standard with respect to protection, it gets very hard for either industry or for those concerned about protection, such as governments, nations, and first nations, to know exactly what is the definition criteria and how they meet a minimum basic level of protection. The government could focus a lot more on that.

The second theme was maintaining ecological integrity as the primary objective of an MPA, or marine protected area. That is critical and achieved through networks and other areas of protection, either federal designations, or at provincial or indigenous levels. All can play part in a constructive network of protection and protected areas. Maintaining that ecological integrity is critical for the whole concept behind an MPA.

The third theme was creating co-governance with indigenous peoples and establishing the authority of indigenous guardians. This is a critical element today of managing our resources, our oceans, our lands, and our watersheds. We just saw on the floor of the House of Commons an unprecedented ceremony recognizing those wrongs that were made prior to Confederation, but now being acknowledged by the government, and how our new relationship with first nations must be, which must include co-management. When we talk about marine protected areas, we must recognize a new way of managing and protecting our oceans.

The fourth theme was establishing no-take zones. This is a critical element to which the international community has drawn. I will speak more about that in a minute, about the importance of having some areas within the MPA. It does not have to be the entire area, but scientific evidence shows the more areas that are no-take or that have the highest level of protection flourish the best. There will be protection of sensitive ecosystems when no-take zones are established. Canada falls far behind when looking specifically at no-take zones.

Finally, the fifth theme was to facilitate the implementation of a network of MPAs, not just specifically looking at the protected areas off and on land. We look at parks, but on the water we call them marine protected areas. Like on land, we need to provide connectivity. Establishing networks of MPAs is a critical element.

Other elements touched on similar themes. I will highlight the ones we heard at the standing committee. Ecological integrity, network ability of MPAs, and the recognition of indigenous rights were passed at the committee stage. Our proposed amendments were stronger, and it was regretful that they were defeated.

Many witnesses at committee supported the bill, but they also supported our proposed amendments. On November 23 of last year, Linda Nowlan, staff counsel at West Coast Environmental Law testified:

The law is currently very inconsistent. As you've heard and will probably continue to hear, people are astonished to learn that oil and gas exploration, undersea mining, and damaging fishing activities are all possible in the tiny fraction of the sea that we call marine protected areas. That's why an unprecedented 70,000 Canadians, members of the public, spoke out about one of the proposed new MPAs, Laurentian Channel, and said that we need to keep harmful activities out of these areas.

On November 21, Bill Wareham, the science projects manager of the David Suzuki Foundation, testified about the need to strengthen the bill with respect to indigenous protected areas. He said:

I think the other area of the act that needs strengthening is the area of indigenous protected areas. Many indigenous peoples have a longstanding interest in conserving resources and protecting areas of their traditional territory, and there's an opportunity to enable the government to accommodate indigenous protected areas, which are determined, managed, and governed by indigenous people. This amendment would not only facilitate additional conservation of natural resources, but would take Canada further down the path of reconciliation with indigenous communities.

On November 9, Susanna Fuller, senior marine conservation coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre, testified the following:

It makes no sense not to prohibit open net-pen aquaculture, for example, in a protected area that includes an important river for wild Atlantic salmon. It makes no sense to allow seismic testing and oil and gas drilling in areas that are important for marine mammals, or that are closed to bottom fishing to protect deep-sea coral and sponges. Essentially, our Oceans Act MPAs are lacking in some key ground rules that, perhaps, could not have been foreseen when it was drafted 20 years ago.

Third, the current lack of standards in this Oceans Act, and more broadly the lack of standards across all of the tools used to protect the marine environment—National Marine Conservation Areas, Fisheries Act closures—means that there is confusion at the ground level, which is not necessary. Canadians expect that in our terrestrial protected areas industrial activities will not be permitted. In the marine environment—and I think you've received our brief already that we put together with several other NGOs from across Canada—we're strongly advocating that activities like bottom trawling, oil and gas exploration and development, open net-pen aquaculture, and seabed mining should simply not happen in our marine protected areas. This does not preclude other low-impact human uses, like fishing with low-impact gear, ecotourism, and marine transportation.

The scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that bottom trawling has significant damaging impacts to sea floor ecosystems, and that no-take fishing areas are a key component of effective MPAs. Research shows that MPAs that permit varying levels of fishing and other activities are less effective at achieving biodiversity than fully protected areas.

International best practices suggest MPA core no-take zones should encompass 75% of a given MPA. Canada is nowhere close to reaching that high bar. Remember, this is the international community looking at examples in countries around the world that say they have the most success when there is the establishment of large no-take zones within the MPAs. Again, it is a very small fraction of a country's economic zone in the ocean. We are talking about a small sliver of the ocean.

Right now, the minister has the discretion to determine what activities are allowed in an MPA and how restrictive each zone in an MPA can be. So far, Canada's fisheries minister has implemented a no-take zone in only five MPAs, and those areas are tiny when compared to the overall MPAs. Canada should follow international examples and make no-take zones the rule rather than the exception when it comes to MPAs.

We believe that reconciliation should be a part of all legislation. Additional designations are welcome tools, but it does not make sense to exclude explicit recognition of indigenous rights in the Oceans Act. Given the implications of MPAs for indigenous constitutional rights, it is irresponsible. The federal government's commitment to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and working in true nation-to-nation relationships with Canada's indigenous peoples, consistent with the Canadian Constitution, should be reflected in the Oceans Act.

Marine protected areas are an opportunity to forward the cause of reconciliation, but Bill C-55 fails to include specific provisions to accomplish this. There are already successful examples in Canada of co-management that the government could look to for inspiration. There is the co-management agreement between the Haida Nation on the west coast of Canada and the Government of Canada on the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, or Parks Canada's co-operative management model in the Arctic. Those are a couple of examples. Best practices should be the rule and not the exception.

There has been some discussion about going too far or not far enough. Let us remember, if we go back to 1992, when the international community came together, that Canada signed on to a commitment to protect 5%, and then 10% of our oceans. That was over 25 years ago. Therefore, when I hear the Conservatives say that this is going too fast, or that we are protecting too much, we have to look at the context and talk about how we are doing. It is only just recently that we have managed to surpass 5% protection, and many of those MPAs do not enjoy strong protection of things like no-take zones.

If we look from the perspective of where we are, many countries are much further ahead than Canada is. Given that they have done much more since 1992 to look at protection of their oceans, Canada has a long way to go. This is a move in the right direction. Consultation is critical. We need to get it right. I do not argue at all when it comes to taking the time to get it right, in terms of consulting, whether it is with territories, provinces, first nations, industry, or environmental organizations, those who are really concerned about our oceans and marine ecosystems, but at some point, we need to move forward with achieving the protection that is needed in order to provide a healthy, flourishing ocean.

The bottom line is that our oceans are in serious trouble. I remember reading a report back in 2012 from the United Nations top marine scientist, who pointed out that the major predators in our oceans are in steep decline. For instance, we are losing sharks at a phenomenal rate. Back then, I read that we are losing between 38 million and 70 million sharks a year.

The scientific knowledge has increased since 2012. Scientists are finding that up to 100 million sharks a year are being killed for their fins. Those predators play a key role in maintaining ecosystem balance. That is just one example of what is happening in our oceans.

When we look at marine ecosystem issues, we are swimming in oceans full of plastics. In some areas, it is microplastics. They are a huge problem. When we look at the issue of climate change, our oceans are changing rapidly. Ocean acidification is happening at an alarming rate.

These issues have to be dealt with. The world needs to come together. Canada needs to play its part. Protecting portions of the ocean in the exclusive economic zone is a way to do that. This is one tool in the toolbox. We need to do more. We need to move faster.

Again, I appreciate the comments about consultation, because it is critically important that all who have an interest in our oceans and ocean ecosystems are included in important decisions.

I hope the legislation moves forward. I hope the government listens to the amendments and the concerns. It hope it incorporates them to get this bill right, because that is what is needed. I hope that the Liberals listen to the NDP's thoughtful and optimistic comments about what we heard from many witnesses who testified, not just at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans but in general in writing to me over the years.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the government has been listening consistently on this issue, virtually since taking office, all the way up to committee stage. My understanding is that there were a number of amendments proposed, particularly from the leader of the Green Party, and incorporated into what we have here today.

I am wondering if my colleague could provide his thoughts on the four specific amendments brought in. Does he have anything to add specifically with respect to those amendments, recognizing that there is always room to grow in the future? This is not the last chapter of the book on such an important issue, because we have a very aggressive, progressive Atlantic caucus, in particular, and in the coastal region of British Columbia, on this file. All MPs of all political stripes are concerned about our oceans.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's question about the amendments. I mentioned in my speech that unfortunately, the amendments we put forward were not accepted at the standing committee. They were defeated, and the government has not incorporated the five I talked about.

I talked about establishing minimum protection standards, maintaining ecological integrity, creating co-governance with indigenous people, establishing no-take zones, and facilitating the implementation of networks and MPAs. Those were areas of concern we put forward. We heard from witnesses who testified that these are important areas. Unfortunately, the government did not listen on those elements.

I appreciate my hon. colleague's comments that they will look at this going forward. I hope they do. I know that the minister has committed to looking at minimum protection standards by establishing an advisory body to get input. I appreciate that and think it is important. However, we need to have that in the legislation.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam for his comments and his background on the fisheries file. It is an honour to work with him on the fisheries committee.

I want to use my knowledge and background in conservation and the member for Red Deer—Lacombe's background in conservation in parks. One of the things we have seen from our work on the ground is that there is a difference between conservation and preservation. With conservation, one uses the resource responsibly but receives a benefit from that use so that one has something to put back into the resource afterward. In the case of preservation, as in some of these marine protected areas being proposed, the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam is proposing no-take zones. That means one has to provide something from nothing or else take something from somewhere else to support what one is doing. To me that sounds like the difference between conservatism and socialism.

I would like the member to explain what he would be taking from to provide these fully no-take zones. Obviously, that cannot happen. How would it relate to the inability to do anything in overall predator or wildlife management within these no-take zones? We have seen the dangers of that. In Yellowstone National Park, the wolves and major predators were removed from that area but have since been re-established there. Without any controls, they are now wreaking havoc on the beef industry down there. How does the member propose that those types of issues would be dealt with in those no-take areas?

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap raises an important point. First, I want to respond with respect to the context.

I hope I made it clear in my speech that we are talking about a small percentage of the ocean in our economic exclusive zone on all three coasts in our country. It is only a small sliver of the economic zone we are referring to when we look at marine protected areas, MPAs, within those areas. When we look at the exclusive zone, we are talking about only 5% to 10%. We are talking about a tiny percentage of the exclusive zone. When I mentioned no-take zones, I was talking about a percentage of the MPA itself, so it is an even smaller part. This is with the idea that MPAs should play a role in helping to protect marine biodiversity and in helping it flourish. Over the last quarter of a century, we have seen the opposite happen. That is why we need to protect our oceans, our oceans economy, and the communities that rely on them.

I know that the member is talking about wise use and stewardship. I appreciate those. I think they are important areas. Conservation is critical. Preservation is also critical. I used the example of sharks. We are at a point where we are beyond wise use and stewardship. It is critical that we continue to do that. However, we have to look at preservation, or we are going to lose these amazing animals we rely on not only for our community and for their cultural importance but for our economy.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam for his excellent speech, and especially for the history of this whole process. Here we are, 25 years after our commitments were made, and we have done essentially nothing to reach those commitments. We are at 5%. Australia and the United States are at over 30%. I wanted to give him a bit more time to talk about the importance of the no-take zones he mentioned briefly and how they encourage biodiversity and the growth of populations. We also have endangered species, such as the North Atlantic right whale, which is heading rapidly toward extinction off our east coast, yet we are doing nothing, really, to stop that tragic consequence.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the hard work that my friend from South Okanagan—West Kootenay did before he even became a member of Parliament on, mostly, terrestrial biodiversity and his knowledge of biodiversity in general. I do appreciate his comments. He comes from an important and learned place when he talks about why it is important to have no-take zones within marine protected areas.

Traditional knowledge has shown that where there is human activity, where there is a lot of industrial human activity, it is very detrimental to the ecosystem. There are impacts in areas where we have fished, in areas where we have introduced oil and gas. The importance of having no-take zones to allow the marine ecosystem, those mammals, those fish species, those shellfish, to flourish, come back, and thrive is critical.

I am glad that my colleague asked me about the history I mentioned. I brought that up in my speech because it is so important to provide context. I referenced the last 25 years, a quarter century, but if we look back over the last 200 years all the trends are not good in terms of some of the major impacts from industrial use and the way we conduct ourselves in the marine area.

We obviously have to do things differently if we want these magnificent animals to survive and thrive. If we want our coastal communities and their ocean economies to survive and thrive, we need to do things differently. We need to look at providing protections. We need to look at networks of MPAs in protected areas.