Madam Speaker, I have to get back to where I was. I was on a roll too.
Instead of listening to experts, the Liberals thought they knew best. Bill C-68 proposed to restore the lost protections by returning to the previous definition of harmful alteration disruption and destruction of fish habitat, or HADD, as I mentioned in my earlier comments.
The act would also require the minister to take into account indigenous knowledge and expertise when provided, and all decisions would have to take into account the possible impacts on indigenous rights. The bill would allow for the establishment of an advisory panel and for members to be remunerated, and provides no guidance on or limitation to its use.
Bill C-68, under the part with respect to the prevention of the escape of fish, would prohibit the fishing of cetaceans with the intent to take them into captivity. This was captured under Bill S-203.
The Liberals believe that the bill will restore lost protections and incorporate modern safeguards. They think it will provide certainty for industry. They say it will provide strong and meaningful protection of fish and fish habitat. However, we know they are wrong.
When we introduced changes to the act in 2012, we did so because the former Fisheries Act was not working. The legislation was way past its best before date, a line, by the way, which the former fisheries minister used when he was describing the changes to it. The legislation was past its best before date and no one was happy with the way things were working. We acknowledged that so we made some changes.
Our common sense approach improved fisheries conservation, prioritized fish productivity, protected significant fisheries and reduced the regulatory burden on industry and communities. Again, it did not lessen any of the regulations. They were still there. They were still in place. I will go back to the Mining Association of Canada's comment that it actually increased some of the areas where under section 35 they could be found in contravention.
In 2012, the Conservative government undertook a rigorous review of and revisions to the Fisheries Act. This review was commenced for a number of reasons, and primarily that the broad scope of the definition of “fish habitat” included entire watersheds and extended the reach of the federal government into watersheds and land use planning, in which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans did not have expertise.
As a matter of fact, I believe a witness said that by the definition under the former Fisheries Act, a puddle in one's backyard could be deemed a fish habitat. Even a septic pipe that burst and led to a large pool of water in one's backyard could be deemed a fish habitat.
There was a lack of discretion for what was important fish habitat as it relates to fish productivity and what was less important. The House will not get any argument on this side that all fish are important. We must do whatever we can to ensure that we are growing fish for today and for the future.
We do incredible work on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans by putting our partisan stripes aside. All members of that committee are able to work together to try to find common ground.
I know that might be foreign to some people in this House. I know that some members who are not on that committee from the government side are laughing and heckling at me right now. However, I can say with all honesty that our colleagues from all sides of the House are committed to finding whatever solution we can, whether it is the northern cod study, the Atlantic salmon study, the aquatic invasive study that we just completed, or our steelhead study that we have done.
We did a study on abandoned and derelict vessels that was proposed by one of our NDP colleagues. In the last sitting, it was proposed by a Conservative colleague for us to review and revise, to look at how Canada deals with its derelict vessels. In the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, that authority was not happening. Many times, communities, and in some instances individual Canadians, were left to try to deal with rusting and derelict vessels that were left in their waterways.
We do great work, and we all are focused on one thing: the protection of our coastal communities. It is not just our coastal communities, but those families who depend on our fisheries for their livelihoods and for sustenance. We are committed to trying to find a way, working through our committee, to having a full understanding of how certain pieces of legislation come through and how the government continues with its mandate.
All members, if they were polled, would say it is absolutely shameful when we have bureaucrats and officials come before us and they promise to be better. At one of my very first meetings, I walked into the committee like a bull in a china shop. It had a bit of a reputation as one of those committees that spun its wheels and never got anything done. That is what I heard, but little did I know. I met my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa and learned of the great work he had done previously and the history that he has. I met some of my Liberal colleagues and heard from them first-hand about what goes on in their communities, and some of the concerns coming from the Rock or the east coast and from Vancouver.
I take offence on this, and some of my colleagues from the Rock know where I am going with this one. When the surf clam issue took place, the seven MPs from the Rock for the most part were silent. I am looking at my friend across the way and I know he was not. However, for the most part, the members from the Rock were silent during the whole surf clam issue. The issue was that the former fisheries minister awarded a lucrative surf clam quota to a sitting Liberal MP's brother, a former Liberal colleague. As well, we found out down the way, it was a company that was being led by the former minister's wife's first cousin. We managed to get a stop to that.
I bring that up to point out that we do great work in these committees. They are supposed to be at arm's length and masters of their own destiny in terms of the work that they do. However, on Bill C-68 on the Fisheries Act, we saw a letter that came from the minister, not asking but ordering the committee to immediately undertake a study on the changes to the Fisheries Act.
Going back to my speech, as I mentioned, there was a lack of discretion in terms of important fish habitat as it relates to fish productivity and what is less important. I got off track, but I want to reiterate that all fish are important. The inconsistencies led to difficulties in assessing an appropriate level of regulatory effort that was proportional to actual importance.
I met with front-line officers, who said that previously the act was harder to enforce. It was challenging. They needed to have some consistency. The Conservative changes made it, not easier for the proponent to get away with what they were doing, but it did make it easier because it was black and white as to what was wrong and what was right. It made it easier for the front-line officers to enforce the Fisheries Act.
Further, the lack of knowledge regarding fish populations allowed for all water bodies to be considered as fish habitat until proven otherwise, and as I mentioned, even puddles. One of the witnesses said that technically, under the former definition, a puddle could have been considered a fish habitat.
Before we introduced changes, all fish and consequently all fish habitat, regardless of economic or social value, received protection under the Fisheries Act. This created a system that was impossible to manage and impediments for most minor work. Farmers looking to improve their land or deal with flooding or other issues, or municipalities looking to install a drain, had to go through a bureaucratic process that made doing one's taxes look easy.
To top it off, there were the inconsistencies between departments. Depending on which DFO office someone went to, it could make someone want to give up on the whole process entirely.
With the restoration of “harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat”, HADD provisions, the government is putting it back in place. It means that Canadians will once again need to deal with a set of unenforceable guidelines that will hinder the development and truly do nothing to increase fish stocks or protect valuable habitat.
We heard numerous members, over the course of our previous discussions on Bill C-68, as well as this one, talk about the restoration of lost protections. Again, they used terms such as “gutted”. To me, that is fairly offensive. I think all members of Parliament in this House sign up to do the best that we can, given the portfolios and the files we have. Some of the language that we get from across the way is quite offensive.
It is interesting. Liberals are always the ones who stand up and say that Conservatives are the most divisive bunch. They are fearmongering and they are pitting Canadians against Canadians. Do not even get me started on Liberals using reconciliation on things such as the surf clam project. Liberals stood in the House and said that it was all under the guise of reconciliation, when we knew it pitted first nation against first nation and non-first nation against first nation.
I will go back to this issue as well. The government was trying to deal with the southern mountain caribou issue that we have in British Columbia, and some of the consultations, or lack of consultation, that the Liberals have done. They basically mandated the provincial government to immediately do something, or the Liberal government was going to do a section 80, I believe it is, under the Species at Risk Act. That essentially sent fear throughout our whole province. I urge Canadians, if they get a chance, to Google the southern mountain caribou issue in the province of British Columbia. If Canadians want to see a bungled PR mess, that is it right there. The Liberals have now walked back on it.
However, this all goes back to what we were saying, that the Liberals were not listening to local stakeholders who are on the ground. Liberals believe that they know best and so this is what they are going to do. Again, I will go back to this. If we looked at the letters and requests to the minister to take action, they all came from groups that receive money from foreign-funded groups.
There is no one here who would want to see a species die off. I stood and very clearly stated my message during this whole process that the promise and trust have been broken. At one point, our federal representatives did not want to chime in, although they were the ones who were directing it. They wanted the provincial government to be front and centre, taking all the heat at all the town hall meetings.
Trust has been broken by the Liberal government time and time again. It uses terms like “reconciliation”. Just last week, a member of a first nation called me and said that “reconciliation” is not a buzzword. Unfortunately, the government and the Prime Minister have used it time and time again, and it is shameful. They do things like the surf clam and the southern mountain caribou, and do it under guise of reconciliation. If they want to do something under the guise of reconciliation, how about ending all of the boil water advisories or the suicide epidemic in first nations communities from coast to coast to coast?
Last week, the missing and murdered indigenous women's commission came out with some recommendations. The government knew that this report was coming, but did it budget anything to act on any of the findings? There was nothing.
When we talk about Bill C-68, we are talking about trust. Time and again, the government has broken the trust of Canadians. It promised to have only small deficits and that it would balance the budget by 2019. We are in 2019. Liberals always like to blame those who came before them. It is quite shameful. They have been in government now for four years. It is about time that they take some leadership and ownership of the problems they have created themselves.
We have heard a number of members opposite talk about the restoration of lost protections. We know from the recounting of testimony from witness after witness that there were no lost protections from the previous government's changes.
The former minister of fisheries and oceans said, “Canada is uniquely blessed with an abundance of freshwater and marine coastal areas that are both ecologically significant and linked to the economic prosperity of Canadians.” I could not agree more on this. Canada has the longest coastline in the world. What I do not agree with is the assertion that protections were lost.
The Liberal changes to the Fisheries Act would lengthen the regulatory process, provide unclear and weaker rules to establish and manage ecologically significant areas, and simply put, return us to a destabilization that will prove to be cumbersome and unmanageable. The former minister noted that he wanted to re-establish public confidence, and yet the amendments he proposed to the bill would do nothing. The bill we got back from the Senate had some good amendments that strengthened the bill to a certain extent, and yet the Liberals gutted them again.
Bill C-68 would make it harder for proponents wishing to develop property and will weaken transparency through the creation of more bureaucratic red tape. Farmers looking to improve their land, and municipalities looking to install drains, are going to be faced with a lengthy bureaucratic process that is going to make it harder to respond to critical incidents. There have been flooding incidents in our communities. In 2017, there were massive wildfires, as everyone knows, and it would make it harder and harder for farmers to recover from natural disasters.
The minister hoped his bill would help to protect middle-class jobs in coastal communities. He actually said that. However, just after introducing the bill, the surf clam process took place. I have spent a lot of time in Grand Bank and several coastal communities meeting with fishing organizations and indigenous communities from all across our country, and they are fed up. They are fed up with the government's virtue signalling and while doing whatever it can to make it harder for them to prosper.
A chief of a first nation called me last week. He told me, “I just want the government to get out of the way so that I can lead my community to prosperity. I want the government to get out of the way. When I need their help, I want them to be able to act and act quickly, but I need them to get out of the way, because if there are poverty or social issues in my community, that is on me.” He said, “I am a forward-leaning leader within my community and I want to lead my community to prosperity.”
Unfortunately, the government's pandering to third party groups is making it harder. He said, “I for one, and our community for one, are tired of being the poster child for some of these third party groups.” Some of them I named earlier in this speech.
That brings me back to Edgar, a good friend I met during the surf clam project. I remember his words. He said that the minister's decision to arbitrarily take that surf clam quota away shook his life, shook his foundation, shook his community, the Grand Bank community. It is a community that has had a fishing history for over 400 years. I remember the mayor telling me that the scars of the industry run right straight through the middle of this community.
That is an example of how the government has lost the trust of Canadians. I bring this up because Bill C-68 is another example, and Canadians are weary. They are distrustful that in the eleventh hour of the final session for this government, it is bringing this measure forward, just as we saw with other pieces of legislation.
We are sitting to midnight now. Why are we sitting to midnight? The government House leader says we are sitting to midnight now. Canadians expect us to work. I do not have a problem sitting to midnight, but why are we sitting to midnight? It is because of the Liberals' failure to make progress with legislation. There has been no real priority.
Let us speak about priorities. Two weeks ago we heard from the government's independent leader in the Senate as to why softwood was not negotiated in the new NAFTA, but was there a priority? Today a Liberal member from the Lower Mainland in Vancouver stood up and touted his government's great record on job creation and low unemployment numbers in our province, all while layoff notices and job losses are mounting. That is shameful.
Just last night Canfor, the largest employer in my province and Canada's largest forestry producer, announced sweeping job curtailments throughout the province of British Columbia. Hundreds if not thousands of Canadians are out of work, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard is clapping. That is shameful. I urge the parliamentary secretary to come to my riding. A tone-deaf, muted response was all I got last week to my comments about softwood not being a priority.
There was another response from the Liberals last week in response to my comments about softwood not being a priority. It was that Canadians should be reassured because the job numbers are up and the Liberals stand with the forestry workers. When are they standing with them? Are they standing with them when they are looking for work? Are they standing with them when they are worried about how they are going to make ends meet because they lost their livelihoods? Are they standing with them when they have to go to the bank because the bank is foreclosing on their house?
That is shameful. That goes to—