Loyola Hearn

[Finance, October 31st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, federal health care funds in the provinces have dropped from 50% of the total cost to as little as 14% in some cases. Veteran's widows have been told only some of them will get pensions.

How can the Prime Minister brag about a balanced budget when it is balanced on the back of the sick and the elderly?

[Fisheries, October 30th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. Let me first pay tribute to the people who work in the Coast Guard. Let me pay tribute to the people who work at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at the local level, to the people who work in St. John's, to the people who try to do the best they can with the resources they have.

However, it is in the resources where we find the problem. Are we properly surveilling? Do we have an enforcement mechanism to look after blatant abuses in those areas? The answer is no.

In the fisheries committee we are now doing a study on the Coast Guard. For a lot of last year our Coast Guard boats were tied up simply because they could not afford fuel. We have copies of directives telling Coast Guard forces to reduce speeds to reduce fuel and to only go to sea when they have to. That is not the way to protect a coast and to prevent people from overfishing.

We need more money. We need more resources given to the people who are only too willing to do the job. The people on the ground, as we say, or in this case on the sea, have no problems doing the job. They do a tremendous job.

I mentioned aerial surveillance. We have the best aerial surveillance anywhere in the world. A Newfoundland company, Provincial Airlines, does a tremendous job under charter to the department, but their base of coverage is limited. If we could expand that, we would know a lot more about what is going on out there and we would prevent a tremendous amount of overfishing and abuse.

To answer the member's question, what we need is more resources, properly focused, but what we need most of all is some leadership from government and that is something we have not seen.

[Fisheries, October 30th, 2003]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take immediate action to extend custodial management over the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and of the Flemish Cap.

Madam Speaker, it is both an honour and a privilege to debate this extremely important motion, especially for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

However, it goes well beyond that because the precedent set here is to encourage the government to protect the fishing resources around our shores, whether it be the east coast, the west coast or the north. It also encourages the government to get the best out of our natural resources, to protect and ensure that we maximize the benefits from our natural resources.

First, I would like to explain what is meant by the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, and the Flemish Cap. Like many countries around the world, Canada has a 200 mile limit. Our continental shelf however, in two areas off the coast of Newfoundland, extends beyond the 200 mile limit; two peaks jut out outside the 200 mile economic zone. These two peaks are referred to as the nose and tail of the Grand Banks because they are part of that historic fishing ground known as the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

The two sections are in questionable international waters. That means Canada does not have jurisdiction over everything that goes on there and I will explain that as well.

The Flemish Cap is to some extent an underwater island. It is a shelf further from the 200 mile limit, but one that is off and part of Canada's continental shelf.

In reality, we have three pieces of real estate which Canada says it cannot do anything about what goes on there. We have nations from all around the world blatantly abusing the resources that swim over these three pieces of real estate.

I say swim over because the law states that anything that is on, attached to, or under this piece of land is controlled by Canada because it is part of our continental shelf. We have control over any drilling rights and we also have control over any sedentary species. Sedentary species are shellfish that move very little. They are not physically attached to the ground and they do not move very far.

While Canada has control over the actual land, what is on it, or semi-attached to it or under it, it does not control what swims over it. That gives other countries the right to come in and catch the fish that swim over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap.

We might ask however, if we control the land, why do we let others come through our territory and drag their heavy doors, which the draggers use, across our ground if we are responsible for the actual ground?

That is an interesting case and no one wants to push it because of all kinds of implications. In reality, the actual land is within our control. If so, undoubtedly, we are responsible for any environmental damage done to it.

Why I throw that out is because we are going to hear from the government that we cannot extend custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap because it is in international waters. The resources that swim over these three pieces of land are allocated to different countries, some of which have lengthy historic rights and all of which have agreements within NAFO.

The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization allocates quotas to some 19 countries, including Canada. One might ask, if that is the case, what is the problem? The problem is that many of these countries do not adhere to the quotas given.

Canada has no problem with other countries fishing outside the 200 mile limit within the NAFO-regulated zone, because they have been fishing there as long as we have. When John Cabot discovered Newfoundland in 1497, he went back home and talked about all the fish he found. Ever since that date, we have had European fishers and others come and fish our waters, particularly the Spanish, the Portuguese, the English and so on.

As I say, many of them have fished it for as long as the people who settled here on this side of the Atlantic have fished it. That is not the problem if they live within the allocations. However, some of the nations do not. Some of the nations blatantly abuse the resource.

There is no one to control this. Even though NAFO sets regulatory quotas, it has no way of dealing with somebody who just says, “I do not agree”. In fact, there is a veto clause or an objection procedure. If they say they do not agree with the fish allotment given to them and they are going to catch x number of tonnes beyond that amount, everyone is powerless to do anything about that.

Many countries just go out and catch whatever they can catch without getting caught. Even if they get caught, it is seldom, because Canada has very poor surveillance mechanisms, except for our aerial surveillance, which is top notch. On the ocean, however, we have very little clout to deal with the perpetrators. Occasionally we catch an offending vessel. One, the Olga , was caught in St. John's a year and a half or so ago with all kinds of cod aboard, a species under moratorium. What happens in a case like that?

Let me give another example of a Portuguese vessel that got a citation quite some time ago. We found out that they had 100 tonnes of species under moratorium stacked in packages 10 deep, all marked incorrectly so as to deceive anybody who boarded the vessel. Luckily we have some very good fisheries officials. When they get the opportunity and when they get the resources to do their work, we have people who know what to do and how to do it, above and beyond the call of duty.

However, these boats that are caught offending and overfishing cannot be dealt with by Canada. They cannot be dealt with by NAFO because NAFO has no enforcement mechanisms whatsoever, and therein lies a major problem. They have to be sent back to their own countries to be dealt with. We know what happens there, do we not? I ask the question. Maybe members know, but I do not and the minister does not, because we have made some freedom of information requests asking what has happened to certain vessels and the answer was that they had no record of what happened. We just send the boats home and we do not know what happens after that. Of course in no time after that they are back fishing again, doing whatever they want to do.

How can we control it? Other countries besides Canada have concerns. They have concerns about the lack of science. They have concerns about the environmental conditions. They have concerns about what is happening to the biomass generally. They have concerns about overfishing. They have concerns about blatant abuses of rules and regulations. Countries like Norway and Iceland, particularly Norway, and even England and Scotland, have told us that they are extremely concerned about what is happening out in the ocean. They see what is happening. They know little about it, but what they do know is that some controls should be put in place to avoid abuses.

Why is something not being done? Because nobody has taken any leadership whatsoever. What has our Minister of Fisheries and Oceans done? What has the department done? We checked to find out how much correspondence there was between DFO and the minister and NAFO about overfishing. Do members know how much there was? None. There was absolutely none. That is inconceivable. No one in authority is paying any attention to a major renewable resource that created jobs for thousands and thousands of Atlantic Canadians. It is being destroyed.

A short while ago, a group of individuals in my home area did an analysis of how much benefit our province would receive if we could catch the same amount of fish we caught in 1973. Today the whole fishery in Newfoundland is worth somewhere around a billion dollars. Most of that is because of the crab and shrimp we catch in our waters inside the 200 mile limit.

If we could catch the same amount of groundfish, if we forget crab and shrimp, which are extremely lucrative, if we could catch only the groundfish, the flounder and cod, et cetera, that we caught in 1973, our industry would be worth over $3 billion to Newfoundland alone. That is what a renewable resource can do if protected.

Can we do anything? Yes, we can. What is the first thing we should do? We should show leadership. Are we seeing any? No, none, except from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. The committee has raised the issue with the support of everyone on the committee from all parties in the House.

We have not had any problem whatsoever in getting support from every party in the opposition on this issue, because it is similar to the collapse of the beef industry in Alberta. The people involved in farming realize what devastation can be caused when an industry collapses. They more fully understand what happened in Newfoundland and Labrador when the fishing industry collapsed. We are all alike. It gives us a better chance to understand each other across the country, and we know that if we are going to do something about such disasters we have to support each other.

Here is a great chance for the House and for our country to start doing something to protect our resource. If nobody else is interested in protecting these resources, let Canada step forward. Little Iceland, some years ago, was seeing its resources raped by foreign boats from other countries, particularly Spain and Portugal, which are still the big culprits today, and of course England. England in particular was fishing extensively off the coast of Iceland. Iceland told them to get out of their waters. They refused. What did Iceland do? Iceland sent out its gunboats. Little Iceland took on the rest of Europe and won.

What has Canada done? Canada is the major player, the major owner of this resource, the supposed custodian of this resource. We have done nothing.

In fact, the minister has no power to do anything. If he gets involved in international issues, he has to go to the foreign affairs and international trade department. In our experience, their response is, “Shh, be quiet, you might interrupt our international trading agreements”. Maybe we would have problems with our wine going to France and French wine coming here. We might not get the South Koreans to come and build car factories. We might not be able to sell our wheat to Russia.

We are supposed to look after our own people. We have not been doing it. It is about time we started doing it. Somebody has to show leadership. The committee has done everything it could. It has gone to the European countries. It has written to all the countries in NAFO, in their own languages, expressing concern. It has received support from countries such as Norway and Iceland in what it is trying to do, that is, to draw attention to overfishing.

The real leadership, however, has to come from government. And government has been a complete and utter wimp when it comes to looking after the fisheries, not only on the Atlantic coast but all over the country, and particularly this stock of northern cod, which was the greatest mass of fish anywhere in the world. The northern cod was the greatest resource we had in the country. We have let it be destroyed by foreigners simply because we do not have the guts to take them on.

I ask for support in the House for this motion, but I particularly ask government to support this so we can move forward in this direction. Undoubtedly we will get support from other countries when they know we are protecting the resource, not only for us but for them also, because they share in that resource. It can be an all-inclusive solution if government just takes custodial management of this area.

[Agriculture, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister brags about six balanced budgets. Let me say they were balanced because of free trade and GST, two good Tory initiatives, and his own horrendous program of social cuts.

The Minister of Agriculture said in September, “We are pleased that APF programs are now available to industry”. Regrettably almost two months later, not a single cent has flowed. When will the Minister of Agriculture start delivering the beef?

[The Economy, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, last year Canada was ninth, this year sixteenth. It has nothing to do with SARS or BSE. It is because the World Economic Forum has for the first time included government waste and mismanagement in its calculations.

The government is reckless and wasteful and the numbers speak for themselves. How does the Prime Minister defend his stewardship of Canada's economy when the world economic community has pronounced his stewardship an outright failure?

[The Economy, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, according to the World Economic Forum, Canada has dropped off the world's top ten in growth competitiveness, with countries like Singapore, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands all surpassing us. In 1994, Canada was ranked third. In 2000, Canada was ranked sixth. Today Canada is ranked sixteenth.

How can the Prime Minister explain this dramatic drop? And why should we expect anything better from his replacement, the man who presided over the decline as finance minister during the past 10 years?

[Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, October 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the House will be voting on Bill S-7, which stands in the name of the hon. member for South Shore.

Yesterday the hon. member was called back to his constituency because of the death of a close friend. The hon. member asked me to inform the House that he regrets his unavoidable absence. He asks that the House support the bill.

[Ethics, October 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the government in the Senate said yesterday that one must carefully separate when one does something with a friend from when one does something for so-called other reasons.

We know now that Paul Zed has invited the Minister of Industry, the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, now the Minister of Human Resources Development to the Irving fishing lodge for vacations.

Could the Prime Minister tell us what criteria he advises his ministers to use to separate public business from private business, and will he table that criteria today?

[Ethics, October 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, licence or no licence, our fishing trip yesterday was successful. Divine revelation struck the HRDC minister last night and she remembered that she too had been at chateau Irving with Paul Zed.

How can the minister explain her poor memory and how can she explain misleading the House yesterday?

[Ethics, October 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that my friend the House leader looks forlorn and left out, I want to return to the only minister who refused to answer the question today, the Minister of Natural Resources.

Seeing that he has not filed with the ethics commissioner since May 1998, would he tell the House whether he has received any undeclared gifts over $200?