Loyola Hearn

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member talked about those who fish for need and those who fish for greed.

When I was growing up, a fisherman was somebody who went out in the boat, caught fish, sold the fish and gained maximum profit, such as it was in those days, 2¢ a pound perhaps. The fisherman got the maximum benefit from catching the resource.

Today every fisherman has to be licensed. Every person with a licence is certainly not a fisherman. Therein lies the major problem. The process has been so manipulated that large corporations, people with money, are buying up licences. They have other people front for them in the boat who obtain the minuscule part of the share. They are really destroying the whole process.

The beneficiaries of catching a resource should be the primary people who are involved, the fishermen themselves. The profits should not be spent in Florida.

Is that situation the same in his area? What does the member think about it? What can we do to change it?

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, that is a serious question. Again that is right. If government had only listened to, and I will not say the committee because what the committee was bringing to government was the same as what our own committee brought to government, the views of the people as presented to them in the various hearings. Nobody knows how to solve the problems better than those faced with the problems every day.

Unfortunately with some of the committees in the past, reports were put together, submitted even unanimously and then people voted against them in the House. That has not been the case with our present committee. It does not matter to which party members belong, we have stood by and supported the recommendations strongly and hoped the government would listen.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, the member is so right. What Newfoundland and Canada have asked for is just to manage the quotas that are allocated by NAFO so that the other nations that have had rights out there almost as long as we have can continue to fish as long as they obey the rules. In fact, we could benefit from more off-loading and whatever, as long as they obeyed the rules.

The member is right. They were always the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. When we came into Confederation we brought them with us, but Canada changed it and referred to them as the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. It says “o-f-f”, with that extra “f”, but it is not. It is the Grand Banks of Newfoundland without the extra “f”. They are our banks, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Madam Chairman, I wish I had a couple of hours for this one. The member well knows how near and dear the custodial management and the extension of our boundaries are to me and to the other members of the committee.

If NAFO does not have the teeth to enforce regulations outside the 200 mile limit on the nose and tail and the Flemish Cap, somebody has to do it. Canada is the adjacent state.

A good question to throw out is, why has Russia been able to apply to the United Nations to extend its limit to take in almost half the Atlantic Ocean? There are at least 30 other countries that have bought the specific software for putting in such a request and they are just waiting to see if Russia is successful in getting its boundaries extended. Our government has not taken any kind of action.

Also outside the 200 mile limit on the nose and tail and the Flemish Cap, Canada controls the land base itself. We control the sea bed, what is in it and what moves adjacent to it, the sedentary species. If we have such control, why do we let foreigners drag their heavy doors through our property? Nobody has ever addressed that or taken it to court, and we are told we might have a case.

We have not had any leadership from our country in relation to protecting our resource. It is only fish. I said earlier, a properly managed fishery could turn around the future of Newfoundland and Labrador and contribute significantly to turning around the future of Canada.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Madam Chairman, my hon. colleague is on the fisheries committee as is the member from Labrador. The member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore talked about reports that were brought in and then voted against. Let me say that any work that has been done in our committee, with the prior chairman and the present chairman, has been unanimous. We have had a very unified committee. I think it is because of that the minister got the money for his Coast Guard, that he got the money for his infrastructure. We have created an awareness of this overall problem.

To answer the specific question, I would think that the member is just as familiar with rural Newfoundland as I am. I would suggest to him there are two types of predators we should keep out of areas where cod congregate and breed at certain times, the various nurseries. One would be the foreign activity and dragging in general in these zones. That can be regulated.

With seals, I am not aware that seals would read signs or if we put nets out how practical that would be. I am sure it is not possible. But I would suggest to him that he has many constituents and I have many constituents who could tell us how to create seal exclusion zones. That might be the way to go.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I apologize. The member is correct. It is Newfoundland and Labrador but most of these resources come from the Labrador section.

We have spread these resources across the country with minimal effort, not counting the use of our air space that puts hundreds of millions of dollars into the central coffers and we do not get a penny.

We do not want handouts. We want a chance to manage, to control and benefit from our own resource. We would be a contributing partner in Canada, not there to take. We are contributing partners but we could do it formally and in the recognized sense, if people only understood it.

I thank members from the Alliance, the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals, all of whom are here tonight to debate an issue so near and dear to Newfoundland and Labrador. It is our future. Unless we co-operate and understand each other, we will get the we should not have it attitude or whatever, and we do not want that. We want a fair deal.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

We did not have to register it then. It is registered now.

A seal at the time was news. We only seldom saw a seal in the harbour. Of course they wanted to see what kind of a shot I was. They found out.

The truth of the matter is we had all kinds of fish, as my colleagues opposite are aware, and we had very few predators. When spring comes and I am sitting on my front porch, I see more seals than I see herring, caplin, cod fish or salmon. There is something wrong with this imbalance.

What is the one word that perhaps could solve this problem? That one word is science or lack thereof. We talk about complete and utter mismanagement by the department of fisheries over the years, and it has happened. A lot of fingers can be pointed in a lot of directions, but they should mainly be pointed at the governing body. It is ultimately responsible.

When we joined Confederation, the federal government took over management of our fish stocks. We cannot manage anything if we do not understand it or do not know what is happening. If the scientific knowledge base in a major department responsible for our oceans is reduced to the point where it is practically nil or the scientists themselves within the department start complaining about the lack of action within their division, it is a very serious situation. The age of many of the scientists is such that within a very few years they will have retired without any effort made whatsoever to replace these very knowledgeable individuals. If we are wondering how many seals there are or what they eat or their effect on the cod stocks or where the caplin are, we could have these questions answered if we have proper scientific knowledge.

Regardless of that, as a result of science, as a result of improper enforcement measures and a lack of caring, we are faced with a situation where the people who participate in the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador will once again get hammered within the next few weeks.

We do not want handouts. It is a shame the government does not have a vision. A few short years ago we had one of the most abundant resources in the country, a renewable resource, a resource that was looked after, managed, patrolled and policed. If we could hold the level of stocks, the food and cod fishery and any other groundfish and pelagic we wanted to keep and added to that the sedentary species like crab and lobster, which have become so valuable, Newfoundland on the fishery alone could be an extremely wealthy province. It does not matter whether it is our hydro power or our minerals, they have been developed for somebody else.

Will the people of Canada stand back and see another handout go to Newfoundland? Since 1949 the people of Newfoundland have made tremendous contributions in what they have given Canada, from the use and abuse of our fishery, to the minerals that have gone to all parts of the country for processing and job creation, to the hydro power that has flowed throughout this country.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Madam Chairman, when we agreed to the debate, we agreed that it would be on fisheries generally because people in other parts of the country have problems with the fishery besides those of us who represent the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Within our own region, there are other problems besides the pending action, which is the best word to use, because we do not know what will happen in relation to the downturn in the fishery, particularly the decimation of the cod stocks.

We have a major problem with licensing. We have people who have never caught a fish in their lives who hold all kinds of licences. We have fishermen who have done nothing but fished all their lives who are being told they are not fishermen anymore and that cannot get a licence. That is thoroughly and utterly disgraceful, and the department has to start addressing that problem.

We also have a problem with buyouts. Just over the last few years we saw a number of fishermen who decided to get out of the fishery and they sold their licences. I believe we had four different buyouts. One was given a lump sum, tax free payment for the licence. The next group got a lump sum payment but were charged taxes on 50% of it, another group on 75%, another group on 25%. There have been all different kinds of arrangements with CCRA and nobody understands the process. Of course some people who were hit with taxes on the full allotment got very little out of it. They gave away their livelihoods and realized that the return was nil. That is another problem that has to be addressed.

Those are for other forums when we have time to really get after the minister on them. With the little time we have tonight, the pending crisis is the Atlantic cod stocks and what is happen with them.

My colleague from Sackville--Musquodoboit--Eastern Shore, where I had a very enjoyable weekend speaking with his friends, mentioned the possibility of dealing with the fallout through some kind of make work program or some kind of handout to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Let me make it quite clear. We do not want handouts and we have never asked for them.

If people look back in history, Newfoundland came into the Confederation, or as we say, Canada joined us, in 1949. We did not come into the Confederation empty handed. We came in with more resources per person than any other part of the country brought into the Confederation. In relation to the fishery, we came in with the richest fishery in the world.

I was only a kid at the time. I remember standing on the side of the road watching salmon jump all over the harbour where I lived. I remember watching fishermen come in with their herring nets and their catch of herring. I remember running across the beach and bouncing up and down on the spawn that the caplin left as they moved out to sea. I remember watching boat after boat come in loaded with codfish. It is not there today. The food fish is not there.

I could thrown in squid, which we all loved in the fall because of the fun of trying to catch squid and keep away from getting squirted in the eye. Squid and caplin were the prime food fish for the cod in our respective area, and undoubtedly also herring. We do not see them anymore. Consequently we do not see the cod anymore. We cannot have one without the other.

In those days I remember one occasion when I had just got my first gun. Some young friends of mine rushed in and said that there was a seal in the harbour.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Madam Chairman, we will undoubtedly have several rounds of questions tonight but for now I will ask the minister this. In relation to his dealings with the planned closure, if that is the word, or in his addressing of the decline in the Atlantic cod stocks, will the minister come up with a plan to deal with the people directly affected and make sure that they are accommodated within the fishery rather than closing the fishery?

If the minister has already made the decision to close the fishery, is he, his department and the government in general addressing the compensation package that will include something besides dealing with HRDC and ACOA, an extension of EI benefits or make work programs, because they are not acceptable. What is requested is that provision be made within the industry so that those people can live and survive and operate to some extent which will keep them involved until we can turn around the resource.

The minister will learn, if he stays around tonight, and I know he will because he is very good at that, there are ways that can be done. If everybody cooperates we might see a fishery of the future, which very few people have faith in right now.

[Question n, February 26th, 2003]

What plans does the government have to reduce the number of seals as a means of protecting fish stocks in Atlantic Canada?