Loyola Hearn

[Fisheries and Oceans, April 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's officials state that all vessels were in compliance with the rules of NAFO. The only reason they are in compliance with the rules is because there are none.

How can the minister justify this blatant abuse when 70% of the catch is undersize, which means it has not even reproduced yet, and the catch included significant amounts of cod and American plaice, both species which are under moratorium?

[Fisheries, April 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The minister is putting all his eggs in the NAFO meetings this fall while closing Newfoundland ports to ships where it really is the Newfoundland settlements that are being punished and not the big, bad perpetrator.

The minister is responsible, however, for on the water surveillance. How could he justify the government doing proper surveillance when it has one surveillance vessel covering the nose, tail, Flemish Cap and all the rest of the continental shelf?

[Fisheries, April 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the real minister of the environment. Despite that the minister of fisheries says the issue of overfishing on the Atlantic coast will not be addressed at the summit in Banff, practically every country that fishes on that coast will be represented there.

Will the minister confirm that he will raise the issue of overfishing on the Atlantic coast? He will be negligent if he refuses to do so.

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the media in Newfoundland and Labrador requested information under the Access to Information Act from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regarding the number of citations or warning tickets issued in the NAFO regulated region. Despite promises, no information was received. This week a promise was made to courier the information the next day. It was followed by a late night message left on the voice mail which said “Sorry, we will have to talk”.

What is the department trying to hide?

[Fisheries, March 21st, 2002]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for recognizing the importance of this issue and agreeing that it is worthy of an emergency debate. I also want to give a sincere word of thanks to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

Back in September when I became the fisheries critic for our party I gave notice at my first meeting that I would be pursuing this issue. Later in the fall I formally moved that the committee address the issue which it unanimously agreed to do. I then asked that committee travel to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador so members could experience firsthand the devastation caused by overfishing on the nose and tail of the Flemish cap.

Under the direction, guidance and co-operation of the Chair, the committee went to Newfoundland and, as members will hear tonight from a number of committee members, they learned a tremendous amount about the effect of overfishing on our province.

I will be sharing my time tonight with the member for South Shore because we would like to get as many people involved in this debate as possible.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have discussed this issue for years. It gets raised, it flutters, it dies and it is forgotten until some issue causes us to revive it. This time let me assure people that it will not die.

Thanks to the work of the committee and the interest generated not only in our province but across the country, all aspects of the industry and perhaps even society have come together. We heard from governments, oppositions, unions, harvesters, processors, plant workers and people from the affected towns. They all came together with the same concerns and, with small variations, made the same recommendations. I am sure all members of the committee feel as I do and, as I have said, we will hear from them all tonight.

The interest in this issue has to carry beyond Newfoundland and Labrador. It has to carry across Canada because it is a major national issue for two reasons. Even though the direct effect might be felt more in Newfoundland than anywhere else, it is also felt in Atlantic Canada. However the economic effect is felt right across the country. Most of the rules and regulations pertaining to the fishery are governed by this very forum in which we are now participating.

I also want to say a word of thanks to the new minister of fisheries. Last fall, before the member became the minister of fisheries, I made the remark in the House that I hoped he would become the minister of fisheries. Since being appointed to that position he has been extremely co-operative with the issues we have brought before him

I raised an issue yesterday that may have caught him by surprise. It concerned mature codfish being found on a boat that was simply detained for polluting Canadian waters. I should not use the word simply in the sense that it was a minor offence, because it certainly was not. The boat was detained for pumping out its bilge water and polluting Canadian waters.

When the boat was brought into Newfoundland, mature codfish, a species under moratorium, were found in its hold. I am sure the minister will talk a bit more about this tonight. This was the straw that broke the camels back, as the old saying goes, because today the minister announced that he had closed Canadian ports to the Faroe Islands.

The problem we have of course is that the Faroe Islands are governed by Denmark. Our man in Denmark is the former minister of public works who left here under a cloud, and as somebody said, it is the greatest tragedy to hit Denmark since Hamlet .

I am not sure how that will play out but I do not care. All I care about is that the minister had the intestinal fortitude today to quickly make the first move. It is only a minor move. We have to make many more.

During the night we will get all kinds of examples of what has been happening. I will read a few into the record.

In recent months we have seen directed fishing and excessive by-catch of moratorium species. In fact this past year enough species of fish under moratorium were caught by foreign nations to keep several plants in Atlantic Canada going. The amount of fish that they were allowed to catch but overcaught, or an excessive by-catch, would keep Canso, Burgeo, Fermeuse and Trepassey, all those plants, going.

When I say plants people think of a few weeks work a year. Until we closed down the fishery some years ago these plants operated 52 weeks a year and in some cases around the clock. We provided full time employment for people in the centres I mentioned and in many more.

What has happened now? Many of these places are like ghost towns simply because the resource is not there.

We just heard about Fishery Products threatening to lay off half its workforce, again because of a lack of resource. Six hundred jobs in Newfoundland is the same as 15,000 being laid off in Ontario. The 30,000 people affected in Newfoundland by the downturn in the fishery equates to 600,000 people being affected in Ontario. That gives the House an idea of the impact overfishing has had on our province.

Another major issue that we will not be dealing with tonight directly but plays an important part in this is the rapid growth of the seal herd that is probably doing more damage to the growth of our stocks than even foreign overfishing.

Another thing that is happening is directed fishing after closure, increased frequency of mesh size violations. That means countries participating in the fishery are using a mesh size, smaller than the average, which means they are catching fish that should not be caught. There is an increase in the issuance of citations. This past year alone I believe we have had 27 infringements. How many more take place that we know nothing about? This is about five times the total of the last five or six years.

Countries are not getting better in relation to conservation. They are blatantly thumbing their nose at us and doing whatever they want. There is non-submission or late submission of observer reports. The observer program is becoming a joke because observers are being put on the boats by the countries involved and they go back and tell them whatever they want to tell them. One observer on a boat cannot work 24 hours a day. The whole thing is a charade.

What is not a charade is the fact that a major Canadian resource is being caught by foreigners who have absolutely no regard for environmental standards for the preservation of our resources. They are looking after their own bottom line and we are paying the price.

At recent NAFO meetings Canada proposed a number of good solid recommendations but they were rejected by NAFO.

What can we do? I say to the minister that he has to get foreign affairs and international trade on the ball. We have to get NAFO working the way it should. We have to take over the custodial management of the nose and tail of the Flemish cap or we need to extend our jurisdiction and run the show ourselves. It should be our resource for our people and we should not be defending foreigners who are there to rape our resources for their benefit and we are paying the price.

[Education, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has two choices. One is to invest in the education of the youth of our country and the other is to pay the social costs of an uneducated populace down the road.

Young, uneducated individuals draw from the economy. Educated individuals not only contribute to society from an economic point of view but also take less from the public purse. The well educated require less expenditure on health care and other social costs.

The choice should not be a difficult one. Why put off until tomorrow what we can do today, especially if the benefits are much greater this way?

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am the member for St. John's West and I have not spoken to Group No. 3.

Let me first express my concern about the fact that we were hearing a tremendous debate by the member who just spoke. All of us could have learned from it. He had a few other key elements left in his speech which all of us could have benefited from hearing. It is unfortunate it was his own party that refused to give unanimous consent for him to finish. That is a complete and utter shame. There are few people in the House for whom I have more respect than the hon. gentleman. His contribution to the debate will enrich the knowledge of every member in the House.

Having said that, let me also express concerns about the bill. Bill C-5 is supposed to protect endangered species within our country. One concern is that this bill has been scrutinized by people who are extremely concerned with this topic and it has come up wanting. The members of the committee, the species at risk working groups and groups and individuals throughout the country who have major concerns with this legislation have all pointed out that if amendments from the committee had been accepted, we could have had a great piece of legislation with which we could all be satisfied.

What happened? Government in its almighty knowledge refused to accept the amendments. Consequently, if this bill as it is presently constituted is passed, we will have a very bad piece of legislation.

Species at risk by its name alone dictates to us that most of what we discuss relates to rural Canada rather than the large urban areas. It is provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador where most of these species will exist. It is ironic that the government concentrates very little on its own back yard, on the public domain in the country. It is wrong for the bill to have provisions allowing for federal interference on private and provincial lands without specifically containing mandatory protection of critical habitat on federal lands.

Many of the lands in rural Canada are privately owned. Many of the species that are considered to be endangered exist on those lands. What protection is there for the owners of the land, whether it is compensation for land that might be confiscated or whether it is a concern about charges for damages that might occur to endangered species by the owners of the land? In many cases the owners would have no knowledge that the species were endangered or would not know that the species existed on their land.

There are so many elements in the bill with which so many disagree. I read one statement recently which said that no one supports the bill. I suppose we have to say that is not true because apparently a number of government members support the bill or are being told to support the bill.

The Government of Canada has failed to do its homework. It has foolishly ignored the consensus of the species at risk working group. There is now further gutting to an already weak bill not supported by environmental groups, industry and the provinces. A broad coalition of major environmental groups together with the Mining Association of Canada and the Forest Products Association of Canada agrees that at the very least a scientific listing process and habitat protection in federal jurisdiction should be in the species at risk legislation.

We support the capacity to ensure there are complementary safety nets in place. We received statements indicating that while the provinces did not support Bill C-5 prior to it being tabled certain committee amendments do provide increased clarity. Amendments are made that would satisfy many of the concerns across the country but they are rejected. I sometimes wonder what the House is all about and why we have committees.

People who sit on committees are people who have a specific interest in a particular area. They are informed individuals who are in contact with agencies throughout the country concerned about any topic with which we might be dealing. Committee is a forum where these people can get into the nuts and bolts of legislation. It is a place where we hear the concerns, the feelings and recommendations of people from across the country. What happens when these recommendations are brought back to the government? They are rejected. It is hard to understand why something like that could happen.

Right in the middle of this discussion we saw one of the most experienced parliamentarians in the House, one of the most concerned individuals in the House with regard to our country and to species at risk, not get the courtesy he deserves from his own colleagues to finish his debate. I have never seen such a discourtesy given to an experienced individual in all my life.

When it comes to species at risk we should also pay a lot more attention to a number of other species. We should be concerned about Atlantic salmon which are close to being put on the species at risk list.

When I was a young individual, 5 or 10 years ago, I used to stand by the side of the road with many of my friends and count the number of salmon jumping in the harbour on their way up the river. We do not see them anymore. That is not just a story. It is a true fact in Renous and on the great southern shore of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is a true story in almost any part of Atlantic Canada. Atlantic salmon are going the way of the dodo bird.

One of the reasons is the same reason why our fish stocks are disappearing. It is because of the uncontrolled growth of another species, the seal. Some years ago Canada had a million seals and everybody became concerned about the size of the herd. We now realize that the seal herd has reached seven million. They are purported to eat 40 pounds of pollock a day. If they were to eat just one pound of pollock a day they would consume 2.55 billion pounds of pollock in the run of a year. As one of our former MPs from Newfoundland once said, they certainly do not eat turnips. They live on fish from the ocean. If we multiplied seven million by 40, 365 times, it would give us an idea of the magnitude of the volume of fish consumed by a growing seal herd that is out of control and which the government fails to regulate.

We have in our own hands in this honourable House the power to do something about species at risk, whether it be Atlantic salmon, birds, or whatever else throughout this country. We have the power to ensure that affected people such as landowners have protection in relation to species that might exist on their land.

We should have the power to develop legislation that all of us would say is good legislation and the only way people are affected is in a positive way. That is not the way we are headed. Unless the government wakes up we in the House will also become an endangered species because our contributions as politicians will become less and less effective.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I would gladly give up some of my time to let the hon. gentleman finish, if the Chair agrees.

[Request for Emergency Debate, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, recently in the House we have had emergency debates on softwood lumber and agricultural problems, both of which are extremely important. The issue I raise today is certainly of that magnitude, if not beyond, in relation to the effect foreign overfishing in our fishing grounds is having on Atlantic Canada. I raise it today because of a few incidents that have happened recently.

Mr. Speaker, if you had been with us during the past week as we visited Newfoundland and witnessed firsthand the effect of foreign overfishing on that province, as well as the rest of Atlantic Canada, I would not be making this argument for a debate.

The mayors of towns that have been devastated told us that they were praying for no snow because they could not afford to clear the roads and that they were looking to see which light they could remove to save $20. These are towns that have been devastated by a lack of resources.

Recently our Canadian delegation attended the NAFO meetings. I want to quote from its report. It states:

The Canadian assessment confirms: directed fishing/excessive by-catch of moratoria species; exceeding allocations/misreporting catch; directed fishing after closure; increased frequency of mesh size violations; increase in issuance of citations of apparent infringements; non-submission or late submission of observer reports.

Canada presented three major resolutions in relation to mesh size increase, depth restrictions and, of course, overfishing. They were disregarded and completely turned aside by other countries. We have had more infringements this past year than we have had during the past seven or eight years.

Recently we heard that Fishery Products International was threatening to lay off half of its workforce, 600 or 700 people in the Burin Peninsula, because of lack of resources. That would equate to about 15,000 layoffs in Ontario.

The 30,000 people who have been affected by the fishery in Newfoundland would equate to something like 600,000 people in Ontario. If 600,000 people in the auto industry in Ontario were laid off today we would certainly be having an emergency debate.

Yesterday a boat was detained in Canada for polluting our waters. It was pumping its bilge waters into the ocean. When the boat was brought into port it was discovered that it had in its hold an estimated 60 to 80 tonnes of mature, breeding cod, codfish that are under a moratorium. A sister ship, which was on its way to Newfoundland when it heard the news, changed course and went to Iceland.

Atlantic Canada is being wiped out because other nations are raping our resources and paying no attention to either Canada or the NAFO organization to which we belong. It is an issue that has to be addressed immediately. It is not something we have months, years, days or even minutes to work on. It is something that should have been worked on long ago. The government must take action immediately and we need to direct the government as to what to do.

I know I have the support of the members of the fishing committee in this request. We ask for a positive answer to the request for an emergency debate on this issue that affects all of Atlantic Canada and the economy of the country generally.

[Fisheries, March 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard the words under advisement and under investigation. It is time we took it on the chin.

A sister ship, the Otto , which was also headed for Newfoundland, has now suspiciously changed direction and is headed for Iceland. Will the minister see that this vessel is boarded and checked, because if he does not do it soon we know what is going to happen to the catch?