Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words on the motion put forward by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore and commend him for the resolution. I have no difficulty whatsoever in supporting the member's motion. The debate has become quite wide ranging between the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the fisheries critic for the Reform Party.
The inshore fishery, the small boat fishery, has always played a very important role in Atlantic Canada. It has always been a very important sector of the fishing industry. In Atlantic Canada, and I can speak most readily about Newfoundland and Labrador, the inshore fishery and the offshore fishery have coexisted. There is a great desire within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador for that to continue, for there to be a coexistence of the inshore small boat fishery and the offshore fishery.
Our offshore fishery is very limited these days because of the downturn in our groundfish stocks. Most of the trawlers of the major companies have been decommissioned. We are finding in Newfoundland and Labrador today that more small boat fishermen have to go further offshore to try to make a living. That ties into the member's comments when he said that right now there is a search and rescue effort going on somewhere in the Atlantic region looking for some fishermen who have been lost.
Over the last number of years,the number of lives that have been lost on small boats in Atlantic Canada is staggering. That ties directly to a recommendation by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. We called upon the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to review the vessel replacement program. The minister's response was that one was done a few years ago and he thought that was good enough.
Because of the downturn in the fish resources, small boat fishermen are venturing further offshore to try to make a living. Consequently they are going into more dangerous waters. They are going further from shore. We all know that weather changes very quickly in the Atlantic and many of them are getting caught on the water in boats that are too small to be that far from shore.
I say to the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore that I have no problem whatsoever with declaring an international week of awareness about the benefits of small-scale fishing for the environment and for the sustainability of communities. Hundreds and hundreds of small communities in Atlantic Canada are in danger of extinction. The outmigration from those communities is staggering.
When I visit the riding of Burin—St. George's on a weekly basis, which I did again this weekend, and go to many of those communities, I do not see very many people who are less than 45 or 50 years of age. All our young people have left their communities and their province to seek employment elsewhere. It is mainly because of a downturn in the fishing industry. It is very, very difficult to go into those communities and see the few people who are left there, those who happen to have a government job, who teach, or the few who still fish. The major employer in each of those communities for the most part has disappeared because of the downturn in our fish stocks.
The small boat fishery is still a very important part of our fishery and should remain so. Having said that, when looking at the employment opportunities today in the fishery, there is no doubt that we have to use larger boats for the middle distance fleets and for further offshore to access some of our fish resources.
My friend from the Reform Party is a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. He made a comment about the turbot issue and about Canso and about whether or not the minister of fisheries should have allowed a foreign vessel to catch that fish. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans had a choice: to permit a foreign vessel to harvest that fish and take it to Canso for processing which created or saved 125 to 150 jobs; or to leave the fish in the water. That was the choice the minister of fisheries had.
In my view if a Canadian vessel, a Canadian enterprise could have been found to harvest that fish, that would have been desirable. It is my understanding that the company could not find a Canadian vessel or a Canadian enterprise to do that. Consequently the minister was left with the choice either to allow a foreign vessel to harvest the fish and take it to Canso to protect those 125 jobs or to leave the fish in the water.
In my view, the minister of fisheries only had one choice, to allow the fish to be harvested. What good would it have been to leave the fish in the water? The fish could not be reallocated because they were allocated to the processing company in Canso.
I wanted to comment on that because we all favour Canadian fishermen and Canadian boats harvesting the fish. However that is my understanding of the situation.
