Mike Scott

[Fisheries, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

When the Liberals announced the Atlantic groundfish strategy in May 1994 they called it a program to end all programs. Significant funding was allocated to reduce industry capacity and for retraining.

The government has already siphoned money away from retraining. Last week the minister announced funding reductions to the $300 million buy back program, the heart of capacity reduction, because TAGS benefits are running unchecked resulting in a massive deficit.

Will the minister admit to the House and to the fishermen in Atlantic Canada that TAGS is in total chaos and will do nothing more than perpetuate income dependency?

[Access To Information Act, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize the individuals on the other side who are supporting this bill. I would like to ask those members who do not support the bill why they do not support it. Why did we not have unanimous consent to have this bill made a votable bill?

When these people were in opposition to the Conservatives they ripped at the Conservatives all the time. They said we have to change the access to information laws, open government up, and let Canadian taxpayers, who are footing the bill for this information, have access to it. Why the change of heart once the Liberal Party was elected as government? Why the difference?

I think the fundamental reason for that lies at the very heart of what is wrong with our approach to governing in this country. It is because we have among the three old-line parties an elitist, top down approach to governing. Once the political party of the day gets into power it is not much interested in listening to the people in the sense of shaping policy or developing legislation. It is very much a command and control government that we have. It wants to have information so that it knows how to shape its messages and sell its policies but it is not really interested in having policy developed or shaped by the Canadian people. In this milieu, it is not particularly helpful to have information available to the public. It is much more advantageous to keep that information to yourself and use it for your own purposes and not allow the Canadian people to have access to it.

I would use the gun control bill as a perfect example of a bill that is widely hated by Canadians. The government is refusing to acknowledge that fact. It is using polling as a means of trying to determine how it can best sell this odious piece of legislation. It is not really interested in listening to the views of Canadians from coast to coast who take real offence to this legislation.

I would make the argument that the situation we find ourselves in is not likely to change. We will have opposition parties forever decrying the lack of access to information and ridiculing and condemning the government of the day for not changing the access to information rules. However, once these parties get into power they will act the same way unless we have a fundamental change in our whole approach to governing.

That is what the Reform Party of Canada stands for. We believe that not only do we come here with a set of policies and principles we would like to put in front of the Canadian people, but we also suggest there has to be a fundamental change in the way Canada is governed. Ordinary Canadians should have much more say through referenda, through initiatives, and through recall to have their views and wishes incorporated into the policies and legislation of the government.

Until we have these fundamental changes, until we have a break away from this elitist, top down approach to government in which information is always going to be very tightly corralled, where there is no advantage in making that information known to the general public, we are never going to have the changes we would all like to see. I would suggest that while the members opposite talk about opening this up and having better access to information, it is not going to change until we change the system.

[Oceans Act, October 3rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, we have talked in the House about Bill C-98 and the problems we have with it. The problem is that along with the consolidation of government regulations this bill also opens the door for the government to increase what it euphemistically calls access fees, but which we all know is a tax on fishermen. We know that the plans are to raise taxes 400 per cent on a segment of our society that can least afford it.

The minister had a choice. The minister knew his budget was going to be cut and he had a choice. He could cut spending, he could deal with the bloated bureaucracy here in Ottawa and in other parts of Canada where they have these ivory towers, or he could raise access fees or taxes on fishermen. He chose to go after the fishermen. As I said earlier, these are people in our country who can least afford to pay a massive increase at this point in time.

Let us talk about access for a minute. I think that is an interesting subject, given that this government is supporting an aboriginal fishing strategy on both coasts that allows special access to a resource based on race. The aboriginal fishing strategy, this government policy, sets people apart. It treats them differently, gives them different rules to live by, and it creates a gulf between people. It creates a mentality of us versus them. It creates divisions in our society that we do not need and we have not seen before, but which are growing as a result of government policy such as this.

Not only does this set people apart by race, not only does it give different treatment to Canadians on the basis of their racial origin, it is profoundly anti-democratic at its very roots. The cornerstone of democracy is that all people within a democracy can expect equal treatment before the eyes of the law. They can expect to be treated the same as all other citizens in the democracy, in the country. This is no longer the case in Canada. We now treat people differently.

I suggest that this is playing to a deeply rooted sense of tribalism. I suggest that both of these cannot co-exist within a democracy, this idea of tribalism where you have people who suggest they have special rights and should be treated differently, on whatever basis, whether it is racial origin or whether it is sexual preference, it does not matter, you name it. It is the cornerstone of democracy that we do not treat people differently, that everybody gets the same treatment in the eyes of the law. That is not happening here.

The fishermen on the west coast and east coast who are being asked to pay a massive increase for access to the resource look across the way and see their neighbours and fellow Canadians getting access to the same resource on a completely different basis. It is fundamentally unacceptable, I would suggest, in a democracy that we proceed with that kind of policy.

We will hear members opposite say the courts made us do it. I suggest very strongly that there is no basis in law, no basis in our Constitution. There is not one legal case that has said that the aboriginal people of Canada should have special access to any resources on a commercial basis. It is completely unsupported. But these members opposite, other members before them, and other fisheries ministers have said that the Sparrow decision is what creates this aboriginal fishing strategy. It is faulty and not supported. I would suggest that by government following this policy it is just creating divisions in our society that we do not need.

I would ask how the minister and this government can, under Bill C-98, contemplate and suggest that they are going to raise access fees to ordinary Canadian fishermen who remain in the commercial sector by some 400 per cent while at the same time they support and maintain an aboriginal fishing strategy that provides access to the resource on a completely different basis.

I suggest that what the government is doing here is not supported in the industry. It certainly is not supported from the point of view of the Atlantic Canadian fishermen I have had the opportunity to meet in recent weeks. I believe there are many members on the opposite benches who are going to have a difficult time going back to their constituents to explain why they are supporting this bill in its present form, because their constituents do not support it. Their constituents are very unhappy with what the government is proposing.

In closing, I would like to say that the Reform Party is opposed to Bill C-98. We are opposed because we see the minister increasing taxes on fishermen rather than cutting his own budget and his own spending. We know there are significant cuts that can be made within DFO at the top, which would probably increase the efficiency of the organization by 400 per cent. This would get the whole fishery on a more economically sustainable basis. It is unthinkable that we continue to pump the kind of money into DFO that we do based on the value of the fishery.

I know the members opposite, particularly the member for Dartmouth and the member for South West Nova, are going to have difficulties in their ridings when they go back and try to explain to their constituents and the fishermen who live in their communities why they are supporting this legislation.

I am here today on behalf of the Reform Party to say we are not supporting this legislation. We will not support these kinds of massive tax increases wherever we find them. This bill is fundamentally flawed because of this very important move by the government to increase those fees.

[Canada Transportation Act, October 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address the motion to refer Bill C-101 to the Standing Committee on Transport prior to second reading. As we are all aware, in the past a number of bills have been sent to committee prior to second reading. Bill C-45, Bill C-64, Bill C-89 and Bill C-91 are a few of the bills which have gone through that process.

Originally Reformers supported this new process since we believed the government when it said MPs would play a much greater role in shaping legislation within committee. However, committee reform has come to represent yet another broken promise within the Liberal red ink book. That faulty document states that MPs will receive a greater role in drafting legislation through committees. It goes on to say that committees will also be given greater influence over government expenditures.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has sat on a committee that none of these things has come to pass. In most cases the opposite is true; the role of MPs at committee has been diminished or their efforts have been deliberately obstructed by Liberal committee members.

The best example of this is the fiasco which arose over the committee hearings surrounding Bill C-64, an act respecting employment equity. As I mentioned earlier, this bill was sent to committee prior to second reading under the premise that it could be more easily studied there and amendments could be brought forward and discussed at length.

However the proceedings were completely mismanaged and the whole examination of the bill was so skewed in favour of the government's position that Reformers boycotted the hearings. For instance, only four of the fifty witnesses to be called before the committee were accepted from the list submitted by the Reform Party.

Furthermore, debate on each clause within the bill was limited to five minutes. This meagre five-minute allotment included the introduction of amendments, debate on the amendments and time to ask questions of departmental officials. Government members of the committee refused to accept amendments printed in only one of the official languages, and it is reported that numerous voting irregularities occurred. This was the new and improved committee process we were promised in the red book.

Before referring Bill C-64 to committee prior to second reading on December 12, 1994, the minister of human resources stated that the process represented: "innovation on the part of the government to turn over a bill after first reading to a committee so it can help in the actual drafting of the bill".

As we have heard, MPs from my party were allowed almost no input in the final drafting of Bill C-64. However the futility of committees is not constrained to that one example. If we turn to Bill C-89, a piece of legislation that would see the privatization of CN Rail, we can also point to instances whereby opposition MPs were simply ignored with respect to amending legislation.

The Reform Party put forward a number of non-partisan amendments to the bill that were in the best interests of the Canadian National Railway, the industry and the taxpayer. Again these amendments were ignored and the bill was ultimately fast tracked with no amendments being introduced. MPs who were promised input into the legislative process were thwarted.

Further, it comes as no surprise that the government fast tracked Bill C-89 and is now attempting to do the same with Bill C-101. Bill C-89 permits shares of CN Rail to go on sale this fall. Bill C-101 is an attempt to bring the Canadian rail industry into a more competitive position with respect to its U.S. counterparts. Bill C-101 attempts to make it easier to establish short line railways and abandon lines. It reduces the number of regulations and taxes

imposed on the rail industry. Should Bill C-101 be fast tracked, CN Rail shares will look more inviting to potential investors.

In all, Bill C-101 is a huge piece of legislation which shippers, railways and provinces have serious concerns over. All these parties have a right to be heard and that right should not be denied because the government wants to ensure CN Rail shares will sell this fall.

In August the minister of agriculture stated that the legislative process surrounding Bill C-101 would be open and amendment friendly. However, as I understand it, the Standing Committee on Transport has imposed arbitrary deadlines for submissions by stakeholders.

Further, I am told that while submissions have been received by the committee, the committee has yet to make them available to committee members. Why should we believe the minister of agriculture or anyone else with respect to the promises of openness and thoroughness at the committee stage?

The minister of human resources promised the same in relation to Bill C-64 and Reform MPs were shut out of that process as well. The government is long on promises, awarding MPs greater powers at committee stage. However it is short on delivering on promises, as we have already seen in a number of bills.

Therefore it will come as no surprise to members of the Chamber that I cannot support the government's motion to refer the bill to committee prior to second reading. Reformers will not assist in fast tracking such an important piece of legislation to spruce up CN Rail's profile for sale of its shares this fall. Reformers will not help the government limit access to committee hearings under any circumstances.

All parties affected by Bill C-101 have a right to come forward and be heard. We gave the government the benefit of the doubt and supported its promises of parliamentary reform through the committee reform system. It has done nothing to revamp the process and its promises amounted to nothing but so much Liberal hot air, of which we have had enough in the Chamber, let alone at committee.

I guess committee reform will just have to be added to the long list of Liberal broken promises. Accordingly I will not support the motion presently under debate.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, to finish my remarks before we get into school yard tactics here, the hon. member from the Bloc was suggesting the Reform Party would never form the government. I beg to differ with him. I feel genuinely sorry for those members because they earnestly believe they will achieve their goal. However we all know they will not.

When the people of Quebec vote no in the referendum on October 30, they will then be looking for alternatives and the Reform Party is the only political party on the national landscape right now that offers serious alternatives.

Members of the governing party have a vested interest in keeping the debate ongoing for the rest of their lives because there is a political gain in it for them.

The Reform Party has a completely different vision of that, a completely different point of view. If the Reform Party gets the opportunity to form the government, which we believe we will in the next federal election, there will be an opportunity to discuss a new federal arrangement with all the provinces, not just with Quebec.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there appears to be a warm wind blowing from this side of the House.

I was interested in hearing the remarks of the member from the Bloc. He made some statements with which I do not agree and I have some questions for him.

He suggested the Reform Party was honest in its approach. I agree with him that we are being direct and honest in our approach. He also suggested it is unfortunate that we are in a catch 22 situation. While the people in Quebec can identify with the aspirations of the Reform Party because we represent the aspirations of people in other regions of Canada, the Bloc feels that we will never have the opportunity to form a government because philosophically we are miles apart.

When the gun control legislation passed through the House we were approached by organizations in Quebec representing 1.2 million law-abiding gun owners in Quebec who could not get representation in the House or at the committee meetings.

[Oceans Act, September 26th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's intervention.

The member talked about the TAGS program and how wonderful it was for Atlantic Canada. When Reform Party members were there talking to people in the constituencies in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick we did not hear people giving large accolades for the TAGS program. As a matter of fact, what we heard was talk about corruption and talk about the way the TAGS program had distorted the marketplace, particularly the job market. No one I encountered had anything good to say about it.

The member is defending the government's move on licence fees. I wonder if he would tell the House whether he is going to poll his constituents because the story we heard in Atlantic Canada is that Atlantic Canadians are opposed to this. Will he poll his constituents and if they are found to be in opposition to Bill C-98 will he vote against the bill when it comes up for third reading in the House?

[Oceans Act, September 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention. He made a couple of observations and I think he is right on.

I was not aware that there was a withdrawal of delegated authority in his province in 1980, but it does not surprise me because that is the way the federal government has acted over the last 25 or 30 years. It has tried to consolidate more power for itself all the time: Ottawa is always bigger, better and more beautiful. Obviously that is not what Canadians think. Canadians would like to see decentralization of power such as the member is alluding to. It certainly is a philosophy and a vision of the party I am representing in the House today. Our leader was trying to make that point with the Prime Minister during question period.

We believe the federal government ought to look at devolving powers to provinces, municipalities and communities wherever possible and get away from the notion that only Ottawa has the brains and the ability to run the country.

[Oceans Act, September 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the hon. member for Halifax saying she invites me there. She may be aware that I just came back from there. I talked to a number of fishermen in the Halifax area, the Dartmouth area and Central Nova. I went down to the wharfs and talked to the small guys with the small boats, not the big guys. I heard what they had to say about this fee increase.

It is interesting to see the parliamentary secretary over there defending what the government is doing when it flies in the face of what I heard back in Atlantic Canada. I would suggest to the hon. member for Halifax that maybe she wants to go and spend a little bit of time talking to some of the fishermen in her riding, because she might get a different point of view from what she is getting from the parliamentary secretary.

I ran into one old fellow and asked him how he was making out in the fishery this year. He said: "Well, it is pretty tough. My fingernails are all wore out trying to hang on." This is the kind of attitude the parliamentary secretary displays to these fishermen who are having a very difficult time surviving from year to year.

The parliamentary secretary defends the increased fees and says it is a public resource and the fishermen ought to be paying a suitable fee for access to that resource. I do not think anybody in Canada would disagree with that, but is a 400 per cent increase in one lump sum reasonable? Regardless of one's income for the year, the person pays it up front in one lump sum. Is that reasonable? I do not think most Canadians would find that reasonable.

[Oceans Act, September 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the words of my friend across the way. I am a little surprised at some of the conclusions he is drawing with respect to Bill C-98.

Bill C-98 at first blush looks like a pretty innocuous bill. It is a good bill in some respects. It recognizes Canada's jurisdiction over an exclusive economic zone and a contiguous zone in accordance with the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. That is a positive move.

It is also supposed to allow the management of all oceans and coastal activities to be co-ordinated under the oceans management strategy and it tries to clarify federal responsibilities in the management of our oceans. I say it is supposed to and tries because the bill is an attempt to address the concerns of the oceans and the fisheries, but it is a failure.

The bill manages to impose a new tax on fishermen. It manages to retain the duplication in the bureaucracy which exists now. It also manages to introduce new levels of bureaucracy.

This is not what fishermen want. It is not what Canadians want or deserve. Canadians want less government, not more. The minister and members of the Liberal government seem to be the only people who do not understand that.

The bill represents the Liberal government's complete lack of understanding of what life is like in Canada as a taxpayer. What will it take for the government to understand it is impossible for Canadians to shoulder any more of an already unbearable tax burden?

What will it take to make the government understand the fishermen of Canada, already victims of a fisheries crisis on both coasts, can barely make ends meet right now? It is either a complete and utter misunderstanding on the part of the minister, although not surprising since he just awarded himself a generous pension out of all proportion to what most Canadians could ever expect, or it is a complete disdain for the plight of the fishermen. As long as his pockets are full and he does not have to make serious cuts in his department, he simply does not care. Look at the attitude he had toward the Canadian taxpayers when he refurbished his office last year at the cost of a couple hundred thousand dollars.

As I said, times are tough for most people involved in the fishery in Canada, but the fisheries minister proposes a new tax on them anyway. Clause 49, page 21 of the bill, explains that the fees are for the service provided by DFO. Would that be the privilege to fish? This is not a service. It also states that fees may not exceed the cost of providing the service. Would that be the cost of DFO, TAGS, unemployment insurance, and other social programs or what? Where does it end?

A tax would only serve to hurt an industry that is already in trouble. DFO already collects $13 million in fees from fishermen, and it wants to increase that to $50 million. That is a 400 per cent increase paid in one lump sum. The fees are based on the landed value of the catch but are paid in one lump sum at the beginning of the season. They will be incremental, not fixed.

The parliamentary secretary said last week in response to questions that were asked in the House that there had not been an increase since 1985 and therefore he was condoning the decision. A 400 per cent increase paid in one lump sum is not reasonable. Imagine if you will your hydro bill going up 400 per cent in one lump sum, or your phone bill or your mortgage payment. If this were happening to me I would push my MP to oppose such attempts. But alas, Atlantic fishermen have no one to turn to. Reform is the only party here to hear their voice.

This tax is a way for the Liberals to get the fishermen out of the industry. The minister wants to tax them out of the water. The minister calls this a user fee, but he is wrong. User fees are in return for services rendered. There are no services rendered here.

There are 31 Atlantic Canadian Liberal MPs and one from an extinct party. Where do the fishermen have to go? Reform is their only voice. We were in Atlantic Canada a couple of weeks ago and this is what we heard consistently. I feel rather bad for the Liberal MPs who come from Atlantic Canada who are going to be required to support the bill, because the people in Atlantic Canada are going to remember them for it.

The minister enjoys trying to impress the international community, but what about Canadians? Is the tax supposed to impress them?

Let us talk about another aspect of the bill; it is called partnershipping. This means that the minister under the bill will have the discretion to enter into partnership agreements on the management of the fishery resource in Canada-at his discretion.

I would like to read an excerpt from a letter I received from people in Atlantic Canada who are concerned about where this is going to lead. I quote:

In general, our concerns arise out of a potential that the Bill will permit delegation of actual resource management authority to anyone whom the Minister may see fit to nominate for this purpose. This regime has potential to be even more unpredictable and unchallengeable than the present "absolute discretion" of the Minister for which Section 7 of the Fisheries Act provides. "Management" of fisheries resources (including such decisions as access to and allocation of the resource) are critically important to individual fishermen. The delegation of such decisions to committees, who are not subject to even the dubious control of political accountability, would create opportunities for management by special-interest groups.

Fisheries management in Atlantic Canada has had a dismal history of inability to ensure that the greatest good accrues to the greatest number of participants in the industry. See, for example, the third report of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries, dated June 23, 1993. Strong leadership, a fair and reviewable decision-making process, and clear legislative mandates as to exactly whom benefits from the fishery are to principally accrue to, are required to address and to correct the fundamental problems in the industry.

The special provision in Bill C-98 which raises the concern expressed above is in Section 32(c):

1. For the purpose of the implementation of integrated management plans, the Minister may

(c) on his own or her own or jointly with another person or body or with another minister, board or agency of the Government of Canada,

(i) establish advisory or management bodies and appoint or designate, as appropriate, members of those bodies, and (ii) recognize established advisory or management bodies;

The scope to which this provision would permit delegation of unfettered and unreviewable authority to unidentified and unaccountable persons is of great concern to the independent fishermen whom it is my privilege to represent.

Mr. Speaker, you can see there is a great deal of concern in Atlantic Canada over these partnership provisions in Bill C-98.

Let us talk for a minute about the bureaucracy. Will the size of the bureaucracy be affected in any way by Bill C-98? Is this consolidation of legislation under one umbrella called the Canada oceans act going to in any way affect the bureaucracy? On paper the shuffle looks good, but the reality is it is not going to affect the bureaucracy in any tangible way.

The DFO is already a bloated department and is extremely top heavy. With the cutbacks we see the minister is talking about destaffing lighthouses while the offices in Ottawa on Kent Street remain fully staffed. Nobody has made any concerted effort to rationalize DFO's bureaucracy from the top down. They are starting from the bottom up. We see conservation officers being taken off the beat, we see enforcement officers being taken off the beat, but we do not see the bureaucracy addressed in any tangible way.

This bill was obviously drafted by bureaucrats, not parliamentarians. I guess we cannot expect them to address the need for cuts by cutting their own department, can we? It is really unfortunate that with this opportunity the minister and the government did not seize it and seriously address the size of DFO's bureaucracy.

Let us talk about ocean protection. Yes, this will be a step toward ratifying the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, but what else? What about the extension of the 200-mile limit? The minister crusaded so proudly against the Spanish fleet off our Grand Banks, and he was supported by a great number of Canadians for doing so, but what of the protection he so strongly hinted was on its way? This bill does absolutely nothing to address the extension of the 200-mile limit to cover the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks. I understand the minister made such indications here in the House earlier today. I am here to say that it does nothing to extend Canada's jurisdiction in those areas. This bill does not give the governing body any real authority. It has no teeth. Governing is only possible with authority.

As with gun control, cabinet will iron out the details of this bill later. We are talking about order in council decisions. Understandably, the fishermen in the industry do not trust it. After all, it was the government's mismanagement that got us into this whole mess in the first place. Why trust them? They have only shown that their own interests are at heart and not those of their constituents.

This bill does not invoke thoughts of government accountability in the minds of Canadians and in particular in the minds of fishermen. Instead it promotes fears of trickery and backroom dealings. The Liberal cabinet needs to make the decisions by order in council because even some of their own members are upset about this bill. We all know what the Prime Minister does with members who represent their constituents.

Cabinet could hike fees again next year without parliamentary scrutiny and without public debate. It is no holds barred for the Liberals. These are legitimate concerns. If the Liberals were implementing legislation they knew would better the fishery, why hide behind cabinet? Why would they be afraid of a public debate on the matter?

I am concerned that this will mean the special interest groups will be allowed to control the agenda. The conservation of the fishery should be in the interest of all Canadians, not just a select few.

The Reform Party cannot support a bill that would increase taxes and increase the size of government. Do the minister and this government not understand that Canadians want less government and taxes, not more? This bill is nothing more than a cowardly tax grab to ensure the job security of bloated DFO offices in Ottawa. The minister could not really have thought that fishermen and Parliament would ever condone such an act.