Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to address the House on behalf of the member for Vancouver Island North.
If the train leaves the station and you are not on it, it is particularly difficult to be the tour guide. The train I am talking about carries Canada's interest in fishing on the high seas. It seems that, with the exception of the half hearted introduction of Bill C-27, nobody from Canada is on that train, nor do they have any interest in trying to catch it.
Sixteen years have now gone by and this government has still not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Canada was very much in favour of this convention from its inception in 1973 until 1982 when it was adopted at the UN. The law of the sea was negotiated with leadership from both Canada and the United States but to date neither country has ratified it.
I have been in this House when the member for Davenport, a member on the Liberal side, a former environment minister in the Trudeau government, asked this government to ratify the law of the sea, and yet it has still not been done. This is one of the government's own members, a longstanding member in this House.
Why is Canada dragging its feet? Perhaps it says something about this government and past Liberal and Conservative governments that a convention so heavily favoured still has not been ratified by Canada.
If it takes 16 years to ratify something with which the government agrees, it is not hard to imagine how difficult it is to move the agenda with this government on issues that are not so straightforward.
The law of the sea is an umbrella agreement that deals with many topics other than fisheries. It deals with the preservation of marine living resources, offshore oil and gas, shipping, maritime boundaries and the resolution of marine disputes, among other issues.
It required the ratification of 60 nations before it could come into effect. This threshold was reached in November 1994 and now, in 1998, over 100 nations have signed on. Sadly, Canada is not one of those members. The United States still has not ratified the law of the sea because it has issues with deep sea mining provisions. What is Canada's excuse?
The subject of the legislation before us today, Bill C-27, which enables the government to ratify UNFA, includes the subject of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks. These fish stocks were not considered in detail during the law of the sea discussions but because the law of the sea is an umbrella agreement, it allows for subsidiary agreements like UNFA to expand on topics such as straddling and highly migratory fish stocks.
Unfortunately Canada now finds itself in the unpleasant situation of looking at the straddling and highly migratory fish stocks agreement, UNFA, which we signed in 1994, and the law of the sea agreement, which we signed in 1982, knowing we have not ratified either one even though we agreed to them when they were introduced. We still agree with them.
Why has the government been so slow to move on both the law of the sea and the UNFA? One reason might be that Canada has a case pending in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. This case arose from the action when Canada unilaterally seized the Spanish trawler Estai back in 1995.
Canada might be concerned that we could be liable for the action taken under former Bill C-29 amendments to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act passed in May 1994 and which allegedly allowed Canada to take this unilateral international action.
However, this argument does not make sense with respect to the law of the sea. It does not make sense because in 1982, when there was no Estai incident, Canada took no actions to ratify the law of the sea. Some experts even say that ratification of the UNFA will not make any difference to the Estai international court case.
However, let us just take the worst case scenario. If Canada were to lose in the international court there might be some small embarrassment to the minister of the day but certainly it would not put Canada in any great jeopardy. In fact, the Estai is still out there fishing today. The Estai is Spanish and Spain ratified the law of the sea in January 1997 and is a signatory to the UNFA.
The real issue may be that Bill C-27 might get blown out of the water. How might this happen? It flows from the ratification of UNFA that signatory states are then subject to all the enforcement provisions. Spain and Canada are both signatory nations. The real concern may therefore be that a loss at the international court could jeopardize Bill C-27 amendments to the Coast Fisheries Protection Act which allowed Canada to take unilateral action outside the 200 mile limit on behalf of straddling stocks. If our actions are held to have been illegal then Bill C-27 would also be illegal.
If that is the real concern then why is this government playing games by pretending all is well and entering into the second reading of this bill if it has no intention of carrying it forward until proceedings at The Hague are adjudicated?
We know that when the Estai case comes up again in the international court in June of this year, Canada will merely be arguing that the ICJ has no jurisdiction to try the case.
We know from the briefing we received from DFO on the bill we are debating today that it is the federal position that once UNFA is ratified the enforcement provisions of the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act will continue to apply to those vessels that belong to non-signatory nations or flags of convenience.
One thing we know for sure is that during the Estai incident, Canada did demonstrate an interest in pursuing Canada's interests aggressively in the international arena. Other than that singular time, Canada's international posture on fisheries issues is extremely weak.
All evidence demonstrates that we consistently drop the ball into the international arena. In fact, we wonder why Bill C-27 has been drafted so that a new section of the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, section 7.01, states that Canada has to get the consent of a signatory state before it can take enforcement action against one of these vessels. Imagine, we have to get consent before we go after it.
I would like to support the intent of Bill C-27. However, I do not agree with the clause in section 7.01 which reads “with the consent of the participating state”. If there are obligations imposed on the states ratifying UNFA to comply with agreed conservation measures then why should a coastal state need the permission of another signatory to enforce those conservation measures?
Is Canada pursuing the best interests of Canadians in the international arena when it comes to Canadian issues? The evidence clearly demonstrates this government continues to drop the ball on these issues.
For example, there is a growing number of fishermen on the west coast who have determined that there is a better future in fishing outside the 200 mile limit than fishing inside.
They have realized that there is a large biomass to be harvested. They have the opportunity, the expertise and the boats. They have invested in high seas fisheries. They have joined vessel owner associations along with boat owners from other nations.
There is an international fishery in the mid Pacific. Many countries that fish there have a vital interest in highly migratory stocks. Highly migratory stocks are one of those two fish stocks along with straddling stocks which are the subject of UNFA legislation.
There are approximately 100 west coast Canadian fishing vessel owners represented by the Western Fishboat Owners Association, some of whom are Canada's distant water ocean going fishing fleet owners. These boat owners fish primarily for albacore tuna but are also licensed for yellowfin, bluefin and skipjack tuna as well as other species. Some of the members' vessels operate in the north Pacific all the way to the Japanese 200 mile limit, the whole north Pacific. Some operate in both the north and the south Pacific albacore tuna fisheries.
In addition to the Canadian vessel owners who have approximately 20% of the ownership, the majority of membership in the WFOA is American. The Canadian government is not actively representing Canadian interests in this international fishery. However, the United States government is an active participant in what will be the third set of talks coming up in June about the management issues of this high seas fishery.
Previous talks have been held in the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands. The U.S. state department is there as is the Western Fishboat Owners Association.
Where is the Canadian government in all this? Is our government representing Canadian interests in the Pacific Ocean? Apparently not. Canadian boat owners have been asking where are we, where is our government. The legal counsel for the WFOA is puzzled by our lack of interest. The U.S. state department is certainly pursuing American interests, yet the Canadian department of fisheries is absent. Canada needs to get its act together and quickly.
I ask the minister, if we are going to have representatives from DFO and foreign affairs at the next meeting in Tokyo in June, to make sure Canada's public interest and fishermen's rights are not forgotten in the discussion during the creation of new rules to govern the Pacific international fishery.
Our fishing interests deserve better representation. Our nation deserves better representation and our fishermen deserve better representation. One of the issues which we vigorously championed in the development of the law of the sea and UNFA was the management of highly migratory stocks. This issue is being debated in the Pacific and we are not there.
Canadians are out fishing on the high seas for tuna and other large migratory fish. A portion of these Canadian licensed boats can fish tuna in U.S. waters between the 12 and 200 mile limit in the U.S. as well as international waters but they cannot fish within Canada's 200 mile limit because of restrictions on their Canadian licence. That is a paradox. They can fish in U.S. waters but not in Canadian waters.
American boats have no such restrictions in Canada or the U.S. because of the bilateral tuna treaty and because the U.S. does not prevent American boats from fishing within American waters. We have the bureaucratically driven nonsensical situation where some Canadian tuna boats with DFO licensing are the only boats excluded from fishing in Canadian waters. Only in Canada, you say. Of course this policy continues to be under review by DFO but it does not make any sense. Can we hope for a quick resolution?
For this reason and others it is estimated that 80% of Canadian fish landings from the tuna fleet are in U.S. ports. Unfortunately when Canadian boats do this there is an under reporting of Canadian fish landings. According to the statistics I have seen it looks like Canada does not catch many fish in the north Pacific and none at all in the south Pacific. This is simply not the case. The problem is with the reporting system.
DFO does not keep track of what Canadians catch on the high seas. That is a fact. It will quote statistic but they are totally meaningless because they are not accurate. If a Canadian boat lands its catch in the U.S. there is no mechanism for counting it as Canadian. We are totally reliant on others for the statistics. The majority of Canadian vessel catches are currently recorded as U.S. landings by their national marine service and this bolsters the U.S. catch at the cost of the Canadian catch.
When it looks like Canadian fishermen are not fishing in the Pacific and when the Canadian government does not represent its people at international meetings, then the result will very likely be that Canada will get left out entirely in allocation and conservation decisions. The government should be looking at what the U.S. is doing on the issue because according to our own fishermen, they are doing a good job.
The Canadian government is displaying absolute blindness on this issue. The Pacific resource for tuna and other species is being increasingly exploited. So far there are no conservation concerns and with some species we are only scratching the surface in terms of sustainable harvest. There is a lot out there. There is immense potential and Canada must be a player.
What invariably occurs in these circumstances, and we have only to look at the bluefin tuna in the Atlantic as an example, is that as conservation concerns develop, countries negotiate allocations based on historical catches. This is the key, historical catches. We are rapidly going to arrive at this situation in the Pacific and Canada is simply ill prepared.
Without historical data that Canadians have been catching fish on the high seas, and we do not have that, we will not obtain our allocations. Without the allocations we also become non-players in terms of management and conservation issues. Here we are a major player and we are going to be the Switzerland of fishing because of our DFO and because we have not managed this issue correctly.
There are two things that Canada must do immediately to address this issue. Canada needs to invoke a protocol to establish data collection. Canada must immediately commit to be an active participant in the high level Pacific migratory fish discussions at the next meeting in Tokyo in June. We cannot stand on the station any longer; we have to be on the train.
I would like to point out some gaps in the UN fish agreement, noting that Bill C-27 is merely the enabling legislation that will allow Canada to ratify UNFA whenever it so chooses. UNFA cannot be used with respect to fish other than highly migratory and straddling stocks. It cannot be used to help with the Pacific salmon treaty. This is not a reason not to ratify, but it certainly is a limitation.
Even though salmon do not fall into categories of fish contemplated by UNFA, Canada's international position with respect to international fisheries issues will be enhanced once we ratify.
Another gap in UNFA relates to quotas and to allocations. Although UNFA is a multilateral agreement, ratifying it will not avoid the necessity of entering into separate treaties or subsidiary agreements with foreign nations. The terms of reference in UNFA are very broad and do not address quotas and catches. We know from our experience with the Pacific salmon treaty that these specifics have to be addressed in separate negotiations.
What plan does the minister have to act decisively? This government has been unable to get the United States to agree on smaller catches of salmon on the west coast. The minister states that conservation is his first priority, yet some species of salmon are simply disappearing. What assurances do we have that this government will be any more effective when discussing other species of fish on a multilateral basis with more nations than just the U.S.?
Many people may be surprised to learn that Canada is not in the top 10 list of fishing nations. On the international scene there are powerful interests at work and if we snooze, we lose. We have a rightful place in the world fishery. We also have obligations with respect to conservation and it will not help us if we do not sign on to these international agreements.
In conclusion, if we do not have a presence, we will not have a voice. By its inaction the Canadian government is contributing to Canada's weak position. Now is the time for commitment. Now is the time for action. Hopefully the government will take heed and do the right thing.
