Fred Mifflin

[Canadian Coast Guard, March 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member I would like to make three points.

The first point is there is an agreement in principle that access to public facilities managed at public expense has to be charged a fee. The second point is we are graduating these marine service fees at $20 million, $40 million, $40 million, $60 million over a period of four years. I want to remind the hon. member that we are dealing with a service that cost $384 million and we are charging only $20 million for it.

The impact studies he talked about will be done between the imposition of the collection of the $20 million and the $40 million. There simply is not time to do all the studies. We have done the consultations. We will impose the fees. We will do the impact studies before we go into the $40 million fees for services that cost $384 million. That is not a bad deal.

[Canadian Coast Guard, March 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, nothing has been swept away, as the hon. member knows. I would not call the consultations that have gone on since January the sweeping away of anything. There have been very sincere and very delicate consultations with all members and all interested parties.

Despite what the hon. member says, there is general agreement that the system we are now using is much better than the system we started out with. That was the purpose of the consultations.

I want to assure the hon. member that even though the prices may have fluctuated on a tonne basis, in the case of Quebec we are dealing with a one cent difference in the consultation that has taken place. I would not exactly call a one cent difference a sweeping away, particularly with respect to the consultations.

[Canadian Coast Guard, March 20th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is not doing anything to contribute to the ease of the particular system.

When we are dealing with something this controversial and complex across the country and we want to do it within a reasonable timeframe, of course there has to be feedback. The feedback takes place during the process of consultation, as the hon. member knows. He is smiling at me.

The imposition of the fees we were hoping would be done by April 1; however, it would appear we will not be able to do it until June. The $20 million collected on April 1 will now be later than that and every month that goes by we will have to collect more.

The hon. member is trying to impede the process. He is doing absolutely nothing to add to the simplicity of imposing these fees and coming up with an effective system across the country that is fair and reasonable.

[Canadian Coast Guard, March 20th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, this issue has to be taken in its overall context.

I think everybody in the House would agree this is not a simple business of deciding on a maritime service fee for all of the country.

There are a number of options. One was to consider a port specific fee structure, but that would not work. Another was to consider a national system, but that would not work either.

The system we have now considered in this iteration of the consultation really looks at three regions: the Pacific, the Atlantic and the inland and Laurentian region.

If the hon. member says the commissioner of the coast guard was not responsive to suggestions, I have to remind him that no fewer than 300 people and parties were listened to. The marine advisory board has regular consultations with him. He is going on now to do more iterations and consultations. While he may not have given on major points yesterday, the purpose of the consultations is to have one more round before we go into effect.

[Canadian Coast Guard, March 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member I would like to make two points.

He used the term disastrous effect. We are looking at the range of fees all across Canada in all the ports which is not more than 3 per cent of the total fees represented in the shipping business.

I share the hon. member's concern about what impact this is going to have after we have finished with the input and see what effect it will have on the industry. We are in the process of doing two impact studies. I will make them available to the member and indeed to the House.

[Canadian Coast Guard, March 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, of course the hon. member knows we are going through a consultation process.

We have looked at different systems to impose these marine service fees. There are many ways we could go about doing this. We are now on the second iteration, some would consider the third depending on how we go.

The hon. member would also know that we are working very closely with the marine advisory board representatives across Canada and with all stakeholders in the industry. We have one goal in mind, which is to come up with a system that is the most fair and equitable to all Canadians.

[Fisheries, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member and his colleagues for their participation in the meeting to which he refers, along with Neil Bellefontaine, the regional director general, his staff and the fishermen. It went on for three days and involved 200 fishermen representing 47 different groups in six fishery sectors.

It involved some difficult subjects such as groundfish management, fisheries legislation, licensing policy and the commercial licence fees for 1996.

I will be holding a press conference following question period that will give all the details of this. However, the measure of success that was achieved in the three days of talks is a positive indicator to me as fisheries minister that the management of fisheries at difficult times when the resources are very scarce will go on in a very positive, understanding, consultative and co-operative manner.

[Canadian Sovereignty, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly understand the thrust of the hon. member's question.

All members of the House are concerned for the 16,000 commercial fishermen in British Columbia who fish a very difficult species. There are 4,000 stocks, 1,500 streams and a migration pattern that takes two to five years leading to the Alaskan and Aleutians Islands. There is a great concern about this.

The mediation process that has been going on since last summer, of which the hon. member is aware, has stalled. It has not been 100 per cent successful but it has been at least 75 per cent successful. The success that has been achieved was the basis of a discussion between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and myself yesterday. I can assure the House he will be going to Washington with some very good and very strong options that will support the fishermen of British Columbia and their concerns.

[Canadian Sovereignty, March 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

He talks about the U.S. passing laws. The U.S. put its name to a law 150 years ago, the Treaty of Oregon, which recognized without contention that the inside passage was internal waters. In internal waters there is no right of innocent passage.

Irrespective of any laws the U.S. may have passed which ask it to look for the fees to be returned, which we have refused, this treaty has stood the test of time and will stand us in good stead if we have to look at this downstream.

[Sports Fishery, March 6th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to assure the hon. member that the government is very interested and concerned about the control of sea lampreys in the Great Lakes.

In this fiscal year we will be contributing $3.8 million which basically restores the level to that of earlier years. There was an increase last year but we are going back to earlier levels.

It is the view of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that in all fisheries the use of public resources, particularly those managed by public expense, should really command a licence fee. To that end, we are dealing with the province of Ontario to look for ways to further assist in the control of predators like the sea lamprey, for

more effective control in sports fishing and other kinds of fishing that are affected by these predators.