Yvan Bernier

[Fishers Bill Of Rights, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to add my voice to that of the hon. member for Charlotte, who sponsored this bill. It is refreshing to see that some people are concerned about the fishers.

I would like to remind the House that the Secretary of State for Fisheries and Oceans promised last fall, in response to a question from the Conservatives, that a fisheries policy would be tabled in February of this year. We have not seen it yet.

I must also remind the House that the Auditor General of Canada, Mr. Desautels, also recommended that Canada develop such a policy. In its absence, we are currently faced with administrative chaos at the hands of the federal government.

I too have some reservations about this bill, but at least someone has managed to manoeuvre through the system and to introduce a highly worthwhile bill. This is very interesting.

Introducing legislation that will give fishers a hand in assessing stocks is very intelligent. Allowing fishers to take part in preserving fish stocks is very intelligent. I do, however, have misgivings about the setting of quotas and about licensing.

As for the administration of public fishing rights, I too would like to see fishers protected. We have to agree in committee on whether it is to protect currently active fishers from any discretionary power the minister of fisheries presently enjoys under the law, which he tried to consolidate in the former Bill C-62.

Those fishers still active are satisfied, but they are always afraid the minister will upset the balance they have achieved. I think it vital that their rights be protected, but, if the public is going to be allowed to fish, the circumstances under which others may enter must be defined.

What I find interesting in the second part of the bill is the discussion of establishing the right of fishers to be informed in advance of decisions affecting fishing as a livelihood. I imagine the member is referring to native fishing. Personally, I think it makes good sense to be informed.

However, I will link this with the second right the bill attempts to establish, namely the right to compensation if other rights are abrogated unfairly. Let us look at native fishing. I believe in the rule of law, in that, if native people are entitled by treaty to certain things, I am not going to take them away. Except that it is not the fault of the non native fishers and it is not up to them today to pay for everything.

If Canada ever recognizes the rights by treaty, we must be able to compensate the non native fishers currently there. It has to be done systematically.

On the subject of the unfair abrogation of rights, reference must be made to moratoriums. When the minister of fisheries establishes a moratorium, prohibits certain types of fishing, fishers who have always earned their living from this sort of fishing lose their rights and have their lives changed. I think that warrants compensation.

I refer to the famous income support program, the Atlantic groundfish strategy, known as TAGS. We are two months away from its expiry, and fishers are still waiting to find out what will happen.

The members opposite continue to give mixed signals, telling us that maybe the program will be extended and maybe it will not. If such rights had been established, it would be automatic. If the bill goes to committee, we could suggest a few things for members to add.

We in committee saw the nasty tricks the government can play, how it tries to weasel out of its responsibility. If this needs to be formalized, we have a suggestion for members.

The points I would like to develop further concern the establishment of quotas, that is, allowing fishers to take part in the establishment of quotas, and the awarding of licences.

It is not that I am opposed in any way, but going back to the spirit of TAGS and my reading of it, which I shared with the fisheries minister, the fisheries minister admitted in the House last fall that the reason TAGS had not worked, and was a passive rather than an active program, was precisely because Ottawa had not involved the provinces in the strategy's development.

It is therefore important for the provinces as well to be allowed to help establish quotas and award licences.

Canada, a member of NAFO, claims to be a world leader when it comes to oceans management. Canada supplies NAFO with biological data and it is through participation and the sharing of biological information that it is possible to work out a conservation policy as well as decide on what should be caught and what should be left in the water to ensure the sustainability of the resource.

I will talk only about eastern Canada and leave the western part of the country up to the members who represent it. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean in zones 2GH and 3KL—for fishers in the know—why could Canada not operate along NAFO lines and work in concert with the provinces, sharing biological information in order to ensure that there is a conservation plan? The provinces, once they have established the quotas, could then issue licences, that is distribute the resources within their territory.

We must always bear in mind this rule of thumb: every fisher at sea creates employment for approximately five people on shore. The biggest problem, in terms of what we are looking at today, is in the provinces' backyards right now. I think some connections should be made between the two.

The secretary of state listed earlier the five principles that guide the department. He mentioned environmentally sustainable fisheries, economically viable fisheries and talked about Bill C-27, criticizing the opposition for withdrawing its support. What he failed to mention however—and I am glad the hon. member of the Reform Party picked this up—is that the opposition members on the committee wanted to call in as a witness the father of former Bill C-29, Brian Tobin. He is the one who drafted the legislation to preserve straddling stocks in the last Parliament.

This government is making sure this legislation does not have any teeth. My concern is that we end up with nothing. When, across the way, they brag, giving lip service to using to preserve the resource, I think they are taking kid gloves, not to say a 100-foot pole, to avoid taking their responsibilities in this respect, as they did with TAGS.

[Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the TAGS program ends in August, but the minister must not wait until the evening of July 31 to take action.

I would like the minister to tell us whether the new program will include measures like early retirement, license buyback, income support and regional economic diversification. Will these four measures be part of the future program? In short, I would like him to act before July 31.

[Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, June 4th, 1998]

My question is very simple: Will there be another TAGS program and, if so, when it will be announced?

[Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, June 4th, 1998]

Sometimes he says one thing, sometimes another. In short, he contradicts himself.

[Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Fishers and fishery workers have been waiting months to find out what the government is going to do after the TAGS program expires. The minister is refusing to provide clear answers.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague from Mercier for her speech. In the last session, she worked with us on Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. Clearly her heart is with the unemployed. She is still very much aware, she experiences it, she still talks about it and she moves us.

I wish she could continue. I imagine there is no point asking the House for unanimous consent to allow her to continue longer, but I will offer her time.

I would like the hon. member to educate the Liberals a little about the system, the $39,000, the cutoff point. Before it was $43,000. But I think there was something more hidden away in all that.

Was it not also to try to staunch the flow of money from out of the system, since now the limit is not $43,000 but $39,000. Is it not bad enough that the Liberals are double dipping?

On the one hand, they set up a procedure that costs them less and, on the other, they establish a limit. I would ask the hon. member to continue on this.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. I must say that some parts surprised me; however, I can see that other members want to ask questions so I will be very brief.

In his speech, the hon. member opposite said that he was glad that some premium money was retained, that everything was not redistributed. He talked a lot about the fact that the government balanced its books, but when it comes to the employment insurance fund he is glad that it is not balanced, that there is more money coming in than going out. He said he was pleased about that and hoped that there would be enough money in the fund to face the next recession.

I would like to ask the hon. member whether he knows that the Minister of Finance has already used the surplus to pay down the deficit, and that, therefore, his dream of being prepared for the next recession is not likely to come true? If this is what he wants, is he ready to side with the Bloc Quebecois and vote in favour of the private members' bills we have introduced to establish an employment insurance fund that would not be part of general revenue?

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that when you name my riding, my time is not shortened accordingly.

I note, with my friend from Acadie—Bathurst, that this is deplorable. This may also be the reason why the people have lost confidence in politicians, because others who came before you and me did not keep their promises. They made all kinds of promises, they promised to look after their constituents' well-being but they did not deliver.

During the 1993 election, we told the people in Quebec that there was no difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals.

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I know you are very interested in the debate between the member for Acadie—Bathurst and myself, so I will address the Chair.

It is very regrettable, but the democratic system demands that we learn to live with the people across the way. There is only one opportunity to get them to listen to reason and that is when there is an election. In 1993, the Progressive Conservatives got a taste of it, and in 1997 the Liberals came close. The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst shook things up when he defeated Doug Young. I did the same when I won Mr. Gagnon's seat.

What I am saying is that it is up to the public to take action when the time comes. Right now, if people want to see other amendments, they must continue to put pressure on their local MP. And, with your leave, Mr. Speaker, I would urge all Canadians in the rest of Canada, in central and western Canada, to remember that the country to which they are so attached—it is perhaps sad that it is a sovereignist saying so, but I will say it anyway—owes its development to the east. The sun still rises in the east.

We have not yet learned how to gather strawberries in January and fish crab in February. To everything there is a season, and we cannot change that. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans sets the periods during which we may fish. It is not my fault if biology tells us that we cannot fish lobster for more than 10 weeks in a given zone.

But what do we do with the fisher after that? Do we send him to Montreal on a computer course? If he became a good computer programmer, would he ever return to lobster fishing?

Instead of wanting to cut all the assistance programs, what steps have Fisheries and Oceans and Human Resources Development Canada taken with the provinces concerned to improve marketing of these species and see whether there are not other species that can be marketed at the same time, so as to increase the income of fishers, dockhands and plant workers? We, too, would like not to need EI any more, but there is a difference between not needing it any more and starving. It is frustrating.

Every weekend, I return to my riding, and what I find the most surprising today, here in the House, is that the public is still calm. But I could not guarantee the physical safety of certain Liberal members across the way in the spots I visited again last weekend, because discontent is growing and it is palpable.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you, but if this is the new way of putting it, I have to say I profoundly disagree with the minister.

It is nevertheless all to your credit, Mr. Speaker, that you picked up on my words, when I would have expected the minister to defend his honour himself.

I will close with a quote from the member for Shawinigan, who wrote the following to an Action-chômage group in February 1993. He said, about the Conservative government of the time, “Instead of going after the heart of the problem, they are going after the unemployed. These measures will have troubling repercussions, because they discourage workers”. The current Prime Minister went on to say “When the people have an opportunity to speak in 1993, there will be a change in course. I am sure that a new team offering new approaches and policies will help Canadians recover the confidence and hope they lost with the present government”. He was still talking about the Conservatives. The signature is that of the member for Shawinigan.

In closing, I would like to sing part of a famous song by Félix Leclerc, which goes like this:

On the eve of election He'll call you his son The following day, a hundred to one Your name he will shun

And that is exactly what happened.

[Supply, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw these words if they are deemed unparliamentary, but could the clerks at the table suggest to the Chair and to me another way of describing what the minister has done.

I have pointed out three statements in the minister's remarks that are incorrect. If this is unparliamentary, I am at a loss as to how this should be said.