Madam Speaker, I see we have an audience of the faithful here this afternoon. We will take advantage of the opportunity to teach the adult class of hon. members seated across the way a thing or two, because they certainly need it.
I am pleased to speak today on a subject as crucial as the future of the fisheries. I note that the Conservative Party has made it an opposition day topic. That is a step in the right direction, but I would like, if I may, to clarify where I stand on it.
I agree that the fishery should be discussed every day. I see the Conservatives calling in the preamble to their motion for the House to recognize the urgent need for action to address the serious problems in fisheries. Well yes, there are serious problems in fisheries. And hooray for them, the Conservatives have woken up and realized it. I must also point out they were part of the problem.
Where they go off the track, however, is that their motion identifies the problem but is way off on the solution. The Conservative motion asks the government to establish a national policy. I will explain why they are on the wrong track.
In this motion, the Conservative Party forgets that British Columbia called for an agreement on co-operative management, which it obtained in part, and their premier, Mr. Clarke, whom I congratulate warmly on it, wants more because it is his perception, along with all the BC fishers, that the federal government is negotiating from a grovelling position with the United States.
The Conservatives also forget that the Government of Quebec has called for repatriation of part of the management of the Quebec fisheries, particularly the non-migratory species, and for a co-operative management agreement for the migratory species. If a party wants to regain power, it needs to treat the east the same as the west.
This motion speaks of resource conservation, that the government must assume leadership. I must remind you that the Conservatives and the Liberals were in power over the last ten years, and that the problem originates with those two parties.
I listened this morning to the speech and the response to a question asked after the speech by the Conservative Party critic. He was replying to a question by the Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries who asked him “What would you have as a national policy?” His reply: “More research. More research”. Studies we've got. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals have their studies, but they are commissioning more. They accept the ones that suit them.
The problem is that they are both judge and accused. They look at the biomass, for instance, determine the total allowable catch, and then when that figure is not high enough to suit their little buddies, they just cook the figures and raise the TAC.
I think that it was an NDP colleague who called this morning for an investigation. We are in favour of one as well.
We are not in agreement with the motion, and I will explain a little more. We are not in agreement with a policy that is styled as national and overall, but we are still less in agreement with the amendment proposed by the Liberal government, to continue with the policy already in place. That is a free translation of what was said: continue the implementation of.
How could I possibly give my blessing to a government that has been the downfall of the fisheries. The auditor general's report is still fresh in everybody's mind. The auditor general was not exactly kind to the Liberals. He told them point-blank “You created a strategy to rationalize the industry and allow it to survive”. What mark does he give them? Let me tell you: 0% because, in their obsession to reduce the deficit, cuts were made in manpower training, in licence buy-backs, in early retirement programs.
Hearings started this morning in fishing communities. Witnesses from Newfoundland, the Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands and Nova Scotia were heard. People are saying that they still need the Atlantic groundfish strategy because they have not yet started to diversify. In some cases, it is almost out of the question. The program is still needed.
Better still, however, people are coming with ideas on improving things. They are looking to the future, something the government opposite is not, obviously. The government should keep a close eye on the work of the standing committee. I think the coastal communities will show us the route to take.
I will not dwell on the policy of the Conservatives, because I learned nothing new this morning. However, I was surprised that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans actually spoke on the subject. I consider him brave for setting out four principles this morning.
He spoke of what, in his view, could guide a national policy. He spoke of trying to establish a relationship between sustainability of the stocks and the advisability of issuing quotas. That is all very well, but I heard nothing in the minister's speech of his course of action.
He also spoke of trying to strike a balance between catch size and fish stock renewal capacities. Here again, the minister indicated no course of action. He provided no specifics, only principles. I recognize that principles is what we are dealing with, here.
The minister's third principle was about ensuring self-sufficiency for fisheries in the future. He wants to try to make coastal communities and fishing associations self-sufficient. He talked of his way—and here a way is offered to achieving independence—he spoke of co-operative, or joint management.
Every time I have heard the Liberals opposite talking of joint management it always translated as: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to manage jointly, that is, we are going to share the bill with you”. And it is true, fishing licence fees have gone up, and, as we saw in the previous bill, under the system of joint management, the government was preparing to unload part of the bill for biological and management costs. I still have not seen the benefit of this. The fishing community, whether coastal or midshore, has yet to see its share of benefits.
The fourth principle stated by the minister, and the last speaker boasted about this quite a bit, is conservation, the ultimate goal. For that I must commend the minister. No one can argue with that, not even a sovereignist Bloc member like me. We are all for conserving our fish stocks. But let us wait and see how this will be done.
To continue with this adult education class for the members across the way, with your permission, I could table before this House a document I released last February. We had a different fisheries minister at the time; it was long before an election was called. This goes to show that the we in the Bloc Quebecois do not wait for an election to be called to put proposals forward.
In this document, I set four prerequisites to a reopening of fisheries; indeed, last spring, the minister was toying with the idea of perhaps starting to reopen fisheries. But there was not much consultation with fishers. The biomass threshold at which fisheries could reopen was not determined.
There were no discussions with fishers either to let them know how this would be done, because it has to take place gradually. We expected a reopening but with small quotas.
Nothing was done to identify fishers and on what basis. Nothing was done in terms of identifying the nucleus of fishers who will make up tomorrow's fisheries. This is a serious problem. Everyone in the industry agrees that there are too many people active in the fisheries. Some will argue the harvesting capacity is too big. We will see within the prerequisites I will identify how a balance can be struck between the harvesting capacity and the number of individuals who will be able to earn a living fishing.
Let us start by looking at my four prerequisites. First, the downsizing, or reduction of the harvesting capacity. Second, we must have some idea of what we will do with fishers once they start fishing again. This refers to versatility, to the possibility of catching various species. The third point critical to any reopening, to any negotiation and to the future of fisheries is provincial quotas. I will elaborate on this in a moment. The fourth point is the delegation of powers to the provinces, as I briefly mentioned earlier.
How will we achieve this streamlining and why do we have to do it? Under its Atlantic groundfish strategy, or TAGS, the Liberal government promised to streamline operations. This was the ultimate goal. In return for this upcoming streamlining, the government was to provide income support. Everyone waited. People thought if they were not designated as surplus fishers or workers, it would mean that, some day, they would be able to work in the fisheries again. However, the Liberals fooled us, because not long after the first year of implementing the TAGS program, everything was stopped as regards buying back permits and offering preretirement programs.
The objective behind the streamlining was to match the harvesting capacity with the available biomass, once the moratoriums were over. So, when the minister says he wants to try match this with his second principle, I have suggestions for ways of doing it. An assessment of the situation must be done.
The worst as regards streamlining, and I will say it again, is the definition of the core group of fishers. Those who said this morning that the harvesting capacity must be reduced are on the right track. They recognize that it might be necessary to reduce it by 50%. This is a laudable objective. Some will suggest using more ecological fishing gear. I know there are several schools of thought on the issue. Some will say that only longlines should be used. For those who have never heard of them, these are lines with nothing but baited hooks. It takes a fish of a certain size to be able to take the hook and the bait. That is one approach.
I myself am of another school of thought that says that the various types of gear used nowadays are aimed at different year classes. In the category of mobile gear, longlines and gill nets each catch different year classes. Each of these year classes has a mortality rate. I think that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans could examine the mortality of each, and of course, if we wanted to catch more slightly older fish, we could perhaps reduce the catch of those who are taking a bit more. But we shall see. I am indicating an approach, and I am open to other suggestions.
Why is variety so necessary? Everyone began talking about variety when the moratoriums were being introduced. People said that when they began to fish again, they would like to be able to count on fishing from one freeze-up to the next, because everyone knows that, when winter comes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there is the problem of ice and it is very difficult to go fishing. Or, as our NDP colleague said the other day, it is not easy to pick strawberries in January and blueberries in February. Our activities depend on the seasons.
Why am I talking about variety? Regardless of the gear fishermen have, there is always a risk that they will catch a species other than the one they were looking for or the one on their permit. People should therefore be allowed an incidental catch that is a bit larger than present limits. And there should be monitoring of all catches landed as to size and variety.
When I say variety, I am not talking about someone who sets out to catch herring but who sets his nets for salmon—even when he no longer has a commercial fishing permit for salmon. That is not what I mean by variety.
When fishers are after groundfish, they can end up with species other than cod—monkfish and rake, for example—which would add to the value of catches. These are species we are not much used to catching at present, and particularly unused to selling. But it is important that we go in that direction.
That will also enable us, while avoiding waste, to return to the sea certain of the species classified as non-commercial. That would also allow us, since we are entering new markets, to say that the small fish taken accidentally—even though no one wants to take the small ones—can also be sold. When they are deep fishing, any fish that is brought up must be expected to die, because when they are brought up fast through several atmospheres, their guts will burst.
What I see in multi-species licensing is that everyone can have access to various fisheries. We often hear people calling for crab quotas, and they are not traditional crab fishers. Some call for shrimp quotas, and they are not traditional shrimp fishers.
If we took the time to properly rationalize by type of commercial fishery, identified by name at present, the time to do the exercise so that each of these fisheries would be in a position to support the number of fishers and others working in it—first of all there would have to be a fishery-by-fishery exercise. What I am then proposing is that, when it can be identified that such and such a fishery is capable of supporting such and such a number of persons, the type classifications should be removed. The main problem is that the principal lucrative types of fisheries we have are highly specialized and, in many cases, operated only by single-licence fishers. They do not, therefore, have access to diversifying their catches.
What I would propose is that a mechanism be put in place that could be called something like an individual transferable quota. It already exists in areas such as shrimp fishing in the St. Lawrence River or midshore cod fishing, but it should be expanded to other groups.
Why suggest an individual transferable quota? Because, with individual quotas, it is possible to control the fishing effort of any given catching vessel. I would like this quota to be transferable so that, some day, groups of midshore cod fishers can trade quotas—against cod of course—with shrimpers using essentially the same type of gear, that is to say mobile gear. We could take similar measures regarding so-called offshore crab fishers whose gear is called fixed.
Through these mechanisms, we could establish a relationship between the various fishery stakeholders. The cornerstone of this whole downsizing process is, of course, the provincial quota—and in this respect the minister will have to come to terms with what went wrong with the TAGS program the first time around: insufficient involvement on the part of the provinces. Why did the provinces not want to get involved? Precisely because they had no guarantee that provincial quotas would be protected.
How could a fisheries minister, say in Newfoundland, agree to reduce the number of existing plants without any guarantee that his quotas will be protected? It goes without saying that, in order to resolve the deficit problem and effect downsizing, powers will have to be transferred to the appropriate provinces.
It is very important that the minister be made aware of these four prerequisites and I think these four principles give him something to work on. I am now prepared to entertain questions and comments from my hon. colleagues.
