Gerry Byrne

[Petitions, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to submit to the House the following three certified petitions from constituents in Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte who call upon the government to maintain the moratorium on post office closures and to withdraw the legislation to legalize remailers.

[Fisheries, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, integrity begs the minister to do exactly the same on northern shrimp, should quota reductions occur, as she did on gulf crab.

Now decisions have to be made because the fishery has not yet recovered from the turmoil of the global recession. The global economic crisis is still keeping lobster prices low and shrimp at rock bottom prices. Crab prices are suffering despite resource cutbacks.

Why will the government not respond with a significant, comprehensive and augmented economic assistance package for the fishing industry?

Let me point out that should they spout off about what they have done so far, they are saying nothing--

[Fisheries, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the gulf crab fishery is made up of both traditional and new entrants alike.

In recent years, former groundfish-dependent fleets were allowed entry into area 12, but when the minister announced the 63% reductions in quota this year, rather than cutting the newer entrants first, a policy known as last in, first out, all shared the cuts proportionately and all shared the remaining quota, regardless of when they entered the fishery.

Will the minister confirm that she will be consistent and apply this same decision to northern shrimp, should quota reductions occur in that fishery?

[Petitions, April 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to table in the House certified petitions from constituents of Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte who ask that the government maintain the moratorium on rural post office closures and to withdraw the legislation to legalize remailers.

The petitioners also note that the post office is absolutely critical to the services provided in rural communities in particular. These petitioners come mostly from the area of La Scie, as well as York Harbour and Lark Harbour in my riding.

[Fisheries, April 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, allow me to quote directly from the documents produced by the minister's own Science Advisory Secretariat on Gulf crab. In 2007, it said that a “population is now in a phase of decline” in Gulf crab. In 2008, it said that recruitment to the fishery was declining by 39%. In 2009, it said that recruitment to the fishery was declining by a further 13%.

Either the science branch of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans failed or the minister did.

She has now been exposed as failing the fishery and failing conservation.

[Fisheries, April 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a 63% cut in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence snow crab quotas has left an entire region in crisis. A 63% decline in just one season is too much to explain.

Either the science branch of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans failed to properly monitor the health of these stocks over the last several years and failed to provide the minister with timely advice, or the minister herself failed to properly act on the science advice that was given to her over several years.

I would like to ask the minister which it is: Did science fail or did the minister?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right that we do share a certain passion for these issues. He is quite right that there has been absolute hypocrisy on the government side in relation to the matters of international fisheries management.

We did indeed have a very lengthy debate, a prolonged debate, as decided by the government because it refused to actually allow the debate. It just kept it going and going, thinking the issue would go away. We forced the issue on the floor of the House of Commons as opposition parties, as the Liberal Party of Canada showing its leadership on this particular front. We brought it to a vote. We expected the government to honour the will of Parliament. Twenty-four hours later, it ratified the deal anyway. It is disgusting.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government was totally inoperative and useless in actually avoiding the ban. It is still scheduled to come into effect this coming fall. Quite frankly, it is going to be devastating to the entire industry.

The member is quite right to point out that certain exemptions were put into place. The largest seal hunt in the world in 2010 will be conducted in the European Union. Every Canadian, every activist, needs to understand that when the ban came into place against Canadian seal products, the exemption was in circumstances where a cull was required. In other words, to protect certain commercial activities, whether it be salmon sport fishing or other things, if a seal is at the mouth of a river, then go ahead, it can be eliminated. Why? Because Sweden, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, a lot of northern European countries as well as central European countries, are actively engaged in seal culling.

The only difference is they do not harvest the seal for a commercial purpose, taking its hide, its meat, rendering it into very rich omega-3 oils, which is very important to the nutraceutical and the medicinal industries. They do not manufacture the goods into clothing. They do not use the material for food sources, as a protein source. They let the animal sink to the bottom. They kill it and for no commercial purpose in mind. I say to people to give their money to PETA, give their money to the IFAW, give their money to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, support the cull in Europe, because that is exactly what they are doing. It is totally irresponsible.

I want to thank the member for his support in this initiative.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a certain amount of frustration followed by anger that I rise to speak to the budget when I look at the negative impact this budget is having on my province of Newfoundland and Labrador, indeed all of eastern Canada. I want to zero in specifically on a few items and dovetail on some of the issues brought forward by the member for Cape Breton—Canso.

When we look at what is in the budget, there are a lot of things that could make someone very frustrated, but what makes one very angry is what is not in the budget. This is going to be one of the most difficult, absolutely impoverished years in the fishery that we have had on both coasts.

On the Pacific side, in British Columbia, as a result of the Fraser River sockeye decline and the unexpected, drastically lower returns, we not only see what little is left of the commercial harvest of sockeye salmon on the Pacific, we also see that the fishery for our aboriginal and first nations users, our sport enthusiasts and our outfitting industry is absolutely decimated.

Salmon is to the soul of B.C. what cod is to the soul of Newfoundland and Labrador. People in B.C. are experiencing first-hand the very same turmoil, the same deep experience of anxiety that Newfoundlanders, Labradorians and Atlantic Canadians felt in 1992 with the collapse of northern cod and Atlantic cod stocks. The people of B.C. are hurting.

What has the government done? Absolutely nothing. There is absolutely no plan in place. Granted, the Cohen commission is now studying the issue. I am not expecting any results in terms of specific recommendations for several years, but here is what we do know. Right now there are people in B.C., first nations, sport outfitters and commercial operators that are hurting. We do not need the Cohen commission to come out and say that it would be a responsible move to assist those who are facing negative economic impacts as a result of sudden drastic declines in that precious resource all Canadians share but is unique and very special to B.C. There is nothing in this budget, absolutely nothing.

On my coast on the eastern side, this past year the harp seal hunt basically has been shut down, not through the actions necessarily of Pam Anderson or any of her like, but the reality is that as a force of nature, ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in the front are significantly limiting the opportunities to prosecute that age-old economic mainstay first created by the Europeans to feed their need for oil to light the street lamps of London.

The largest seal hunt that will occur anywhere on the globe this year ironically will occur in Europe. In Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, Germany and Sweden, there will be a massive cull. The largest hunt in the world will be in Europe and it is all sanctioned by PETA, the IFAW and all the rest of them. When people want to make a contribution to any of those organizations, they should remember that they are supporting the cull of seals in Europe, but I digress.

Let us get back to the issue, which is that in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands, P.E.I. and other places, there is no real commercial hunt under way because of a force of nature. A lot of money will necessarily be lost by our commercial seal hunters for this year. We would expect that the government, if it stands with sealers as it suggests that it does, would bring forth some sort of assistance. There is none.

In New Brunswick and Quebec, in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, the crab industry just faced a 63% cut in crab quotas, 63% in one year. I do not know how much members know about the fishery, fish or science, but I can tell them this. Any person understands that when a minister cuts a stock by 63% in one year, there is a failing of one of two sources. Science may have failed to detect the decline over the last number of years and failed to provide the proper advice. There cannot be a 63% decline in one year. Science may have failed to detect a gradual decline that was occurring over the last number of years.

Of course, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is responsible for conducting the science, so either DFO failed to do its fiduciary responsibility and engage in the necessary science of that stock, or the minister failed to act on the policy requirements of that stock over the last number of years. It is one of the two. Either science failed us all and the minister, or the minister failed each and every one of us and especially the fishermen who depend on her leadership to manage the stock in an appropriate way.

We cannot have a reduction of 63% in one year without some fundamental catastrophic cause. I do not think there was any fundamental catastrophic cause. What I believe happened is that science provided a certain amount of advice to the minister that said this stock was in a certain amount of trouble, and over the last number of years when that advice was being provided, the minister failed to act on it.

Those who prosecute that resource, those who depend on it and depend on its stability, those who depend on the leadership of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans are right in asking for some sort of economic compensation for a failure in leadership either from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans itself or at the policy level from the minister who neglected her fundamental fiduciary duty to do the right thing over a period of several years.

Tens of millions of dollars will now be lost, over $80 million to the province of New Brunswick alone. This is a federal government responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the provincial government. It does not set quotas. It does not initiate the science. The province of New Brunswick has absolutely no capacity to intervene whatsoever on the decisions of the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

It is absolutely abundantly clear to each and every one of us that the federal government must intervene. The people of New Brunswick, the people of Quebec, those whose livelihood depends on this particular resource, those who bring in tens of millions of dollars in export opportunity are depending on the federal government. All of the crab is exported to the U.S., Europe and Asia. All of this resource is a fundamental mainstay of the rural and coastal communities throughout that particular region.

What does the government provide? What does the budget provide? Nothing. The government does not even acknowledge that it is the root cause of the problem. The government tries to slough it off and suggest the provinces somehow have a responsibility, even though the provincial governments have no capacity whatsoever to make any decisions when it comes to the management of the resource itself.

As the member for Cape Breton—Canso alluded to earlier, we have the issue of the area 23 and area 24 crab. The minister said in no uncertain terms that the previous minister's decision to allow Tim Rhyno to overturn the decision of the independent advisory council, to overturn the recommendations of departmental officials, not one individual was able to rise to the top, get to the former minister and be allocated a multi-million dollar crab licence by bypassing the entire process. The current minister says that is perfectly acceptable because sometimes ministers have to take the responsibility, have to right a wrong.

Yet the minister is proposing a fisheries act in which she says that should never be allowed to happen, that the decisions or recommendations of independent advisory panels should be adhered to regardless, that the minister should have no say. The minister is becoming the greatest advocate as to why this House should never ever vote for her own act. Her own act is basically an act of her asking us to please protect her from herself.

We have the situation of another former minister, the member from Halifax, who basically brought in a management plan that said that crab should be shared on a fair and equitable basis with a 50:50 split. That was the management plan. The present minister came in and tore up the entire plan and said that she needs the right to be able to do so because she needs to right a wrong. She said that if she gets her act passed she will never be able to do it.

This budget needs to be changed.

[Committees of the House, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the member for Saint John and chair of the fisheries committee took the time to read the speech that was provided for him and written for him by the fisheries minister's office. I also want to say that I appreciate the fact he took the time just recently to sign the letter to the editor that was also prepared for him by the minister's office.

I am just wondering about something. The member agrees and said so in the letter to the editor of the St. John's newspaper, which reaches province-wide in Newfoundland and Labrador, that he agrees that the issue is far too complex for Parliament to resolve; that there are issues far outstanding and far exceeding the grasp of his side; and that he agrees that this should be put to an independent outside panel of experts to decide whether or not Canada should ratify the NAFO treaty, because he says that Canada does not have the expertise in this Parliament to be able to decide that, and he agrees that his party and his government does not have the expertise.

Will he commit to an outside independent panel to decide this, as he said he would? Yes or no?