Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of our party to indicate that, with some significant reservations, we intend to support the bill at second reading stage.
However, as happened in the last House, after committee and the refusal on the part of the government to make the necessary amendments to make the bill more meaningful, if we do not get those amendments then we will be opposing it at third reading.
By way of background, I will reflect on the need for the legislation. Canada is behind the times on having this type of legislation. We have this huge, magnificent country, surrounded on three sides by water. Unlike a number of our other allies, we do not have this type of legislation to protect our marine areas. Specifically, the United States has had legislation since, I believe, the mid-seventies. Australia and New Zealand both have had legislation for some period of time which goes a long way to protect their marine environment by creating these types of parks or conservation areas.
With regard to the environmental issues that confront us, Canada has been slow in preparing and advancing this type of legislation. It is high time that we have it. The proposed bill that is before the House today and which will eventually go to committee would empower the government to move into this area.
I want to take a moment to mention some of the areas that environmental groups in particular, and local communities, including, in some cases, provincial governments, first nations, individual local municipal governments and environmental groups, have been working on. There is a good number of these around the country and they are becoming very frustrated with the lack of involvement by the federal government in providing assistance to develop and protect these marine areas.
My friend from Nova Scotia raised the issue earlier this week or at the end of last week of the gully that is off Nova Scotia. It is a gully that is larger than the Grand Canyon but it is underwater and it is at serious risk. The oil and gas leases, which are not being exploited at this time, would create very serious damage and/or danger to the marine life and the ecosystem if they were to proceed.
A great deal of work has been done on a very large park that is being proposed called Gwaii Hanaas off the coast of British Columbia on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Some of the briefing background I have indicates that environmental groups worked very hard and for a great length of time on the particular marine park. They have done it in co-operation with and with a great deal of assistance from the oil industry that has oil and gas leases in the area.
To its credit, the industry has given up its right to those leases. Everything is ready for the area to be designated. I believe all the work was completed by 1997. They have now been waiting for over four years for the designation. Obviously it will still be some time before we get the legislation through.
There is an area in the north off Baffin Island where a significant amount of background work has been done to prepare the area to be designated and hence protected.
There has been work done in Lake Superior, in the northern part of my home province, to designate an underwater park, which would enhance some of the other work done by the provincial government to preserve underwater parks for the enjoyment of the population. All these projects are at significant risk, so the importance of moving ahead cannot be overstated.
The NDP will be supporting the legislation. Hopefully it can be moved to committee where there will be amendments to strengthen it. The importance of the legislation is that it rounds out other legislation, to which we have had some reference today by other speakers.
Certainly the Fisheries Act provides some mechanism for the government to protect marine species and ecosystems, but it is not enough. We have the terrestrial land in the form of the work Parks Canada does in its empowering legislation, but this legislation fills a gap in the jurisprudence required to cover off the need to protect these areas. I emphasize it is our responsibility to act as good stewards of the marine territory in a country the size of Canada. The legislation is lacking in that regard.
I would like to cover some of the strengths and weaknesses in the specific legislation. There is provision in the bill to provide for public consultation. That would require consultation specifically with the provinces and the first nation communities involved.
We have some serious reservations. We heard concern expressed by the previous speaker from the Bloc on whether the consultation process was broad enough, extensive enough and meaningful enough to satisfy the provinces and the first nation communities. We share that concern. In fact we feel it does not go far enough in that the bill needs to be amended and strengthened in that regard.
I will deal specifically with a number of other issues now. One is with regard to the lack of prohibition in the legislation in terms of bottom trawling. It would be very detrimental to the ecosystem in the canyon off Nova Scotia. It is deep water trawling. It would be very damaging to fish species if it were a permitted use of that area. The legislation does not deal with that, and we will seek an amendment to prohibit such commercial activity in designated marine parks.
We have a similar concern with regard to dredging and the impact it has on fauna, currents and the general ecosystem. The legislation does not prohibit dredging, deep sea or otherwise, in marine parks. We will seek to change that.
The bill is also lacking in the whole area of aquaculture. The royal society's report on genetically modified organisms warned in very strong language that genetically modified fish must absolutely not be allowed into the general fish population. The bill does nothing to address that concern. It is a serious issue because we know of instances around the world where whole fish stocks have been wiped out. One can only imagine the impact on our marine parks if genetically modified species escaped and ran wild. The bill must be amended to address that issue.
We are concerned that the bill does not make ecological integrity the primary consideration when drafting management plans. The bill's emphasis on ecosystem management is reasonably strong. It applies the precautionary principle and I applaud it in that regard. It may be the first piece of legislation in Canada to do so. That is the good part of it.
Again, however, the bill does not recognize that ecological integrity must be the primary consideration. It is a glaring omission, and the preamble and other sections must be amended accordingly.
We have other concerns which our colleagues in the Bloc have expressed. The Saguenay—St. Lawrence Marine Park is a model for co-operation among all three levels of government. The arrangement is not perfect but it has worked reasonably well. It is a model that should be incorporated into Bill C-10 and we will be pressing for that when it goes to committee.
A final point with regard to the bill is that it does not take into account terrestrial sources of pollution or other impacts that terrestrial activity could have on marine parks.
That has implications at the national, provincial and international levels. Activities may be carried on in the United States, for instance, that have a negative impact on marine parks in Canada. The legislation does not contemplate that but it should.
It will often be land based pollution that impacts on marine parks. There are all sorts of examples where this has occurred. Forestry and farming in British Columbia have affected coastal rivers and streams and led to problems with salmon stocks. The bill does not take into account that risk or the need to deal with it.
Those are all the points I will make. We will be supporting the bill at second reading with the reservations already mentioned. We hope the government will adopt the amendments. They would make the legislation more meaningful and help it achieve its aim of preserving marine parks for the Canadian population and for global use.
