John Cummins

[Question No. 78, June 22nd, 2005]

With regard to programs and all other special expenditures for aboriginals in the riding of Delta—Richmond East, what was the total expediture by each federal department, agency or Crown corporation for fiscal years 2000-2001, 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 for each band, aboriginal organization, aboriginal society and corporation?

(Return tabled)

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my friend's question is important. From where did these predator fish in Cultus Lake come? Cultus Lake is one of several lakes in the area that flow into the Fraser River. This pike minnow does not exist in Harrison Lake, which I believe Mr. Speaker is in your riding, or in Pitt Lake. From where did the fish come. Did someone dump an aquarium? Was it part of some provincial or federal transfer program to enhance sport fishing? No one really knows. Those kinds of answers are necessary.

The minister made an announcement a few day ago. When he makes announcements about British Columbia fisheries, he does not go to British Columbia to do it. He does it here at a press conference in Ottawa. It saves the taxpayers travel money, but more important, the minister does not have to stare down the people who are most concerned about this, the people who have an interest in fisheries in British Columbia. He does this by way of teleconference from Ottawa.

In the recent teleconference he talked about spending $5.2 million to strengthen enforcement, implement new catch monitoring programs and to improve scientific research. The type of research being done is probably more politically motivated than it is motivated by a real desire to understand the environment in which these fish operate and live. Particularly in the issue of Cultus Lake, I am unaware of any money being directed to that fishery. The department is remiss in conducting base level research on a variety of issues whether it be the pike minnow in Cultus Lake or the effects of high water temperatures on returning sockeye. The base level research really is not done.

I was talking the other day with a fellow who was doing some research for the Sierra Club. I pointed out to him the problem that was experienced from the set net fishing in the Fraser Canyon. This is an ongoing problem. It is a problem that is recognized throughout the fishing community. I have had conversations with members of the Native Brotherhood, which is the oldest commercial fishing organization for native people in British Columbia. I think it is about 75 years old. I have talked with the Chilcotin Indians just west of Williams Lake in the central and coastal areas of British Columbia. They are concerned about the set nets in the Fraser Canyon.

The fish, which are navigating through the canyon, are under huge stress, not just from the fast flowing water but at from high temperatures as well. However, they manage to navigate through the canyon by hugging the canyon walls and scooting from back eddy to back eddy. The government allows a set net fishery in that canyon which adds to the stress of these fish. Some research has been done by other folks, independent of government, who demonstrated how hard that was on the fish, but no one is doing anything about it. Government is not doing the kind of research that is necessary to protect our fisheries resource.

I do not see it in this budget. It is important for the government get on track and start to address some of its core responsibilities. One of those is the protection of wild fish and their habitat.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this morning we are here discussing important policy issues in Bill C-48. Our party has been sharply critical of this bill. As we have seen in the past, the Liberals' approach to spending without a plan is a recipe for disaster. I think that goes without saying. It goes without saying when we manage our households and it goes without saying when managing the economy of the country. It is widely accepted that the only reason the Liberals agreed to this bill was to save their political skin. There has been much made of that in the last day or so and I am sure there will be much made of it in the days to come.

All that being said, I want to use my time this morning to lay out a larger concern. I will be more specific in my concern in dealing with the Liberal approach to the economy. I want to talk in particular about the government's approach to managing the fishery. This is an important budget item. It is one which I think if the government was going to make an addition to its budget, it is an issue that the Liberals should have addressed.

I want to talk about the government's failure to include in its budget adequate resources to deal with the fishery on the Fraser River. The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has done a couple of excellent reports on this issue in the last couple of years. It has given the government good advice which has been ignored. The committee has spoken of the problems that are being faced with the harvest on the Fraser River this year, in particular the restrictions that will be put on the harvest of Fraser River sockeye because of concerns for the sockeye coming into Cultus Lake.

The 2005 sockeye fishery on the Fraser River should be a boon to the economy of British Columbia. There are about 12 million sockeye expected to return to the river, compared to about five million that came back last year. The harvest should have been substantial.

In fact, if we look back at the harvest rates on this particular run in the 1990s, there was a commercial harvest of around eight million fish on the Fraser River. This year the projection is a harvest of only 1.4 million sockeye. This is only a modest increase over the 1.3 million harvested last year, with a return of less than half the size.

The question is why. Again, it is government inaction on a very important issue. The government has a constitutional obligation to protect wild fish and their habitat. It should be an integral part of the government's budget, yet in this particular instance the government is ignoring the problems.

Cultus Lake sockeye have a very serious problem when it comes to survival. There is no question about that. The survival of these fish is not one that stems from overharvesting by the commercial or sports fishermen, or in fact by native fishermen. The problem comes from the lake itself and problems within the lake.

For example, there is a problem with northern pikeminnows in that lake. In an October 2004 document that I received under access to information, the department makes it very clear when it talks about predator removal. The department says:

Adult northern pikeminnows are abundant in Cultus Lake and are predators of salmon fry. The removal of adult pikeminnows from Cultus Lake has been conducted on two separate occasions in the past. An evaluation of this previous work indicates that the removal of predators can increase survival of sockeye fry.

We know that survival of these fish can occur if we deal with the predator problem. The question is why are we not? Improvement is significant. It is estimated that there are about 40,000 northern pikeminnows in the lake that eat the sockeye fry. It is estimated that each sockeye that returns to Cultus Lake lays about 3,500 eggs. After the eggs hatch the following spring, the fish will spend a year in the lake. That is the time that the northern pike do great damage to the Cultus run.

It is suggested that if we reduce the pikeminnow population by 80%, it would give a jump start on the Cultus Lake sockeye run because the smolts from the 350 to 500 fish that do return would have a far greater chance of survival. There are about 425 sockeye with 3,500 eggs each. If the survival rate was increased by only 1%, it would mean an additional 14,875 sockeye would survive. That is exponentially larger than the 80 fish or so that the department hopes to get back to the lake by almost shutting down the sockeye fishery in the Fraser River this year.

Shutting that fishery down is going to mean a loss to the economy of British Columbia up to probably $75 million. The question is, why is the government not taking some action? Why are there not budget considerations given to removing these predators from the lake?

The fishing industry has proposed that it would go into the lake and seine these northern pike. It has been done before, as was mentioned in the government document that I quoted from. It has been done before very effectively. The only reason it was not continued was that the government balked at spending $15,000 in wages for the fishermen who were doing it. For $15,000 in wages it said it was not going to continue the program and yet the cost to the British Columbia economy is in the tens of millions of dollars.

That is the kind of planning that the government undertakes. That is why I think we should all be concerned about it. There are other problems on the lake as well. There is an Asian milfoil problem. The government, again in the October 2004 document that I received under access to information, talked about it:

Habitat restoration work involves the removal of Eurasian Watermilfoil (a common yarrow plant that provides habitat for sockeye predators) in Cultus Lake. Milfoil removal has been conducted in the past, mainly as a control for “exotic weeds”. Milfoil is an invasive species and its removal would have a dual benefit: expose juvenile pikeminnows to predation by adult pikeminnows and to clear milfoil from prime salmon spawning habitat.

Again, there is a program that the government should be undertaking to save these fish. As well, Cultus Lake is a very busy lake. It is within an hour and a half or two hour drive of downtown Vancouver. With a population of a couple of million, an awful lot of those folks will spend a good part of a day or days in the summer enjoying Cultus Lake. There is heavy recreational boater use. There are summer vacation homes and permanent residences. Each of these factors adds to the level of pollutants in the lake and makes it more difficult for the fish to survive.

When we talk about the budget and the additions that the government put in Bill C-48, it is all very well and good. Some of the additions are meant to help people who are not in a position to help themselves, and yet that is exactly what I am talking about. The expenditure of a few dollars would be of great help to the fishermen in British Columbia.

There is one last item that I want to mention about the management of the fishery. It has to do with the snow crab quota for fishermen in eastern Nova Scotia.

I talked last night with Josephine Kennedy, a snow crab representative. She told me that the government was to cut the quota for snow crab by about 60%, from 16,000 pounds. This will have a huge impact on the economy. All of this without any consultation.

Whether it is budget implementation or whether it is management of the fishery, these are things on which the government falls down. The minister refused to talk to those folks about the issue. The government has refused to have an appropriate discussion with fishermen on Cultus Lake. All of that is hurtful.

I hope that the government will take some action to address these issues.

[Message from the Senate, June 20th, 2005]

No, I just wanted to explain that.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Message from the Senate, June 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I recognize that there was only a minute to go. I was prepared to speak, but we are prepared to see the clock as being at midnight, if that is the issue here. We do not want to think that the debate collapsed.

[Motions for Papers, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, there is no requirement for me to establish a timeframe. The timeframe for answering these questions is established by the Standing Orders. My suggestion is, Mr. Speaker, that a question asked on February 8 should have been answered by now, regardless of how many departments that are required to respond. That is the rule.

[Motions for Papers, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that Question No. 78 which was asked on February 8 of this year should have been answered by now and has not been, within the provisions of the Standing Orders.

[Motions for Papers, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Perhaps I missed the questions on the order paper as I was distracted here momentarily. I have three questions outstanding that have not been answered. One goes back to February 8. Question No. 138 was asked on April 13 and Question No. 151 was asked on May 17. Rumour has it, and I know rumour is ugly, that this place may not be sitting much longer. I am wondering when I would be able to expect an answer to these questions. At least one is terribly overdue and others are coming due quite shortly.

[Fisheries Act, June 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the member has hit the nail on the head. The government has convinced the Ontario minister, perhaps working in conjunction with him for all I know, good Liberal brethren that they are. They have put inappropriate pressure on the Ontario hunters and anglers and have fed them a bill of goods about the bill. They have told them things that simply are not true.

We made it very clear that the kinds of restrictions listed in the letter from the Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters are matters which are currently regulated by the Ontario fishing regulations. In the last little while, the Ontario government has tired of the very public process of using the regulatory scheme to manage the fishery and has said that it is much easier if it does it by licence conditions. That does not make it right and it is not right when a bureaucrat can put in place a regulation. Failure to comply with that regulation, as the government would like to happen in this bill, would see the full weight of fisheries enforcement come down upon the transgressor, including large fines, jail time, and/or seizure of vessels.

Those are problems the we face. The member for Winnipeg Centre has said very clearly this evening, that this bill is symptomatic of the kind of legislation we have seen come into this place over the last 10 years, and I find it very disturbing. I want to see a clear bill. I want to see it clearly define ministerial and government responsibility. I want to see the regulations flow from that, regulations that have been vetted by the public and regulations which everybody understands and to which they an opportunity to respond. I do not want to see these kinds of backroom deals that can be cooked up if this legislation goes through. It is not healthy for the resource because the public will be kept out of the loop. They will not know what is going on, and that is very problematic and something that I find very upsetting.

I want to thank the member for his contribution to the debate this evening.

[Fisheries Act, June 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, broadly speaking, there are two problems. One is the application of some of the existing regulations. Certainly on the issue of maintaining fish habitat at times I think the department is overzealous. There are farmers in the Fraser Valley who have created a ditch in the back of their property and all of a sudden that ditch becomes fish habitat because water flows through it for two or three months. The farmers are being forced to comply with regulations which prohibit farming within, I do not know, 30 feet of the ditch. It is this sort of thing. There is an overzealousness on that level.

On the other hand, my friend from Winnipeg Centre and others have raised the issue of Devils Lake in North Dakota. There is an issue where Canadian waters are going to be impacted by an action taken by our neighbour and the government is not acting vigorously enough to defend Canadian interests.

We can take a look at our oversight. Our fisheries department has not been enforcing regulations relating to aquaculture in a way that endears us to our friends in Alaska. They look at us and say, “You guys are impacting on our fishery”.

The bottom line is that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has a fair amount of authority. He has the authority at times in a way that no other minister has. I think that is good in many respects. But the issue is, is that authority being applied in a judicious fashion? Is it being applied in an open fashion and in a fair way, so that when regulations are put in place, people have the ability to respond in a fair and open way?

In essence if the act is followed as it is written, they do. If this bill passes, they will not. The public will be precluded from having a say in the management of fisheries because, I will say right now that we have seen a growth in licence conditions over the last 10 years in the fishery. If this bill goes through, we ain't seen nothing yet. They will be using licence conditions for simply the management of every aspect of the fishery. The regulations that are in place will gradually fall into disuse. The only operative method of dealing with the fishery will be licence conditions. Essentially that is ruled by the bureaucracy and this place will have very little say in it.

To get any kind of a change will take some kind of majority consent of this Parliament, which will be almost impossible.

Do we need more licensing conditions or more regulation? In a sense, yes, but what we need to do is enforce what we have in a more vigorous way in some respects, but certainly in a more reasonable way in others.