John Duncan

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly spoke about tax measures which could be taken. We also have other things in mind for the Atlantic region which we think are very positive.

There is a market of 14 million people between the Atlantic provinces and New England and there are very poor infrastructure links at the current time. A very solid way for government to invest in the Atlantic region would be to ensure that those infrastructure links are strengthened.

We have seen a strong report from the port of Halifax. The Halifax Chamber of Commerce estimated in 1996 that conversion to a post panamax port would result in 24,000 full time permanent jobs in that area. That is the kind of proposal which we think the federal government should be strongly behind.

We know that one of the major problems in developing a non-subsidized seal industry on the east coast is the bureaucratic inspection system on meat products coming from seals which basically categorizes the seal as a fish rather than a mammal. It has become a real problem.

We think the government has shown a lack of resolve on the Voisey's Bay operation. This is a major employer. Thousands of people could be put to work and it is being held up because of bureaucratic red tape and a lack of resolve emanating right here in Ottawa.

Those are some very strong ideas. As I mentioned before, we have alternative fisheries, we have aquacultural opportunities, and they just get totally bogged down because the department is playing by old, timid rules. There is no advocacy going on, other than for the way things have been done before. It is just not working. We need major structural, systemic change. We need to re-focus.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the questions.

I would like to take the three questions I detected in the intervention in reverse order.

In regard to the DFO and the coast guard, depending on which part of the country you go to, there are regional differences as to who has had the most dramatic impact on whom. In some cases the coast guard has been the loser. In other cases DFO has been the loser in this amalgamation.

We do not think there has to be a loser. We think the mandate of the coast guard is best fulfilled not through an amalgamation with fisheries and oceans. They have a mutually exclusive mandate. We think the coast guard should be a part of the military. That would fix the whole problem. We are in some general concurrence.

This certainly has created problems with respect to the cuts the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is suffering. Our major observation is that the field operations and the regional services are the ones that take the brunt of the cuts. The centralized operation, particularly in Ottawa, has actually added personnel in a high-priced category over the last two or three years. We think this is absolutely and totally inappropriate.

As for calling for an inquiry, we are talking about the rights of scientists. Science should be on the table. The public should know what the science is. That will keep the politicians honest when they make moves which might go against the science. The way to make that happen is through structural change and legislation which ensures that scientists have freedom in making their opinions known.

That is the way to go, as opposed to a full blown inquiry, because an inquiry will inevitably get bogged down. As well, if the inquiry is not going the way the administration wants it to go, it will end up being ineffectual, just like several of the inquiries we have seen in recent times.

That is a more practical and immediate way for us to go. That is what I would promote.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the $15 million the minister refers to is a separate announcement. It has nothing to do with the $30 million that was promised.

The political apparatus of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is playing a shell game with people in British Columbia. It wants to count the same money two, three or four times and make two, three or four announcements.

I understand that the money that has been allocated, without the shell game and depending on how you count it, is somewhere between $12 and $18 million. These are the best numbers I have. The minister is saying it is $21 million and $7.6 million. If those numbers are correct, I would be very happy to receive documentation from the minister. I will certainly go out of my way to apologize to him if those numbers are clean and do not reflect previous announcements, which is what keeps happening in most people's opinion.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

On the east coast we had a collapse of the cod fishery which essentially occurred as a result of the actions of the previous Tory administration and the fallout from this collapse has been exacerbated by the Liberals. We know the Tory government knew for at least five years before the 1992 moratorium that cod stocks were seriously declining. The then environment minister and now leader of the Progressive Conservatives, the member for Sherbrooke, could have used this information to save dwindling cod stocks while there was still hope.

Scientific studies said cod stocks would not recover until the end of the decade. Why was the moratorium put in place for two years only? They hoped the problem would go away. Rather than address the problem, the former government decided to experiment on fishermen. They wanted this program to get them past the next election. The Liberals then put in a five year program to get them past the next election again. This would take it to May 1999, but now that we have had the election early, they want to cancel the program early. Politics is rampant.

In April of this year the minister of fisheries announced he would re-open three areas of the cod fishery in Atlantic Canada without any support from fisheries scientists anywhere. With many fisheries scientists actually condemning the act, how could the minister have even contemplated such a move given the disastrous state of the Atlantic cod stocks? Now we have one set of information and two opinions. The former minister, Brian Tobin, recently stated that Atlantic cod are being “fished to the point of extinction”.

This is not a happy story. We have fleet overcapacity on both coasts. We end up with these gigantic social upheavals, fleet restructuring, displaced fishermen and communities marginalized. DFO has proven itself to be inept in handling these circumstances.

One more example of political incompetence, this morning in the Globe the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans stated that he wished the United States would live up to its obligations under the Pacific salmon treaty. I agree.

I also think that Canada should live up to its obligations under the international treaty which since 1955 allows the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission to run a very successful sea lamprey program. It has run successfully for 40 years and is the backbone of the Great Lakes commercial and recreational fisheries. Two years ago it was put at risk by the Liberal government. The government is currently $200,000 in arrears and has not responded to requests for budget allocations at least since July 2 of this year.

We went through the auditor general's report last week which condemned the government for turning the Atlantic groundfish strategy from what was supposed to be a fleet restructuring to primarily a poorly managed income support program and seriously criticized the lack of conservation focus on the government.

On the west coast the combination of restructuring the industry and low prices has resulted in the displacement of fishermen, associated workers, their families and communities. The minister announced in November and again in January an aid package for B.C. that consisted of a $7.7 million retirement program which has come to nothing, and a $30 million transition program. With this $30 million program we have seen a lack of strong commitment from the minister and the affected parties are very concerned that the government will renege on this commitment as well.

The minister this past winter went further and said they would spend whatever it takes. I can tell the minister that federal commitments are much less than $30 million and there are demonstrated transition proposals. What is he waiting for?

Why should any fisherman believe the government when it is reneging on TAGS and failing to deliver on its retirement and transition programs in B.C.? Why make announcements, raise expectations and affect personal plans and then renege? This is not fair to fishermen or their families.

Obviously a primary alternative employment for displaced traditional fishery workers is in alternate fisheries. We have heard many examples of DFO foot dragging in terms of responding to enlightened proposals to deal with putting people to work but still in fisheries related work.

I have correspondence on abalone on the west coast, sealing proposals on the east coast. Why is the government still sitting on the Liberal task force report on aquaculture which has been in the hands of the government since November 1996? We understand that there are some enlightened proposals in there.

We need a vision for the fishery. There is a need for more room at the table for fisheries managers from the provinces and communities because they are the most directly affected and are most directly accountable.

There is a better way. We need to depoliticize the licensing process. We need to separate scientific research from political control within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

I agree with the minister that the scientists we have in Canada are among the very best in the world and in many cases are the best in the world. But we also have many documented cases this year of these very scientists complaining about the political interference and manipulation under which they suffer. The Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences ran a major article on this.

We had many scientists sign on. We had our previous fisheries critic for the east coast make appointments to visit fisheries scientists working for the department in the Atlantic provinces. When he arrived he was told he had no business going to visit scientists, that he must talk to the assistant deputy minister of science in Ottawa. This is total politicization and it is unacceptable.

We have some proposals that I think would work across the country in terms of helping fishermen, helping their families. We know that disposable income is an important concept. A family of four with one income of $30,000 would see 89% shaved off their tax bill with our proposals.

By cutting unemployment insurance premiums, what we have is a circumstance whereby employers will begin to add to their payrolls rather than lay off workers because Liberals and Tories put a tax on jobs.

We believe that the long term solution relies more on the people in the affected fisheries than on programs and plans designed by the federal government and operated out of Ottawa.

As a transition measure we are convinced that money currently devoted to regional development and a program such as TAGS should be given directly to municipalities or provincial governments. It would be money delivered in a much more focused and much less wasteful fashion.

Mr. Speaker, I understand I have three and a half minutes left. I would like to use that time for questions and comments. I would particularly like to have a discourse with the minister, but of course that is dependent on his co-operativeness in this regard.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

That is a quote.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

That is not clear responsibility. Somebody has to take the lead. In the absence of hearing anything clearly I would have to assume that the minister of fisheries will wear it if it is not resolved.

People involved with the west coast fisheries know one thing clearly. Without a working treaty the salmon resource on the west coast is at great risk. In September I wrote to the Canadian envoy, Mr. Strangway, who is dealing with the Pacific salmon treaty. I asked him to act as a catalyst for a Pacific salmon symposium where we can get scientists from both Canada and the U.S. to put fisheries science on the table with respect to the migratory salmon on the west coast. This could be a possible turning point in educating the public and could bring political resolve to fix this intolerable dispute.

A week after I sent the letter, I received endorsement of this concept from American federal politicians from Alaska and Washington. We are looking for a commitment from the minister to endorse this concept so we can expedite this symposium. I would like to hear that too.

The science from both sides of the border needs to be in the public domain at the same time and needs to be subject to peer review. We need a commitment from the minister that DFO scientists will be allowed to attend this symposium and to speak publicly about the state of fish stocks without a muzzle.

The auditor general makes a very strong statement in last week's report about sustainability in the fisheries. The department has stated that its mandate is conservation of the fisheries resource base and that is implied in current legislation. Nevertheless the auditor general found no clearly stated national policy for sustainable fisheries. How does the minister reconcile his claim that conservation is his priority when his policy on the west coast this summer was to ignore conservation principles?

On July 27 the minister said “Conservation is my first, second and third priority. Glen Clark has asked me to fish aggressively and jeopardize conservation of the stocks. I have refused”. Three days later the minister gave fishermen the order to “fish aggressively to overwhelm the efforts of the smaller U.S. fleet intercepting Fraser bound fish”.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Well if it is true I would like to have that on the record. If that is the minister's number one priority I would be absolutely delighted to have him put that on the record. We have a window of four or five months this winter to get that resolved. Is the minister of fisheries the one who is primarily accountable or is it the minister of foreign affairs? We do not know right now. People are questioning who is the accountable party.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

It is called democracy, but there are some democratic reforms which are necessary.

The federal government has prime responsibility for one natural resource and that is fish. Without a doubt, it is the worst managed resource in Canada. It has a terrible track record.

To quote my Liberal colleague from Huron—Bruce this week at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, if fisheries were agriculture they would be managed properly.

The Canadian fisheries have sustained a tremendous number of Canadians for a long time in every region of the country, but there has been a betrayal of the entire fishery through mismanagement, lack of serious consideration of legitimate scientific research, and betrayal of the fishermen dependent on good management by both this Liberal administration and the previous Tory administration.

The taxpayer pays taxes in good faith, expecting that money spent for accurate scientific data will be put to its best use and the data collected will be used to make wise management decisions, not ignored or altered for political expediency.

The open politicization of fisheries management was demonstrated very clearly by my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake in his speech earlier today when he indicated how the minister is using his appointment powers at the expense of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation to tidy up Liberal patronage for an MP from the previous Parliament who did not qualify for the MP pension scheme.

The politicization of the fisheries puts the resource at risk. When the resource is at risk the fish stocks suffer, the fishermen suffer and the communities which depend on fishing suffer, not the politicians.

Newfoundland and Labrador lost 25,000 people in the last year. That is sad. No one has ever apologized for the largest layoff in Canadian history. No one seems to be accountable.

There has been an ongoing front page dispute that has revolved around the Pacific salmon treaty with the United States all summer long and it continues to this day. The Pacific salmon treaty was a rushed document produced during the Mulroney era in 1985. It was rushed to completion to meet a signing ceremony for the shamrock summit between Reagan and Mulroney.

One of the major architects of the treaty told me earlier this year that much to his dismay the treaty as it currently exists is unworkable, that it is a failure. There has been no fishing plan attached to this treaty since 1993 when this government came into power and prior to this year there has been no priority on paying attention to the Pacific salmon treaty. Even now the commitment from our foreign affairs department as to the priority of resolving issues around Pacific salmon with the United States is questioned by many. Our federal fisheries minister has failed to demonstrate that resolution of the treaty is his number one priority. People involved—

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, whenever I take part in something like this I am most unhappy with the fact that we finally have everybody in the room, we can ask some really good questions and get answers and comments, but there is never enough time for it to happen. There is something inappropriate about the way this place works because that is inevitably the result.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

It is only a precedent for the FFMC. We have certainly seen it in most other aspects of patronage emanating from this administration.