Keith Martin

[Land Mines, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, land mines and anti-personnel devices are a humanitarian disaster. There are over 100 million of them seeded in over 60 countries of the world. From Mozambique to Chechnya, from Cambodia to Angola they lie silently in wait for their next victim.

They cost between $30 and $70 to make and are made by such countries as the United States, Italy and even Canada. Most are designed to maim and not kill, and some are even designed to look like toys so that children will pick them up and get their arms blown off. This is a perverted logic if ever there was one.

The majority of the victims are innocent women and children.

In developing countries wracked by civil war, it costs between $300 and $700 to remove them. Last year we removed 85,000 but seeded two million at the same time.

I put a private members' bill forward on September 21 asking the House to ban land mines and anti-personnel devices. I hope for the sake of the most impoverished people in the world the House joins hands to do just that.

[Underground Economy, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this private member's bill by the member for Mississauga South. I hope his constituents will appreciate the hard work he has put into this. I know of his deep concern. Members of Parliament have all heard this concern from our constituents. Perhaps there is no concern that hits as close to the heart of every citizen in the country as what is taking place in the underground economy. I applaud the hon. member for trying to address the problem.

The underground economy is costing the Canadian economy upwards of $90 billion every year. The underground economy is a clear response from the taxpayers that they are angry and fearful. They are angry because they see more and more of their pay cheques being eroded and they receive less and less money to provide for their needs. It is becoming increasingly difficult to survive in this country. Perhaps the single most important reason for this is because of our tax structure. I will look at the reasons a little later.

The high taxes have also damaged our ability to compete internationally. For a country such as ours, which relies on our export potential to maintain our standard of living, there is perhaps no other factor within our economy that is so damaging to the ability for us to do that. We worked so hard to get agreements on the NAFTA and the free trade agreement, but we have unfortunately hamstrung the ability of businesses in the country to compete internationally. The single most important reason we cannot do it is because of the tax structure. We have seen many business go under. When I go back to my home in Toronto, I see many businesses that have been passed down from generation to generation that have gone bankrupt. The reason is partly because of the tax structure.

We see many businesses that flock south. People hold up the free trade agreement as a reason that is so, our inability to compete. The real reason most companies have actually fled south is because of the high tax structure, which strangles the ability of Canadian companies to compete internationally. We have one of the highest tax structures in the world.

Yesterday we saw that the IMF has actually downgraded our ability to get money from the IMF. The reason is because our ability to get our debt and deficit down is not good enough. The high taxes that we have are the result of the high debt and deficit that we have in this country, nothing else. It has been a consequence of course of the high spending that Canadians have endured for years and years, overspending by successive governments. This has combined with an extremely complex tax structure and high administration costs to create the terrible tax structure we have today. The result of that has been the underground economy, which is costing us $90 billion or more a year. That is why the hon. member for Mississauga South has put forth these endeavours.

I will just talk for a moment on what I agree with and what I disagree with. Part C of the hon. member's bill, which would provide a tax credit for individuals who wish to hire other individuals in their homes to do work, is a very good one. It will provide transparency in a system that is currently opaque. A good member from my community in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, Mrs. Shirley Wilde, put forth a similar idea. We have presented this to the Minister of National Revenue. I look forward to a response from him in the near future. I hope this is something we can work together on in this House.

I disagree with part A of his bill, the information campaign, for the simple reason that it will entail costs and expenses for the government and in fact will add to the tax burden of Canadians.

I would suggest that the government look at new ways to get our spending under control, to get the deficit down to zero, and to attack the true ogre in this equation, which is the debt. We presented our zero in three deficit reduction plan, which I hope the government will look at, because there are very sensitive but very concrete ways in which we can get our spending down so that it will not hurt the people in our country, in particular those who are most dispossessed, which is something we share a common interest in.

Second, we have to get the GST down and simplify it. When we go out to the business community, no other single complaint so irks them as the GST, a system that is unfathomable, entirely complex,

and whose administration costs chew up over one-third of the moneys that are generated.

Third, we have to decrease taxes overall. Back in 1992 the government of the day did decrease taxes. Interestingly enough, it found that its revenues increased. What did it do? It began taxing wildly. This wild taxing spree, instead of increasing government revenues, actually decreased them. There is a lesson in there for any government: decrease the taxes and the public will become more honest in their representations and will spend more. In fact, there will be a stimulation to the economy.

Fourth, I would ask the government and the Minister of Finance and Minister of National Revenue to look at the flat tax that has been proposed by our party. The flat tax will provide equanimity to all Canadians.

One of the things that make Canadians extremely furious is they feel that the more they work the less they have to take home; the harder they work, the more they give to the government. Little erodes the soil of the Canadian economy or any economy more than if a worker feels that if they work harder they are going to take home less. We have to institute the incentive factor back into the soul of the Canadian economy. Right now it is dead. Canadian workers wonder why they should work harder when they are giving more and more tax money to the government and less and less money is left for them to spend.

I would ask that we provide the Canadian people with increased earning power, with an increased ability to keep more money at home. The only we way can decrease the extent of the underground economy is to get spending by the Canadian government under control. Canadians are fed up with the overspending. We must do this not only for the future of the people in this House and our families but for future generations.

I appreciate the hon. member's introduction of this private member's bill. I hope we can look at part C of that bill to discover new ways to increase transparency in the economy we have now so we can decrease the extent of the present underground economy so there will be more money in the public coffers and fairness and greater equanimity among the tax structures we have.

We are working on this together. I hope we can come together to develop a tax structure that is fairer to all Canadians, a tax structure that provides the government with the ability to get its spending under control while providing more money for Canadians to spend.

[Employment Equity Act, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, when I look across the House it is interesting. I see more ties that bind us than divide us even on such a sensitive issue as employment equity, which we oppose.

The hon. member gave some very eloquent points on issues where we have a lot of commonality. We in this party deplore and oppose with every strand of our bodies discrimination against anybody. We would fight to a person against anybody who was committing these offences on our soil.

Therefore I find it amazing that the government wishes to put forth employment equity which by its very nature is discriminatory and against our charter of laws and freedoms.

The original ideals of employment equity, affirmative action of fairness, equity and a level playing are what we in this party are fighting for. That was the original intent. Unfortunately what has happened with employment equity is it is being distorted. It has been plasticized and distorted so it does not resemble its original.

Tragically employment equity now holds up that people will be advanced on jobs or acquire jobs on characteristics designed by the government to advance people. The characteristics have nothing to do with ability and merit but have everything to do with characteristics that have nothing to do with the important aspects of getting a job, merit and ability.

This in effect is discriminatory by its very nature because it is promoting people on non-objective criteria and it is also very harmful to the economy. It is also very insulting to the individual getting a job for characteristics that have nothing to do with their education, their ability or their merit. I do not think that was ever taken into consideration by the government.

I do not think the government has put itself into the shoes of those individuals getting jobs like that. Furthermore it causes divisions and discrimination within the workplace. That is not fair and it is not good for the soul of the country.

The logic of the new employment equity law is clearly a flagrant abuse of the charter of human rights and freedoms. If one looks at the charter one can argue quite persuasively that employment equity is discrimination and should be thrown out on that ground alone. In other areas of the world where employment equity has

been put forth such as California and in the province of Ontario, it has been thrown out. Why has it been thrown it? It does not work, it is discriminatory and it causes incredible social divisions within the populations it is supposed to help.

That is not what we want in Canada. We want a country in which everybody is treated equally, in which people advance on merit and in which people can look at each other face to face as equals with mutual respect and admiration.

We do not want Canada to uphold policies that are divisive and which pit groups of people against each other. That has gone on for far too long. I challenge people in the government to go into the streets and ask people in the workforce about this. Tragically that is what has happened. We should not have that in such a beautiful country as ours, a country that has historically done an admirable job of merging so many ethnic groups in a peaceful environment. That is something all Canadians need to be proud of because very few countries enjoy that.

Employment equity also seeks to promote quotas. No matter what members of the government say on the other side, employment equity means quotas. It means numbers. Any employer will say that is what they are obligated to do.

The unfortunate thing that employment equity brings forth is the whole aspect of work for equal value. It is an artificial designation that tries to have the government determine what kind of work should be paid for equally with another disparate work. What kind of work is supposedly of equal value in an economy? The only legitimate place to decide what work should be paid for and its value is in a free market economy. That cannot be designated by government power. It must be decided in a free market economy. Anything less is extremely destructive.

Governments must argue for laws which are anti-discriminatory. The debate which took place a few moments ago involved my colleague and a member of the government. What struck me as very interesting was that they were both arguing the same point. They both want laws which are anti-discriminatory and feel the government's role is to ensure those laws are on the books and that they are applied.

The second role of government is to apply equal opportunity. It is imperative, particularly for those most dispossessed in our society, to have equal opportunity. That is one of the failings we see. Many people who are in the lower socioeconomic strata do not have that opportunity. It is important we create that opportunity so they can become the best they can become. That is the legitimate role of government. We in this party would strive very strongly for that and we would help government members to put forth strong plans and strong legislation to create the greatest opportunities for people.

The other aspect is to create fairness. It does not matter whether a person is black, brown, polka dotted, aboriginal, male, female, Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Hindu. What matters is that the laws and the opportunities to get jobs are applied equally.

The hon. member brought up the point of people applying for a job and being discriminated against. We completely agree. We are arm in arm with enforcing those laws so that when a person applies for a job they are treated on their ability and their merit.

The other role of government is to create skills. Tragically we saw that money was pulled away from post-secondary education very recently. We understand very clearly the situation all governments across the country are in with fiscal problems. There is a way around that. We can cut from the federal budget but give the provinces the ability to raise the moneys themselves for education. We cannot build a strong economy and provide individuals with the skills necessary for them to get jobs in the 21st century if we cannot make educational opportunities available to them.

The single most important determining factor in getting a job is post-secondary education. It is important for us to support the post-secondary educational facilities so they understand what the needs of the economy will be in the future. We must provide them the ability to communicate those economic needs to the students, particularly when they are in high school, so they can plan for the future.

I hope we do not pursue employment equity. It has been a failure in other parts of the world. It is discriminatory. It is a tragic example of Orwellian social engineering, a type of social engineering we do not need.

We are very sensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged. The hon. member mentioned the plight of the aboriginals. I have worked with many aboriginals under the most tragic and harrowing circumstances. It breaks my heart to see what they have to endure. It is very important for us to understand that historically we have created an institutionalized welfare state in which the souls of these people have been broken. It is important for us to address their needs in a sensitive fashion and to provide them the skills and opportunities to enable them to take off the yolk of poverty and discrimination which they have endured for so long.

However, it is not the job of government to push people into jobs based on their characteristics. I hope the government will take this to heart. I hope the minister of aboriginal affairs will engage in activities which will help these people help themselves. I hope we can create a country that is free of prejudice and full of opportunity, that makes sure that Canadians are treated equally and we can look

at each other face to face as equals in an environment of peace and harmony.

I know we in this party would like to stand together with all members in this House to ensure that legislation is effected to enable all Canadians to live in that environment.

[Employment Equity Act, October 3rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on Motions Nos. 8, 9 and 10 of Bill C-64 which deals with the employment equity issue.

I would like to say at the outset that the impassioned speech by the deputy whip illustrates many of the concerns we in this party have. We want to ensure that all people in this country have equal opportunity to become the best they can become for themselves and also their families.

We are particularly concerned in the Reform Party about those individuals who are on the lower socioeconomic strata within our society, to identify why they are there and to give those people the tools and the opportunities that will enable them to stand on their own two feet and become economically self-sustaining so that they and their families can enjoy happier, more fruitful and productive lives.

Employment equity does not do this. It is in fact highly discriminatory. It says to a group of people who are identified by the government that they cannot compete because of the colour of their skin, because of their gender, because of their religious background or wherever they came from. That is what it says. It is a government designation. It is also insulting.

As a person who is made up of many different ethnic groups, and I am speaking for other people who are also from different ethnic groups, it is insulting to be told you are going to be hired on the basis of the colour of your skin. What does it say to that person? It says you cannot compete on the basis of merit, on the basis of your skills, on the basis of your qualities; therefore we in the government are going to do it for you. That, I submit to anybody, regardless of where they come from, is an insult.

Employment equity is social engineering at its worst. It is the government meddling in areas it ought not to meddle in. As I said before, it is insulting to all minority groups.

We know that governments cannot legislate on how people think. They must legislate against the expression of people's prejudices. We cannot legislate against what people think. We cannot legislate to the prejudices they hold within their heart. However, governments must legislate against the expression of those prejudices. That is the role of government: to ensure that those prejudices are not in the realm of employment, are not in the realm of living in a peaceful society within the beautiful country we have.

The role of government, instead of employment equity which is really employment inequity, is in effect providing a level playing field for all people. The deputy whip just mentioned that the people in the lower socioeconomic groups are finding it extraordinarily difficult to get on their own two feet. That is absolutely true. So how do we address the problem? We ensure that prejudices are not being expressed in the workforce. We also ensure that those individuals have the opportunities to become the best they can become. Give them the skills training or provide them with the opportunities for skills training. Provide them with the opportunities for education. Provide them with the abilities to get a job. Provide them and everybody else with a strong economy.

We must also as a government and as a country enforce anti-discriminatory laws. Those must be enforced strongly, and where discrimination occurs it must be quashed. That is the role of government.

People do not realize that employment equity is highly destructive to the soul of a country. Nobody takes into consideration those people who are being jumped over for a promotion because of the colour of their skin. You cannot say to somebody from a minority group that they are going to get a job over somebody else who is a Caucasian, for example. Nobody takes into consideration what that does to the Caucasian person. It is discriminatory to that person or whoever might be in their seat.

The only objective measure in getting a job is merit and merit alone. Anything else is discrimination. The social engineering this government wants to do is discriminatory in the highest extent. When I spoke about what it does to Canadian society, the government may not be aware of how divisive this policy is. I have received many letters in my riding. I do not know who they are from, but many individuals have said God bless you for saying that employment equity is divisive.

What employment equity is doing is saying to people who are being jumped over for jobs and promotions that they are not getting them because of characteristics that have absolutely nothing to do with merit. The characteristics that governments would apply to

employment equity to ensure that subgroupings of people will get jobs have nothing to do with merit. Colour, gender, religious affiliation have nothing to do with merit and everything to do with discrimination. It is by its very nature discriminatory.

I hope we will not follow through with this. I hope the government supports these motions and helps to develop more sense and sensibility over an issue that is very sensitive.

I would reiterate that we in this party are very sensitive to the individuals who are the most dispossessed in our society. We want to create a stronger economy so that they can fulfil their potential. We want to ensure that people will get the proper education. We want to ensure that they get the skills necessary to stand on their own feet. We want to ensure that they and their children are going to live in a safe environment.

I hope the government will join with us in ultimately putting aside and eliminating employment equity, which says to people and to companies that we need a certain number of quotas of these groupings of individuals because the law says it must be so, rather than advancing those people on the basis of merit. It also is highly destructive to an economy. If you advance people on the basis of characteristics other than merit, you actually weaken the economy ultimately.

Employment equity is prejudicial. It is discriminatory. I hope this government throws it away, as has been done in other parts of the world, such as in California and in Ontario.

[Oceans Act, October 3rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on Bill C-98, the oceans act, an act to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

I will mention what I agree with and what I disagree with. I will give some constructive suggestions to make our oceans better, to improve our resource management and to ensure we have safe, clean oceans with viable populations of flora and fauna within those oceans for now and forever more.

Unfortunately we will create another level of bureaucracy with this act. There are aspects of it that actually improve, streamline and make the system more efficient, for example with the amalgamation of the coast guard. We completely agree with that. However we have created in the oceans management strategy a whole new level of bureaucracy to monitor people monitoring other people when in effect we should just be acting.

Unfortunately we continually study, report and analyse aspects not only within this ministry but within many others when the actual facts are already there, waiting to be dealt with. Sadly with this bill we see the same situation. Historically we can see the consequences of continuing to act, continuing to report and continuing to study.

We have seen the decimation of our oceans and the fish populations within them. The disaster on the east coast has been a profound tragedy for all people living in the maritimes. On the west coast unfortunately the fish stocks are facing an impending disaster. For years the west coast fisheries of many species have been decimated. The reason is not El Niño, not mackerel, not warm water, although they can have a contributing effect. The primary reason for the decimation of fish stocks on the west coast is poaching, poaching and poaching. That is the cold, hard reality of

what has happened on the west coast. It also happened on the east coast before.

Unfortunately the ministry has been unwilling and unable to deal with it. It is not because DFO officers did not want to enforce the law but because middle management bureaucracy meddled in the ability of the DFO officers to enforce the laws which protect the environment and species for generations to come. These individuals are hiding behind their ethnic origins and using the aboriginal fishing strategy to poach and pillage our fish stock. Those are the facts.

The colour or race of persons do not matter. If they are poachers, they are poachers and they should be dealt with in the same way as other people. This ministry has been unwilling and unable to do that. We see aboriginal people poaching up and down the Fraser River. DFO officers are unwilling to enforce the law because they are afraid of being shot. On Vancouver Island Vietnamese people have been decimating the shellfish stocks in full view of other people and the DFO officers have been unable to deal with it. They have been told by the bureaucratic masters above them that they should leave well enough alone.

There are too many nets in the water. Seiners are going out into the straits of Juan de Fuca and are vacuuming the oceans. The DFO must take a leadership role to decrease the number of nets.

The aboriginal fishing strategy is a disaster. Furthermore it is illegal. Court cases in the B.C. Supreme Court have determined that it is illegal. The Sparrow case my hon. friend mentioned proved there was no legal jurisdiction for the AFS.

We should have one commercial fishing strategy for all people. It does not serve the law-abiding aboriginal people who care about and fish the resource. Nor does it serve anybody else to allow people within their community to hide behind the AFS and poach fish. The ministry has put people who are some of the biggest poachers in British Columbia in charge of the aboriginal fishing strategy. The aboriginal people know that and they are quite angry at the DFO for doing it.

As I said before, there is widespread poaching of shellfish. Widespread poaching of abalone was stopped in 1989, but everyone who lives on Vancouver Island knows that abalone is being poached.

Companies continue to dump their garbage into the oceans on the west coast and on the east coast. The ministry has been unable and unwilling to deal with it. It should be working closely with the Ministry of the Environment to develop a system to identify the people who are polluting our oceans, to enforce the law and to penalize them. Furthermore, so that it does not cost taxpayers money, the government should levy the costs for cleaning up the dumping and the pollution on the shoulders of the groups or companies that are doing it. It should not cost the taxpayer any money whatsoever to do that. The full cost and beyond should be borne by the polluters themselves.

I also encourage the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans to work closely with the Ministry of the Environment and various universities across the country that are doing very interesting research in the oceans. They are also developing systems with strong commercial properties that can be sold internationally.

We as a country can be a leader in areas such as aquaculture, resource management, fisheries and oceans management. All we need to do is have the courage to identify these sectors, promote them and capitalize on them for our economy and our country. We have been far too lame and non-aggressive in this area.

I suggest that we do the following. We should give DFO officers more autonomy and stop letting them be hamstrung by middle management. I strongly encourage the minister to look at what is happening in middle management. Some of them are telling him what he wants to hear, not what is actually occurring.

When the minister went to the west coast he did a very good thing by sitting down with the DFO officers and speaking with them in a forthcoming fashion. I think he found that productive. I know they did. I strongly encourage him to continue the practice.

The sad byproduct of that meeting unfortunately is that some of the DFO officers have been penalized for being forthcoming and as a result have been removed from their positions at great cost to the ministry and at great cost to the fisheries. This is completely unfair.

We must make enforcement a priority. We must allow DFO officers to continue to do their job. We must allow them to enforce the law as it is written and arrest and penalize anybody who poaches regardless of whom they happen to be.

I put forth to the minister about a month and a half ago a new idea by which we can improve our fish stocks and generate funds for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It involved using salmon hatcheries.

A recent study indicated that salmon hatcheries, many of which are inefficient, do not need to exist. I gave the minister a way for the department to pay for the hatcheries and to earn revenues from them. They would become self-sustaining and would not be a lodestone around the taxpayer's neck.

I hope he pays careful attention to it. A model of it will be on the Sooke River in my riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. It is a well thought out plan and will make the hatchery self-sustaining in the future.

The hon. minister should look at new ways to manage our oceans and new ways to increase our jurisdiction beyond the 200-mile zone. The reality is that we cannot even manage our oceans in the 2-mile zone, let alone the 200-mile zone. We have to show more courage in this way. I am hoping with the amalgamation of the coast guard we can use the coast guard more effectively to arrest individuals who are poaching.

I warn once again that a lot of people are coming over from the United States of America to poach in B.C. waters because their waters are completely closed to fishing. The DFO has been completely unable to do anything about that.

The officers should also be given the ability to work overtime and the ability to do night patrols and weekend patrols when a lot of poaching occurs.

There are ways in which to generate money from something like this, so it will not cost the ministry more money. I strongly encourage the minister to look at these matters. My colleagues and I would be more than happy to help him in the endeavour to have one fishery for generations to come.

[The Environment, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today on action 21.

Across our beautiful country from our lush forests in British Columbia, the beautiful Rocky Mountains, the great beautiful forests in northern Ontario and Quebec, to the rugged coastline in the maritimes, we indeed have been given an Eden. Unfortunately that Eden is being decimated and desecrated. Unsustainable resource utilization and widespread pollution are occurring in so many areas and it is imperative that we address these problems.

We applaud the intent and intention of action 21. It will help Canadians to deal with environmental considerations in their lives, to deal with sustainable development, recycling, and to increase environmental awareness.

However we have some concerns. Where is the $10 million that is put forth annually coming from? Is it being used for more bureaucrats? Will the money actually go where it was intended to go? We also have some concerns in that the November 1994 environmental partners fund, a program which is virtually identical to action 21, was shut down. Here we are creating another system to do exactly what the environmental partners fund was supposed to do.

Could the Deputy Prime Minister provide us with some information? Why are we creating a new program to fulfil one that we just closed down?

We also have concerns about the assessment process, accountability, monitoring and follow up. I am sure the Deputy Prime Minister would agree that it is critically important to ensure that the moneys actually go to where they are intended to go, which I am sure is her intent.

I hope the program does not become like the Tory green plan, a $2.5 billion boondoggle that went nowhere. The hon. minister knows that. I am sure she will look into ensuring that the same mistakes are not made.

I ask the minister to look at her own back yard in Hamilton. Hamiltonians have worked very hard to address significant environmental concerns on their doorstep, but yet the two largest dumpers of benzene, Dofasco and Stelco, are in Hamilton. I ask the hon. minister to provide us with information so that we know what is being done in those areas.

I also ask that we ensure the program has an identifiable framework, that we have adequate monitoring and follow up, and that the groups receiving it are accountable. We agree with the matching concept in action 21. It is something the Reform Party has continually put forth in other areas. It is a good idea because it shows ownership for those who are receiving the moneys.

We should also focus on school programs. The minister mentioned that she was very interested in youth. If we focused on youth and school programs we might be able to supplement the moneys in the program from existing programs. It might be a cost effective way of expenditure.

As an aside, we speak about the environment and yet 40,000 people die in the country of smoking related illnesses every year. Tragically the government's smoking platform that it has put forth since inception has caused the greatest increase in tobacco consumption we have seen in the last 20 years.

The hon. member mentioned that 82 people tragically die of diseases related to the inhalation of toxic substances. That is a very big tragedy. However let us put it into context with respect to the 40,000 people who die of smoking related illnesses and an indeterminate number who die of second hand smoke. Also one-ninth of all women get breast cancer which might have a genetic toxic component. Let us also look at some of these larger issues.

Our intent is the same as the government's in trying to increase awareness in environmental degradation, sustainable development and environmental awareness. We hope the program will do what it was intended to do, that is increase awareness among Canadians. Let us make sure the moneys go to where they are supposed to go and not to developing more bureaucracy.

[Oceans Act, September 28th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I would like to preface my remarks by bringing forth a couple of the hon. member's concerns. My colleague did indeed put his nets into the water. Quite bluntly, the reason he put his nets into the water was to show that the law was not being enforced equally between aboriginals and non-aboriginals. I cannot comment on a situation that is going to be before the courts but the motivation was

frustration. The facts are that the laws are not and were not being applied equally to both aboriginals and non-aboriginals.

I just draw from a safety point of view the poaching I mentioned earlier along the Fraser River where aboriginal people were extending their nets right across the river and taking as much as they could possibly take. This was done in front of DFO officers. The DFO officers would not go in there because they were afraid of being shot and killed. I do not blame them but that is the reality under which we live.

I would like to also ask if the taxes that are going to be applied to catchment also apply to aboriginal and non-aboriginal commercial fishermen. Do they also apply to commercial fishermen under the AFS? At some time in the future I would like to know the answer to that.

The hon. member asked me about the chinook and coho fisheries. We know the numbers of both are declining quite dramatically and I would put the ball back in his court. Our first concern is to ensure we have adequate chinook and coho coming back into our waters as spawners. That is not happening right now. If we enable the hatcheries to occur, such as the one I mentioned which can be sustainable, then in time when we get a sufficient number of chinook and coho back, yes we could have a commercial fishery in that.

The overriding concern we must have is to ensure that our chinook and coho and every other species are going to have sufficient sustainable numbers in our waters so that this resource can be increased over time. When it gets to a level that is considered to be sustainable, I am sure the ministry will have enough data to show how many fish can be taken off in a sustainable fashion in a commercial way.

The aquaculture suggestions I mentioned to the hon. member are suggestions I have not seen put forth in any area by the ministry. If it is there, I would certainly like to be made aware of it. To my knowledge and from what I have seen, there is no record of the other constructive ideas I have put forth to the hon. member with respect to maximizing our aquaculture capabilities within Canada.

As I said before, I have no doubt that Canada can be a world leader in aquaculture because we have superb research taking place now. There is no reason that not only can we do this domestically but there are also enormous international trade possibilities in aquaculture existing around the world. In the future with our resources being decimated, we are going to need new sources of protein to feed the burgeoning populations in this world. Aquaculture could provide a large part of that protein.

There are great opportunities for Canada. I am sure the hon. member will pass that information back to the minister so he can act on it forthwith.

[Oceans Act, September 28th, 1995]

That is right. The minister truly believes that he is as interested in sustainable development as we all are, but from what I have heard in the House on the issue the facts bear that this is nonsense.

I will tell the House what has been happening on both coasts, particularly the west coast where we are trying to avert the disaster that occurred on the east coast. I have repeatedly warned the minister of the devastating poaching that is taking place on the west coast. We have seen very little being done about it. The proof is in the pudding. All we need to do is look at the catchments that have come back this year in so many different fish species to see the devastation that has been wracked on our west coast fish species. There is a lot of poaching going on. I will give some examples.

In Mill Bay in my riding there was a three-day salmon derby which 300 fishermen attended and caught seven salmon. On Hornby Island just a couple of months ago there was another salmon derby. The third prize winning fish was a dogfish because nobody caught any salmon. That is what is happening in the west coast salmon fishery.

It is affecting groundfish and other species. One could not catch a ling cod if one's life depended on it. Shellfish are being decimated. The abalone fishery was closed in 1989 on the west coast. Yet there is widespread poaching of abalone all over the west coast. Just recently the ex-head of the Vancouver aquarium said that a large population of Asian individuals are pillaging the shellfish off Stanley Park.

I invite the minister and the parliamentary secretary to come to Vancouver Island to see the decimation of the shellfish stocks. A number of Vietnamese individuals on Vancouver Island have been pillaging shellfish all over the island. DFO has been unable to deal with the problem. It is a huge problem as our shellfish stocks are being significantly affected. Furthermore the poachers are taking shellfish out of polluted areas.

Seiners are vacuuming the ocean off Vancouver Island. Since 1957 when the seiners first started catching salmon there has been a reproduceable inverse relationship between the intensity of seine fishing, the numbers of spawners that are coming back and the catchment by sports fishermen.

Just a couple of years ago there was a revenge seine fishery to penalize the Americans, yet we decimated our own fish stocks. That is not sustainable management, but that was the decision made by the ministry.

All salmon species are being decimated. All one has to do is go up the Fraser River to see what is happening. There are nets strung from one end to the other. Aboriginal people are stringing nets across the river and are pillaging and raping the fish stocks. The ministry knows that. It should be coming down on individuals who are hiding behind the aboriginal fish strategy to poach fish. They have been unwilling to do that because it is politically incorrect. I strongly advise the ministry that for all people, aboriginal and

non-aboriginal people, it should have one commercial fishing strategy. It should enforce the laws for all people regardless of who they are.

Fish know no bounds. They do not care who is pillaging them, but there are individuals hiding behind their ethnic origins who are doing it, and because it is not politically expedient the DFO is unable and unwilling to deal with it.

I do not blame the officers because they are hamstrung by mid-level bureaucrats that are hamstringing the minister. Part of the problem is in the bureaucracy. When DFO was reorganized it transferred decision making from hardworking DFO officers in the field to mid-level bureaucrats in Ottawa and Vancouver. The number of DFO officers went down.

The result is that decisions are made a distance away from where the actual poaching is taking place. What we see are decisions that do not actually affect the problems in the fisheries. It has also contributed to the decimation of fish stocks on the west coast.

I actually commend the ministry for increasing the numbers of fisheries officers somewhat, but I bring to its attention that it has also increased the bureaucracy. I give the example of what happened in my riding in Sooke where they closed the only fisheries office and increased the bureaucracy in Victoria.

The result has been greatly increased pressure from poachers within Vancouver Island and poachers coming across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from America. They know full well they cannot fish in their own waters because of the decimation of the stocks. Therefore they come to good old Canada and decimate our stocks. They know they will not be penalized because fisheries officers are unprepared to deal with them.

I bring to the attention of the ministry that the morale of DFO officers is at an all time low because mid-level bureaucrats have hamstrung them. They have made it unable for them to do their job or to acquire the means to do their job. The ministry needs to investigate the loss of morale. It is losing a lot of good people who have historically done a great job in fisheries.

Another aspect is that groundfish are being decimated. We find that trollers are decimating the reefs all over the west coast in an effort to extract whatever fish are there. These delicate reefs are being smashed to pieces.

We need one commercial fishing strategy. We also need to decrease the number of nets in the water. There are simply too many nets right now to make the extraction of species sustainable. We also need to decrease seiner activity and have a release program for adult Chinook salmon, which is possible if the weather is co-operative.

We should try to preserve sports fishing capability, the reason being that sports fishing injects on a per fish basis much more than the commercial fishery, in fact about $37 per fish.

We should enforce the law we have right now. I implore the ministry to enforce the laws we have. It has not been doing it. The poachers are aware of it and taking full advantage of the situation.

There should be commercial fishing strategy for all people. We should not allow poachers to hide behind the aboriginal fishing strategy for their own personal financial gain, at the expense of all honest fishermen from all walks of life.

We need to push for an extension of our jurisdiction beyond our 200-mile zone. There is a doughnut in the Pacific Ocean where immature salmon go to fatten up. International poachers are pillaging that doughnut of fish which normally come back to us. The issue was investigated years ago. For a number of reasons the investigation was quashed internally. We need to try to enforce through international agreement the preservation of that area so we can ensure that a reasonable number of fish will come back to us.

We also have to deal with the dumping of toxins that is occurring not only in our country but in others because they wind up in our ecosystem. I remind everyone of who is at the pinnacle of that ecosystem. The number one predator is man. This is what happens. Toxins are accumulated in an individual. The higher up one is in the predatory system, the more the toxins become concentrated and the greater chance they have of becoming carcinogenic and teratogenic.

I strongly advise the minister to work with science research and development in the Department of the Environment rather than have the department work in isolation. There are many very talented and skilled scientists in the Ministry of the Environment who are doing a lot of incredible work on the issue of sustainable development with respect to the oceans. I suggest they tap into that resource for the benefit of the fishery.

I also suggest co-operative effort between other ministries and a leadership role for DFO. I know it can play this role because it has many very talented people. We are looking for somebody to take a leadership role among the ministries and we have it within our capabilities.

The minister claims, as I have said before, that he is very much in favour of sustainable management of our resources. Yet in British Columbia he is closing down hatcheries left, right and centre. They closed the hatchery down in Sooke. If we did not have those hatcheries we would not have a fishery. That is the cold hard reality. If we do not have them the number of spawners coming back are negligible.

I propose the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans should start up a sustainable hatchery in my riding near Sooke. The start-up costs are $1 million with a quarter million dollars per year. It could be self-financing in four years. I ask him to look at the proposal. It could inject over $90 million into Vancouver Island. Furthermore it would be self-financing. We just need some co-operation from the ministry to do it.

I would also like to look at the area of aquaculture. We were a leader in aquaculture a few years ago. However, because of mismanagement and a lack of support from governments, Chile has now taken over from us in the aquaculture industry. We as a country can play a leadership role internationally in aquaculture.

Some very good work is being done in a vet college on Prince Edward Island and at the University of Prince Edward Island on research in aquaculture that could enable Canada to garner a niche in aquaculture and become a leader in the area. The economic spinoff benefits for the west coast would be huge.

I hope the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans will look into the matter and work in co-operation with the University of Prince Edward Island, and other universities that are similarly doing other exciting work, for the benefit of the people of the area and for the benefit of the resource.

The minister also claimed that he was interested in looking at protecting spawning sites. I completely agree. Yet we do not have adequate data on the spawning sites as they exist. We need to acquire them.

There is another aspect. There are other fisheries involving sea cucumbers, sea urchins and geoducks for which there is an open fishery. That would be absolutely fine except for the fact that we have absolutely no idea what stocks there are in these areas. We need to establish what the stocks are before we move ahead and cull a sustainable number of these species, to maintain a sustainable resource in these other shellfish species for the future.

Bill C-98 has a lot of good intentions. Unfortunately it falls far short of what it was meant to be. I hope the ministry can ask for the opinions of people in the areas that are being affected by the fishery. I hope and pray we will not have an east coast disaster on the west coast. As we stand here now, poaching is widespread through virtually every species we can imagine. The only people who are going to be hurt are future Canadians.

I would implore the minister once again to enforce the law for all people regardless of who they happen to be. It is not politically incorrect to enforce the law because the people who are poaching are of an immigrant population or are aboriginal people. It does not serve those people within those groups or any other group who are honest individuals within the industry and are working within the legal framework of that industry to have any group of people within their population poaching the fish and other fish species.

We need a sustainable fishery in this country. We can have a sustainable fishery in this country but we can only have it if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans shows the leadership it is obligated to show. I and my colleagues in the Reform Party would be more than happy to help the government to work toward that end. It just takes the political will, strength and courage to do that.

[Oceans Act, September 28th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today on Bill C-98 and in particular the amendment we have called for. The amendment is to put down this bill and refer the contents of it back to the committee. The reason is because this bill once again shows that this government is just doing window dressing on a number of serious issues.

I am going to speak to Bill C-98, an act respecting the oceans. It would be a very welcome bill to help ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea if it were something more than just window dressing.

I will explain what we agree and disagree with in the bill and provide some constructive solutions that we humbly submit the government should pay heed to.

We agree and commend the government in its effort to cost cut by streamlining the coast guard and by enacting the partnership programs which will save the taxpayer money, something we would all welcome. We agree with the intent of the oceans management strategy to co-ordinate the oceans strategy across provincial and federal governments.

However do we need to create another level of bureaucracy to fulfil the oceans management strategy? Should this not be the responsibility of DFO? Why not convene representatives from the provinces and the federal government to develop a concerted strategy that DFO would monitor? Why do we need to create another level of bureaucracy to do it? Why do we need to create another group of people to watch people who watch other people, who watch people watching people do some work? This is "Yes, Minister" at its worst.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy the hon. member agrees with us. I hope he crosses the floor on this bill.

We believe individuals in a federal penitentiary should be those who pose a threat to society. There are many ways one can argue a threat. There are threats in terms of violence and also threats in terms of those individuals who wilfully cause damage in other fashions to individuals. It is not only individuals who have been incarcerated for violent offences.

I hope the hon. member will work with us in devising new and innovative ways in which we can actually decrease the costs by not necessarily having individuals incarcerated in expensive, closed custody, federal penitentiaries. We want new ways in which we can send a clear message of deterrence to criminals, make sure that there is a penalty for individuals who are committing an offence, to deal with the issue we have been trying to deal with in trying to garner some restitution for the victims and the state, and ensure that individuals will not continue to reoffend.

We can identify the reasons why they reoffend, address those reasons and provide individuals with the ability and wherewithal to become a productive employed member of society. If we work together on these issues, we will make Canada a safer place.