Nathan Cullen

[Excise Tax Act, January 31st, 2005]

It is ridiculous.

[Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the floor for his excellent speech and for his ability to concisely put together a number of things that have come together under Bill C-15.

Both the amendment and the bill say a great deal to me in terms of how this new government is meant to function. This legislation encourages the government to resist certain pressures it receives from some of its more corporate-minded friends. It also speaks to me of the ability, in this minority government, to put through amendments at committee stage that strengthen the bill and give it teeth.

Clearly in having environmental legislation in this country that is voluntary or is meant to be at the lowest common denominator, we find that industry time and again falls to that lowest common denominator and falls into the voluntary status. Industry does not rise to the place that we Canadians would like to hold it to. This is an example of reality versus perception.

For many years the Liberals have said during election campaigns that they were the protectors of the environment, that they were the great defenders of our environmental status. Yet what we have seen, as recently as last week, is that pollution numbers in this country are going up consistently. To me, this speaks to inefficiencies. When I see pollution coming out of a stack, when I see it leaving the tailpipe of a car, that speaks to me of a machine or an operation that is not working as well as it could or ought to. I am speaking about noise pollution, chemical pollution and all the rest.

Bill C-15 speaks very specifically to the intentional and deliberate pollution of our ocean waters. Clearly for many members in the House this is not the most riveting debate, yet at the same time this is an indicator of how we need to be considering our environment and starting to increase the seriousness of the discussion and the seriousness of the consequences for those companies that deliberately pollute the environment simply out of convenience or cost savings.

The most recent example is the oil spill off the east coast, which has been talked about. The Minister of Natural Resources has called it a tragedy. He called it a tragedy only because of the fact that at $50 a barrel it was a shame to have lost all that oil into our ocean. He is missing the point entirely of what it means to have a spill in this modern day and age.

Here is what we noticed when the thousands of ocean birds started washing up on shore. When the oil was tested it was found not to have come from the rig that had broken down but from ships that had passed through the spill. Captains of those ships decided that the best way to operate their ships was to go through a known spill, dump their bilge oil rather than go into port and properly take care of it, and then get away scot-free. This is the way business has come to operate.

While there are many strong and environmentally sound players out there, we know that the shipping industry also operates on the law of the high seas, which is based upon “if you can't catch us then you can't fine us”, and if they cannot be fined, then no one knows it has been done.

While I rise in support of the bill, the minimum fine precedent that my hon. colleague spoke of is very important when we look at other considerations in the environment. What is it when a company spills intentionally into a community's drinking water? What is it when an oil pipeline is not constructed properly and eventually leaks or breaks, contaminating an entire area? What is it when a car manufacturing company builds a car that it knows could be more efficient and decides not to?

At what point will we decide to use the power of this place, the power of legislation at hand, to encourage companies, politely yet forcefully, to act in ways that are more responsible, respectable and efficient, whether that company is a smelting operation, a car manufacturer or any such operation within our country?

We have forgotten a basic principle, which is that to operate a company within this country is not a right but a privilege. It is a privilege that is given by society as a collective whole. Whether it is a shoe making company, a company that makes lollipops or a company that makes oil tankers, we as a society decide that the business is permitted to operate within our borders.

When we get into the international shipping reality, as my hon. colleague mentioned, and fine a company like Canada Steamship Lines whose former owner is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and may spend $20,000 or $30,000 on Christmas cards in any given year, it is not serious. That suddenly becomes a cost of doing business. We need to stop externalizing the cost of doing business in this country. If a company is allowed to run its costs up the smokestack into the air or out into the water or into the oceans and not pay for those costs of doing business, then we as consumers are not paying properly for the things we acquire and we as a governing body are not upholding our responsibility to Canadians.

There is a second part to this. It arose in committee and I am looking forward to the actual and accurate piece of legislation. What happens when these fines are levied? In the past, environmental fines have been written off against a company's taxes, again as a part of doing business. A calculation is done on whether it is worth it to the company to pollute because the cost can simply be written off whatever taxes it is meant to pay to whatever level of government. It simply becomes an order of the day, a cold and calculated measurement, which we as society end up paying for twice. We pay for it first through the pollution in the environment and second through taxes and revenues that do not accrue to roads and health care and all those things our tax money is meant to go toward.

As for the birds that we have been talking about, a lot of people visit the ocean very rarely so they see few of these waterfowl, which mean very little to them, but I have been considering them as an indicator species for the way we are treating our environment. They are visible. They are seen and known. People see them when they wash up. As has been mentioned many times in the House, it does not take much, just a small drop, on the body of an ocean-going bird to kill it, to ruin its ability to live and survive. These are simply the indicators, the things that we are able to see. The effects of pollution, whether it is in a child's asthma or increased cancer rates around a smelter, are much harder to detect and connect.

Finally, after many years of trying, it was in a minority government that it was pushed. A government was able to take recommendations and changes from the minority parties. That is what pushed this bill through. Hopefully it will pass in the Senate and get royal assent.

Let us look again at the shipping organizations. This is probably a clear message to them as well: simply lobbying their corporate friends in business and friends within the ruling government of the day, making sure that they are well taken care of, is no longer enough. These corporations actually have to make their case to the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP. They actually have to make their case, in this instance like many of the non-government organizations did. Clearly they made a better case for having something like a minimum fine, which, as has been said already, is a precedent in Canadian environmental law. We have finally said that if businesses do this and get caught, they will be paying a minimum fine of $500,000.

We do have some concerns about where this fine ends up. If this were to end up hitting the workers on board the ships, who did not make the decision, who were not involved or did not have the power to stop the bilge dumping, we would have a problem with that. We need to go to the top of the food chain and find out who has the money and who is making the decisions to operate their business in such a way.

The only other major concern we have with this is the inability to actually enforce this piece of legislation. I come from a coastal riding. We have put together legislation with teeth. We have put together a piece of legislation that is going to fine businesses and cause them to reconsider their options when they are not sure what to do with all their extra oil, but the second part of it is our actual ability to catch these guys.

If the Coast Guard in my community and my riding is representative of how we are funding our Coast Guard across this country, we have a long way to go in getting to the point where we are actually able to see this happening, catch the people aboard the ships and make sure that the fines stick. This government has been consistent year in and year out in its lack of funding and support for our Canadian Coast Guard.

We have one of the largest coasts in the entire world. With the effects of global warming, we are soon going to be looking at the possible opening of the Northwest Passage. We have absolutely no ability to enforce our sovereignty in that area. We have seen this just recently with a number of European nations starting to make some claims about some of our northern islands. As preposterous as this sounds to Canadians, that we could lose territory simply by not being there, it is becoming a reality.

As the ice starts to break up more and more and ships are trying to get through on a more consistent basis, sovereignty comes into question, because we have absolutely no ability to actually be out on the water watching the polluters, the shipping traffic and the submarines of other countries go through our coastal waters in the north. Certainly our submarines cannot go out there anymore.

We need to start supporting our Coast Guard in a serious way. If we are actually going to enforce what we think is good legislation and a good amendment to that legislation, we need to at some point get serious about the notion that we have enormous, beautiful and resilient coasts that need our protection.

[First Nations, Métis and Inuit War Veterans, December 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member across the floor for his diligence in promoting this issue. I have a large first nations population in my community, and to be perfectly frank, I was not necessarily aware of this issue and how important it was to the first nations community or that the compensation offered by the government is in fact somewhat of an insult.

First, the compensation is coming so late, so long after the debate, that our treatment and fairness of veterans in general has been absolutely deplorable in the country. I think we stand to learn something from the first nations community on this particular issue of the treatment of our veterans.

Within the first nations that I work with, the veterans of wars, the warriors, the people who have defended the community, are treated with the highest regard. They are considered the most important in society next to the matriarchs, for in that defence of community they have allowed the community and culture to continue.

Let us contrast that with how our federal government has treated veterans: as an afterthought. We cannot even pull together a full standing committee on the issue because we just do not consider it an issue or of relevance. In learning from the first nations community in respect to how they treat their warriors, their veterans, the government could come a long way in understanding what it is to sacrifice for one's country.

Young people in Canada have lost the memory of that sacrifice. A cynical person would say that the government's lack of urgency and failure to be forthcoming on veterans affairs means that it is simply waiting for veterans to no longer be with us. A cynical person would say that, but I am not at that point yet.

The government is looking for congratulations on this $20,000 in compensation. The government members would like us to pat them on the back and say what a wonderful job they have done.

It reminds me of the hepatitis C debate. It is very similar. Now that the government has finally been forced to address the issue, it is looking for accolades on its ability to compensate victims when it knew from the beginning that this should have been done.

Similarly, this is the case with first nations veterans, who with all good intentions went to war on behalf of this country, defended it with life and limb and came back to this country without recognition and without compensation. They had to wait not months or years but decades in order to finally be considered full and active members of the veterans' community.

It is also in contrast to how the veterans themselves have included first nations within their communities. When I go to the Legion halls, I see that veterans are considered on a par with and of the same class as any non-aboriginals who participated in the war. That is the excellent status and class of the veterans' community, which neither this government nor governments prior have exemplified.

Underlying this issue is respect for the Métis nation within our country, but the government seems very reluctant to give any acknowledgement of or full recognition to the Métis because it is worried about where that road will lead in recognizing aboriginal rights and title. The Métis remain a second class. They remain an “other” in society. They are not brought completely to the table and are always given second, third or fourth consideration after the first nations with full rights and title. If the government ever were to acknowledge this, what horrors would be upon us: to actually consider compensation and accommodation for the Métis nations that exist within our country.

There is strong support for this group. A particular sign is the young people within the Métis nation who are now coming forward, speaking strongly on behalf of their rights and looking for recognition in our Constitution and our government.

If the government is looking for congratulations on its rather slow and insulting process, it is not going to get it from this side of the House, particularly not from this corner of the House. It is absolutely deplorable that anyone on the government side can stand in this House and say that the government has done right by first nations.

Nor has it done right by veterans. These people who gave so much to allow this very structure and concept of democracy to exist are the same people we slap in the face and give late and poor recourse to when the time comes.

The hon. member from across the floor said it well when he mentioned that veterans are not the types to come forward cap in hand looking for proper compensation; I think the expression he used was “looking to get rich quick”. These are men and women of pride who consider their work for the country to have been done with pride, and they have been insulted for not months, not years, but decades.

The NDP stands in support of this motion. We congratulate the member again for his persistence in this matter. We look forward to quick passage of the motion.

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, December 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member from Hamilton for sharing his time on this very important piece of legislation that we do support. It took the government a couple of kicks at the can to get it right. Now that it has it right, we are able to see this thing through and see the light of day.

My riding of Skeena--Bulkley Valley is in the far northwest corner of British Columbia. There are a number of first nations groups in my riding. As the hon. member mentioned, when I visit the first nations, I am seeing the conditions that we would not accept in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver. I am seeing the way that people are living and struggling to survive, both through acquiring education and just the basic human rights, the basic health care needs.

The basic needs that all of us share are not being achieved. We hope that this bill goes some measure forward in allowing first nations to achieve and realize the same successes that many Canadians have realized over the past century.

The Nisga'a people are within my riding. Recently, I had the deep and profound honour of speaking at the memorial service for one of the great Nisga'a members, Rod Robinson, who recently passed away. He was a true giant of a man in the first nations community at the local level, across the province of British Columbia, and across our nation.

He was a man who saw the importance for first nations to be full and inclusive members in Canadian society, to be proud members, and to realize among themselves the importance of self-determination. He saw the importance of rights and title, of what it truly means to have consultation and accommodation, and the role that the federal Government of Canada plays in reaching out to first nations in a true and sincere way. Finally, to defend the honour of the Crown, which was recently spoken to in the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada with the Haida and the Tlingit.

The federal government has this responsibility to defend the honour of the Crown. The record of the federal Government of Canada over the last 150 years has been absolutely deplorable when dealing with first nations.

One has to look no further than some of the communities within my riding and the challenges that they face, the basic challenges of health and hygiene, advancement in education, and a real economy where they can strive ahead and look to the future. We believe this bill does a number of things that will allow first nations to combine their resources and go to the institutions that have the capital that they need to invest properly into their communities.

My hon. colleague mentioned that this came out of the B.C. NDP government. It organized the municipalities to give them greater strength in going to the banking community and allowing them to invest in those projects that they needed to do. It was a good idea and it has been working. It has been proven to work.

I believe that the idea was actually spurned by the Grimean Bank, an experience in the developing world. Small borrowers were able to pool their resources together, in that case to get microcredit loans, to achieve small projects and realize great benefits for their local communities. We know the repayment schedules were excellent and did very well for those communities.

When the Nisga'a agreement was coming to fruition a number of years ago, I was not involved in politics. The member who was currently representing our riding at the time was Reform, then Alliance, and then Conservative. The fearmongering that went on during that debate, and there were 422 amendments or something that came through in the House, was that if this agreement went through, the economy in the northwest of British Columbia would shut down. There was fear spread that first nations would take over and control the resources, mining would shut down, forestry would no longer exist, and that it would all come tumbling down. The federal government was told that it should not be agreeing to this.

We heard similar rhetoric just recently on the Tlicho debate in the House. Frankly, I was embarrassed as a parliamentarian to hear the views expressed by fellow parliamentarians across the House describing the same scenario again. They were saying that first nations will take over, that this is a terrible idea, and that we should not allow them any progress. This is something that the government finally got agreement on from the local communities, from the major industries in the area, and from the Northwest Territories. Some members said that we should not allow this process to go ahead, that this is a bad thing for this country, and supposedly a bad thing for first nations.

The hypocrisy during that debate and the Nisga'a debate was deplorable. One of the reasons that I decided to enter into politics was the idea to represent my riding with such strong first nations' presence: the Haida, the Haisla, the Tlingit, the Tahltan, and the numbers go on. I wanted to come to the House to challenge those that would say that treaties are not good for first nations, that settling out and understanding how first nations are going to finally be included in the economy and the society of Canada in a meaningful way is not a worthy project.

We have constantly been pushing the government to come to the treaty table with first nations with a needed sense of urgency. To this point there is this open-ended feeling that we can go on and on, and that first nations can wait for these treaties to be settled in a meaningful way.

We are encouraged by this particular piece of legislation because it goes some way to push the government to allow first nations to pool their resources collectively. Recently, we received a letter from a financial institution, a credit union in B.C., which is very supportive of this work, ready to go, and already involved in projects of this nature. These are sometimes basic health care projects or economic projects. This is something that we are working collectively with our first nations brothers and sisters to finally get the issue pushed forward.

It was 15 years ago that we passed a resolution in the House to end child poverty in this country. We have been completely unable to do that. The statistics within the country are deplorable with respect to child poverty. It is a shame upon this House. If we move to the case of first nations, the case becomes much worse. Whatever indicator we look at, the first nations situation in Canada today is so much less, so much poorer than all other Canadians. If there is anything that we can do in the House to improve those conditions, both on and off reserve for first nations across the country, then our party will always be in support of it.

In my riding there is a beautiful example of first nations working together. Seven nations came together to work on a totem pole. From all living memory that we could decipher, there had been no instance of these first nations working together collectively on something as important and significant as the raising of a totem pole.

Through much deliberation and in conjunction with a community college with a non-aboriginal board of directors, they were able to come together, work with the communities, and find a place where they could work on this totem pole. Each group had to decide what it was going to bring to the pole. Some weeks ago they raised it together, pulled on the ropes together with the non-aboriginal community in Terrace, B.C. They raised this magnificent and stunning work which represents how first nations can work together with the non-aboriginal community to achieve something beautiful, historic and monumental.

We can apply that same feeling, that same willingness to work together across the nations with the non-aboriginal community and sincere feeling from government, to achieve even greater things, such as justice within our time, and some sense of pride when we look to the first nations communities and know that Canadians are doing well by our first nations brothers and sisters.

Then we can say to our children that we were involved in a process that finally remedied the abuses and the misconduct of the federal government toward first nations people. That will be a very proud day for us. That is a day that we need to all work toward collectively.

There is one more important concern. As we move toward this, some nations have expressed concern that the federal government will be abdicating some of its responsibility toward first nations, that it will be turning it over to the private sector. We will be looking very strongly throughout the implementation of this piece of legislation to ensure that the federal government maintains its importance. The Haida case and the Tlicho case point clearly to the federal government's role. It must be the one that consults with first nations, that works with true and proper accommodation of first nations' rights and title. That is the role of the federal government. That is the role that we must maintain.

While this is innovative, progressive, and born out of the provincial New Democrats, a place where many progressive, new and innovative things have come, we support it. The federal government must maintain its place at the table and must increase its sense of urgency to finally and completely settle first nations claims.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent point. Some reservations have been expressed by certain members in the House that somehow this judicial inquiry would impede upon the rights and privileges of certain provinces, but that is not our belief. Certainly we are seeing through the Gomery inquiry that there are no such concerns or reservations.

The hon. member also mentioned the deplorable 23% increase in federal staff since 1990 here in Ottawa. It is an absolute shocking figure when we get out to the west coast and realize how limited DFO staff is.

We had a constituent from another riding actually phone the DFO to report some bad management on the river. Someone was fishing where they were not supposed to fish. The DFO official replied that they simply could not go out on the river because they did not have the boats. The DFO official then asked the person on the phone if he wanted a job and maybe get in a boat and go out and look on behalf of DFO. It was a serious request. This is simply because the DFO does not have the people on the ground.

If we cannot measure, we cannot manage. This department cannot manage because it does not measure.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we are at the point now where I receive e-mails and letters from people from inside the department asking that they be subpoenaed and asking if they can be put under oath. The hon. member is correct when he says that it is a career limiting move to actually go ahead and speak the truth about what is happening within the department.

With respect to fish farms, we are hearing the same thing. DFO officials are sliding me reports and saying that they are not permitted to release them. They want to know if they can do anything about it. These are DFO people working and understanding the issues on the ground, but because of the politics of the day and the politics here, they are unable to perform their duty which, as my hon. colleagues has said, is to defend the interests of fish, period. Their job is not to worry about the oil and gas industry. It will take care of itself. Their job is not to worry about the fish farm industry, which can somewhat take care of itself. Their job is to defend the interests of wild fish.

My belief is that this inquiry needs to look at the entire structure and functioning of the DFO. For a department to have lost this much credibility with the people, the constituents whose interests it was meant to represent, needs a full and complete overhaul. It does not need a committee appointed by the government. It needs a full and complete overhaul, and this inquiry, I believe, will do that.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be a part of this debate. The encouraging presence of many members in the House is admirable and shows the passion that arises from this important debate.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.

It is most remarkable to hear the Liberal government members talking about their admiration and respect for the DFO frontline workers and what excellent quality of science is being performed in the field. It is remarkable in the sense that there are 1,600 supposedly very fine people working here in Ottawa.

While I suppose the Ottawa River is a very important river and the fish stocks in it are very important, we on the west coast find it rather strange and perturbing that the DFO consistently finds the funds available to make sure that the staffing requirements here in Ottawa are exceptional, while it also finds room in its budget to cut 55 seasonal workers on the west coast. These are the same seasonal workers, who they find of such excellent calibre, who simply do not have the resources to really understand what is happening in the water. They say that fish swim deep and that they are very hard to count. I find this excuse specious, with no pun intended.

We are talking about a judicial inquiry at this point. The government has come forward with the excellent notion of setting up its own committee, appointing certain members and telling us not to worry about any patronage appointments because the committee will be unbiased and very clear and prescient in its arguments.

What we find difficult in the far stretches of the Skeena—Bulkley Valley in the northwest of British Columbia is that we have had these reports and these studies. I would suggest that we could almost fill this chamber with the number of studies on what is wrong with particular aspects of the DFO.

Now we stand in support of the motion that has come forward today from the Conservative Party but with a couple of cautions, which we presented and I will present again. With all of the studies available and all that we know is wrong with particular aspects of the DFO, we still have a ministry operating in such a way that the fish are depleting, with several million of them missing this year. It is blamed on the fact that it was a warm season or even that the waters might have been a touch low.

It is funny that in 1992 and 1994, in all seasons that we find these stocks off, the DFO is very quick to find another reason why it is not its fault. The government finds a reason to suggest that it is others, such as the first nations, or the gillnetters, or the Alaskans.

What this inquiry needs to look into is what is wrong with DFO as an agency. When we have an agency that is meant to protect fish, that is meant to protect the communities that rely upon these fish for food source, for ceremony, for commercial use, how can our fish be under such threat.

The lack of credibility has become so fundamental in the communities that I represent that to put a DFO sticker on one's car is to take one's life into one's own hands in my riding. The animosity and lack of fundamental respect for this agency has come to such a point that the credibility is lost. The agency no longer holds the position of an honest broker. It no longer holds the position of an agency that is able to defend the interests of those communities, to defend the interests of those fish that the hon. member mentioned before.

For example, this past summer a crabfest was held in a very small Nisga'a community in the Nass Valley in northwestern B.C. Residents notified officials at DFO several months before that they would be selling crabs. Everything was kosher until the moment of the day. I arrived just after officials from DFO had arrived in their large trucks wearing flak jackets, carrying large weapons and ready to bust the place up. They told everyone that they had to shut down immediately. They went after grandmothers and grandfathers who were selling these fish and told them they had to stop and that they were shutting the place down, batons in hand.

This is a community of 200 people on the far north coast of British Columbia. We had grandmothers in tears and grandfathers furious and ready to get their shotguns. This was an attitude brought forward by the department, completely disjointed from the local community. The department completely misunderstood and misrepresented the interests of this country and failed to represent the interests of that local community.

The department needs to go through this review because it has lost its way. We have the reports and the studies. We know the department has screwed up on the east coast. If we are looking to replicate DFO's performance on the east coast fishery on the west coast, I, and I hope every member in this House, will stand in the way of that action. What we have seen on the east coast is community after community dying because the fish have not been managed well.

I think it is wrong for anyone to suggest that we should simply sit back and trust a Liberal appointed committee to go through the processes, to look at DFO and to come up with a list of recommendations that we know full well will be ignored, and that the fishery will then rest in the hands of DFO, and we should not worry about it. I represent communities that rely heavily on these fish stocks.

For the last three months I have listened over and over again to the Gomery inquiry and to the revelations that have been coming out. While the government refuses to comment until it is over, what I have learned is that what we heard prior to the election being called was not all that the House needed to hear, that witnesses were not entirely forthcoming in the panel that was presented. The inquiry has allowed us to look further into the sponsorship scandal which pales in comparison to the travesty and the scandal that is happening within our fisheries and oceans.

If we lost $100 million through the sponsorship program, then we are losing tens and hundreds of millions of dollars more through a fishery that has the potential of collapsing under DFO mismanagement.

What is the problem with DFO? Some concerns have been expressed in the House that this will become a witch hunt against first nations. This is a concern that I must express forcefully to the members promoting this motion. We need to look at this situation from the view of all the players who are involved in the fisheries on the west coast on the Fraser River.

We in the north look at the Fraser as a canary in the mine and that river is in trouble. The Skeena, the Stikine, all of the rivers in the northwest face similar difficulty. If I were to go back to my constituents and tell them not to worry, to relax because DFO has it under control, I would never be able to keep a straight face. I also would never survive at any town meeting if I were to make such a suggestion. The people in my riding have had those face to face interactions with DFO. They realize that, while there are many competent frontline officers, when decisions head up the pipe to the 1,600 people working in Ottawa, they get skewed around and politicized and we would have what happened on the east coast. People do not trust this department in a fundamental way.

I mentioned the first nations that I am dealing with in the northwest of my riding right now who have talked to DFO. DFO made its initial assessment of the area and said that since there were no fish bearing streams in the area that it would allow the 160 kilometre road for the mining project to go ahead. The first nations then brought in their own fish biologists and stood over the streams as the fish came up spawning. It is either a lack of will, a lack of intelligence or human power on the ground on the part of DFO to not simply recognize what a salmon looks like when it is going up a stream. To suddenly be issuing certificates or to be considering issuing certificates for such projects, shows that the consultation process that DFO now has is not working.

On the lastest trip to Vancouver, which I happened to be on, we heard that the commercial, sport and native fishers who are on the river 200 to 220 days of the year have no credibility with the department. The department does not seem to think that they have any viability or that their arguments make any sense and it needs to rely on the 6, 7, 8, 10 officers that it has on the entire Fraser River.

It is a complete joke if the DFO actually expects those few people on the ground to understand. There is a fundamental understanding that DFO does not get. People who work on the river every day, rely on the river and live by the river need to be consulted and the consultation needs to be acted upon, not simply paid lip service to.

The Cultis Lake and Sakinaw salmon are now at the point of extinction. We heard from many interest groups that said that we cannot allow this to happen and others who said that it would harm too much of the fishery. I stayed silent on that. I wanted the House to understand in that moment that the federal government was making a decision that would allow species to become extinct due to the mismanagement of the agency.

Here we are at the end of the pipe saying that we are in a crisis and that we simply cannot do anything about it because it will threaten the industry. The decisions had to be made months and years prior to not end up at the point where we are losing entire species of fish. We were forced between the industries that needed to be able to fish and two species that are now sentenced to extinction.

Some weeks ago I asked officials at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans how much we were spending on fish farms in B.C. It is a simple question. I just wanted to know the dollar figure. I am still waiting on the answer.

If this was a parliamentarian asking this question in committee and this was the response time from department officials, I only hesitate to think how long it takes them to answer to communities' interests and concerns.

While the DFO promotes wild salmon stocks, supposedly, it is also promoting fish farms which threaten those stocks.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, clearly this debate raises the ires and passions in the House like few others. In my riding of Skeena--Bulkley Valley, this is the most despised federal agency we have, the one that has the least amount of credibility on the ground and the one that has managed its file most poorly, and that is saying something when we get to federal agencies.

I have a question for the hon. member. We have a case before us right now with the Tlingit First Nation, which has gone through a consultation with this particular department. The nation has stood out very strongly in objecting to a proposed mine that is going to have a 160 kilometre road.

DFO appears to be ready to sign off on this certificate for a mining project that it knows very well will last for decades, not for the proposed eight years. If there is too much consultation in B.C., is it not the effectiveness of the consultation of this agency which would be studied through this inquiry? Would it not be looked at through this inquiry in an effective, oath-bound way to see that this department has no legitimacy on the ground when it comes to the point of consulting with local communities and local first nations groups, as in the case of the Tlingit?

I wonder if he could speculate on the legitimacy of the department and whether that would not be alleviated somewhat by having a full inquiry into the mismanagement of the Tlingit file.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I aspire to one day have such a capability of presenting ideas and notions in the House as the hon. member now has.

I am going to speak in English so my question is really clear.

The member made a comment about the Prime Minister acting as ship without a rudder. I would suggest that perhaps it is a ship that is not paying taxes. It may be one of the reasons why he feels at this time that it was so opportune for him to be able to dismiss any pay increase, a notion that for many of the people in my riding of Skeena—Bulkley Valley would be absolutely obscene, but I suppose when one is a multi-millionaire several times over in the avoidance of taxes one is able to make such suggestions and is able to hold to it.

Now that we have reopened this can of worms, as it were, and are now preparing to look at another way of compensating members of Parliament due to this lack of leadership, I am wondering if we could consider this. The House is meant to represent and defend many of the issues the member raised in terms of poverty among children, student loans and student debt loads. I am wondering if we would not consider tying our salaries to an index related to those issues.

If Parliament is functioning and doing well on something like health care or child poverty, then we should be compensated equally as well if we are doing our job. Many in the private sector have looked to such a system in order to compensate their managers and upper managers; when the company does well, they too do well. In this House, regardless of what poor legislation gets passed year after year, the salaries continue to rise, while for people in Canada the wage gap continues to grow and people become poorer.

Would there not be another index available to us, one that ties the members in the House to the quality of life experienced by Canadians, particularly lower and middle income Canadians? We can measure our society by how we treat these people. I am wondering if the House might eventually consider such original and diverse thinking as this.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments on how this House has been able to work effectively together and in some cases very much so; however, DFO has not been responsive to the travesty on our west coast with respect to salmon stocks.

I wonder if he could comment on, as effective as this House is, the apparent vacuum of power in leadership that is happening on the government side. The indecisiveness that we are seeing on a number of files, not just this one, and making a consistent decision and then falling away from it so quickly.

I wonder if he could comment on the leadership or the lack of leadership that has been displayed.