Peter Stoffer

[Income Tax Act, October 18th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-233, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (medical expenses).

Mr. Speaker, I am reintroducing a bill that I introduced earlier this year. As baby boomers and people throughout Canada are looking to herbal alternatives to cure what ails them, the bill will enable any licensed physician who prescribes a herbal alternative in lieu of a prescription drug to allow that patient to claim that herbal alternative as a medical tax deduction.

When I originally introduced the bill, I had thousands and thousands of signatures supporting this initiative. I am sure that colleagues on both sides of the House will support this valuable initiative as well.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Hepatitis Awareness Month Act, October 18th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-232, an act to provide for a Hepatitis Awareness Month.

Mr. Speaker, I am reintroducing a bill that I introduced last year which basically calls for the month of May to be known as Hepatitis Awareness Month.

The disease of hepatitis inflicts over 600,000 Canadians in the country. Although we have months recognizing breast cancer and other ailments which inflict our citizenry, I believe, after working with those with hepatitis in Nova Scotia, Mr. Bruce DeVenne, and Mr. Joey Haché here in Ottawa, that it is time that the Government of Canada and especially us, as legislators, recognize the month of May as Hepatitis Awareness Month.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Internet Child Pornography Prevention Act, October 18th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-231, an act to prevent the use of the Internet to distribute pornographic material involving children.

Mr. Speaker, before I introduce the bill I wish to send congratulations to my hon. colleague, the Attorney General of Saskatchewan, Mr. Chris Axworthy, who originally introduced this bill but then left.

The purpose of the bill is to protect our children. The Internet is an explosive new material in terms of media. It has a very negative side in terms of attracting innocent children into the hands of pedophiles. Pedophiles are using the Internet now as a tool in order to coax our young children into very obscene acts and in many cases into death.

The purpose of the bill is to protect our children and those unsuspecting in the country from the powerful use of the Internet by incorporating the users of the Internet and governments, provincially and federally, to institute laws and legislation to protect our children from the evil effects that the Internet can have on them from the pedophiles of the nation.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Fisheries, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, by now most Canadians are aware of the crisis facing our non-native and native fishermen in Atlantic Canada.

Since the Marshall decision was handed down by the supreme court, the fisheries are in a state of confusion and fishermen are angry at the lack of leadership shown by the Liberal government.

I now understand why the government is negligent in its responsibility to thousands of fishermen and their families. It is, I believe, so that the DFO can institute the individual transferable quota system known in the fisheries committee as ITQs. These would in effect transfer the access of the lucrative lobster fishery from thousands of independent fishermen and their families to the control of a few corporate identities, similar to what was done to the groundfish stocks in Atlantic Canada, thus destroying the hopes of thousands of families in their communities throughout Atlantic Canada.

I would like to fire this shot over the DFO's bow: Please do not institute the ITQ system on lobster stocks.

[Native Peoples, October 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I should remind the government that there is no lobster fishery going on in the Rideau Canal. This is day 27 after the Marshall decision and there is still no leadership from this government.

The Prime Minister himself said the parties have to get together. Instead of hiding behind government bureaucrats in Ottawa, why are the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not down in the maritime region right now dealing with the stakeholders? Why are they not committing the necessary resources to meet the negotiations before something comes up that we cannot handle?

Will the minister commit today to go down to the maritime region?

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments of my colleagues who represent areas which are farther north of my riding in Nova Scotia.

His previous colleague asked about the moratorium on the aboriginal fishery and he just said that what we require are peaceful negotiations in that regard.

Does he believe that if the government enforced a moratorium on the aboriginal aspects of the fishery that it would lead and be conducive to peaceful negotiations and dialogue with the non-native people?

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as much as I would like to say yes to that solution in order to bring some calm to the irrationality, I cannot. It is not up to us to break the law. The fact is that the supreme court has ordered that. It has laid down quite clearly that the aboriginal people have the right to fish in this regard. I do not like the idea of their fishing without proper conservation guidelines and without working under the same rules everyone else does. However the fact is we cannot override the supreme court decision and say quite clearly that because we are in a mess and a pickle and because parliamentarians and government have screwed this issue up so badly that we are now going to say to the aboriginal people who have waited 240 years for their right that they can no longer do what the supreme court has said they can do.

The majority of people I have spoken to down there are willing to incorporate the aboriginal fishery into the fishery. This is what needs to happen, dialogue and conversation and not useless rhetoric.

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, if I may throw the question back so he can ask it of me again. Is the member for South Shore asking me about a moratorium on the aboriginal fishery or about a moratorium on the non-aboriginal fishery?

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question.

We are the elected officials of this country. My colleagues from the Reform Party, the Conservative Party, the Bloc and the Liberal Party, we are the ones who are responsible ultimately to answer to the constituents of this country for legislation.

If previous Conservative governments and the current Liberal government have refused to negotiate and to legislate, then it is quite obvious that the supreme court will dictate to us what it interprets as the rules and what it interprets as the law. Once it does this, whether we like the decision or not, we have to live with it.

We find ourselves in the pickle we are in today because of the failed policies of the current Liberal government and past Conservative governments where they have refused to negotiate long term solutions for the resources of this country. It is up to parliament to finally decide this issue. It is not up to the supreme court. It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to take this issue very seriously.

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is getting late in the evening and it looks as if I may be the last speaker on this very valuable debate.

I want to thank the Conservative Party's House leader for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for bringing forward this issue for a take note debate. It is too bad it is not an emergency debate. I also wish to thank the government for allowing us this take note debate. Unfortunately it is just a take note debate. I hope the government is doing more than just taking notes. I hope the it is understanding the very serious nature of this issue.

My colleague from New Brunswick mentioned that this is not just about lobsters. This is about every single fish species that we have, not only in Atlantic Canada but clearly right across the country.

Aboriginal people in our prairie provinces are looking at the Marshall decision to see what it means to their role at the FFMC that they have in Winnipeg. They have great problems with that. Aboriginal people on the west coast are looking at this decision in terms of what they believe are their timber rights and their fishing rights. People across the country are very seriously concerned about what this decision means in their lives. It is not just about lobsters.

We are talking about the lobster issue right now because tomorrow morning area 35, the Bay of Fundy region in Nova Scotia—New Brunswick, will be opening up to the commercial fishery which normally opens up this time of year.

Those men and women will be putting out their boats and going out to catch lobsters. We have still not heard a word from the government on how it plans to incorporate the Marshall decision with the aboriginal people to get them into this fishery.

We have heard from people like Mr. Arthur Bull of the Coastal Community Network of Digby who said they have been working overtime, literally day and night since this decision, to come up with reasonable compromises so that both sides, the aboriginal and the non-aboriginal people, can work together. Unfortunately there is nothing but silence from the minister's department and the government.

We must bear in mind, for those who do not know it, that the minister was recently appointed to his position at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The people he has around him are fairly new to the portfolio as well. Therein lies the problem. Obviously the minister is getting his advice from what I consider to be very elderly and tired people on the east coast in terms of DFO, people I have had many concerns about in terms of their management policies. They are the policies of this government and previous governments. It is interesting to hear the Conservatives talk about concerns when the Conservative government from 1984 to 1993 did absolutely nothing to deal with the issue. The Liberal government from 1993 to 1999 has done absolutely nothing.

The attitudes of the Conservative government and the Liberal government toward aboriginal people in the nation have been very much paternalistic. They have told the aboriginal people time and time again that they refuse to negotiate and refuse to legislate. In fact they are telling them to spend taxpayers dollars and go to court.

That is exactly what the aboriginal people have done. They have gone to court and now the court has rendered its decision. Whether or not we like it, it is the legal opinion of the country. The supreme court has ordered it. It is not parliament's obligation and it is not the right of parliamentarians to tell the supreme court that we do not like the decision so it should be stayed, got rid of, changed or whatever. If we start doing that to the Supreme Court of Canada within our constitution we are opening up a bigger can of worms than opposition members or anyone else who is claiming that would be the solution.

I am going to give the minister four very concrete points on how he could come up with a short term solution. One is to immediately reconvene the all party standing committee of fisheries and oceans down in the maritime region. The minister and his department obviously refuse to go down there on a long term basis to deal with the issue. Perception is everyone's reality. They cannot be seen to be making decisions from Ottawa for Atlantic Canada. They must be in Atlantic Canada to put the human and financial resources on the table.

The grassroots people who work the resource know the resource better than the minister and most politicians in this room. They know what the short and long term solutions are. The minister must commit the human and financial resources for them to carry on their work.

Second, the minister must consider a voluntary buyout package and a transfer of the licences over to the Mi'kmaq nation to include them in the fishery. There are about 6,300 licences in the maritime region right now. Roughly 10% of those people would be willing to sell their licences tomorrow morning. The government must find out exactly how many licences would be required on the short term to bring the aboriginal people into the fishery. This is very important because conservation is the key. Everybody must fish under the same conservation guidelines. I do not think there is any debate on that.

The auditor general said last April that lobster stocks, and in fact all shellfish stocks, were in trouble in Atlantic Canada. Many people criticize the auditor general and me for espousing those views. The fact is the auditor general was absolutely correct. Last April he said that the management policies which caused the cod collapse in 1992 were the same policies in place to handle the groundfish stocks.

Let us not forget that in the spring the Mi'kmaq asked the Government of Canada to sit at the table to come up with solutions for the short term because they suspected that the Marshall decision would go in their favour. They came with an open hand to government asking it to come up with solutions so we can evade the problems that are happening now.

My colleague from South Shore and my colleague from West Nova are absolutely correct when they say they have never felt the tensions greater than they are now. They are absolutely correct when they say that.

The fact is that the government by sitting back in Ottawa trying to come up with some solution it can grab out of the sky or grab out of the air will not solve the problems. Government members have to go down there and talk directly to the people involved. They must do that in order to add calm to the equation of the argument that is happening right now.

Another thing that has happened within DFO is severe budget cuts to the department itself. The department does not have the human or financial resources to monitor enforcement policies, so it calls upon the RCMP to help. However, that department's resources were cut as well. The fact is that we do not even have the proper resources allocated right now in order to protect the stock. That is the most important thing. It is not just lobster stock but all other shellfish species out there as well. If the auditor general was correct and they do collapse, it will make the cod prices look like a drop in the bucket. Again, the responsibility falls upon this government.

Every single member in this argument today, my colleagues in the Conservative Party, the Reform Party, the Bloc Quebecois and ourselves, has asked for and demanded leadership on this issue. It is imperative that the minister show leadership. He should get down there and start talking to these people. He should not do it from Ottawa. This is very important. While he is down there discussing this issue, he should seriously consider a community based allocation of these stocks.

Mr. Arthur Bull of Digby has asked many, many times of the Coastal Community Network of Atlantic Canada and those in western Canada as well to get away from the corporatization of our fish stocks which have concentrated the wealth of the fish stocks in very few hands. It is time to start looking at a community based strategy so that all people, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, can work together for the long term benefit of this resource.

We also have to include what the corporate sector is saying right now. The one thing missing in this debate right now is what Clearwater, Highliner Foods and Donna Rae Limited are saying. What are these big corporations that have huge access to fish resources saying in this debate? They have been very, very silent. We have all been working very hard trying to concentrate on protecting the interests of the inshore fishermen.

What is needed now is leadership from this government. This government should not be an ostrich and put its head in the sand and hope the problem goes away. Government members must get down there and work with the people toward immediate short term solutions that have been presented by all members of the House today. They must incorporate those ideas so that we can have a calm fishery. We will all benefit in the long term.