Rick Perkins

[Fisheries and Oceans, April 25th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, what is lost in time is any answer from the government.

Recent decisions by the government, which take away fishery licence holders' quotas on the east and west coasts without compensation, are counter to the long-standing policy of “willing buyer, willing seller”. DFO sources tell me the minister was about to expropriate 15% of lobster traps from licence holders, without compensation, to give to first nations. This would be devastating for these fishermen.

Will the minister state in the House, categorically, that the government will not expropriate from lobster fishermen?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 5th, 2022]

With regard to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Eastern Shore Islands Area of Interest (AOI) and the proposed marine refuge off the Scotian Shelf bioregion: (a) how many (i) groups, (ii) individuals, have been consulted since January 1, 2019, regarding the AOI or the proposed marine refuge; and (b) what are the details of all such consultations, including, for each, (i) the date of the consultation, (ii) the format, (iii) the name of the individual or group consulted, (iv) who conducted the consultation, (v) the summary of the feedback or submission related to the consultation?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 5th, 2022]

With regard to research conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO): (a) what dollar amount and percentage of DFO's scientific research budget has been provided to the (i) oceans department, (ii) fisheries department, broken down by year since 2016; and (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by topic or area of research?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 5th, 2022]

With regard to employees at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO): (a) what was the total number of employees or full-time equivalent on the (i) Fisheries section, (ii) Oceans section of DFO, broken down by year since 2015; (b) what was the number of fishery offices field supervisor positions in conservation and protection at DFO, broken down by year since 2016; (c) what is the current number of fishery offices field supervisor positions in conservation and protection; (d) how many positions at DFO were eliminated in conservation and protection in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021, (iii) 2022; and (e) how many positions at DFO were eliminated in total in (i) 2020, (ii) 2021, (iii) 2022, broken down by section of DFO and type of position?

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 31st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister shut down the Atlantic mackerel fishery. Mackerel is what we use for bait in the lobster fishery. Lobstermen in Maine used tons of carp this year for bait, yet the minister refuses to approve alternative bait methods over the concern that they may become invasive species. I have a news flash for the minister: Lobster bait is dead, rotting fish and cannot reproduce and is therefore not a threat.

Without other types of bait, there is no lobster fishery. Will the minister reverse this harmful decision?

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 31st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member's NDP dance partner loves that the minister trashed the Unifor union.

Yesterday, the minister shut down the Atlantic mackerel fishery. Mackerel is the—

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 31st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, Unifor issued a news release on its meeting with the Minister of Fisheries that stated that the minister said her goal was to leave as many fish in the water as possible and that fishermen would need to sacrifice their jobs for climate change. In a statement responding to the release, the minister did not deny this.

Is the minister's actual goal to shut down the fishing industry?

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, March 25th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the speech by my colleague for Calgary Midnapore dealt with the issue of how we finance these expenditures. One of those ways, obviously, is the preferred way of the NDP-Liberal coalition, which is to borrow money and burden future taxpayers. The other, as the member pointed out fascinatingly in her speech, was the increased revenue that is coming in to the federal government as a result of higher oil and gas prices.

I live in a part of the world where we have to burn oil from Saudi Arabia because the coalition decided that it did not want a pipeline called energy east. We also have to burn electricity from Colombian coal in Nova Scotia. That is where we get our energy: from Saudi Arabian oil and Colombian coal, because of the policies of the government.

I would like the member for Calgary Midnapore to please comment on what she thinks about the preference for us to burn energy and oil from places, such as Saudi Arabia, with repressive regimes compared with clean, ethical Canadian oil.

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 25th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, last year, a week into the Atlantic mackerel season, a confused DFO closed it. A few days later, it opened it and fishermen landed their quota within about two days in locations where mackerel are not traditionally found. DFO has not assessed the stock off the Scotian shelf in more than a decade, yet it continues to cut the quota. The NDP-Liberal government just closed the healthy Pacific herring stocks against the science. Holy mackerel.

Will the current government start listening to fishermen, or is it just incompetent?

[Business of Supply, March 24th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I have not spent my life in medicine, as this member has. I have spent it in business, and I have a lot of business planning and strategies. There is a famous saying, “If you do not know where you are going, any road will get you there”, and this strikes me as the Minister of Health's motto. He does not seem to know where he is going, and he spouts statistics, as we saw today, unrelated to the questions.

Does the hon. member think the government's road is to get us to 100% vaccination before it will raise these mandates? Does he have any sense, from what the minister said today, of where it is going?