Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate today. I think anybody following it can certainly see the theme that is running through it and the concern that is being expressed by the opposition parties today. We are not at odds with the principles or with the understanding that we have to modernize the Fisheries Act. It is the way the government has approached this. It has been wrong-minded and we are here to help.
I think people do not have a great deal of confidence in being told that someone is from the government and is there to help. That is what we want to do with this legislation.
A number of the speakers referred to the work of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. My friend and colleague, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, is the longest serving member of that committee, and I guess I would be the second. Over the last seven years, I have been on and off that committee.
I have sat on about eight different committees in the House and I am very confident in saying that the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans would be the least partisan. All members work every day. At each meeting and on each issue we undertake, we work in the best interests of those in the fishery. Members from the west coast are just as interested and as knowledgeable about the issues that impact on the people of Atlantic Canada and the members from Atlantic Canada understand a lot of the challenges faced by those in the fishery on the west coast.
It was mentioned in the House before that my colleague worked on 26 different studies done by the committee over his time and 22 of them were presented unanimously. All members on the committee supported those reports going forward.
We just completed a fairly extensive study on the concerns around sealing. It was a unanimous report. We went to Newfoundland and were out on the ice in the southern gulf. We witnessed it and stood together, shoulder to shoulder. When we come and stand behind the minister now, that gives the minister's position even greater strength. Canada and the House speak with a unified voice.
I think there is an opportunity and a willingness to do that with this legislation. The principles are not out of whack, but there is so much concern. My colleague from Sydney—Victoria has mentioned some of the concerns we have.
I am concerned myself. I know in the last Parliament the previous fisheries and oceans minister had corresponded with the standing committee and requested it undertake a full and complete study so when legislation was presented, there would be a body of information from which we could draw on in order to develop the legislation for a new fisheries act.
The steering committee of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans agreed to go forward with it, but the then opposition critic, the current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, changed his mind, and the study died. He did not want to go forward with a study on the new fisheries act so we pursued another issue.
It was mentioned already in this debate that our colleague, the member for Delta—Richmond East, a commercial fisherman, probably one of the most knowledgeable members in the House on the commercial fishery, is no longer on the committee because he voiced his concern over aspects of the new fisheries act. He was removed from the committee. That is a great disservice not only to the government, but also to the people in the industry from coast to coast to coast.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said that we were opposing this just for the sake of opposing. That is not what is going on. We approve of many of these things, and I will talk about some of them.
Going forward, we approve so much of this in principle. A number of the ministers in the past government had tried to advance the new Fisheries Act and ran into some opposition, but in principle I think we can come out of this with a much better act should we bring this to committee prior to second reading.
A number of groups have approached us in opposition. Anybody opposed to government legislation were the first to be notified. As my colleague from Sydney—Victoria mentioned, we hosted a round of meetings within the constituency. We met with a group in Sydney River not that long ago and the concerns were broad and deep.
I spoke with a group of fishermen in Canso just last week, representatives of the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen's Association. Although they supported it, there were still a number of reservations that they wanted to register with me. It is deep.
I want to read from correspondence from the Atlantic Salmon Federation, which has done incredible work for decades on the salmon fishery. I know the minister would like to put himself out as a great supporter of Atlantic salmon. With the release of the Atlantic salmon endowment fund, it now can go forward. When we were in government, we established a $30 million fund that would go toward a number of community initiatives to support Atlantic salmon.
It is funny that when the $30 million were being peeled out and allocated to the endowment fund, the current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans voted against that budget. In fact, he had not supported Atlantic salmon at all. I know when he was ready to receive requests for funding and made that announcement, he pretty much separated his shoulders, patting himself on the back for all the great work that he did on Atlantic salmon. We know that is not the truth.
I know the Atlantic Salmon Federation has registered its concerns about this legislation. I will read from the correspondence. It states, “The Atlantic Salmon Federation is requesting that Bill C-45 be withdrawn and that a meaningful consultation process be put in place that allows the public the time to study changes that are being proposed in the Fisheries Act and provide considered input to the act”.
We understand the importance of Atlantic salmon in our recreational fisheries. We know the price per pound for salmon commercially, but recreationally it is over $300 per pound. When we talk about anglers going into a community, staying overnight or whatever, it is a very substantive component of our tourism industry. For them to voice their concern, the minister has to sit up and take notice.
We have received a great number of interventions by environmental groups. A couple of the members from the NDP had cited a few before. They are calling for us right away to withdraw Bill C-45. These include the Alberta Wilderness Association, BC Federation of Fly Fishers, BC Nature, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Fisheries Recovery Action Committee and Georgia Strait Alliance. These are freshwater fisheries as well as east and west coast fisheries. Other groups are Watershed Watch Salmon Society, Yukon Conservation Society, the David Suzuki Foundation, Sierra Club and Ecology Action Centre. These groups say that the new act has no teeth to protect fish or fish habitat.
It does get a resounding endorsement from the Canadian Mining Association. I think that if I were a fisher and the only endorsement I could really hold in the window was from the Canadian Mining Association that would offer me a little concern.
What we have been getting from the government throughout this is the following: “Leave it with us. Trust us. We're going to look after this. It's not a problem. Don't be scared. We're okay. We're cool with that because we're going to look after it. We're going to look after the best interests of the fishers of this country.”
We have seen what has happened when we leave that trust in the hands of this government. We know how well the government supported its promise on income trusts. As for the Atlantic accord, where the greatest fraud was “a promise not kept”, we know that promise was not kept with regard to the Atlantic accord. We know that deal was torn up and thrown away. We can ask the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the people of Nova Scotia how much faith they have in this government keeping its word.
I see it personally, too, from people in my riding, people such as Joyce Carter. She is a great lady, a beautiful lady, and the widow of a second world war vet, who was promised by the then leader of the opposition, our current Prime Minister, that the veterans independence program was going to be instituted as soon as the Conservative government took power. We know where that promise went as well. It was just thrown away.
There is no trust in the fishing community that the government can deliver on what it said, which was that the fishing community should leave it with the government and it would look after them. There is no trust there. I think we saw that last night with the election results in Prince Edward Island.
I have just one final point on this, which is about the hilarity of last week and the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. The students of this country, the young people of this country, left their trust with the government and we saw how 80% of the student funding that was there last year no longer exists. We saw that millions were peeled out of the student summer job placement fund. We saw community groups that for decades have sponsored work opportunities for summer students in this country left stranded and out in the cold.
However, that minister stood here and said that everything was fine, everything was wonderful, and that we could look at the groups that got funding. He said there were five groups in my riding that got funding. If I had asked him seven more questions, and he gave me five groups, that would have covered the entire number of grants issued in my riding. But the minister said that everything was fine, everything was wonderful.
That has to be the playbook of this government.
There is a Conservative candidate in my riding who said the other day said that this new round of funding for the students is just typical second-round funding. There was never any second-round funding, but if the truth does not fit, let us make up an answer. That seems to be the modus operandi for this government, but people are not buying it.
With regard to the act, we have heard a number of great concerns. What we heard from the fishermen and what I have been hearing from the fishermen over the last while is with regard to the position on trust agreements. With DFO, under a past minister, we have just gone through a whole redevelopment of a crab plan in Cape Breton and the Eastern Shore. One of the rulings that came out was that some of the temporary access holders were forced by DFO, by the government of the time, to move toward trust agreements. In order to qualify for a licence, they were to band together and make a trust agreement. It was about two years ago that this provision came forward.
Now we are being told by the government that trust agreements are no more, that trust agreements will not be recognized and we have seven years to get out of them, but all trust agreements are not bad. There are people in the industry who would never have had an opportunity to get into the industry if it were not for trust agreements.
There should be some type of grandfathering. There is now so much uncertainty with regard to what is going on around the trust agreements. I know that we do not want big corporations holding the lion's share of quota allocations. That is not what we want for the industry. We believe in an independent industry.
All trust agreements are not bad. We need more consultation on the trust agreements. We have to find out what is right, what works, and what is best for the industry, and that is done through consultation. We must show the fishers some respect. Let us consult with the fishers.
It is the same for access to capital. My colleague from West Nova talked about that as well. I think that sort of spills right over to the trust agreements.
On B class lobster licence holders, we do not know where they are going to land after the new act comes out.
On tribunals, my colleague from the city of Victoria registered some concerns about the tribunals, so this is where the discussion takes place because I do not think the tribunals are going to be a bad thing.
There is a concern that there is no appeal after a tribunal decision is made, but I think that if we give tribunals the power to address violations in the Fisheries Act, it would make it more expedient. We know that there are people out there who abuse their privileges. They are caught the first, the second and the third time. There are abuses within the fishery, but they are minor.
The number of fishers who abuse their privileges is minor, I would think, but there has to be some kind of recourse. I think these tribunals certainly would be well positioned. I think they would make it a little more expedient. They would cut down on the wait times. They would take some pressure off the courts. However, I believe there should still be some type of appeal process. I hope that we can address this through the committee and through interventions with the committee.
The minister talked about the transfer of responsibility to the provinces. He listed a number of provinces that support this in principle. I really question where the provinces are coming from on this because I would be concerned. I know that the opposition members in those provinces are expressing concern.
Is this more downloading on the provinces, with increased responsibility? If the government is looking at an increased responsibility for provinces in habitat and in enforcement in these particular areas, we see no sign in the estimates of any transfer of money over to the provinces. Where are the provinces going to get the money to deliver on these additional responsibilities? I do not see that in the legislation.
I would think that a little bit of the spillover, as referenced earlier, is in the outcome in P.E.I. There is a fairly substantive fishing community around P.E.I., and I would think that a little bit of the spillover there lies in the lap of the fisheries minister and the federal government in trying to ram this down the throats of the fishers in this country and certainly the fishers in P.E.I. I am concerned about the transfer of those responsibilities to the provinces and the provinces' ability to execute on those responsibilities.
The cost of science has not been mentioned here so far today. I do not think it has been addressed. I think the cost of science and where we are going with the science is going to be a substantive aspect of where the fishery is going in the future, coming out of the Larocque decision. What we are hearing from fishermen, the guys who go out and harvest the resource, is that they are pretty much fed up with it. They bought into this. They know that in order to have a successful and sustainable industry science has to be the basis.
As I have only a minute left, I will try to wrap up with this. We have put so much on the backs of the fishermen. We have expected so much. They bought into it in that the allocations would go toward a portion of paying for the science, but it seems to be the slippery slope. More and more allocation is going toward science. We know now through the Larocque decision that this is not going to hold water any longer. Where are the moneys for that?
I think we should be playing a greater role in helping our fishermen with the provision of science, but I think that has to be addressed through the committee and committee hearings. We would like to see the bill go to committee prior to second reading, so that when we go forward the principles could be maintained, but we could have a fisheries act that serves this industry in a much better way.
