Ryan Cleary

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right. I am a relatively new member of Parliament. Prior to my election this past May as the MP for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, I was a journalist. I spent 20 years as a journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador. I can say for the member for Winnipeg Centre that if I have ever heard anything that sounds like a conflict of interest, it is exactly this.

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of particular ballots for the plebiscite, I have no idea. I know that when I read the final tally, that 62% of respondents voted in favour of retaining the single desk for wheat, I wonder how the Conservative government cannot see the results of this plebiscite as a warning signal. There is as a storm brewing. There is a problem with the fact that the government is killing the Canadian Wheat Board. How does the Conservative government not recognize the 62% as a warning sign?

I have a question for the member opposite. It makes sense to carry out a cost benefit analysis. The member for Winnipeg Centre has consistently brought it up in the House. Why is there no cost benefit analysis? Is he afraid of the result?

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a Newfoundlander, with a particular interest in the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries. Last week, for example, I introduced a private member's bill, the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery rebuilding act. I rise to speak out against the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board and to warn against it.

The bays and harbours, the cliffs and crags and the fishing grounds of Newfoundland and Labrador may be a world away from the western provinces, but fishing and farming have much in common these days across Canada. At this moment in our history, what they have in common is that they are under direct attack by the Conservative government. In the Prairies, the Conservatives are attacking the livelihood of farmers with their attempts to kill off the Canadian Wheat Board. On the west and east coasts, the fisheries are their target, with ongoing moves to gut what little is left of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

What the Conservative government should realize, and must realize, is that its buddies on Bay Street cannot feed Canadian families. That is a simple fact of life.

I do not understand why the Conservatives have it in for Canada's primary producers, fishermen and farmers. Why? Who will that benefit? Who will that threaten?

Ultimately, such actions could jeopardize our food supply, could threaten the family farm and family fishing enterprise, the small businesses on which our country was built.

As a Newfoundlander and Labradorian, I am particularly baffled over why the Canadian Wheat Board is being targeted.

At the same time that the federal Conservatives are attempting to kill off the Wheat Board, back home in my home province, the Progressive Conservative provincial government is moving toward the creation of a marketing board for fish. Therefore, the federal Conservatives are killing off the Wheat Board, which markets and brands Canadian wheat and barley around the world, at the same time that the provincial PCs in Newfoundland and Labrador are attempting to create a similar type fish board to market and brand our seafood around the world. It does not make sense to me. If anything, it shows that there should be more study, more investigation and more review so smart decisions are made.

The federal Conservatives are killing the Wheat Board, while the provincial PCs are birthing a fish board. I just do not get it. How does that make sense? The responsible and right thing to do would be to carry out a cost benefit analysis.

The Canadian Wheat Board is the largest and most successful grain marketing company in the world. That is an indisputable fact. It is also a fact that the Wheat Board is a Canadian success story, with a proven track record of providing the best possible returns for farmers and minimizing their risk.

Why mess with a good thing? Why mess with something that is working?

As the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has pointed out in the House on numerous occasions, there has never been one shred of evidence that farmers would be better off without the Wheat Board. That is a point that has resonated with me and it should resonate with everybody in the House and with all Canadians,

How can the Conservative government, which bills itself as being a great steward of the Canadian economy in these tough economic times and which are destined to get tougher, be so reckless and irresponsible, to use two other words from the member for Winnipeg Centre, as to turn the prairie farm economy on its head without even doing a cost benefit analysis? That does not make sense to me.

Bill C-18 proposes to dismantle the farmer-controlled and funded Canadian Wheat Board by eliminating the single desk marketing of wheat and barley across Canada, but do farmers want that? Apparently not.

On September 12, a majority of farmers voted in a plebiscite to keep the Wheat Board. A total of 38,261 farmers submitted mail-in ballots during that plebiscite. It had a participation rate of 56%, which was, as I understand it, on a par with the last three federal elections. The result was that 62% of respondents voted in favour of retaining the single desk for wheat, while 51% voted to retain it for barley.

Allen Oberg, chair of the Wheat Board's farmer-controlled board of directors, reacted by saying this:

Farmers have spoken. Their message is loud and clear, and the government must listen, Western Canadian producers have voted to keep their single-desk marketing system for wheat and barley. They cannot be ignored.

Sure, they can be ignored. Have they not heard of the Conservative government? For years, fishermen on the east coast of Canada, the fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador, warned that they were not being listened to. The fishery eventually collapsed. One of the largest fishing companies, Fishery Products International, was later broken up and sold off piecemeal, including its marketing arm.

Today Newfoundland and Labrador PCs are moving toward a marketing board for Newfoundland and Labrador seafood products. The Conservative government is trying to move away from it.

Part of the marketing strategy would be to set up a council to promote Newfoundland and Labrador seafood in general. The government would also facilitate a consortium of companies so they could work together on branding their seafood products. Maybe they will even call it the Canadian fish board. Would that not be ironic?

The New Democrats say that the Conservative government should withdraw Bill C-18. In the interests of large American grain companies, the Conservatives are meddling to erode prices and market security for our own farmers.

The Canadian Wheat Board is a single desk. Farmers in western Canada sell their wheat and barley together through the Wheat Board, their sole marketing agent. The structure helps ensure farmers get their highest overall return, as it has an effective monopoly on the sales. Farmers have more strength when they act as one. It just makes sense. Fishermen have more strength when they act as one. Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen know this and prairie farmers know this. Why does the Conservative government not know this?

Western grain farmers can look to Australia to know what is in store for them once the single desk is eliminated, and it is not pretty. When Australia had its single desk power, Australian wheat could command premiums of over $99 a tonne over American wheat, but by December 2008, it had dropped to a discount of $27 a tonne over U.S. wheat. In three short years, Australia's 40,000 wheat farmers went from running their own grain marketing system, selling virtually all of Australia's wheat, to becoming mere customers of Cargill, one of the largest agribusiness corporations, which is privately owned by the U.S.

If we are not careful, the family farm and the family fishing enterprises of this great country will be no more. We should learn from the mistakes of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery. We should listen to fishermen and farmers. We are stronger—

[Newfoundland and Labrador Fishery Rebuilding Act, October 21st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. How many reports into the fishery have been ignored? There are untold numbers. There is an inquiry going on into the disappearance of salmon stocks in B.C.'s Fraser River. The last I heard, that inquiry has a price tag of roughly $25 million.

The point I want to make is that we have not had a ground fishery since 1992, going back 19 years. There are experts who say if it was a healthy resource there could have been an annual harvest of 400,000 tonnes going back 19 years and every year into the future. How many untold hundreds of millions of dollars would that be worth?

In terms of the question about why we need another inquiry, we need an inquiry specifically into why the management of this fishery has failed. Why has it failed? I challenge the member opposite to show me the report that shows the way forward, that shows all the problems with the management of the fisheries in the past. That report does not exist. The only way to get a report is to have an inquiry into the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries.

[Newfoundland and Labrador Fishery Rebuilding Act, October 21st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the question has been asked as to how many reports have been written in the past looking into the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries.

[Newfoundland and Labrador Fishery Rebuilding Act, October 21st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would be interested to hear exactly which points in my speech the hon. member disagreed with.

As for why the Progressive Conservative Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has not called for an inquiry, I suggest that the hon. Conservative member across the way ask the Minister of Fisheries.

The government has to make a decision as to whether there will be an inquiry and the decision has to come not just from the federal Conservative government but also from the provincial government of my home province. The federal Government of Canada looks after harvesting. The provincial government looks after processing. The federal government looks after fishing boats. My home province looks after fishing plants. The bottom line is that the management at the federal and provincial levels of government has not worked. Maybe it is the fact that both levels of government do not want to admit that the management has not worked.

[Newfoundland and Labrador Fishery Rebuilding Act, October 21st, 2011]

moved that Bill C-308, An Act respecting a Commission of Inquiry into the development and implementation of a national fishery rebuilding strategy for fish stocks off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, my private member's bill, Bill C-308, is an act respecting a commission of inquiry into the development and implementation of a national fishery rebuilding strategy for fish stocks off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The short title of my bill, the title that cuts to the chase, is the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery rebuilding act. The key word is “rebuilding”. We must rebuild. We must rebuild what was once one of the world's greatest protein resources, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. We must rebuild what has been lost to us. We must rebuild the fish stocks and use them as a foundation for life after oil, as a foundation for the future of Newfoundland and Labrador. Let “rebuild” be the one word that resonates with every member of the House.

It is almost 20 years after the fall of the Newfoundland and Labrador cod fisheries and there has been practically no rebuilding, none. Why? This is the key question that an inquiry would answer. Why have stocks not rejuvenated? Why have stocks not been rebuilt? Why has the moratorium stretched almost 20 years when John Crosbie said, in 1992, that it would last only two years? Commercial fish stocks are in desperate shape, about as desperate as they were when the fisheries were first closed. Why?

Soon after Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, she handed over responsibility of her fisheries to the Government of Canada to manage. The fisheries were our offshore oil of today, an incredible resource and wealth, only, unlike oil, the fisheries were an incredible renewable resource, a renewable wealth.

Sixty-two years after Confederation and our commercial fisheries for species such as cod, what was once known as Newfoundland currency, are on their knees. How far have we fallen? For most of the year, it is illegal to jig a cod, to jig a fish from the vastness of the north Atlantic.

What was once seen as a Newfoundland birthright is now a crime. However, the real crime is the fact that nothing has been done, that the fish resource has not been rebuilt, that we have not acted. The real crime is that a generation later and the stocks are still in the same desperate shape.

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland were fished out. It is plain and simple.

In the year 1968, the northern cod catch was officially recorded at 810,000 tonnes, three times the estimated maximum sustainable catch. Unofficially, more than one million tonnes of northern cod were taken from the sea that year. It has been downhill ever since.

To be clear, this is not about blame. There is blame to be shared by everyone, by the Government of Canada, by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, by foreign trawlers, by our own domestic fleet, by viewing the fishery as an occupation of last resort, by international organizations that are powerless, that are toothless to manage migratory stocks, by the use of fish stocks as international bargaining chips, by greed, by apathy everywhere. The apathy must end.

To quote Newfoundlander Rex Murphy from a National Post column earlier this month:

Newfoundland is in silent crisis...Increasingly, St. John’s highly concentrated economy resembles a sort of miniature Hong Kong amidst an increasingly deserted province. Out-migration is stealing a whole generation of Newfoundlanders. The outports are becoming just places “where the parents live,” and the larger centres outside St. John’s have become dominated by old-age homes.

To quote another Newfoundlander, Zita Cobb of Fogo Island, who is renowned as an entrepreneur and a visionary and who is behind one of the largest projects every attempted to preserve even a small portion of rural Newfoundland. She says, “If something isn't done now, we are going to be disconnected from our sense of community and our sense of past. The most tragic thing that could happen and it is happening now, is for a son not to understand his father's life”.

Our Newfoundland and Labrador culture, a culture steeped in the fishery, is slowly dying. Let Me Fish Off Cape Saint Mary's is one of the most powerful Newfoundland and Labrador songs ever written. Will there come a day when we will not relate to that song, or a day when we are forced to change the words to, “Let me drill off Fort McMurray”? We must rebuild, or that will happen.

The ultimate tragedy is not so much that the stocks collapsed, but that there is no plan to rebuild them. That is Confederation's greatest failure. That is our national embarrassment. That is our national shame. That is Newfoundland and Labrador's silent crisis.

Canada once bore the reputation as a great steward of the sea. Our reputation today is worth as much as an empty net. An inquiry would investigate federal and provincial fisheries management. Is the management working? The ultimate measure of that management is the state of the stocks, the state of the industry. The management, obviously, is not working. Stock after stock has failed.

One of the last reports on northern cod was carried out in 2005 by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. The report was entitled, “Northern Cod: A Failure of Canadian Fisheries Management”. The title says it all.

Ask me what was done with that report. Nothing, even though the report took DFO to task for failing to recognize mismanagement as one of the reasons for the stock collapse. That report also questioned why a recovery plan had not been drawn up describing DFO's lack of long-term vision as astonishing.

The federal Conservative government called an inquiry in 2009 into the decline of sockeye salmon on British Columbia's Fraser River. How can the federal government investigate management policy on one end of the country and not the other, when it has so clearly failed everywhere?

Newfoundland and Labrador's commercial salmon fishery was shut down in 1991, 20 years ago this week. There has been no recovery. Do hon. members see a trend? Because there is a trend.

An inquiry would also investigate the state of fishery science. Science has and is being gutted. Instead of rebuilding for the future, we are taking away our opportunity for a future.

An inquiry would also investigate fisheries enforcement and quotas. Who rules the rights to the fish in the sea and who exactly is fishing the quotas? Who is benefiting from the quotas? An inquiry would investigate the effectiveness of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization in managing migratory stocks outside the 200 mile limit. Has it been effective? Absolutely not.

At NAFO's recent general meeting in Halifax the quotas for most groundfish stocks were cut across the board. All stocks are in trouble.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, which I sit on, tabled a report in the House last week on the snow crab resource. The study was triggered by concerns expressed after DFO cut the snow crab harvest in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence by 63%. DFO had been warned to cut the quota but the minister ignored the advice. Again, this is not about blame. I purposely avoid laying blame. That is not what this is about.

Recommendation three of the snow crab report advises that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans strike a task force to review the snow crab assessment process and the management of the fishery. However, the problem is not just with the management of the snow crab resource but also with the management of all the fish that swim off Newfoundland and Labrador shores. Today in my province, pan-size fish are being exported to places such as China and the U.S. for processing while the plants we have left are closing permanently and our aging plant workers are protesting in the streets. We are scraping the bottom of the barrel and the bottom of the sea. We must rebuild.

Experts have said that a healthy groundfish stock could provide an annual harvest of 400,000 tonnes. The total groundfish harvest last year for all of Newfoundland and Labrador amounted to less than 20,000 tonnes. We could have a healthy harvest of 400,000 tonnes. Last year, it was less than 20,000 tonnes, which is a shadow or skeleton of our once great fisheries of the great Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The time to rebuild is now.

The Prime Minister once described the east coast as having a culture of defeat. I stand before the members to say that is not the case. It is far from it. We are fighting for our culture and our rural way of life in Newfoundland and Labrador. We want to ensure that we can provide for ourselves rather than revert to what we have been labelled in the past, a label which I am sure everyone in the House has heard and one that is absolutely incorrect, that being that we are a drain on Canadian Confederation. That is not the case.

If the fisheries and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland had been banks that were mismanaged into bankruptcy there would have been demands for accountability, for reform and for an overhaul to ensure that never happened again. The Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador in my home province deserve no less.

I urge all hon. members to support my private member's bill. It is not just the fish stocks that need rebuilding but also our faith in this country to help individual provinces stand on their own.

[Fisheries and Oceans, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, early this afternoon I will have the pleasure of opening debate on my private member's bill calling for an inquiry into the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery.

The Newfoundland and Labrador fishery rebuilding act proposes that today, 20 years after the shutdown of the commercial groundfish fishery, we begin the process of rebuilding. Unfortunately, the Conservative government appears to be sailing in the opposite direction.

Will the minister do the right thing and agree to an inquiry to restore the once great stocks that were our dowry with Confederation?

[Fisheries and Oceans, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, cuts to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have left our fishermen feeling like they have been set adrift in a sea of uncertainty, written off by the Conservative government.

The boom has been lowered on the resource conservation council and on the search and rescue marine sub-entre in my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl, but with another $57 million in planned cuts, we know there is even more to come, worse to come.

Which part of our fisheries, of our culture, will the Conservatives set adrift next?

[Fisheries and Oceans, October 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we know the government prefers to make decisions based on ideology rather than science, statistics or facts, but the Conservatives' cuts to DFO have gone too far. Cutting the science branch means making decisions with nothing to back them up. Cutting the resource conservation councils means fishermen have no say. Cutting search and rescue means lives are actually put at risk.

Can the minister explain exactly what will be left, what he will be in charge of once he is finished scuttling his department?