FOPO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, May 2, 2000

• 0910

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.)): I think we have enough members. We'll call the meeting to order.

This morning we're going to continue our review of the Oceans Act. We have as witnesses this morning, from the St. Lawrence Economic Development Council, Mr. Gagnon, the executive director, and Claude Mailloux, the assistant executive director; and from the Chamber of Maritime Commerce, Jim Campbell, vice-president and general manager.

The floor is yours, gentlemen.

[Translation]

Mr. Marc Gagnon (Executive Director, St. Lawrence Economic Development Council): I would like to thank you for the opportunity you have given us to talk about the work we do, especially with the Canadian Coast Guard, especially in the area of cost recovery, and to present to you some suggested amendments to the Oceans Act.

Our presentation will be fairly brief since we sent you our memorandum about a month ago. Since it has been translated, I believe you have been made aware of it. Therefore I will only summarize it.

First, I would like to say a few words about SLEDC and the Association of shipbuilders of the St. Lawrence, who are presenting this memorandum with us, and the Chamber of Maritime Commerce. My colleague Jim will talk about the Chamber in a few seconds.

SLEDC, for those of you who do not know it, is the St. Lawrence Economic Development Council. Our organization is based in Quebec and represents the maritime community of the St. Lawrence. Our members are therefore members of the maritime community of the St. Lawrence, such as shipbuilders or port stevedores, but also shippers and certain municipalities.

Mr. Ivan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ): Excuse me.

[English]

The Chair: Yes, Mr. Bernier?

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I find the witness' statements very interesting and wish the colleagues who are discussing other issues would do so in the antechamber or in the back. It is unpleasant for the witness.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bernier. Point noted.

Mr. Lawrence D. O'Brien (Labrador, Lib.): Do you want us to stay in Canada or do you want us to go to Quebec?

The Chair: Mr. Gagnon, go ahead.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Tell us the truth.

[Translation]

Mr. Marc Gagnon: So, essentially, SLEDC is an organization that represents the maritime community of the St. Lawrence.

The Association of shipbuilders of the St. Lawrence, which signed the memorandum with us, is a more specific association that represents shipbuilders and boat operators, therefore domestic haulers.

That is who we are at SLEDC. I will let Jim tell you about the Chamber of Maritime Commerce.

[English]

Mr. Jim Campbell (Vice-President and General Manager, Chamber of Maritime Commerce): Thank you, Marc.

The Chamber of Maritime Commerce has over 110 members across Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax, mostly shippers, carriers, ports, shipbuilders, and marine service suppliers, who rely on an efficient, effective, and competitive marine industry in Canada to serve the marine communities they serve across the country.

We first appeared before this forum in 1995 to talk about the small part of the legislation that affects the coast guard, and because of marine services fees and coast guard services, that ultimately affects the competitiveness of the marine industry and port communities across the country.

So we're back, and we're pleased to be back, to discuss the review of this piece of legislation.

What we thought we would do between our organizations, to make best and most efficient use of this forum's time, is have Marc introduce some of the background to our interest in this legislation and what he feels we should do to tweak it, if you will, to make it a little bit more responsive to the commercial shipping industry in Canada. Then I will follow up with some additional comments, and then we can get into questions and answers. That's probably the best way to make use of everyone's time. Thank you.

The Chair: That sounds like a good proposal. Go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Marc Gagnon: I will present two parts of the memorandum from SLEDC and the Association of shipbuilders and Claude will raise two more specific questions, those of ferries and dredgers on the St. Lawrence.

• 0915

I would like to take a few minutes to go back to the issue of cost recovery. As Jim just said, the Chamber of Maritime Commerce, the SLEDC and the National Coalition have come to see you a number of times in the past. The last time was in 1998. Before that, we came in 1996 and in 1995 to talk about an important problem we were facing, which was cost recovery from the Coast Guard.

We have therefore had severe differences of opinion with the Coast Guard in the past, and that is what brought about the creation of the National Coalition. I believe it was the first time in maritime history that industry representatives met and told the government what their expectations, their needs and their problems were in the area of cost recovery.

The Coalition did its job. It came to you to present our concerns. Thanks to the cooperation of the industry, Parliamentarians, and the government, we got changes to the tariffs on de-icing at the end of 1998 that allowed us to enter into a second phase of relationships with the government, the phase of partnership that we are now in.

We are now looking for permanent solutions with the Coast Guard services, the associated costs and the cost recovery issues.

The new commissioner for the Coast Guard, Mr. Adams, has re-established the Marine Advisory Board, since that forum had become an area where there were more differences than meetings of minds. Now, with this new way of working, with this new partnership, the Marine Advisory Board has found its second wind and a new way to work with the industry.

The Marine Advisory Board is working better because, in part, it has regional representatives. I believe it was very important for the industry that each region of Canada send delegates to the Board. I believe it was very important to the industry that each region send delegates to the board. That is how we can work together more harmoniously.

In our region, the St. Lawrence region, it is the Marine Advisory Board that is responsible for relationships with the local Coast Guard and the industry. I can tell you that there again the work is much more harmonious.

The objective of the Marine Advisory Board is to work with the Coast Guard so that there is a more effective and safer service, but at lower cost to the government and to the industry.

The Board is working on two aspects: technology on the one hand and costs and services on the other. That gives you a clear indication of the industry's wish to work with the Coast Guard, not to manage it, which is not our job, but to find the most efficient solutions in a context of budget cuts, as is the case with the Coast Guard.

What is going on now and what will happen in the near future? The Marine Advisory Board, the advisory group and the regional groups for the Great Lakes and those in the Maritimes, Newfoundland and the West are currently looking at the revision of Coast Guard services and the accuracy of the costs, because it is always difficult to evaluate the cost of various services.

The Commissioner has challenged the rationalization of the central office here in Ottawa, which the industry welcomes. Of course we are working on the introduction of new technologies that would make the service more efficient, lowering costs there also. Of course, another extremely important aspect that we spoke to you about when we came to see you is the possible impact of cost recovery on the industry.

• 0920

Treasury Board has undertaken a study in which we, the industry, are actively participating. It is a broad study, one which will take some time, but that should demonstrate the impact of all the cost recovery on the maritime industry in Canada. So we are working intensively with the Coast Guard.

To summarize what we are doing, I will refer you to the five recommendations in my memorandum.

First, we are asking the Department of Fisheries and the committee to give the industry and the Coast Guard the time to finish this study and the work already started on the services, and the accuracy of their costs, and to allow Treasury Board the time to finish its impact analysis. It is a long process that is well under way but that has to be seen through to the end.

We are also asking the minister to wait until the Marine Advisory Board, the advisory group and the advisory groups from the other regions of Canada can make specific recommendations about Coast Guard services and give us the time to reevaluate the budgetary needs of the Coast Guard and to take into account, as I was saying a while ago, the results of the economic impact study.

Finally, we also recommend that it ensure that the result of this work reaches the Fisheries and Oceans Committee since, according to a letter Mr. McGuire, the Chairman of the Committee, wrote to the Minister in 1996, the committee should annually review what is going on in the Coast Guard and the interaction between the Coast Guard and the industry in terms of cost recovery.

So, essentially, that is what we are recommending today to this committee on the issue of cost recovery. There is now a partnership between the industry and the Coast Guard. Relationships are much better, but the work is far from finished. We have to give the authorities that have been created the time to do the necessary research, to determine the impact, the needs in service matters, the costs, etc., to end up, at the end of the process, with the result we have been hoping for from the start, which is a fair and equitable clarification of Coast Guard services.

That ends my summary of the cost recovery issue. I will now turn over the floor to my colleague, Claude Mailloux, who will speak about dredging and ferries.

Mr. Claude Mailloux (Assistant Executive Director, St. Lawrence Economic Development Council): Thank you . First, I would like to say that this section of our memorandum was written in collaboration with the Association of shipbuilders of the St. Lawrence who, like SLEDC, represent the ferryboat industries of the St. Lawrence.

In 1998, there was a revision of the Coast Guard's client profile and unfortunately for the businesses that operate these boats, whether public or private, they were not recognized as public services. Such recognition would have been very useful to them, who are often in a region, who obviously serve as a complement to the road service, and sometimes replace it entirely, and provide an interesting solution to the problem of road congestion in certain regions.

Supplying ferry services is very different from a commercial transport operation. That is why we recommend a different status from that of other commercial businesses. In terms of tariffs, the latitude or maneuvering room is not the same for ferryboats who often have to take into account pre-established tariffs and schedules that they cannot deviate from even if the boats are not full and are sometimes almost empty. Theses schedules and tariffs have often been agreed to between the government and themselves. So they have no maneuvering room.

• 0925

When additional costs are added, such as those for beacons or de-icing required by the Coast Guard, the company does not necessarily have the maneuvering room to have these costs reflected in the tariffs.

The Coast Guard's client profile has a category that would meet the needs of ferry boaters. However, it has not been extended to all companies in Canada. It has been reserved for ships that are federal property and for ferry services in Newfoundland under clauses in the Canadian confederation.

However, this category, of which I will read you the description, would meet the needs of ferry boat operators, probably across the country. It says:

"A ship of State or a Defense ship" means any ship that the federal, provincial, territorial authorities or any other government authorities own or use. This category includes, without excluding others, ships used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Fisheries and Oceans, and the Department of National Defense.*

That is the status of a ship of State. It must be recognized that ferries offer citizens a service that they consider a public service because they need it. These are services that are useful to the economy, that provide an extremely important complement to road transport. That is why we are asking for the status of ships of State for the ferry boats of Canada.

Is it a question of expanding this status to all ferry boats services in Canada? That is an issue that could be discussed in terms of details. In principle, however, we believe it is important that this status can be applied to ferry boats, not only in the St. Lawrence region, but everywhere in Canada.

In terms of dredging, the principle that I will present briefly can be applied to more than one service related to the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence is a seaway used by a great number of very different users, whether we are talking about municipalities, passenger transport, pleasure cruises, water supply, recreational activities or commercial transport. In addition, the St. Laurence crosses a number of jurisdictional boundaries that all differ from one another.

On this great navigable seaway, services are provided by the Coast Guard: beacons, be-icing, and dredging to name only the main ones. It is therefore a multi-purpose place. To illustrate how much this is the case, I would say that even if there were no commercial ships on the St. Lawrence, we would still need these de-icing services between Quebec and Montreal to control flooding and water levels.

For all these reasons, the message we would like to communicate is that the St. Lawrence, because of all the maritime services provided, cannot be parcelled out, privatized, rented, or sold to a single group of users because it is a public good and because the services provided by the Coast Guard and the navigation services must be considered public domain.

That is why we recommend a revision to clause 41 of the Oceans Act, that would clarify and stipulate in its preamble that none of the maritime services described in the Act, beacons, communications, maritime traffic management, de-icing and canal maintenance, can be transferred to a single group of users without the consent of all the users, under the principle of public good that applies to the St. Lawrence.

The services required by the St. Lawrence are different from those required by other regions of Canada where maritime activities are within a single port zone and a territory that is under only one jurisdiction. Along the St. Lawrence, there are a number of different jurisdictions along various port zones linked by a single route that is in the public domain.

• 0930

It is a principle that applies especially in the dredging of the St. Lawrence, for which the Department of Fisheries decided to hand over responsibility to the users in 1995, as was the case for other dredging zones in Canada. We believe that in the case of the St. Lawrence, this responsibility should lie strictly with the federal government because the St. Lawrence is public domain since it serves many users and because the government is in a better position than a group of specific users to manage it and respects everything that is involved, including the environmental aspects and the management of dredging in the St. Lawrence.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: Thank you , Mr. Mailloux.

I would like to take a few minutes to summarize for you the amendments that we are proposing. Mr. Mailloux has just mentioned the first one, to subsection (2) of section 41. The three others we are suggesting are the following.

To subsection (2) of section 41, we propose, like other organizations—I know that the Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia has made the same recommendation to you—to add that Coast Guard services must be provided in continuous consultation with those benefitting from those services. It is a simple addition. Further on in the Act, it is mentioned that the minister must consult. We would like to suggest that the consultation must be continuous and not just sporadic, when there is a specific problem or we want to amend a specific act. We agree wholeheartedly with this suggestion of our Western colleagues.

To section 47, we suggest the addition of a series of principles to subsection (2). I refer you to the document that was presented to you today by the national coalition and that has been reworked in cooperation with the Canadian Coast Guard. It is a wonderful example of partnership between the industry and the Coast Guard. We met and examined a series of principles and recommendations that could be made to the Commissioner, and they were accepted by both parties.

Here we are suggesting that you include them in the general principles that are accepted by the government and the industry: cost transparency; an agreement between the Coast Guard and its clients on the types and levels of service; the links between costs and services; equity between regions and sectors; equity with other modes and means of transport; equity between categories of users in terms of tariffs; and taking into account the concept of public service. That is the amendment we propose to section 47.

Our last suggestion is about section 50. Subsection (2) creates a 30-day wait between the price determined by the minister and its publication in the Gazette. We believe that 30 days is much too short a period and we suggest, again like other institutions representing the maritime industry, that the delay be changed from 30 to 90 days. It is our fourth and last recommendation.

Thank you for your attention. Of course, after Mr. Campbell's presentation, we will be available to answer your questions.

[English]

Mr. Jim Campbell: Thank you very much, Marc.

I won't go over the issues Marc and Claude just covered. Suffice it to say the chamber supports the comments and the changes that have been highlighted today in their presentations.

• 0935

I just wanted to note, though, that in 1995 and 1996, when we and others in the industry appeared before this committee, there were difficult times, divisive times, in dealing with the component, small as it may be, of the Oceans Act that has to do with the coast guard. But as Marc said, when you built it up around the whole issue of cost recovery and the potential impact it was going to have on the competitive nature of port communities across the country, Marc, Claude, and I thought it was important.

There are some new faces here around the table. There are some old ones who were here in 1995, but there are some who may not have a really clear understanding and appreciation of why we're here again and why we'll be back again for the review. It's just to make sure this piece of legislation continues to respond to the needs of not only the commercial marine industry in Canada but the communities it serves and the other clients of the coast guard, including fishers and recreational boaters.

Specifically I want to reiterate our support for changes to sections 41, 47, and 50.

When we first dealt with section 41 in 1995 and 1996, there was a provision that directed the coast guard commissioner to deliver a particular number of services. We asked that both the commissioner and the minister be given flexibility in their ability to decide and prioritize how and if those services should be delivered to all clients, not just the commercial industry. Those changes were made, and we were supportive of that.

But again, in support of what Marc and Claude have brought up, we felt in section 41 there should be an adjustment or an addition to the wording that would refer to changes that would have to do with looking at the levels of service, and only after consultation with users of the services, and importantly, coupled with the needs of the public.

As well, we would like to see wording that would refer to the ability to deliver these services in an efficient and cost-effective manner, delivered within or without the government. The ability to deliver services through the management of the coast guard does not necessarily mean the services must be delivered by the coast guard. The coast guard must be encouraged, through this legislation, through this committee, and we hope through DFO, to consider any and all alternatives to the current system of delivering the services outlined within this legislation.

Concerning section 47, as Marc said, in 1996 we received a report from this committee, when Mr. McGuire was chairing, which suggested, through our encouragement, that this committee become more involved with the regular oversight of the coast guard. We applauded that and we continue to encourage it. We don't know if this piece of legislation is the place to put that directive, but we do feel you could well continue to be a more active, honest broker, if you will—a third party—to oversee how coast guard services are delivered and how the coast guard is managed. It is in the Oceans Act and it is, we believe, in the purview of this committee to be able to get involved in areas such as that, not just for the benefit of commercial shipping but also for other clients of the coast guard, such as fishers.

In section 50 we have asked for a slight change. There is currently a 30-day evaluation and consultation period in the event of change in the fee structures for coast guard services. Given the complexities involved with marine economics, the contractual obligations found in most commercial shipping industry contracts, and the potential impact a change in fees could have on the competitive position of marine communities, we feel strongly that the consultation period should be set at 90 days, not just 30. Through the budget system, through DFO and other federal departments, it shouldn't be too onerous to ask for an extra couple of months to fully review.

In fact there are some within the industry and some who have dealt with our industry or other businesses who have contractual obligations of a year, two years, or three years. So 30 days, or even 90 days, is not really that much time to be able to make adjustments to contracts. If someone's going to take the bite if there's an increase in costs, we do feel a 90-day period is warranted.

In conclusion, ultimately the chamber feels the government must recognize the essential public interest role the coast guard plays in transportation in Canada. The coast guard's core fleet must be adequately resourced to ensure both safety and efficiency.

• 0940

In the coming years, industry, the coast guard, and possibly this committee should review areas in which services such as navigational aids, channel maintenance, icebreaking and vessel traffic services could be more efficiently and economically delivered. We feel this piece of legislation should be the foundation of that goal.

For those who believe the coast guard has an important part to play in the health of Canada's economic and environmental future, we will look to designing policy and supporting legislation, such as this, and changes to the legislation to support that goal.

I thank you, and on behalf of my colleagues, I thank you for your time today. We are open to any and all questions from the chair or the membership.

The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen.

We'll start with Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, Canadian Alliance): Good morning, and thank you very much.

I live on Vancouver Island, that's the area I represent, and we have people in the maritime business who are not happy at all with the arrangement that's enabled by this act. You're probably aware of some of their concerns.

One is the lack of what they perceive as a level playing field between Canada and the U.S. on the west coast. I have heard—and I haven't gone to any length to demonstrate the veracity of it—that every time the U.S. goes to implement user fees for their industry, there is a huge reaction and it doesn't happen. So the board, as it's constituted in Canada, that's bought in to all of the cost recovery with the coast guard is viewed as a sell-out. They would just as soon organize a user fee revolt as buy into this whole concept.

I've said that in a very strong way, and I'm looking for a response to that point of view from you.

The Chair: Mr. Campbell.

Mr. Jim Campbell: The point is well taken. It's quite true that the U.S. Coast Guard does not have fees of the sort that the Canadian Coast Guard and DFO have put on the commercial industry here in Canada.

You're quite right again that every time the administration in the United States brings forward a budgetary line asking for support and user fees—taxation if you will—to support the coast guard and services, it is struck down swiftly and directly.

There is a question of the level playing field and the issue of competitive ports, especially on the Pacific northwest, up and down the Pacific coast, as well into the eastern and central regions of Canada. We have U.S. ports fighting with Canadian ports in all areas. When there are decisions being made in the transportation of grain and the selling of grain on one-quarter of a cent a bushel, it can make a big difference in transportation costs.

We've made the argument time and again over the last six or seven years that there is potential for that kind of both port shift or country shift and commodity shift. As many know, in Canada, with the commodities we deal with on an international basis, we are in many cases price takers, not price makers, on most agricultural products, iron ore, and in some cases forestry products. So where we can have a foot up on our international competitors is in areas such as transportation costs.

There is a bit of a distortion when, let's say, Vancouver has to compete against Seattle-Tacoma, Montreal has to complete against New Jersey, or Halifax has to compete against Philadelphia. At times, there is an economic barrier when we have to pay costs that are not being paid south of the border. But it's a choice of the Canadian government and the U.S. government, and we're trying to live with it right now.

• 0945

Mr. Marc Gagnon: That's why we ask that the principle of equity between routes be included in the articles of the act. We already said we're not against the principle of cost recovery, but the government absolutely has to look at the competitiveness of the industry and see if cost recovery does something to that competitiveness, otherwise this is not a level playing field.

The Chair: Do you have any specific samples you can give us in that regard, either now or later, in terms of where we might be non-competitive—Montreal versus a port in the U.S., or Halifax versus New Jersey? Do you have any specific documented examples you could forward us at some time?

Mr. Marc Gagnon: We will have a large number of examples when the Treasury Board study is finished. I honestly don't know when that will be.

The Chair: Marc, is this the study you're talking about where you don't want anything done until it's here?

Mr. Marc Gagnon: It is a huge study that is being done by Treasury Board with us. They are paying for it, but we're helping. We expect from that study a complete review of the impact of every cost recovery initiative the federal government has for the industry—the marine industry, ships and ports, and the shippers who ship those products.

The Chair: Okay. That'll be valuable to us.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan: There's a part of my question that relates to the fact that a lot of the smaller operators are not represented by the chamber, and yet the chamber's negotiations with government are binding upon them. Is that not correct? That issue irritates them very greatly, and they don't feel they have any way to organize to have any kind of lobby that would offset the chamber's position vis-a-vis the federal government and the coast guard.

Mr. Jim Campbell: We have small operators and small shippers in small ports in the Chamber of Maritime Commerce membership also, and we hear the same thing from them. I don't want to shirk the issue, but on Vancouver Island the B.C. Chamber of Shipping was a very vocal member of the debate five years ago. They were part of a national coalition. For the first time in Canada's history, the marine industry in marine communities across the country got together under a single voice, and the B.C. Chamber of Shipping was an important part of that.

They also acknowledged that, in principle, they supported the government's attempt and success in allocating marine services fees. It was just a question of making sure there was equity. I believe the B.C. Chamber of Shipping was the first one to actually make a deal with the federal government in assessing a fee and establishing a fee schedule.

We have a few members in Vancouver, but I guess we should be looking for more. Please ask them to give us a call here in Ottawa and we'll see if we can represent their interests a little closer.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Nanaimo—Alberni, Canadian Alliance): I appreciate your comments on dredging, because we have had a hundred years of industrial development in the lakes and then going out to the St. Lawrence. We've certainly improved over the last twenty or thirty years, but we still have sediment down there with some pretty nasty stuff in it. How do you deal with dredging the St. Lawrence when it stirs up this sediment and basically flushes it into the lucrative fishing grounds in the gulf?

Mr. Claude Mailloux: In terms of storing the sediment, of course there's a very strict environmental process that goes with that operation. There is a limited number of sites, identified by the coast guard in cooperation with the Department of Environment, where you can store the sediment. So it's certainly not just flushed out like that. It's a process that is very much controlled in terms of storing the sediment.

• 0950

Is that the meaning of your question?

Mr. Bill Gilmour: It's more the meaning, yes. I mean, as careful as you can be, you're still stirring them up, and you're not getting 100% back up on the barge.

Mr. Claude Mailloux: Yes.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: It does stir it up. It does flush it out.

Mr. Claude Mailloux: The quantity of sediment being moved each year in the St. Lawrence is extremely minimal if you compare it, for instance, with other dredged navigation channels in the world. Just in the port of New Orleans you have something around 80 million tonnes of sediment being moved yearly. In the St. Lawrence, for the whole dredged St. Lawrence, from the maintenance dredging, it's 400,000 tonnes yearly.

The natural flow of sediment in the St. Lawrence is around six million tonnes. What is moved by dredging operations is 400,000 tonnes. So it's minimal compared to natural soil sediments, in the St. Lawrence anyway.

And almost 100% of what is moved, in terms of sediment, is not considered as a threat to the environment. It's not really considered to be contaminated. Yet it's still stored, because we don't want to take risks and because of agreements with the Department of the Environment. It's a very controlled process.

But environmentally speaking, there is no risk. I think even the environmental people agree with that.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I thank the SLEDC and the Chamber of Commerce for the preparation of these documents. I remember that their representatives had testified in 1995-1996 when many things were brewing and the Coast Guard absolutely wanted to rationalize its operations fairly quickly and without consultations. I was happy that Mr. McGuire agreed to these hearings and I believe that that is when the dialogue started.

I noticed in their documents that they are now working in partnership, which I believe did not exist at that time and whose absence was the source of the problem. I remember that the Commissioner at the time, ns we as the MPs on the standing committee were having problems getting information. This partnership is very interesting.

Since I have very little time and my colleague Asselin will need a little more, I will delve more on sections 41, 47 and 50 that you have raised. I believe that in section 41, everything is there. When we recall that this section gives the Department of Fisheries and Oceans the responsibility for services designed to ensure safety, profitability and efficiency, that includes de-icing and dredging. Therefore, everything is there.

You recommend an addition to section 41(2) which, it seems, would be very far-ranging. You also recommend that we clarify its preamble, in (1) and (1)a), in order to specify that the federal government cannot abandon or transfer the maritime services described in the act. Have you had discussions with the Coast Guard on this topic and what do the people in the industry have to say about it? This recommendation, although it seems necessary, will have important repercussions. I would like some clarifications on your thinking.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: We worded this recommendation primarily in terms of the issue of dredging. As Claude mentioned, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans had announced, a few years ago, that the federal government would abandon all dredging in Canada. By proposing this amendment, we want to secure the consent of the beneficiaries, the users. In other words, the government could not say that it is no longer offering a service and is no longer responsible for it.

• 0955

We firmly believe in the Coast Guard's mission of public good and we are saying that before a minister can say that he or she is no longer responsible for such a service, there has to be an agreement and there have to have been discussions and consultations. What we are asking for in section (2) is in the same vein: continuous consultation. But in section (1), we are more specific. We ask for more than consultation; we ask for consent after there has been a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages that would result if the federal government kept the responsibility for certain services.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I would like one clarification on this topic. In your text, you mention that the decision to stop dredging was taken in 1995, but was later set aside. I must have worked on other issues since then. Are they still dredging or is it only the industry that dredges parts of the seaway that need it?

Mr. Claude Mailloux: Like other parts of the marine industry, we are in a period of freeze. In terms of dredging services, there is a three-year moratorium. Because of this moratorium, the costs of the service are fixed until 2002 and the Coast Guard continues to manage the service and is responsible for it.

This moratorium came into effect in the summer of 1999. What was agreed with the Department was that we would use this three-year period to identify a long-term solution for dredging in the St. Lawrence.

Despite the fact that it already pays 100 per cent of the costs for the service, which is unique in the industry compared to the other maritime services in the St. Lawrence, the industry would like the Coast Guard to keep the management responsibilities. In fact, the industry would like joint management since we already pay 100 per cent of the cost of the service but the Coast Guard is still responsible for it and manages it, especially in terms of its mission for the public good that we spoke about a while ago and that is particularly relevant in the case of the St. Lawrence, given the numerous jurisdictions involved with the seaway.

We also believe, for environmental reasons, that the Coast Guard—your colleague alluded to those issues in his question—as a government organization and thanks, among other things, to its relationship with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which does have an environmental mission, is in a much better position than the industry to ensure that environmental requirements and issues will be respected.

I have a small clarification to make regarding my previous intervention. I gave examples of quantities of material dredged in tons. It was in fact cubic metres rather than tons. That makes a significant difference.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Yes.

The Chair: Mr. Bernier.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I have a last, very brief question, but it will allow me to bring up section 47 and the elements you want us to take into account in your way of managing things. Tell me where, on page 10, I can find a situation comparable to the one Mr. Campbell talked about earlier in terms of competition between certain ports in the Canadian industry and certain American ports. Taking the dredging example, you tell me the Canadian industry pays 100 per cent of the dredging costs but that the ships that go up the St. Lawrence seaway to go into the Great Lakes and into American ports benefit from your work but don't have to pay the costs.

So can we see a comparability link somewhere in your recommendation?

Mr. Marc Gagnon: In fact, we are asking what the coalition has been asking for all the years we have been working with members of this committee. We ask for equity. All these issues should be looked at in a tariff review. As Claude mentioned, we are in a period of moratorium. The dredging tariff has been frozen since 1999 for a period of three years, the one on de-icing since December 1998 and the one on navigational help since September 1998.

• 1000

We are therefore reviewing these questions and what we are asking for is very simple. It is a question of equity. We were talking a while ago about a level playing field. Equity with our American neighbours, of course, equity with other means of transportation, and finally equity in tariffs. We want just and reasonable tariffs. That is what we are asking for, because we want to keep our industry competitive.

To respond to your question more directly, I will tell you that tariff issues are under review. The issue has not been resolved. We believe that the issue of Coast Guard services needs to be reviewed, as well as that of the costs of those services, before we get to the tariff issue. But that will be done, and we believe that the guiding principles for these discussions should be those outlined in our memorandum, including that of equity.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: It may be only a matter of clarification. I may be too picky in Translation, but when we talk about equity between categories of users, as a Canadian legislator I look at that from a Canadian perspective. I think we should broaden the category and mention that it is not only a domestic situation because we have to compare ourselves to our neighbours. I just wanted to draw my colleagues' attention to this point.

[English]

Mr. Jim Campbell: An example of that, Mr. Chair, would be what happened with Halifax when it was trying for its superport designation. It was up against New York-New Jersey, and Vice-President Gore just came out of the blue and said they'd find the couple of hundred million dollars necessary for dredging, which was impossible to compete against. This is not to suggest that the federal government should show that kind of largess, but it does need to be recognized that this is who we're competing against.

You get numbers showing coast guard fees compared to Norway and Finland; well, we're not in international trade competition with Norway and Finland. We have to look at who we're doing battle with, and it should be outside the borders, not within.

The Chair: Okay. Go ahead, Claude, and then I'll turn to Paul Steckle.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Mailloux: I would like to clarify something on the question of competition between Canadian and American ports. Transport Canada is doing a study, the results of which should be known very soon. The purpose of this study was to measure the degree of competition in various Canadian and American ports for grain transport. This study was undertaken after the Kroeger Commission and the Estey report, and the results should be out soon. They could be very interesting for this committee. This study will enable us to measure the level of competition between Canadian and American ports.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mailloux.

Before I turn to you, Paul, there's a lot resting, I gather, on the study that's being done. We don't have the terms of reference of that study, do we? Is the study that's being done being done under the auspices of Treasury Board, joint—

Mr. Marc Gagnon: Yes.

The Chair: Just Treasury Board?

Mr. Marc Gagnon: Yes.

The Chair: Okay. We'll have to ask for that. And what's the timeframe?

Mr. Marc Gagnon: Minister Anderson announced it in May 1998, saying that within three years different reviews would be made and a study would be conducted by Treasury Board. So the timeframe should be sometime next year, in 2001. I'm sitting on that advisory committee, but I don't know yet.... I'm pretty sure we're not going to make it for May 2001, but probably within that year.

The Chair: Thank you.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could look into that and report back to us, Lawrence, because I get a little bit of worry in that some of the ones that were done in agriculture on cost recovery were certainly less than thorough, and as a committee we certainly want the facts on this one. So maybe Lawrence O'Brien, who's the parliamentary secretary, could get that information, where it's at, and we can follow up on it.

Mr. Steckle.

• 1005

Mr. Paul Steckle (Huron—Bruce, Lib.): If I could, this morning I'd like to direct my questioning to Mr. Campbell. I think at one point we attended a meeting together in Windsor, if I remember correctly.

The area of Canada that gets forgotten very often is the Great Lakes basin. For some reason, we really don't exist, even though we are a great part of this country. I suppose my presence on this committee is significant in the fact that I'm here basically to draw attention to that area from time to time.

We have at this point in time on the Great Lakes almost historically low levels, particularly on Lake Huron. Given that we have transportation of salt and grain from that area, knowing that in some cases they are not taking full loads out of harbour but they are doing less and less, I'm just wondering what kind of case is being presented to you people by the shipping industry for dredging. We know that in the small harbours a lot of private dredging is going on, but I'm just wondering whether you feel the dredging effort that's been put forward on the Great Lakes is sufficient, is adequate. What kind of response are you getting from the minister to your requests, if requests are being made for dredging to occur?

Mr. Jim Campbell: When we discussed the low water levels with the International Joint Commission, which monitors and at times tries to manipulate water levels on some of the lakes through dams, the answer was that there is just not enough water out there. Unless we can get Mother Nature to turn on the taps somewhere up in Lake Superior and Lake Huron so that there will be a substantial and noticeable movement of the levels, there's not a lot we can do and there's not a lot the government can do. What it is doing, though, is taking quite a hit on the commercial marine industry.

As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, we have contracts and freight rates that are established based on a laker in the Great Lakes moving 25,000 tonnes. Depending on their cargo, they lose anywhere between 100 and 300 tonnes for every inch they can't load because of low waters. With the economics, especially with the salt that's moved out of Goderich in your riding, that can make the difference in their margin, whether they make money on the run or not.

When you consider international competitiveness, last year for the first time there were guys importing salt from Chile into Montreal, going past salt mines in the St. Lawrence, in Pugwash. That's the kind of competition we were dealing with coming into Montreal. It won't be too long before they start coming all the way into the Great Lakes.

As far as dredging is concerned, it has come at a time when, for those who have been following the Canada Marine Act, which was initiated by Minister Young and finally implemented by Minister Collenette, the federal government has decided to largely divest a lot of its ports, small and large. The small ones, such as you would suggest—small as far as people around it, like Goderich, are concerned, but heavy as far as cargo is concerned—were left to their own devices.

The problem is that dredging is extremely expensive. It's coupled with the question we've had before with regard to environmental considerations. You can't just pick up this stuff and dump it on the shore. There has to be monitoring. There has to be a safe place to deposit it.

We have heard from one of my members, a grain company that has an elevator in Port Stanley. They tried to get a ship in there last week. Due to lack of dredging, it has filled up to a 14-foot clearance. He needs 25 feet to get in. The ship was turned around. He can't get a ship in there and he is now having to send the grain, which is actually Ontario corn, by truck at an added cost of $25,000, which could well end up hitting into the farm gate.

That's the kind of problem we're having right now. So it's not just low water levels. It's coupled with a change in government policy and direction in the Canada Marine Act, which the chamber supported, by the way. That is coupled with that change in federal obligation for dredging in small and large ports alike across Canada.

• 1010

We need water; there's not much anyone can do. The experts we talked to in both the U.S. and Canadian governments have suggested that this is just a cycle, that we'll get the water back in a couple of years, and we just have to make do.

The Chair: Mr. Campbell, how does this compare with the involvement of the government relative to dredging, say, 15 years ago? I've heard all kinds of stories. I've heard we made great expenditures of money in the 1970s in terms of dredging in the Great Lakes. As I understand it, there are safe harbours that vessels can't get into now because of low waters. Were they dredged at one time? Are these absolutely exceptionally low levels as compared to the last 50 years? What's the story?

Mr. Jim Campbell: They're exceptionally low levels in the Great Lakes as compared to the last 20 to 30 years. But the fact is that yes, the federal government did a lot of dredging. They did a lot of dredging in P.E.I. and in Ontario. It's not just coming in, doing dredging, and then coming back in five years and dredging again. In a lot of cases, like in Summerside, for example, it was a season-by-season process, which they called maintenance dredging, in which they had to go back every couple of years. That's the nature of the business.

It's really a question then of who is obliged to pay for it. Is it going to be those who are benefiting from it directly, such as commercial? Is it continuing to be considered a public issue because there are greater economic ramifications of not being able to move in there marine-wise? Do you just keep letting it get up and up and up until it's even too shallow for recreational boats to get in? Then you have a much larger political base to be able to lobby the government, and suddenly we get dredging. That really is the question; it's a change in government priority, and dredging was one of the first things to go.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I realize you supported the divestiture direction.

Mr. Jim Campbell: Yes.

Mr. Paul Steckle: This is private in some cases, but it's also public. Were we right in going in the direction we went, given that we haven't seen water levels this low since 1962? We know they will turn around again, probably within three years.

Mr. Jim Campbell: It's 20/20 hindsight. There was no provision put in the legislation for this kind of disaster. It's unlike an agricultural bill, in which there might be a provision for drought or for a farm crisis due to issues that may be beyond the control of either the Canadian government or the benefactors, the farmers. They didn't expect it, so there was nothing put in for it.

When we talk about dredging, we're talking about a lot of money. We're talking tens to hundreds of millions of dollars that would be required. I think what you're probably going to find is that there's going to be a wait-and-see approach right now.

We're going to find more groundings. We saw a grounding this weekend in the St. Clair River, although that was a mechanical issue, not a water level issue. Last year we had a record number of groundings in the Great Lakes and we can probably expect the same. We're going to find much lighter loads, which means the economics are distorted in moving cargo. We're probably going to get slower loads because the captains are not going to want to go at regular speed through shallow waters; they're going to be much slower.

Mr. Paul Steckle: Would it be more cost-effective for government to subsidize transportation of other means in the interim, while water levels are low, rather than doing the dredging? We know there are acts of God, I guess we can say, that will correct this to some degree down the road.

You mentioned $25,000. If this has become a direct hit on farmers again in that area, another hit that in many cases farmers in no way can afford, would government in its wisdom then be wise to choose to take up some of these costs instead of placing them back onto the backs of farmers because government has had a change in policy? Perhaps it wouldn't be the right thing to do anyhow, to spend all this money.

Mr. Jim Campbell: There's definitely an immediate need to be creative in how we're going to respond to this. I wouldn't suggest at all that a direct subsidy to the marine industry or any other mode to get over this hump is the single silver bullet, but definitely, through forums like this, we should starting putting our heads together to figure out how we're going to do it.

• 1015

A good example for this particular grain elevator I mentioned to you is if that doesn't get dredged—and we're talking about $150,000 to $200,000 to dredge it—it won't open at all this summer, and they'll have to review whether or not they're going to shut it down, because they just can't afford to operate at those kinds of numbers. They only move 80,000 tonnes a year through it. But it does serve the Ontario corn and grain farmer in that area of the province.

The Chair: I have just one last question before I go to Mr. Stoffer. I know we've divested, but who is ultimately responsible for the dredging? Is it DFO, Transport, or someone else?

Mr. Jim Campbell: I believe it was Transport, Mr. Chair, but when the coast guard was sent to DFO, it got passed on to DFO. So it's out of their budget. They still are doing some dredging, as we had suggested, in the St. Lawrence. We pay 100%. The coast guard still manages the contract, but we pay for it. I'm sure they're doing some spot dredging across Canada. This is where the economics work too. They're mostly using local operators, guys with a barge with a backhoe on it, as an example. It gets down to being that basic, but it's not simple. You might say basic, but it's not that simple.

The Chair: Then that does sometimes work. Maybe, Paul, we need to consider a specific one-day hearing on this issue if you're talking three or four years before you get to regular water levels.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming today.

I hope you're right that it will be two to three years before the water levels will come back and that it's not, as many scientists say, a global trend around the world. If that's the case, then governments can do an awful lot by meeting international Kyoto agreements, for example, and working with other governments around the world in order to stop denying that global warming exists and actually do something about it. Fresh water tables around the world are actually dropping, and salt water in some areas. We have record flooding and record droughts, so it's kind of all mixed up. I hope you're absolutely correct that it is only a two- to three-year thing.

Item F.3 on page 4 says:

Without the ability to influence the overall costs and demands for government services—i.e. discipline of costs and levels—then user fees are nothing more than downloaded taxation.

In many cases you're absolutely right. But have you folks talked about the privatization of our coast guard? That's one fear a lot of workers within the coast guard have had, that there are initial talks or exploratory talks about privatizing the coast guard itself.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: We're looking at every possible scenario, but I can tell you that privatization of the coast guard is not really on the table, because, as we said before, of the good public role the coast guard has. As Claude said, even if there were no ship on the St. Lawrence, for instance, we would need icebreakers because of flood control. Most of the services the coast guard provides are for the public good.

So privatization of the whole coast guard is really not on the table. Yes, there has been some discussion on the commercialization of some services, such as dredging, which is commercialized. It's not the coast guard that dredges. Private companies dredge. We try to get the safest and most efficient coast guard possible, but privatization of the whole, not really.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You also mentioned that a marine advisory board should be created. Would you allow members of the coast guard union, for example, and small communities to be part of that board as well?

Mr. Marc Gagnon: This dates from May of last year. The Marine Advisory Board has been created, and it's simple. In the five coast guard regions, the industry sends two representatives. We in the St. Lawrence send two, in the Great Lakes they send two, and the maritimes, Newfoundland, and the west coast. So it's pretty much up to them to send people. There is a representative from the Canadian Merchant Service Guild, Mr. Sjoquist. He's not from any region. He has been nominated by the commissioner. There are two of them nominated directly by the commissioner, and 10 from the regions, who make up the 12-member board.

• 1020

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Jim, the last time we met I believe there was a vote among our committee members regarding Bill C-9. I abstained from that vote because of the concerns brought to me by Halifax about paying fees for things they don't use, i.e., icebreaking. You mentioned that you have representatives from Halifax on your board, but they were still quite concerned that they may be forced to pay fees for things they don't use, i.e., icebreaking. Has that come to a resolution at all, or have you had talks with them on this issue in order to come to some sort of common ground?

Mr. Jim Campbell: With the moratorium announced by the minister, tempers and emotions have cooled somewhat. But it does bring up the point that we feel one of the gaps in this legislation is that it talks fees but not level of service. It doesn't talk to the issue of a broader base of clients and their input into that level of service and paying for what they need and not paying for what the coast guard wishes to supply them with. We've always suggested that there's a fundamental difference between those two issues.

I recall when Halifax had those concerns. At that point we didn't feel that in the grander picture it was going to be one of those make-or-break issues for the understanding we're going to have with the government. But it is something that we continue to have to look at. When we start getting numbers about regional impact and such from the Treasury Board study, we'll be able to see if in fact Halifax was right about any impact on competitiveness.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In terms of the—

The Chair: This will be your last question, Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I should get 10 minutes since Gerald is gone now.

The Chair: This will be your last question.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In terms of the burgeoning oil and gas industry in the gulf, they're doing seismic work, and they reported in at least the exploratory stages that there could be some successful finds for them under the ocean bed. If the burgeoning oil and gas industry sets up rigs and does everything in the gulf, how will that affect your industry in terms of shipping routes? Have you had chances to speak with that industry about cooperating with each other?

Mr. Jim Campbell: We haven't. It's an excellent question. Figuratively speaking, it hasn't been on our radar screen. We haven't heard anything from our international carriers out of Halifax, Saint John, St. John's, or Montreal that would affect it. Those are issues they would have dealt with a long time ago with regard to fixed assets. As for additional traffic with tugs, supply boats, and tankers going back and forth, we haven't heard anything. I'm assuming they have everything under control.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The reason I ask is that if you look at their map, they basically have the whole gulf covered. If they find what they're looking for, they're going to get permission to put rigs there. Obviously that will affect shipping routes, costs, and everything else.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Stoffer. You got a little speech in at the end.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think it was Mr. Campbell who made the statement that the legislation addresses fees, not level of service. All I'd like to say is that by so doing the government has you right on their agenda.

I'm going to ask you a question in order to elicit a reaction. If you truly want to achieve a level playing field and the U.S. doesn't have user fees, then why is the chamber negotiating user fees rather than fighting the imposition thereof?

The Chair: Mr. Campbell.

Mr. Jim Campbell: For clarification, we fought long and hard. We recall that back in 1986 the current Premier of Newfoundland undertook a filibuster in the House of Commons with regard to marine services fees when he was in opposition. We've been trying to fight this tooth and nail from day one, based on the distortion this would have on our industry vis-à-vis competing against other modes and competing internationally with both the United States and our international trading partners.

• 1025

Currently we are not negotiating it at all. We should clarify that. Right now the work we do with the coast guard is that we're trying to find a more efficient and more effective way for them to deliver services. Because of the moratorium, we don't even talk fees. We don't talk fee levels. We talk about trying to make sure their services are delivered.

One member suggested that we are looking at privatization. No, but we are looking at alternative service delivery. You can call that commercialization, you can call it outsourcing, or you can call it just a better way of doing things within their current fleet.

We're not negotiating as far as fees are concerned right now. We're just trying to help the coast guard get their house in order so they are able to better serve Canadian marine communities, both commercial shipping and fishers and recreational boaters and others.

If we had our druthers, yes, we wouldn't be paying at all, but on principle, we decided many years ago that we would, if not support, at least adhere to the government's intention to have the commercial industry pay some of the costs for services that were being delivered. What we always have suggested is that we have to look at costs, but we also have to look at value. In some cases, our sense of value is not the same as the coast guard's.

Mr. John Duncan: There has been quite a bit of discussion this morning about waiting for a Treasury Board report that would identify some differences between Canada and the U.S. Why would industry be waiting with bated breath for a Treasury Board report? Surely industry knows where it's under a competitive disadvantage right now. Is that not correct?

The Chair: Mr. Gagnon.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: Thank you.

The fact is, when we discussed the fees with the minister in 1998, we said to him mostly that icebreaking fees on the east coast—of course, of Canada—made our business not competitive in the winter. He agreed to cut the fees in half. We agreed then to wait for that study to be finished.

Yes, I could come up with different examples that were sent to me, to Jim's organization, and to others saying that we're not competitive any more in this kind of business because of the fees. We decided to wait for the end of the three-year period. With the results of this huge study, with a better-managed coast guard where we can feel comfortable with the level of service provided and the costs associated with this, and the allocation of costs to the commercial industry, with all this information together, we would then have the picture for the coast guard to establish equitable tariffs and for us to live with that.

But now to come back and say, well, this example and that example.... We think this would not really be efficient. We decided to work with the coast guard in that partnership, to work with Treasury Board on that study, and then assess the situation at the end of this moratorium.

Mr. Jim Campbell: Mr. Chair, just for clarification...?

The Chair: Yes, Jim.

Mr. Jim Campbell: When the marine service fees were first brought before the marine industry, they were looking at a schedule of $20 million the first year from the marine industry in Canada, followed by $40 million, another $40 million, $60 million, and $60 million beyond. They were projecting $220 million in a five-year period, and we were assuming it was going to be $60 million, $80 million, and $100 million.

We fought hard and long to be able to get them to rationalize their costs. The argument I made was the difference between cost and value. We got them to agree to $33 million a year as opposed to $60 million.

So with the work we've done over the last three or four years in partnership—and largely in getting help from this committee with the report in 1996—we were able to save marine communities across the country over $100 million in marine services fees.

• 1030

So it's not like we rolled over and said, you're going to come at us with marine services fees, we can't fight you, so we'll just let it happen. We felt that strategically the best way to do it and to show goodwill was to respond on principles, and we have. We have accepted our side of the bargain in that we are paying marine services fees right now. We're still just waiting to work with—and we continue to work with—the government to make sure they're basing their service fees on a question of business principles also.

Mr. John Duncan: Can I ask one question?

The Chair: Last point, then, John, because we have to move on.

Mr. John Duncan: As a final point, is there anything being done to address the issue of a more accurate national representation of the regions in terms of the amount of business they actually do? I think the way you described it—I forget which one of you described it—it was that British Columbia, for having that whole west coast, has two representatives out of what, ten, and it has maybe half the business activity. Is there anything being done to address that?

The Chair: You're talking specifically about the Marine Advisory Board, though?

Mr. John Duncan: Yes.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: No. We found that the best way to have a frank and honest discussion with the coast guard is to have representatives from each region of the country served by the coast guard, in an equal manner. Yes, there's more economic activity, more marine activity, in B.C. than in Newfoundland, but the coast guard in Newfoundland is important too.

The old MAB didn't work. There were different participants with very specific agendas. It was just too difficult to manage. There were 25 people in that MAB. Now there are 12. Maybe it's not perfect, but we on the St. Lawrence are quite happy even though we have more business than, say, Newfoundland or the Maritimes. I think having two people from each region is a better way to work.

The Chair: Mr. Asselin.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin (Charlevoix, BQ): I understand the interest shown today by SLEDC and the Chamber of Maritime Commerce, because these are people who have a vested interest in their clients, who are shipbuilders, the industry and the main users of the St. Lawrence and in the Maritimes. Mr. Chairman, that being said, we know that the shipbuilders and the industry generate a lot of employment. They pay a lot of taxes and have worrisome transportation costs regarding future policies for other St. Lawrence or the Great Lakes. Those people want to be competitive while having access to the St. Lawrence seaway.

The concerns you express today are also heard in the Transport Committee. We hear them today in terms of maritime transport, of navigation, and we also find them in terms of air transport, and maintenance of interprovincial road transport. It is a bit the policy of the Liberal government to grab a lot of money but to give few services. The people of Quebec understood that long ago and they worry about the federal government's interest in, among other things, your presentation today.

Cost recovery, tariffs, the tariff rates, all of those may be a threat by the government or the Department of Transport in the context of its project to privatize the ports. They tell you to take it, or they will set tariff rates at their whim. If you don't take it, they will react immediately. But there are costs related to that. We also know that before acquiring a seaport—I am alluding to Baie-Comeau and Pointe-au-Pic, in my riding—, people know that the day is coming when it will be privatized, There will be municipal and school taxes, a lack of maintenance, which, these days, requires significant investments.

• 1035

The government has neglected the maintenance of these infrastructures. Today, we want to privatize them and in some locations, that requires investments of many millions of dollars. As for school and municipal taxes and insurance, in the case of the Baie-Comeau wharf, of a million dollar bill before buying the wharf. Of course the private company that will buy it will have to set appropriate tariffs to ensure profitability or self-financing of such an infrastructure.

At that time, it is not the government that will bear the burden of tariff rates that will make the industry or the shipbuilders non competitive and that will create an economic downturn. It will be those who bought the wharf who will bear the burden.

In addition, the government, which concerns itself with collecting a lot of taxes and income taxes, is more and more neglecting its maritime services. We know that the minister has attempted to has attempted to recover the costs of de-icing. The Bloc québécois has led an unrelenting war and finally won in the case of the Société des traversiers du Quebec and the industry, which agreed to pay 50 per cent of the cost.

But this responsibility belongs primarily to the federal government. We find the same problem with navigational aids. Those who travel on the St. Lawrence, for security and other reasons, need navigational aids. As for dredging, in the last few years we have seen many boats beached in the St. Lawrence and we will soon have to ask ourselves if a ship doesn't have to travel half full or half empty, depending on wether one is an optimist or a pessimist, given the accumulation of sediment.

[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Asselin, do you have a question here?

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Allow me to get to that. It won't take long.

[English]

An hon. member: This is—

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: The truth is difficult to accept. It is not always acceptable.

I also want to talk about abandoning the maintenance of port facilities. Mr. Chairman, I have three brief questions to ask. I will ask them. Please take note of them. Has the owner of the Canada Steamship Lines made representations to you? Those are the ships of the Department of Finance and they sail in the Great Lakes and in the St. Lawrence. Has this company ever made representations to you?

[English]

An hon. member: [Inaudible—Editor]...politics here.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: Do you have any claims in terms of the costs...

[English]

An hon. member: He's out of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: ...and the reduction in services?

Mr. Chairman, for a while they have been discussing between themselves. I am convinced they have not seen each other for 15 days and I understand that thy are discussing among themselves.

[English]

The Chair: I think, Mr. Asselin, they were suggesting that the chair—

An hon. member: He's out of order.

The Chair: —may have been a little slack in terms of your point on the Minister of Finance, Mr. Martin, but if you're alluding to Canada Steamship, then we'll let it pass. I assume that's what your question was.

Your next question, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: You also talked to us about changing the delay from 30 to 90 days. But at the beginning of your speech, you spoke an additional delay so that you could finish your consultations and make recommendations and that, as a result of these, some things could be implemented. At least answer the two questions on cost recovery and the reduction in services and the delay extension from 30 to 90 days. If you do not wish to answer the question about ships belonging to the Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, I understand you.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Gagnon.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérard Asselin: I raised a lot of interest on the other side.

[English]

The Chair: Could we have order?

Mr. Proulx, you had a point...?

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): Yes. I have a point in the sense that if he's asking a question, he doesn't need to answer it, nor does he need to insinuate anything about the Minister of Finance.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: You had brought him back to order in saying he could ask a question as far as Canada Steamship Lines is concerned—not the Minister of Finance.

The Chair: Right. Thank you.

Mr. Gagnon.

[Translation]

Mr. Marc Gagnon: Thank you. I will answer your third question on the delay. I believe that Jim has explained it well. In terms of tariffs, we are asking that once the minister has set a price, the delay be changed from 30 to 90 days so that the industry can have time to get its bearings. These are agreements between a shipper and a shipbuilder; these agreements are not negotiated every 30 days or in less time.

• 1040

I believe it is a reasonable request. I know that other witnesses have sent you other memoranda, or have come before you to make the same request. We are asking you to give us the same time to do the work that must be done to establish the required levels of service. We are asking for another delay, but not in the same manner. It is not a request for legislation. That is why we are again raising the issue of cost recovery. It is a very important question for the industry.

I believe I will answer the second question at the same time. We are asking for this delay in the setting of the costs of services in order to later arrive at the setting of tariffs. But we are not there yet.

The Treasury Board study, the work of the Marine Advisory Board and the regional groups across Canada take some time, and we are asking the committee to support the industry and the Coast Guard in their request to give us the time to complete this work, and to later get to the critical issue of tariffs. We are not there yet, but we will get there.

At that time, we will know the impacts, the services we want and the cost of those services. We will have compared them to others, we will know what is going on in the US and what competitive edge we have lost compared to the Americans and to other means of transportation. We will therefore be in a position to say what is the right tariff structure for the industry. That is where we will get if we have the time to do it.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Asselin. Your time is up.

Are there any further answers to those questions, gentlemen?

Did you want on, Mr. O'Brien? I see your hand up.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: I have a couple of points, Mr. Chairman. One, I'm having some trouble trying to correlate with the discussions on the Oceans Act and some of the discussions we're having here this morning. It doesn't seem to parallel or correlate with what the Oceans Act is about.

I recognize the need of a coast guard, and it's a very important issue from the point of view of the gentlemen in front of us and a very important issue to all Canadians and to all parliamentarians. I remember this discussion a couple of years ago in this committee, and it's been an ongoing discussion, as you say, relative to coming to a final conclusion on the issue of fees and types of services and so on.

The other point is there are a couple of major pieces of information that seem to be lacking to get over the hurdle of this discussion. Some of this discussion this morning, while it's not premature, borders on it.

Before I make my point to you, I want to address my honourable colleague from Baie Comeau.

I notice that you really made the most of your raw politics here this morning in terms of pushing the issue of the Minister of Finance and the Government of Canada, in terms of their spending a lot of money but not providing the service. You're certainly entitled to make that comment, but I think you were playing the political agenda of course.

But getting back to the issues, the issue of dredging, the issue of the Great Lakes, the issue of St. Lawrence Seaway, the issue of the coast guard generally, do you have a specific timeframe, a specific point, a specific nail-down, leaving here—we're getting close to your timeframe—for us and for the department to say exactly the timeframe we need and a schedule, if you wish, to bring us to a concluding chapter on this issue, which has been ongoing for the last four or five years, really?

The Chair: Mr. Gagnon.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: I wish I had, really. I don't, because there is so much effort going on to be able to advance and to be able to discuss tariffs, and to be able to discuss the real impact on our competitiveness.

When Jim talked about the plan a few years ago of asking us for $220 million over five years, it was clear to everybody that it would have a great deal of impact on our competitiveness. Now we're paying $33 million per year for cost recovery. Unfortunately, the only message I think I can deliver here, and the thing we ask you, is to be aware of this effort going on and to give us and the coast guard and the Treasury Board the time to finish all that. When is it going to be finished? I don't know. I hope it's going to be within the next two years. I can only tell you that we're doing our best in the industry and I think DFO and the Treasury Board are doing their best to try to solve those problems.

• 1045

Mr. Jim Campbell: I would also note that the Auditor General is now undertaking a review of coast guard costs, fleet management, etc. So now we have another federal department involved, and from what I hear, their work is well underway and it's getting to quite a level of detail. This could well be complementary to the work that is being done in Treasury Board on the costs on the impact side.

Now, if we could work with the coast guard, through the Auditor General and through our own connections with the commissioner on down through his staff, to find more efficient ways to deliver that service, not just for us but, as I said, for all the other clients across Canada, then, as Marc said, maybe we can have this resolved in the next couple of years and we can start looking ahead. We get just as weary as the coast guard and DFO, and all the other departments we deal with, on this issue. We'd like to move on.

One of the parts of the Oceans Act that I personally liked was the whole question of a national ocean strategy. It states in the preamble of the legislation that all efforts will be made so that if legislative or regulatory changes were going to be made that would impact on that act, from other departments, from provinces, even down to municipalities, there would be an effort to make sure there was no stepping on toes, if you will, that there would be no cross-purposes.

If we'd had that available to us five or six years ago, we could have made the argument that the Oceans Act, through the allotment of fees, could well be impacting on international trade. We could have got DFAIT involved and said, you are out there doing Team Canada and you're promoting Canadian goods and services, yet at the same time there's another department that may well be impacting negatively on that ability to be able to trade internationally. We were happy to see that this is now part of the Oceans Act. The problem is that in the preamble it excludes rivers and lakes; so you have an ocean strategy, but it largely ends at Sept-Îles or Les Escoumins, and it doesn't include the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Campbell.

Mr. Stoffer, be fairly brief if you can, because they'll need time to set up the video conference equipment.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, very brief.

Jim, when you talk about alternate service delivery, that strikes at the hearts of workers at the coast guard, because a lot of their work has already been transferred over due to either privatization or technology. I'm thinking of the buoys and the GPS. But I would encourage your organization to talk to representatives of the unions of the coast guard to let them know exactly what industry is up to, so that they can have a running dialogue with you, as well as with the port of Halifax and their concerns as well.

My question will be on the far north. We hear that the Beaufort Sea is going to be opening up again on their oil reserves. Nunavut now is a territory, and now they're looking at expanding what products they can move out of the Arctic. And as well there's Labrador. We hear about Voisey's Bay, which one day may become a burgeoning concern as well. What representation from there have you had, from the north and the outlying regions, and what concerns have they addressed to your organization in the sense that what may be good for the St. Lawrence may not be necessarily good for them?

Mr. Jim Campbell: In terms of your first question with regard to alternative service delivery, our intention has always been to look at what the real costs are of delivering these services and find a better way of delivering them. That does not preclude there being a better way of delivering them within the current system that they have as far as fleet goes and that fleet being manned by skilled men and women of the Canadian Coast Guard. But we still don't know what the costs are, and I think this is what the Auditor General is finding out right now.

• 1050

On the other hand, it's a question I think you should have for the coast guard commissioner with regard to extra needed resources for the north. In fact, there is the Arctic Marine Advisory Board, in which there are people up there who represent the north and its interests to the commissioner directly.

So there is representation there. We can only speak on behalf of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, though.

The Chair: Mr. Gagnon.

Mr. Marc Gagnon: I forgot, but there is one representative from the Arctic on the Marine Advisory Board—not two, but one.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, then, gentlemen. As I indicated, we will get the information on the study and follow up on that and certainly look at your recommendations in terms of minor amendments to the act. So thank you very much for your presentation.

Before we adjourn, briefly, while they set up the video conference equipment for our next witness, I do need to know from the Canadian Alliance what their position is on travel to the east coast on the study on aquaculture, if there is still resistance to completing our study or not, because I have to tell the Senate committee what we're doing so they can arrange their schedule.

Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Canadian Alliance): What have you done to support our position on getting the minister to take some reasonable action on—

The Chair: We have had the minister before the committee. The debate, as I understand it, was over MacKenzie and Thériault not being before the committee. The minister can answer for them. We have had him before this committee. You raised a number of questions that particular day.

The minister will be before the committee again on estimates on May 16 at 3.30 p.m., at which time further questions on the Marshall decision and the negotiations can be raised.

So that's what we've done. You also have the opportunity to raise questions in the House, and I don't believe there was one question raised in the House on the negotiators. You could put it on an opposition day. There's all kinds of options open, but to block the committee travel is difficult.

Mr. John Cummins: I think there's unfinished business here in this committee, and I don't think the committee has taken the kind of action on this thing that it could have. We should have been demanding that these guys be in here and demanding an accounting of the kind of negotiation, demanding that these agreements be made available, and we haven't been doing it.

The Chair: So the position remains the same?

Mr. John Cummins: I haven't seen anything to change it yet.

The Chair: Mr. Sekora, I don't want to get into a debate on this; I just want to know where the Canadian Alliance is at in terms of travelling to the east. Go ahead.

Mr. Lou Sekora (Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Lib.): What I want to mention is very simple. Our committee is not travelling, but I understand that Mr. Cummins went to the area himself.

The Chair: I believe it was Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Lou Sekora: Or Mr. Duncan, or whoever it was.

The Chair: Oh, yes, Mr. Cummins.

Mr. Lou Sekora: Mr. Cummins went there himself. What kind of games are we playing here when the committee can't travel but you go in there yourself? Well, pardon me.

Mr. John Cummins: You're not prepared to do anything on the Marshall—

Mr. Lou Sekora: Come on.

Mr. John Cummins: If people want to talk about it, I'll do something about it. I'll talk—

Mr. Lou Sekora: You want to play political games. That's what you're doing. You're solving your United Alternative or CRAP party there while you're travelling.

The Chair: I don't want to get into a debate on the issue. I just want to know the latest, and the latest, as I understand it, is that the Canadian Alliance is still continuing to block travel to the east coast. That's where it's at.

The meeting is adjourned until 11.15 a.m.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Mr. Chairman, before you adjourn, do we take it that the trip is dead?

The Chair: Yes, absolutely dead.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: So we can report back to Atlantic Canada that the Canadian Alliance killed the trip. That's exactly what I'm going to do, sir.

Mr. Lou Sekora: Can we issue a press release?

The Chair: Of course you can.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: I'm going to make sure your man in St. John's West gets a little piece of that.

Mr. Lou Sekora: We'd like to put a press release out from the committee, and I'll tell you, as a result of that, I think we should wind this committee down.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Mr. Chairman, what we're doing here is a waste of time.

Mr. Lou Sekora: We're wasting time.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: You're taking our time on this committee this morning, from 9 a.m. to 1.30 p.m., with no lunch break. How are we supposed to eat?

The Chair: I was just going to—

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Something is seriously wrong. We have a total paralysing of the committee by the Canadian Alliance. We need to analyse where we are going as a committee, and if we're going to be functional, let's be functional. If we're going to do things reasonably, let's do it.

• 1055

Listen, we're bringing up Marshall here again, we have crab from Gaspé, and the list goes on. There's something seriously wrong.

The Chair: Just hold on, Mr. O'Brien. We have a mandate to review the Oceans Act, and that's what we're doing. There was also a request by the committee itself to bring in a couple of witnesses on the Marshall decision, one of which was the Association des crabiers gaspésiens inc.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Who brought in the Marshall request?

The Chair: That may not be proper French, I admit, Yvan, but that request was made, and we agreed to it. We could have them today. Lunch will be brought in. We want to get as much business done today as possible, because as you know, the committee won't be meeting for the next several days, because we have other things to do.

Mr. Bill Matthews (Burin—St. George's, Lib.): The next several months.

An hon. member: Why? How come?

The Chair: Because we have other things to do.

Mr. John Cummins: What are you doing?

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: We're doing a trip with the exclusion of the Canadian Alliance.

Mr. John Duncan: It's because everyone except the Alliance is travelling?

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: That's right, exactly.

Mr. John Cummins: What are you guys doing, playing politics?

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: You ask for trouble, you get trouble.

The Chair: We will adjourn the meeting until the video conference. We have the information required.

Mr. Lou Sekora: [Inaudible—Editor]...well, you're not with us.

Mr. John Duncan: [Inaudible—Editor]...I have low expectations.

The Chair: One point of order, Mr. Proulx.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Mr. Chairman, are we afraid of asking the committee to put out a press release all over the Maritimes and in Quebec to explain why the pseudo-Canadian Alliance refuse to allow the committee to travel but that certain members of the committee travel at their own expense?

[English]

Mr. Lou Sekora: I'll second that motion.

The Chair: We do, under the rules, require 48 hours' notice, Marcel. Are you giving us notice now?

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Certainly.

The Chair: We'll discuss it as soon as possible.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Nancy.

Mrs. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.): I just want to remind everybody that the fisheries committee is invited to a premier showing of a video called Waiting at the Edge. It's our point of view on the sealing issue in Nunavut. We'll also be serving some Arctic char tonight. That's at 6.30 in room 237C. Any committee member is welcome.

The Chair: Thank you, Nancy.

That's for your information.

The meeting is adjourned until 11.15.

• 1058

• 1114

The Chair: Okay, could we reconvene, committee?

Just hold on on the east coast. We're waiting for a couple of members to get in here.

Okay, we'll reconvene our discussion on our review of the Oceans Act. Our next witness is in a video conference from Antigonish, Nova Scotia: Mary Gorman, who's the spokesperson for the Save our Seas and Shores Coalition. There is a paper, which you have before you, that Mary has sent in.

Mary, you have 20 minutes. We're going to have to hold you pretty well to that time, and then we'll go to questions, because we do have only an hour and we have to cut off at the end of that hour. So the floor is yours, and welcome.

• 1115

Ms. Mary J. Gorman (Spokesperson, Save Our Seas And Shores Coalition): Thank you.

We'd like to introduce you to the people who are here today. First of all, this is Dr. Irene Novaczek, a marine biologist from Prince Edward Island.

The Chair: I know her well.

Ms. Mary Gorman: This is Allister Marshall, Councillor for Chapel Island Band and chairman of the Chapel Island Fish and Wildlife Association.

The Chair: Welcome.

Ms. Mary Gorman: Also here is Kerry Prosper, a member of the Afton Band; Councillor Rose MacKenzie with the municipality of Pictou County; and Sandy Benoit, president of the Federation of Gulf Nova Scotia Groundfishermen, also president of the Gulf Nova Scotia Bonafide Fishermen's Organization.

Okay. If you're holding me to 20 minutes, we're going to get this show on the road.

We're here today to talk about the Oceans Act and the federal responsibility to institute an ecosystem and precautionary approach to protect marine habitat and develop integrated marine management.

We are members of Save Our Seas and Shores, a grassroots coalition of over 40 fishery, native, environmental, and tourism groups in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. We want to commend the standing committee for having these consultations on the Oceans Act and for providing us a chance to raise some serious concerns.

Our coalition formed to halt petroleum exploration off the western coast of Cape Breton. Specifically, parcel 1 is a 600,000-acre shoreline permit that extends 50 miles along the shore from Port Hood to Cheticamp, and 20 miles into the Northumberland Straight—1,000 square miles in the midst of spawning, nursery, and migratory routes for lobster, herring, snow crab, mackerel, tuna, Atlantic salmon, and recovering groundfish species. It's one of the most productive multi-species inshore fisheries on the east coast.

Parcel 1 is home to an abundance of whales and dolphins and is known as the gateway to the southern gulf.

Our coalition's mandate is to have this permit revoked and to stop petroleum exploration permits from being issued until spawning, nursery, and other sensitive areas are identified and placed out of bounds for industrial development.

Parcel 1 was secretly put up for bid and bid upon by Corridor Resources of Halifax before Mi'Kmaq, Acadian, and Gaelic coastal communities who have lived sustainably off these resources for centuries were even informed. We have yet to be legitimately consulted.

There has been no study on the impact of petroleum exploration and development on recovering groundfish and other valued stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In other words, in spite of the Oceans Act, there is no evidence of precaution or of an integrated approach to management.

Why is DFO's oceans branch so slow in implementing part 2 of the Oceans Act? We have been told that because of cutbacks and restructuring, they haven't been able to develop their integrated management approach. But they've managed to implement section 3 of the act relating to fees for inshore fishers.

There is an absence of leadership within DFO to protect our marine habitat and coastal communities that violates the Oceans Act, section 30, which states:

30. The national strategy will be based on the principles of

(a) sustainable development, that is, development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs;

(b) the integrated management of activities in estuaries, coastal waters and marine waters that form part of Canada or in which Canada has sovereign rights under international law; and

(c) the precautionary approach, that is, erring on the side of caution.

Where is the precaution in these permits?

After DFO subsidized the expansion of the midshore and offshore groundfish fleets in the 1980s, groundfish stocks were fished to the point of collapse—clear evidence of what happens in the absence of precaution and attention to the supporting ecosystem. One would hope that our government learned a lesson from this preventable tragedy.

As a member of an inshore fishing family, when the ground fishery collapsed it was difficult for me to listen to media reports that blamed too many fishermen for too few fish. The truth of the matter is that the groundfishery collapsed because of too few fishermen catching too many fish. The distribution of the groundfish quota in the gulf at the time of the collapse was such that approximately 10% of the fishermen had 90% of the quota, and 90% of the fishermen—that is, the small multi-species inshore boats—had 10% of the quota.

It is important to note the Gulf of St. Lawrence multi-species inshore fishers not only suffered economically, but we suffered the humiliation of being blamed for a collapse we did not create. Since then, we have sacrificed quietly. Without TAGS compensation, we tied our groundfish boats to the wharves, and for eight years now we have been subject to a precautionary approach—limited quotas, a closed fishery, sentinel fisheries, and microscopic scrutiny by FRCC and DFO over mesh sizes, gear types, what we are allowed to fish, where we are allowed to fish, when we are allowed to fish, and how we are allowed to fish. We have worked steadily and in good faith with DFO to bring back our groundfish stock in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

• 1120

Gulf inshore fishers have a history of being pioneers in limited-entry licensing and conservation, and I might add—

The Chair: Mary, just to interrupt you for a second, we are translating on this end and we're going to have to get you to slow down a little. The translators can't keep up.

Ms. Mary Gorman: Well, I'll be happy to slow down, but we'll be over the 20 minutes.

The Chair: You may have to highlight in a couple of places to save time. Anyway, go ahead. We need our bilingual colleagues to be able to hear it as well.

Ms. Mary Gorman: All right.

We receive little respect for it. We do it because we are sincere in our commitment to long-term sustainability of our stocks. We practise what DFO preaches. We implement conservation requirements for lobster, herring, tuna, snow crab, mackerel and groundfish species. Our fishing practices for every single species are scrutinized relentlessly by each division of DFO, to make sure conservation comes first.

In accordance with part 3 of the Oceans Act regarding seas, we, the inshore fisherpeople, pay for the dockside monitoring and observer coverage to make sure conservation comes first. In Gulf Nova Scotia, some inshore fishers have even gone into debt and put our boats on the line to buy back groundfish quota that is historically ours. This is to ensure that the quota is never again given to corporate specialist fleets to decimate the stocks, as in the 1980s.

We do all this because we know that, if we do, we will continue to have a long-term inshore fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sustaining hundreds of coastal communities and, in the southern gulf alone, 20,000 jobs, unless of course it is destroyed by others.

So how do you think we feel, after all these years of working with DFO, when we find out a petroleum permit has been approved along our shoreline in the middle of our spawning nursery and migratory routes? How do you think we feel when we turn to DFO and we're told that this same DFO has no mandate to protect marine habitat when it comes to the petrochemical industry; that apparently their legislative mandate to protect habitat has been deferred to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board?

The first question for this standing committee is: Is this true, and if so, how did this happen? Why are we sacrificing to conserve stocks if the petroleum industry is allowed to come in and take over our inshore seabeds without any protest from DFO? How is this possible without independent study or a public review panel? While FRCC and DFO scrutinize every single move we make before we're allowed near our ancestral fishing grounds, where is the same microscopic scrutiny of the potential impacts of petroleum exploration on every single species in the Gulf of St. Lawrence? Why have been told that DFO has no power to stop petroleum exploration?

Section 36 of the Oceans Act states that the minister may make orders exercising any power on an emergency basis where the minister is of the opinion that a marine resource or habitat is or is likely to be at risk. What about the risk to our hake stocks still under moratorium?

Paragraph 32(d) of the act states that the minister may, in consultation with affected aboriginal organizations and coastal communities, establish marine environmental quality guidelines. Well, now is the time we need them. For DFO to hide behind the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord is simply not good enough. We urge this committee to review this accord and determine how much it compromises the Oceans Act.

Honourable members, the preamble of the Oceans Act says Canada's holding the conservation based on an ecosystem approach is of fundamental importance to maintaining biological diversity and productivity in the marine environment. Canada promotes the wide application of the precautionary approach to the conservation, management, and exploitation of marine resources in order to protect these resources and preserve the marine environment.

This is in striking contrast to the dismissive manner in which concerns of Gulf of St. Lawrence fishermen and our coalition have been treated by DFO and Environment Canada for over a year now. Is not the protection of marine habitat in this country the legislated responsibility of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans? Is not Environment Canada charged with preventing the discharge of deleterious substances into Canadian waters? Yet we have received nothing but form letters from the Honourable Herb Dhaliwal and David Anderson—

• 1125

The Chair: Mary, I'm going to have to slow you down again. Atlantic Canadians have this problem, you know; we talk fast when we think we're talking slow. I do the same thing. So slow down a little bit.

Ms. Mary Gorman: I'm happy to slow down, but once again, please bear with us. I have been instructed, Mr. Easter, that you are to hear all of this presentation. If we run over the 20 minutes, you'll have to bear with us. I'm happy to slow down.

The Chair: On that point, Mary, we have the presentation here, so if there are areas you can highlight.... I know there are a lot of good points in here, but the only problem is that if you go over time too much, then you take away time for questioning, which is important. Go ahead.

Ms. Mary Gorman: We understand that.

We've received nothing but form letters from Herb Dhaliwal and David Anderson referring us to the same petroleum board that is being investigated for workplace safety after the death of a worker last fall. This board has been under attack for allowing petroleum companies to monitor their own safety and environmental requirements.

As recently as April 18, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency wrote to the petroleum board telling them that their generic assessment process is fundamentally flawed, that it doesn't recognize the gaps in knowledge about the marine environment, and that the method used to rate impacts of exploratory drilling on that environment is flawed. For example, the Ecology Action Centre points to the death of 11,000 birds from an oil spill being ranked as minor.

We submit that this board is in a conflict of interest, both promoting and regulating Nova Scotia's offshore petroleum industry. Our coalition can tell you that this board's promotional conduct heavily outweighs its regulatory functions. Yet we are asked to accept that this same petroleum board will now be responsible for protecting our marine habitat and historic livelihoods from the very industry it is promoting.

When did the protection of marine habitat get placed in the hands of the petroleum industry? Have you any knowledge of the petroleum industry's international and domestic environmental track record? To avoid profanity, let's just say it is less than exemplary.

As the fisheries standing committee, are you going to sit back and turn a blind eye to this? We beg you, please don't. But if you do, you're no better than the DFO bureaucrats who have turned their backs on us, acting as if conservation requirements start and stop with excessive regulation of the inshore fishery.

Nova Scotia's Minister of Fisheries believes we should coexist with the petroleum industry. Let's talk about coexistence. We have been coexisting with industrial corporations for a long time. We coexist with pollution such as the pulp and paper mill in the Pictou area that has been spewing out 26 million gallons of effluent a day into the Northumberland Strait for over 30 years. We coexist with the pesticides from P.E.I.'s farms, with the mines and industrial plants along New Brunswick's coast, and with the pollution from the St. Lawrence River that has been dumped into the Gulf of St. Lawrence for decades.

We hope you will explore how much pollution from such industrial plants impedes fish species' ability to grow and reproduce in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. What about the persistent organic pollutants that have the Globe and Mail printing that P.E.I. lobsters are among the most contaminated species in this country? Media attention like this does not help our fish prices, our markets, or the future of these stocks. It has us realizing that we have more coexistence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence than we want, and we don't need any more.

If you look at this map, look at the number of leases in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This is not coexistence. This is takeover. The petrochemical industry has arrived like a freight train, and their greed knows no limits, as these shoreline permits prove. All of these permits along the Newfoundland coast and in the Cape Breton area were approved without proper consultation with Atlantic fishers and coastal communities. Any one of these permits going into production will pose a risk to the gulf and its fisheries.

We hope you will explore whether produced waters laden with heavy metals, oil and gas spills, and ballast from oil tankers will jeopardize recovery of declining stock and conservation of healthy stock. Please examine whether seismic blasting will jeopardize juvenile and adult cod, hake, and American plaice, which, according to FRCC's most recent report, are still not recovering.

• 1130

The petrochemical industry portrays seismic blasting as only killing juveniles and larvae within a few metres of the blasting gun. What they do not broadcast is that it is done with up to 32 airguns, towed on a 100-foot-wide grid, at varied depths and ranges, blasting every 10 to 12 seconds. Corridor Resources' proposed 10-day seismic tests in the fall of 2001 will generate 2,837,000 blasts and leave a path of destruction as wide as a football field that is 1,200 miles long, crisscrossing over sensitive spawning and migratory grounds.

There is evidence that seismic blasting alters behaviour of adult fish, whales, and dolphins. A Barents Sea study shows the groundfish catch rates dropping by two-thirds, with the fish not coming back by the end of the study. Studies off California show a similar effect.

Our coalition has concerns that the extensive seismic blasting that took place near Hibernia may have thrown migrating cod off course so that cod ended up spawning in areas not suited for egg maturity. This could explain why year class supplies of cod have disappeared subsequent to the groundfish moratorium. This is just a theory, but where's the study to prove this isn't so? In the absence of evidence concluding the harmlessness of petroleum exploration on habitat and fish stocks, we want the government to invoke the precautionary and ecosystem principles in Canada's Oceans Act.

The Georges Bank review panel determined that petroleum exploration and development is not worth the risk to fishing grounds 100 miles offshore. So how can it be worth the risk along our shoreline in the midst of our multi-species inshore fishery that thousands depend on?

Our coalition wants the impacts of petroleum exploration on the Gulf of St. Lawrence species studied with the same microscopic scrutiny that inshore fishers have been subjected to. The investigation must look at not just the commercial species, but also the food chain and habitat for these species. It must consider impacts of all stages of petroleum exploration, drilling, transportation, and use.

Consider these facts.

The gulf's waters are virtually landlocked and covered in ice every winter. The limited back-and-forth tidal action of the southern gulf makes it more vulnerable to accidents than the Scotian Shelf or Grand Banks.

Parcel 1 lies along the migratory routes of most of the southern gulf migrating species.

The ecosystem on which the parcel 1 permit has been staked provides spawning habitat for most species that live in the southern gulf.

The strongest component of the southern gulf's recovering American plaice stock either migrates through or is resident to parcel 1.

The strongest component of southern gulf white hake, which is under moratorium, either migrates through or is resident to parcel 1.

Due to FRCC recommendations to increase lobster egg production, fishermen have been releasing larger lobsters in the area.

Due to the vulnerability of the southern gulf's unique ecosystem, groundfish stocks have been protected so they can recover.

There is a lack of scientific documentation on the effects of seismic testing and petroleum development on crustaceans, pelagics, and groundfish.

There is a lack of scientific documentation on the spawning of southern gulf stocks. For instance, where do our juveniles spend the winter?

Quite simply, if proper consultation with coastal communities and aboriginal representatives had taken place, and if the economic and social value and vulnerability of the Gulf of St. Lawrence fishery had been established at the onset of this process, parcel 1 would never have been approved.

Because of the time limit, I'm not going to go through this whole inadequate process. I will trust the honourable members to read it for themselves.

Suffice it to say that the only public meetings ever held were held by our coalition and the clergy of Inverness County, who fear for the survival of our remote fishing communities.

It's very important to note also that in December 1999 the Atlantic Policy Congress of Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy Chiefs voted unanimously to stop parcel 1. Section 2.1 of the Oceans Act reads:

For greater certainty, nothing in this Act shall...abrogate...from any existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada under section 35 of the Constitution...

• 1135

Honourable members, in light of the Marshall decision, parcel 1 should have been revoked when the Atlantic Policy Congress spoke last December.

I have to talk to you about scientific information.

In December 1999, the board put up $50,000 for a study paid for by the petroleum industry to do a literature search on the southern gulf fishery. The stated objective was to find a window of opportunity to proceed with exploration. Major fishing organizations, including the Maritime Fishermen's Union, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association, and the Gulf Nova Scotia Fleet Planning Board, all refused to participate in this study because a literature search of science that does not exist does a grave disservice to the importance and value of our annual billion dollar southern gulf fishery.

The petroleum board informed us that the amount of money spent on environmental assessment is determined by the value of the bid put forward. Considering the minimum bid of $1 million for parcel 1, the board's opinion is that a $50,000 environmental study is adequate. We disagree with this approach, and in accordance with section 34 of the Oceans Act, which states that the minister may provide related assistance for the purposes of advancing knowledge of coastal and marine ecosystems, we are requesting that you recommend that the ecological and economic value of the fishery be the appropriate minimum benchmark that determines the amount of time, money, and effort put into the environmental assessment of any marine area.

Value to other existing sustainable activity, such as marine tourism, should also be considered. In a case such as the southern gulf, where a number of endangered stocks and species are involved, this should argue for an extra measure of care and scrutiny.

Finally, where there is a risk of pollution that has the potential to spread far beyond the area covered by a permit, or where the area is a migratory corridor affecting species over broad distances, this should also bump up the level of effort.

In short, for almost any part of the gulf, and especially for parcel 1, there is no way a simple literature search could reveal sufficient information to support a responsible decision guided by the precautionary and ecosystem principles of the Oceans Act.

We have almost finished, gentlemen, so just bear with us.

Honourable members, the standing committee no doubt has heard the FRCC's concerns about the state of DFO science and the lack of support for even basic stock assessments. Universities in Canada also do too little basic marine research. There simply are no studies on the effects of seismic blasting on female egg-bearing lobster and snow crab. Vulnerability of juvenile fish is also an area urgently needing study. Scientists have yet to catch up with traditional fisheries knowledge, and therefore no documentation exists to prove what we know, but fishermen believe the small fish born on the spawning grounds of parcel 1 never leave the southern gulf for the first years of their life. We know they don't migrate with the adults.

Much of the written data comes from the fishery and from DFO's research vessel, the Alfred Needler, which conducts an annual groundfish survey in a two-week period in September. In September 1998, the Alfred Needler inadvertently conducted their annual groundfish survey a week after seismic blasting around the Magdalen Islands, a survey that indicated the stocks had fallen off sharply in the area of the blasting.

When oil and gas are extracted from the earth, they are accompanied by contaminated water. The older a production well gets, the more water is produced and the more contaminated it becomes. Hibernia, after only two years of production, discharges huge volumes of produced water, and evidence of effects—deformed fish gills—has been found miles from the Hibernia site.

At a recent workshop at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, we were informed that DFO knows very little. Projects to determine effects of produced waters on fish habitat and the ecosystem are in experimental stages, and scientists may have no conclusive documentation for 20 years.

We have no intention of risking our fishery for experimental purposes. Yet we are confronted with the persistent attitude of the petroleum industry and board that exploration is going to proceed and the fishing industry must decide when it can proceed, not if it should proceed.

• 1140

As matters now stand, due to lack of consultation, absence of proper documentation, and breakdown of trust, the Southern Gulf Fisheries Advisory/Management Board has taken this position: parcel 1 must be withdrawn; a proper independent environmental assessment on all species must take place; an independent socio-economic study of the southern gulf region must occur; an independent review panel similar to that for Georges Bank must be set up before exploration is to occur anywhere in the southern gulf.

As well, the FRCC, in its year 2000 recommendations to the fisheries minister, has asked for a halt on all petroleum exploration and development in the Gulf of St. Lawrence until proper study has taken place to determine the impacts on fish stocks. The Gulf of St. Lawrence Groundfish Advisory Committee, with representatives from all major gulf fishing organizations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Newfoundland, have unanimously endorsed the FRCC oil and gas recommendation.

Honourable members, there is an old saying that justice delayed is justice denied. Where does the protection of commercial marine species and establishment of marine protected areas fit in if entire blocks of seabed continue to be leased off? The only thing escalating at the same rate as petroleum exploration on Canada's east coast is the disillusionment, cynicism, and anger of citizens. We fail to understand why governments give away our rights and resources to corporations rather than protect aboriginal, Acadian, and Gaelic fishing communities and cultures from these corporations.

While the environment, fish habitat, the fishery, and conservation are all being sacrificed to accommodate the oil companies, DFO fails to assume a role of prevention and precaution regarding the petroleum industry's takeover of our inshore seabeds. We are therefore imploring this Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to follow the lead of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council to halt exploration in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to investigate why DFO was abandoning its mandate to protect marine habitat, to initiate the comprehensive studies needed to determine the impact of petroleum exploration on our marine ecosystem, and to recommend the establishment of inshore buffer zones where coastal communities have priority access and fishing rights in our historical territories.

We are also requesting that the standing committee act in accordance with section 31 of the Oceans Act, which states that the minister, in collaboration with affected aboriginal organizations and coastal communities, shall lead the development and implementation of plans for the integrated management of all activities in coastal and marine waters.

Inshore fishers are doing their job following conservation requirements. Now we're asking the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to apply the same precautionary approach as we have been functioning within for the past eight years to protect our fish stocks from the petroleum industry. Please recommend to the minister that until science exists to prove that any petroleum activity will not impede groundfish stock recovery or damage healthy species, in accordance with Canada's Oceans Act, precaution must be taken immediately, parcel 1 revoked, and a moratorium placed on oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Gorman.

We'll turn to John Cummins for the first question, but before we do that, do we have copies here of the map you had up? Could you forward a copy of that or tell us where we could get a copy of the map you had posted?

Ms. Mary Gorman: We can certainly send a copy to you. It wasn't faxable. I tried to make a copy to see if it could be faxed, and it couldn't, but we will definitely make sure that Mr. Farrell, the clerk, gets a copy for distribution to standing committee members.

The Chair: And on your points on page 3, I've had discussions with the parliamentary secretary, and we will get a detailed response from the department fairly quickly on the questions you raised there on the role of DFO. It's best to get a detailed response on that, so we'll get that as quickly as possible and get it to you.

Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: Good morning, Mary.

Ms. Mary Gorman: Hi.

Mr. John Cummins: On that point, Mr. Chairman, it would seem to me it would be illegal for DFO to divest itself of its constitutional authority to protect the resource. I'm not sure where you got that information, Mary, or who told you that DFO had deferred its responsibilities to this Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board but we'd sure be interested in that information if you have it.

• 1145

Ms. Mary Gorman: Actually, Mr. Cummins, the part I skipped would show you that what we were told by both Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was that memoranda were being signed that deferred their responsibility. This is what we've been told by bureaucrats for a year now, that DFO has no control over this situation and that the sole responsibility for environmental protection is now in the hands of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. That's why we're urging this committee to review that accord and find out if this is the case and how much it does compromise the Oceans Act.

Mr. John Cummins: That's a good point. As the chairman suggested, we'll be trying to get that information and certainly make it available to you.

In your presentation you talked about a Globe and Mail article that suggests that P.E.I. lobsters are among the most contaminated species in the world. But then you go on and suggest in your documentation that there's been very little research done to determine the level of pollution and so on. What would the Globe and Mail be basing that statement on?

Ms. Mary Gorman: The article is included at the end of your...at the very end you'll see it. It is the Globe and Mail—I think it was dated March 20—and it is included in your package there.

Dr. Irene Novaczek (Earth Action, P.E.I.): I actually have the studies in front of me here, because I went to WWF, which is the source of the information to the Globe and Mail.

The Chair: Ms. Novaczek, for the record, so that it goes into the record, just state your name when you start. It's Irene Novaczek for those....

Go ahead.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: I'm Dr. Irene Novaczek. I'm an independent marine scientist based in Prince Edward Island.

The studies that were the basis of the Globe and Mail article were by DFO scientists and they were looking at the levels of persistent organic pollutants, particularly dioxins and furans, in lobsters in the Atlantic region, both inside and outside of the gulf. If you want those references, I would be happy to e-mail the references up to you.

In terms of the other information we have on levels of toxic pollutants, there's a recent study coming out of the University of Waterloo on PCBs and other organic chlorine pesticides in seals in the St. Lawrence estuary, which shows very disturbingly high levels, higher than you find in the North Sea, where in fact they've had serious widespread die-offs of marine mammals because of the effects of these toxic pollutants on their immune systems. So we're at a very critical position in the gulf.

I would maintain, as a marine scientist, that really in spite of recent efforts to reduce pollutants coming into the gulf from the St. Lawrence River, which have reduced PCB levels to some degree, we are still in a very serious position with respect to the build-up of contaminants in marine food chains. The addition of oil and gas industry toxins from drilling muds and oil spills, and gas releases, and pipeline construction and so on is really very much a high-risk activity, considering where we already are.

If we were talking about an environment that had lots of room to spare, you might want to make the argument that there was room for more pollution there, although I would hope you wouldn't, because I don't see the ocean as a dumping ground. We have very strict regulations about ocean dumping in this country. If I, as an individual citizen, wanted to pour a can of oil on the beach in P.E.I., I would be in very serious trouble, and yet the oil industry releases are much more significant and continuous. We're looking at that happening in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where we simply do not have the currents and the waves and tidal movement to disperse and remove those kinds of persistent toxins. We're looking at a situation where they would stay in the local area and be in the local food chains for decades or eons.

• 1150

The southern gulf, the whole Gulf of St. Lawrence, is simply a very different type of ecosystem. The oil and gas industry is not permitted to have onshore petroleum exploration and development close to the shore of most of the United States or Great Britain or British Columbia. The Gulf of Mexico is the one area where you might draw some kind of comparison, and if you know about the state of the Gulf of Mexico, it is in a very serious degraded condition, in part due to the very dense oil and gas development in that rather beleaguered body of water.

The Chair: Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: A conference is going to be held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in a couple of weeks on this issue. I was wondering if you were aware of that conference and if you had any comment on the likely position some of the participants would be taking in that.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: Sorry, I'm not aware of that conference. What is it exactly?

Mr. John Cummins: It has to do with the impact of the petroleum industry on the oceans.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: As you may know, there is a major push in British Columbia as well to lift the moratorium on inshore fishing grounds. There is also a very serious grassroots resistance there in coastal communities among fishing organizations and environmental organizations and other concerned citizens. I'd be very interested to see the results, whatever science can bring to the table.

In fact there is very little information. If you do, as I have done, a survey of the literature through the Internet, through various libraries worldwide, you simply don't come up with a lot of information that's really relevant to sensitive inshore fishing areas.

Mr. John Cummins: Yes, you make that comment. I'd be interested if I could get the names of the participants in that workshop to you to see if you had any comment on their independence of thought. Perhaps we could—

The Chair: We'll get the clerk to get in touch with you.

Mr. John Cummins: Yes, and then I'd make that information available to the committee as well, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: You have my e-mail, Wayne, I think.

The Chair: Yes, I do.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: So I would be very happy to review any material you want to send me.

The Chair: Last question, is that it?

Mr. John Cummins: Yes, that's fine.

The Chair: Just before I go to Mr. Bernier, on the discussion that we just had relative to oil and gas and because what our hearing is really on is the Oceans Act, in your interpretation, is the Oceans Act strong enough to deal with these issues? Are there shortcomings in certain areas? What's your point of view on that, because we want to be able to tie this discussion back into the Oceans Act.

Ms. Mary Gorman: I'll answer that.

I've read the act and I don't think it's strong enough, but it would certainly be stronger than what we have right now, Mr. Easter, if any of it were at least being implemented. So basically where we stand is that if the precautionary and ecosystem clauses were being implemented.... It's our understanding that this is why they were created. We know they came out of the Convention on Biological Diversity with the United Nations in 1992, and I've read that as well.

The concern at that convention, and the way those resolutions read, is very much to protect historic, aboriginal—in our case Mi'kmaq, Gaelic, and Acadian—communities, to let us continue to have our cultures and our livelihoods. That's why they set up that if we don't have enough science we don't proceed. That's precaution in a nutshell. And yet we have a Department of Fisheries and Oceans that, as I say, has persistently been telling us for a year now.... It has been extremely frustrating for us to just get one form letter.

• 1155

I'll be frank with you. Members of our coalition have written to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and to Minister Anderson in the last few months, and they are receiving the same form letters we got ten months ago, saying the same thing: “All of this is being deferred to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. If you have any questions, check with them.” Well, I'm sorry, but particularly in light of that board's very questionable abilities to function as a neutral regulator.... They simply have not been functioning as a neutral regulator; they have been functioning as a flagrant promoter of the petroleum industry, and we are simply not going to put up with it.

The Chair: Thank you, Mary. I take it that your view is that there are questions on whether the act is being implemented to the full force of the law.

Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Mr. Chairman, my intervention will be brief because I would like to give my allotted time to Mr. Peter Stoffer, who come from that part of the country. I wanted to tell the witnesses that I took note of the weakness in the application of Part II that they have brought to our attention. I will continue to be very attentive but I yield the floor to Mr. Stoffer since the question period is very brief today.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Merci, Mr. Bernier.

Mary, your organization has talked about the lack of attention to your concerns by the DFO and the federal government, but I'd like to know what the provincial governments have told you over the last year since your organization has been formed in terms of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and P.E.I. What have those provincial governments told you they're going to do to protect the fishing industry?

Ms. Mary Gorman: I can only speak in terms of what Nova Scotia has told us, but the current provincial government in Nova Scotia is oil and gas all the way. Their attitude is , we're going to proceed. Get used to it. Live with it. It's not going to hurt you. You're simply ignorant of the fact that the oil and gas industry.... This is what they've told us: we are the ones who don't understand the information, and that they're going to come in on our shorelines, and they're going to do this....

The one thing they have said, or the one thing the company, Corridor Resources, has said, is that they're not going to come in within ten miles. What we have told them is that's simply not good enough.

I would refer you to the Supreme Court decision in Britain late last fall, where environmental organizations won a major victory against the Government of Britain and the United Kingdom based on a 12-mile buffer zone they had that was not considered acceptable by the fishermen or by environmentalists. Their highest court agreed with the fisherpeople and the environmentalists that there should be no drilling within 200 miles until a proper study is done and sensitive areas are determined.

It's very frustrating for us to be treated in the patronizing manner in which we're treated.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My second question is for the councillor from the Pictou area.

Corridor Resources, or at least the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, indicate to us that there has been seismic work in the gulf in previous years. We had met in Port Hawkesbury with the council of Port Hawkesbury and other representatives from small communities as well, in the same capacity as you. Do you have access to those test results from previous seismic work? Are you in consultation with other councillors and other town representatives in Cape Breton and along the Pictou area in the concern you're addressing to us today?

The Chair: For the record, could you state your name as well?

Ms. Rose MacKenzie (Councillor, Municipality of Pictou County): I'm Rose MacKenzie, a councillor in the municipality of Pictou County. We represent the largest body of population in Pictou County. We have endorsed the veto. We called for a veto in June and then we called for a moratorium in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. At that time, we filed a petition with our municipality of 4,000 signatures, which was sent on to the federal government.

At this point in time, we are going to go to our regional meeting in Antigonish sometime later this month. We have a resolution from our municipality calling for a moratorium on oil exploration in the southern gulf.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My question is really whether you are in consultation with other communities in Cape Breton in addressing your concerns, such as Port Hawkesbury and Arichat, for example.

• 1200

Ms. Rose MacKenzie: We have a lot of business in our municipality. Some of our representatives have gone to meetings in Cape Breton, such as in Port Hood. Are you asking if our council is in consultation with other councils?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I think what I'm trying to get at, ma'am, is that it's easy for the government to divide and conquer. Unless you have unanimity from all the communities in Cape Breton and in the Pictou area, it's easy for them to take one side and ignore the other if they choose to do so.

You seem to represent the Pictou area. But Michelle Dockrill, the member of Parliament for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, and I met with representatives from Port Hawkesbury who hold the opposing view of what you've just presented to us today. It appears by Mary's presentation that the government seems to be listening to just one side of the discussion and not to the other. This is why I'm asking if you have had consultations with people at the same level as yourself in terms of the councils from Arichat or Port Hawkesbury to see if there's some sort of compromise in the middle for you.

Ms. Rose MacKenzie: We haven't had any formal consultations with them at this point. We've had some informal, but no formal.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: If I can make a recommendation to you, perhaps you and your coalition should do that in order that you could at least have a running dialogue of the concerns you're addressing so that everyone knows what's on the table at all times.

Mary, my last question is for you. I met with Corridor Resources, and they indicated that they had held public meetings and that very few or no people from the coalition showed up for those meetings. I was wondering if you could clarify that, please.

Ms. Mary Gorman: Once again, there was a section of our presentation that I skipped, Peter, but Corridor Resources, in conjunction with the petroleum board, working with the petroleum industry, held two to three small, little, tiny, highly controlled, manipulated sessions. They were not public meetings. There has never been an ad put in the paper. These little meetings they had allowed for no legitimate public input whatsoever. For instance, in the Cheticamp area, in protest of this farce of a process, if I may say so, only 12 people even showed up.

We have had to contend with this propaganda from them trying to pretend they have had consultation. They had no consultation. This permit was approved, put up for bid, and bid upon before fishermen even knew about it. To have money changing hands before there has been legitimate consultation is absolutely unacceptable.

I certainly can't speak for the municipality of Inverness County, but I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the vast majority of people in both the Inverness County and Victoria County areas, from Port Hood up to Cheticamp, are vehemently opposed to this. In the absence of legitimate public meetings, the clergy of Inverness County have held public meetings. The only public meetings ever held on this issue were by our coalition and the clergy of Inverness County, who have great fears for the survival of their remote fishing communities.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I have another question, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: I thought the other one was your last one.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I didn't get an answer to the very first thing I said.

The Chair: Okay, go ahead.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: This is for the woman from Prince Edward Island, the biologist.

There has been previous seismic work done in the gulf, and I'm just wondering if you have any records or scientific knowledge of the seismic work that was done years ago.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: Seismic work was done, but there were no studies to look at the impact of that on the ecology or the fishery. So really there is a dearth of information. We know that seismic work was done and that there were downturns in the fishery all around that seismic work being conducted. Those two facts were never connected, and there was never an investigation as to whether there was a cause-and-effect relationship there.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

Ms. Mary Gorman: If I could just follow up briefly, Peter—

The Chair: Go ahead, Mary.

Ms. Mary Gorman: —I will tell you that the fishermen noticed a rapid decline in catches, as Dr. Novaczek has said. We actually have graphs where you can see when the seismic activity took place, and about four to five years later there's a rapid decline in the catch. That is when the juveniles would have been coming on. It's consistent with when they did the seismic in the gulf back in the 1970s and early 1980s. There's extensive seismic, and then within four years there's this massive drop in the catches.

• 1205

The Chair: Are there any questions on this side?

Spinning off the question Peter raised on Corridor Resources, on the consultations, what timeframe were those done in? We do need to know. Were they really legitimate consultations? Was the public really invited? Did they have their say? What timeframe were those consultations done in so that we can check it out through research?

Ms. Mary Gorman: Once again, it's in the presentation. These are the pages we skipped.

Maybe Mr. Benoit wants to address this. When fishermen heard about this happening, it was the fishermen who invited Corridor and the government to these to find out what the heck was going on.

It was a 45-minute session that was misrepresented by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans as a public meeting, when in fact it was a groundfish meeting that fishermen had invited them to, and that's when they first heard about this. Since then there have been maybe two or three small meetings that have not amounted to anything.

A voice: They were promotional ventures, actually.

The Chair: That is outlined on page 6 of your presentation. Thank you.

From your perspective, is that process in violation of either the Oceans Act or any other acts you know of that the federal government is charged with responsibility for administering?

Ms. Mary Gorman: The Oceans Act states very clearly in almost every one of its clauses that this consultation is supposed to be taking place in accordance with coastal communities and aboriginal representatives.

I'll put you over to Mr. Prosper, and he can tell you how much consultation occurred with aboriginal communities.

Mr. Kerry Prosper (Afton Band): I'm Kerry Prosper from the Afton Band in Antigonish County. I thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of coastal communities.

To my knowledge there has been no consultation with the chiefs of the maritime region. Also there is a very big concern about the recent Marshall decision in regard to the resources and the rights to the resources throughout Atlantic Canada for the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet people.

We've been talking about the fish and the contamination of the fish. We haven't really talked about the state of the people in Atlantic Canada. Health Canada has released a statistical report on the health of the aboriginal people in Canada. They talk about the infant mortality rate being double the national rate. They talk about the life expectancy of the aboriginal people being at least five years below the national average. They talk about diabetes being way out of control within aboriginal communities. Also there have been recent talks and studies about the general population in Atlantic Canada having one of the highest rates of health ailments throughout Canada.

We're talking about living with an industry, and these are the results of living with this industry and many other industries that have been introduced into rural Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada for hundreds of years. There's a lot of documentation out there that you have to look at, and the government will be held liable in the future. We know the aboriginal people in western Canada are taking the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to court in regard to the mismanagement of the oil and gas resources out west. With the recent ruling in Marshall, I can see this happening in Atlantic Canada if the resources in fish and land and water are not looked after. Somebody will have to be held accountable.

We are basically tired of a will being pressed upon us by government. I thought only cartels and Mafia imposed a will on people, but now I see governments are doing that to the people. We are getting very concerned with this, and we have to someday hold people liable for these actions.

Thank you.

• 1210

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Prosper.

Are there any other points? A short one, Mr. Stoffer? Keep it relative to the Oceans Act.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, sir. Thank you.

Mary, and to the organization, I spoke to Mr. Miller from Corridor Resources, and he indicated to us and Michelle at our meeting that he would abide by the recommendations of an independent environmental assessment. He basically told us verbally that he would abide by any recommendations by an independent environmental assessment. Would your organization also abide by any recommendations from an independent environmental assessment?

Ms. Mary Gorman: Well, I can't speak on behalf of our coalition, because our coalition is much bigger than the six individuals sitting in this room, and obviously we try to have consensus.

I will tell you the key word in what you're asking, Peter, is “independent”. I read comments from Mr. Miller of Corridor Resources on the front page of the Chronicle-Herald after the FRCC came out with its recommendation saying there has to be a halt and there have to be clear independent studies right from exploration straight through to production. They had Mr. Miller quoted as saying, “Well, that's what we're doing right now. That's what we're going to be doing for the next year.” That's not what is on the table at the moment. So they try to twist; they try to pretend their $50,000 literature search is going to be an independent environmental assessment.

As we've said in our presentation, nothing less than a full review panel will do, and not only on the ecological consequences but on the socio-economic consequences, as Mr. Prosper has pointed out, for our Mi'kmaq people, for our Acadian people, with Mr. Benoit here today, who hasn't had an opportunity to speak yet.

What you have to understand, just so that we don't appear at all unreasonable to this committee, is that you're talking to people who have tried for a year to get some help from our elected officials and from the governments that are responsible for doing this job. I, Mary Gorman, shouldn't have to have given up the last year of my life—and believe you me, I have—to fight this. We shouldn't have to be taking money out of our pockets to do this. But there seems to be such an absence of will within bureaucracies, and we don't know where this is coming from. There seems to be some type of little power game happening between Mr. Goodale's office and Mr. Anderson's office and Mr. Dhaliwal's office, and Goodale seems to be winning out.

We take serious exception to our being placed in the hands of the petroleum industry. That's not what our Department of Fisheries and Oceans is for, and that's not what Mr. Axworthy's office is for, who oversaw the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Dr. Irene Novaczek: And it's certainly not consistent with the Oceans Act.

The Chair: Thank you, Irene. That's our key point. Our mandate here is to see whether the Oceans Act is doing its job and whether the government is abiding by the Oceans Act, and that's what we need all the evidence for.

Does anyone else within the group of six there have one last point they want to add? We're down to about two minutes before we have to cut off. Does anyone within the group have a last point they want to make? There was somebody—

Ms. Mary Gorman: I'd like to answer what you just asked, Mr. Easter: is the Oceans Act functioning? If we had to answer you in one word, it would be no, a resounding no, and we would like it to be a resounding yes.

The Chair: Okay. On that note, thank you very much to the coalition for presenting your views. The department, through the parliamentary secretary or me, will get back to you on a number of points relative to page 3.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Ms. Mary Gorman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you. Take care.

The Chair: We'll adjourn for fifteen minutes to have a bite to eat, and then we'll come back to the last witness.

• 1215

• 1242

The Chair: Okay. Go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette (Executive Director, Association des crabiers gaspésiens Inc.): Mr. Chairman, Members of Parliament, at our first meeting on November 27, 1999 in this room we discussed the Marshall decision of the Supreme Court. We obviously shared our concerns about how the arrival of Native bands would affect coastal and mid-shore fishing. You will remember the numerous questions we asked on November 27th. They dealt with the methods that would be used as well as a host of principles with which we are familiar, but which are obviously a bit more complex for Native people.

Today, on May 2nd, I want to tell you that the mid-shore crab fishermen of Quebec especially and those of the gulf are still worried. They have seen that the band of Malécites from Viger had started to fish for shrimp a month ago and crab two weeks ago.

Unfortunately, when their ship arrived at the wharf at the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, no native person got off. That was one of our concerns. We would have wished to ensure that representatives of the native bands had been on board to acquire the necessary training and take an interest in each fishing expedition. That would have allowed them to take courses to increase their professionalism. You no doubt know that in Quebec the professionalism of fishermen and their assistants are under the framework of a law that was created in May 1999. We are still a little concerned that the Malécites ship, which was the first to take to sea, did not have any Native people aboard.

Since the Micmac band from Gaspé dos not fish, I will not comment on them

The band on the Maria Native reserve, another Micmac band, will start fishing for crab in a few days. I hope they will have better results and that there will be better participation from band representatives aboard the boat.

• 1245

We now know that the community of Restigouche is having internal management problems related to the management of the band. Chief Metallic has asked the Department of Indian Affairs to decree an election as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the date for this election has not been set and the fishing continues. We all know that crab fishing must be done during a specific period, and especially this year, when we are in a growth period and there are many new recruits. We have a lot of crab that will become white very, very quickly. The molting will be very quick. That is why we are in continuous discussions with Fisheries and Oceans in order to see if the deadlines will be prolonged for a long time and if we will have to go fish the part of the quota allotted to the Restigouche band ourselves.

As you know, we have allotted a quota to each of the bands. In the case of Quebec, this quota represents 500 metric tons of crab, which means many jobs in each of our plants. If the Micmacs of Restigouche cannot go fish for crab, we will have to review our decision and send our professional fishermen to get them in order to maintain the jobs in our plants as well as our regional economy.

I have told you that we had some questions last November and still have some today. As a result of negotiations we have had with officials in Fisheries and Oceans, especially Mr. Thériault, who represented Francophones, we came to an agreement that we would grant 500 tons to the fishermen of Quebec, 500 tons to the fishermen of New-Brunswick and 60 tons to the fishermen of Prince Edward Island. We asked ourselves a lot of questions that today, on May 2nd have not necessarily all been answered. Our concerns remain.

I will quote from the working paper.

She finally that the exercise of rights issuing from a treaty are limited to the territory traditionally used by the local community with which the treaty was reached and to the resources traditionally used by Aboriginals.

What is the territorial limit when we are talking about crab or shrimp fishing? That question remains unanswered.

Elsewhere in the interpretation of the Marshall judgement, we talk about reasonable means of living, not accumulation of wealth. How do we define reasonable means of living? Can we quantify it? We don't know and we are still asking ourselves.

We say that the right to fish is a community right. That is shown by the Malécites band. I have already told you of our concerns about the absence of Native people on board the ship.

In the Marshall decision it says that the community can only exercise its rights on the territory that it has traditionally used. Could we prove to me today that the traditional territory of any Native band was either the centre of the gulf, the Banc Bradelle and the Banc de l'Orphelin? Is that really their traditional fishing ground?

• 1250

It also stipulates:

the right to fish can be limited for legitimate reasons, for example to ensure the preservation of resources, to protect public health and safety, to ensure orderly management of the fishery as well as regional and economic equity and to take into account the historic dependance of other groups on fishery resources.

In my opinion, those other groups are the people who have developed that fishery since 1967.

It is also said that we have to protect the historic rights of other groups. So the question remains unanswered. How do we protect the rights of the traditional crab and shrimp fishermen? I would like the House of Commons t give us an answer because, as I said previously, we have voluntarily agreed to give the Native people a certain quota of the crab in order to give them easier access to the fishery and to make the fishing more harmonious in the Spring of the year 2000.

It also says we will have to set criteria regarding fishing zones, fishing limits, fishing methods, monitoring activities, catch statements and closing times, as well as the fact that rights flowing from the treaty cannot be used to the detriment of other users. The treaty must give them equitable access. There again, now, on May 2nd, 2000, do we have answers to these questions? I am telling you, ladies and gentlemen Members of Parliament, that we have not had any answers are not in a position to say that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has assumed its responsibilities and is able to ensure sound management of the fisheries since we have agreed to let Native bands into commercial fishing.

A little further in the Marshall judgment, it says that the Department will be forced to provide increased access to the commercial fisheries in accordance with the treaty. Yes, we will provide increased access to the commercial fisheries, but I would like to know if the conditions I described previously will be applied and if the bands will respect them.

We are told that the arrival of new fishermen will require rigorous planning. Up to now, the public servants have done their homework and their arrival has been rigorously planned. It remains to be seen how things will go until the end of the fishing season. It is a question we are asking ourselves.

In the same document, it also says that the provisional agreements for the year 2000 will have to be decreed. The provisional agreements regarding crab fishing have simply been an agreement, by each of the gulf fishermen, to give up part of the quota.

Obviously, we are back to equitable access and the respect of other users of this resource. We have to take these other users into account and respect the existing regulations. Will we have to wait till Fall before we can get an answer?. We are told that the Department will issue community permits and will impose a number of conditions, including one that particularly pleases me, requirements in terms of monitoring and catch reporting.

I recognize that up to now they have honoured the catch reporting requirements. This is especially true in the case of the Malécites band, but it is only one of the four bands in Quebec.

• 1255

We are also asking ourselves the following question: is what we are living through now, at the beginning of the year 2000, the beginning or the end of the demands? How far will it go? As I indicated previously, what amount must be equated with reasonable means of living: is it what we currently live on, in the year 2000. How do we define a prohibition on acquiring wealth?

Is it thanks to quotas on crab and shrimp quotas that the Aboriginals in Quebec will this year accumulate tens of millions of dollars in gross fishery revenues that will be deducted from the grants they receive from the Department of Indian Affairs? Can we hope that some day the people in Native bands will become fully Canadian and participate in our local, regional provincial and national economy? Those are the questions we are asking when we think about giving way to them without thinking in terms of their ancestral fishing rights, even though, as far as I know, they have never fished for crab or shrimp. If we are prepared to make room for them, to integrate them as full members of our communities, to train and accept them, are they prepared to participate in the regional economy? Do these people seriously think that by integrating with the Canadian economic system they will have to become full citizens who, in a number of years, will be able to help us pay the bill for the House of Commons, for all our departments and the overall bill that each Canadian citizen must pay?

What does the house of Commons think? Will it again table Bill C-62, the fisheries act that the Supreme Court declared lapsed in April 2000? In the old Bill C-62, there was the issue of administrative sanctions. Like today, in the House of Commons, can we think of talking of administrative sanctions with Native bands in Canada if their members are not integrated as Canadian citizens, are not recognized as such and are not prepared to live as such?

These are all questions I raise, ladies and gentlemen of Parliament. I apologize for taking up a little too much time since it is already 12:58, Mr. Chairman, but that is the situation we are living with in the gulf in Quebec and the Maritimes in terms of crab fishing.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Ouellette.

Mr. Cummins, to start.

Mr. John Cummins: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ouellette, for that presentation.

• 1300

The questions you ask are questions we'd certainly like answers to, and we haven't been able to get the answers. That's the problem now, as I see it. Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Thériault are conducting these negotiations with certain of the bands, and we have no idea of what their mandate is, how much they're prepared to give up, or how much they're prepared to transfer to native bands as a result of this Marshall decision. And we're told we're not likely to find that out until the negotiations are concluded. That doesn't seem reasonable to me. Does it seem reasonable to you?

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Is the question addressed to me?

[English]

Mr. John Cummins: Yes. As I say, the problems you've identified and the questions you've raised are questions we've asked, and we can't get the answers. The minister has refused to allow Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Thériault to appear before this committee. So the negotiations are ongoing, and we don't have answers to those very reasonable questions. We don't know what the mandate is of Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Thériault, we don't know how much access they're prepared to transfer to these native bands, and we won't find out until after the negotiations are over. I think that's highly unreasonable, but that's the way the government's going about it. Do you concur? Do you agree that the cart is before the horse here?

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: It is obvious, ladies and gentlemen of the House, that asking Fisheries and Oceans to be on time is a trick question. Fisheries and Oceans has always tried, by every means, to stamp out fires as soon as they appear. The most striking proof is that last autumn, we had not foreseen the conclusions or the Marshall report. I believe that on this topic the senior officials of fisheries and Oceans can be severely blamed since they did not follow this continuously.

A few months, not to say a few weeks before the opening of the fishing season, they asked people who had created the industry from nothing people who had participated in the national economy and job creation to make sacrifices because they had to face a responsibility that dated from 1760. I believe, sirs, that no excuse is possible for this type of behaviour, which is to put out fires as they occur. I think that Ottawa should be a little more foresighted and that we should ask our department, especially, that it require its public servants to be more vigilant and stop looking at videos.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ouellette.

Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: I appreciate your comments.

You did say some fishing was taking place. I believe a boat went out to harvest an allocation for one of the bands in the area, but there were no natives on that boat. Is that correct?

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Yes, it is the report I received from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine this morning. I was told that last night, the Malécite I had landed at the Îles-de-la-Madeleine and that there was no Native person on board. Rest assured that I have taken precautions so that the public servants at Fisheries and Oceans Canada can verify my statements and that the information I have received can be confirmed.

• 1305

[English]

Mr. John Cummins: Was there any confirmation in fact that the boat was fishing on behalf of a native band, or is it just assumed that it was?

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: For your information, the Malécite I is the property of the Malécites band of Viger. On board there are a captain and two crew members who are white, but there should have been at least one Native, preferably three. It seems that the last Native on board last week was no longer there yesterday at the time of unloading.

[English]

Mr. John Cummins: My understanding of the regulations is that if the licence is a native licence, there should be a minimum of one native aboard.

I guess all I can say at this point is I agree with the questions you've raised. They're questions that should have been asked and should have been answered by the department. They have not been. Personally, I think when these negotiations are going on behind closed doors the way they are, without input from the people who are going to be most affected by them, the result will not be satisfactory. Yet that's the direction we're heading in. As a member of the opposition, I deplore it, but there's not a darn thing we can do about it at this point.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cummins. I take that as a comment.

Before I go to Mr. Bernier, what's your degree of satisfaction or lack of satisfaction with the process that was established in terms of MacKenzie and Thériault? Are you satisfied with the process of getting to the allocation of 500 tonnes for Quebec and 60 for fishers in P.E.I.? Was that process satisfactory, could it have been better, or what?

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: I believe, Mr. Chairman, that the amount the Aboriginals are asking for, whatever it is, is not very relevant if we buy back and by integrating these people according to a business plan in a commercial manner.

My Gulf colleagues and I see no problem in the fact that the fishing is done by Aboriginals, Japanese or Chinese, provided that in the end the changes are made on the basis of a business plan and that thereafter tse industry in Quebec, New-Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island is not disrupted.

As long as those people stick to the rules, personally, I would see no problem with the Aboriginals having 10, 12 or 15 permits. But it should be done in a businesslike manner and they will have to respect the established rules and cooperate with us to amend them if required. At that time, I would see no problem, whoever the participants are. Quantity is therefore not relevant.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ouellette.

Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Good day, Mr. Ouellette. I have noted your answers also. However, for my colleagues o better understand, I would like to give you the opportunity of coming back to the following points.

First, you ask the big questions. What is a sustainable means of living? Who protects the traditional fishermen? Is this the beginning of Native demands or will the amount offered buy peace, keeping in mind the question the Chairman has asked about negotiations?

I believe you represent the crab fishermen in Quebec during the negotiations. How are these negotiations going? You are very good at stating what you want to know. Although you have no problem working with Aboriginals, you still want to know, at some point, what the quantity will be and how things will be done.

• 1310

If it is done through transactions between willing businessmen, white and native, that is one thing. However, since there was no agreement with the fishermen, you had to ask your members to grant you a loan. Did you ask your members to grant you a loan or did the Department require it? If nothing goes forward this year, what will happen?

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Good day, Mr. Bernier. If you ask the question, I will come back to the 500 tons and the 60 tons in Quebec and New Brunswick. It is obvious that those amounts were on the table and, since we were at the last minute, the first solution that came to mind was a permanent purchase of the quotas, but that was not possible in the short term.

The other possibility was then the temporary sale of the quotas. At the initiative of the fishermen's representatives, we decided that it was better not to use the same money given to us to acquire the quotas twice for the Native people and, in order to do so, make them pay temporarily this year and buy them back the following year.

We needed time, and time costs. We had assurances from Fisheries and Oceans Canada that the quotas of 23,000 pounds for fishermen in Quebec would be there the following year, along with the overall quota that would be determined by the consultative committee and approved by the minister.

Given this situation, we decided that it was a good idea to ask the negotiator, Mr. Thériault, to protect the federal government monies so that we would be able, when the fishing season was over, to transact sales and do business with the Native peoples. We wanted to ensure that they could have the commercial fishing rights and agree, after a trial year, to respect All the current regulations and to help change it as required.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Agreed. I have another question and I will change the subject a little. If we have time, I will come back to the issue of sharing.

Towards the end of your presentation, you talked about the problems of integrating Native people into fishing activities. You asked if they would have legislated controls, and if their management plan had criteria you could live with. I know there has been a decision by the Supreme Court recently that said that Fisheries and Oceans did not have to be judge and jury in the application of sanctions.

If even the Supreme Court says that Fisheries and Oceans is not a regulatory body, that the Minister is not within the law, how can the Native people appreciate such a thing? Perhaps this has not be publicized enough in Anglophone journals here. Mr. Ouellette, I would certainly like you to explain this issue to our colleagues around the table.

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Obviously, Mr. Bernier, the issue of administrative sanctions goes back to minister Tobin, in 1993. Even then, it was unforseen and we ha forgotten...

I would like it to be believed that I am opposed to a standard on administrative sanctions. We know that in other departments wether it is Transport Canada in air transport, or in many other departments, we live with administrative sanctions. However, before imposing administrative sanctions, we at least had the delicacy of meeting with the interveners, discussing things and determine a rule of protocol, which unfortunately, did not happen in 1993. That is precisely why they were condemned by the Supreme Court, because they did not avail themselves of the opportunity of obtaining the approval of the industry, the court or the justice system. That is why they were thrown out.

• 1315

Even there, how are we going to solve the problem with the Aboriginals? Fisheries and Oceans Canada should decide to meet with the industry to see how administrative sanctions could be applied instead of going to the courts. And if we want to come to a quick agreement, we should change the legislation on fisheries, which is more than 60 and some years old, and present it to the House of Commons. The Honorable Members, of which you are a part, would probably agree to adopt it very quickly, and it would include Native people.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ouellette.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Ouellette. Sir, has your organization had any meetings at all with the aboriginal communities to work out the differences you have?

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Yes we have. Since December 1999, I have met with Native people from four bands in Quebec. Three of them seem to agree that all Canadian fishermen, meaning they live in Canada where there are rules, and in Quebec especially, the legislation on the accreditation of fishermen and their assistants is a reality. They have already reserved courses in the specialized centre for fishing in Grande-Rivière, and they will take those courses in the fall in order to conform with the that legislation.

On the other hand, there is one band, which unfortunately I have not had a chance to meet, that does not seem interested. They seem more traditional than the others, and I wonder if they like living in Canada. That is the only question I am asking myself.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: This is my last question, sir.

Recently the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans was in Newfoundland with the provincial ministers from Atlantic Canada to discuss the ongoing concerns with the Marshall decision. I didn't hear anything about what the province of Quebec's Minister of Fisheries is doing in this file. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that for us, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: I believe that the position of Minister Rémy Trudel has been in the media since the meeting with Newfoundland. Mr. Trudel is asking himself a question. Quebec has always refused the question arising from the treaty of 1760. And even in 1982, Quebec withdrew from the discussions about Aboriginals. It is quite clear, and Minister Trudel has stated it in the House, it is his position.

Now we now that in the fisheries, a little all over the province, are managed by the federal government, and that the Minister has acquired right to manage the fisheries, wether in Quebec or in other provinces.

Now, as citizens of Quebec, knowing what our Minister wants, we still have to negotiate with the central government for the well-being of all our professional fishermen. That is what we are doing.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

You asked in your remarks whether this is the beginning of the demands or the end of the demands by the aboriginal community relative to the Marshall decision. Is not the agreement that was signed by the negotiators with the aboriginal community from your area an interim agreement without prejudice?

• 1320

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: There is more than one signed agreement as we speak, Mr. Chairman. There is signed agreement with the Malécites of Viger, and there is a signed agreement with the Micmacs of Gaspé and there is one with the Micmacs of Maria. Only one aboriginal band has not signed anything, as I indicated at the beginning of my presentation. They are the Micmacs of Restigouche who, for political and internal management reasons, asked he Department of Indian Affairs to convene elections as quickly a possible, which has not been done as we speak. There are therefore three bands out of four that have signed interim or preliminary agreements.

As far as the snow crab is concerned, we should sit down immediately the fishing and look at if what the bands have demanded is a beginning or an end. We should also analyse the fishing methods used by these people and their behaviour, as compared to existing rules at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

[English]

The Chair: I'm not sure if anybody else has questions. If you do, raise your hand.

On the Restigouche Band, you had indicated earlier that if the band didn't utilize the quota, then you, the crabbers, would have to fish it yourselves in order to protect the jobs in the plants. What kind of timeframe are we looking at there? Is there anything the fisheries committee should be doing in that regard? If the native band can't get its act together, then you do need to be protecting those jobs.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Mr. Chairman, it is very kind of you to offer me this. I greatly appreciate it. The date of the transfer of the 250 tons from the Micmacs of Restigouche to our traditional fishermen has not yet been set. However, we do not wan to give Mr. Metallic the opportunity of deciding on his own about what we have offered him in terms of participating in the fisheries. The offer you made to me is very tempting and forces me to say that the year 2000 is a growth year for gulf crab a year in which we have many young recruits.

In terms of these young recruits, we have a daily problem: the arrival of the white crab, which is molting, and that will happen very quickly. Mentally, I was prepared to talk about buffer dates with the public servants at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. If Mr. Metallic cannot guarantee that he will fish those 250 tons, I think we could tell him on the 15th or 20th of May: “Listen, Mr. Metallic, see you next year”. On our side, we are going to get that crab so as not to miss it this year and guarantee employment in all our plants.

I thank you again for your offer.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. I think we should either draft a letter or suggest to the minister that you can't just let this sit in limbo forever. You're saying the date is May 15 or May 20. Basically the decisions have to be made by then or it will be too late.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Surely we must not go too far, because then it would be impossible to fish for it.

[English]

The Chair: Are there any other questions?

Mr. Bernier, one last question.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I would like to address a last question to Mr. Ouellette.

I know that in the Grande-Rivière region there is centre specialized in fisheries. You said in your presentation that you wanted to favour the immersion of Aboriginals, but through training. What is happening in this area? When you are negotiating with Fisheries and Oceans, do their people tell you that these courses are offered to Aboriginals? Have there been steps taken in this matter? Are they taken on a boating trip to see if they suffer from seasickness before they are given a boat and a licence? In your opinion, how do the people at Fisheries and Oceans deal with this?

• 1325

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Mr. Bernier, first, there was an agreement according to which we could not allow an Aboriginal to pilot a ship because, on the one hand, he did not have the required licence, and on the other he did not have the fishing experience that was granted to him. This ensured that professional fishermen had to operate the ship with a certain number of crew and that Aboriginals had to ensure their presence with three, two, or at a minimum, one Aboriginal. This was done up to last night on the Malécite I.

You are talking to me about courses in the specialized centre. Obviously the sectoral committee on professional planning that I created in 1996 is watching and has offered each of the Aboriginal bands, with the available money, the three first basic courses that they need this autumn. This is done in the framework of the sectoral committee on the professionalization of fishermen.

These people have agreed. Enough courses have been paid for the number of Aboriginals in each band that are interested in taking them. At this time, we are talking about the three basic courses: security at sea, FUM and survival. Afterwards, if these people continue to be interested in fishing, we will continue to give them courses given to each fisherman and assistant in Quebec until they obtain their captain's licence, class 4, at a minimum, so that we can transfer to them the boat that they own. Only then will we be sure that these people have the necessary training and required diplomas to operate the ships themselves. Obviously, I hope that this will be the case.

[English]

The Chair: That will end the discussion, I guess, Mr. Ouellette. Thank you very much for your presentation. I will certainly mention the point on the situation with the Restigouche Band to the minister. Thank you once again for your presentation.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Ouellette: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, honorable members.

[English]

The Chair: To the committee members—those who are left—I know we had a gourmet lunch here today, but this is a special occasion for one of our members. I see he's brought his spouse with him. This is the Berniers' 20th anniversary, so we'll toast them with water. Here's to them. May they have many more.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chair: Congratulations and best wishes.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.