FOPO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

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1115

The Chair (Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.))

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.)

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Bob Wood

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia—Matane, BQ)

The Chair

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1120

Mr. John Cummins

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

The Clerk of the Committee

The Chair

The Clerk

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

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1125

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC)

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

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1130

The Clerk

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

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1135

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

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NUMBER 043

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1115)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.)): Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4) and the order of reference from the House of Commons dated Wednesday, February 26, 2003, we are considering votes 1, 5, and 10 under Fisheries and Oceans in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2004.

    We have a couple of business items to discuss, which we can deal with after the estimates. Then we're going to go in camera to continue consideration of our draft report on salmon fisheries on the Fraser River.

    Before we start, Mr. Stoffer, I understand you wanted to make an introduction.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Yes, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much for the opportunity.

    Committee, I'd like to introduce you to two interns. We have Brittany Bryan from Tennessee. She's up here until the middle of June on an internship. And there's also Yuryi--I can never get his last name--from the Ukraine. He's here on an internship as well, and they're just sort of shadowing me today. I need all the help I can get, as you know, and they're here to follow me.

    The Chair: I don't know Ukrainian, but I can say, in Russian, [Chair speaks in Russian] and I can say welcome, y'all.

    Bob, did you want to introduce your friend?

    Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.): This is Tim Salinas, who is a professional photographer from North Bay, and he thought it would be nice to follow me around while I'm doing my thing today.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: You need your good side, right?

    Mr. Bob Wood: That's right.

    The Chair: Welcome to everybody.

    The reason the estimates are on the agenda is that they have to be reported by the committees, if the committees are going to report them, by the end of this week, and we wanted to have enough time. You remember that we had two sessions, we had the minister's officials and the minister on the estimates. We can do one of two things. We can go through this pro forma and approve the votes, or if there is some member who wishes to make a motion with respect to the estimates, we can do that. I think we had plenty of opportunity to ask whatever questions we wanted to ask. There are certain standard motions I can put to the committee. If we do nothing, the estimates are deemed to have been accepted.

    Mr. Cummins.

    Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Canadian Alliance): Before we jump to acceptance, I think it's in all our interests that we comment on the form the estimates were received in. You will recall that I mentioned, when we began discussion of the estimates, that the matter was raised by the former chairman, Mr. Easter, who said it's impossible, the way government is handling these estimates, for us to track expenditures and make much sense of them. Whether you want to accept them or not, I'm not going to vote for them, because I've been totally upset and disturbed by the form. Regardless of what it does as far as acceptance of the report goes, I think it is incumbent on the committee to comment to the government that the form the committee is receiving the estimates in is unsatisfactory.

    The Chair: I think we can all agree with that comment, and I think the reason they're unsatisfactory is that they're basically unreadable. It's very difficult to find the information. But what I want to do as long as I'm chair, Mr. Cummins, is assure you that we're not going to just deal with an issue, get on to the next issue, and forget about what happened in the previous issues. What I'd like to do over the course of the summer is have our researchers review the transcripts of our questioning of the estimates. I'd like to send a letter to the minister, with your permission, which we'll deal with in the fall, making certain recommendations on how we think the estimates could be written in a more comprehensible manner, so that we can actually provide some guidance to the minister and to the minister's department.

    I think that's a fair comment. Certainly, it's not a comment that's unique to the fisheries committee. All committees find the estimates difficult to read, and I guess it's because we're dealing with them once a year, whereas these people are dealing with them all the time. But for us to play a meaningful role as parliamentarians, we have to be able to understand what we're reading and to ask intelligent questions. I think your comment is correct, it's duly noted on the record, and I intend to follow through on it myself. Hopefully, we'll have some positive recommendations to the minister. All right?

    Mr. John Cummins: On that same line, it would be helpful, chair, if you had some consultations, perhaps with Mr. Williams and others who may be more expert in those sorts of things than we who spend time concerned with fish.

    The Chair: Sure. I'm happy to consult with whoever I can consult with, and I would not do so in a vacuum, I would report to the committee etc.

    Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia—Matane, BQ): Just to add to what Mr. Cummins was saying, I think he's entirely correct. I would also say that no answers were provided to many of the questions raised. Indeed, some of the witnesses weren't able to answer the questions, or deferred their responses. Therefore, in addition to the fact that the budget proposals were poorly presented, most of our questions went unanswered. Consequently, you can be certain that I will not support any of the motions.

[English]

    The Chair: Are there any other comments?

    The procedure is that we put the questions. These motions are debatable and amendable. I just want to remind you that the longer we spend on these, the less time we have to spend on the other issues.

    We have three votes. Vote 1 deals with operating expenditures. The amount is $1,034,353,000 less interim supply of $258,588,250. So shall vote one carry? Carried on division?

Á  (1120)  

    Mr. John Cummins: No.

    The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: If you look, for example, at the coast guard, just recently they've announced in Nova Scotia a reduction of six more helicopters from the coastguard fleet and they tied up another vessel at the BIO. The overall budget simply does not address, in Newfoundland as well, a serious lack of funding for the coast guard, and I think it would be prudent to just vote against the whole thing, bring it back to the government, and say, you've got to increase the budget to DFO. I don't want to pick the whole thing apart, but there's the coast guard on its own, not to mention scientific elements that simply aren't there to do the research. So there's no way the NDP can support a budget that simply doesn't do the job that we expect it to do. The coast guard alone requires half a billion dollars for retrofitting, new ships, and personnel, and we simply don't have that in the budget.

    The Chair: Mr. Clerk, would you just advise us what happens if a vote is defeated in committee? What's the procedure?

    The Clerk of the Committee: The committee reports to the House that it has negatived the vote, and then it's up to the House to decide whether it wishes to reinstate that amount, usually on an motion proposed by a minister of the Crown.

    The Chair: All right. In the meantime what happens to the operation of the department?

    The Clerk: The department is operating with the amounts that were voted in interim supply, the amount that you mentioned, the $258 million. That is their operating budget until the end of the supply period in June. If the committee were to negative the vote, the department wouldn't have money for the remaining nine-twelfths of the year. The House voted interim supply for three-twelfths of the year, and what we're voting on is the remainder of the year for their budget. So unless the House reinstates it in June, the department doesn't have money for the remainder of the fiscal year. If the House does reinstate it in June, it's as if the committee hadn't voted against it at all. The House would overrule the committee.

    The Chair: Is there any other debate?

    Mr. John Cummins: I just want to make two points, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to vote against these motions, and I'm not going to go into the detail of why I've got concerns. Some are those expressed by Mr. Stoffer, and I'm sure it wouldn't take long to run up a list as long as your arm. But there are two issues I'm concerned about, the incomprehensible form in which the committee receives the estimates and the fact that there were questions asked of the minister and his officials before committee that haven't been responded to. On those two counts alone, I intend to vote against these motions.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Regretfully, I do not see quorum, so I cannot call the vote. Should we have quorum again, I'd be happy to consider it.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chair, we play this game a lot, and I don't see it very often in this committee. If the Liberals are going to do that, if they don't have the fortitude to stand up and say their piece and be here when we're told to be here, if they can't get enough guys in for the committee--now they've just asked two of them to leave, which is absolutely disgraceful in regard to the democratic process--I say shut the meeting down and reconvene. We're going to meet next Wednesday with the Taku River people. If these are the types of games they're going to play, we're all wasting our time here. So I put it to you, Mr. Chair, call the meeting to an end and shut it down. Let's go and do some other thing.

    The Chair: I hesitate to do that, because we do have other issues we need to discuss, Mr. Stoffer.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Discuss them with whom? Ourselves.

    The Chair: For example, Mr. Cummins is very concerned about the Fraser River salmon.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: So am I, Mr. Chair.

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    The Chair: We all are. I can understand that if a tactic doesn't work at any particular time politically, we get upset, but I really do think it would be irresponsible of us to shut the committee down. I think we should continue our other discussions, because there are other important matters that I have to bring to your attention. If I see quorum again, I'll call quorum and we'll put the vote, but in the meantime I cannot call the vote, so let me move on to the other issues I wish to discuss.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Put it to the floor, Mr. Chairman. Ask the other members what they think about that.

    The Chair: About what?

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: About whether we should proceed.

    The Chair: Certainly, Mr. Stoffer, I'm not going to do that without unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent to close the committee? I don't hear yes, so I have to carry on,. But your comments and concerns are duly noted on the record.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC): Can we call the vote by unanimous consent?

    The Chair: No, because we don't have quorum.

    I do want to move on to a couple of other items. I want to mention the trip. When we originally discussed this and we decided on the second two weeks in September, primarily because of Peter's intervention, I forgot that there is a very important political matter going on September 19, 20, and 21 for the Liberal Party, the voting for delegates for the leadership convention. I, in good conscience, cannot pull myself or Liberal members away from Canada during that very important meeting. Accordingly, the clerk and I have been working assiduously to find an opportunity at some other time, and in order to do that, we've checked with the schedules of the various parliaments, because we want to combine coast guard and custodial management. The clerk and I have come to the conclusion that the only real opportunity to travel in a meaningful way prior to the return of Parliament is in the first two weeks in September. If we return to Parliament, we have a number of problems. If there's an adjournment of the House, if there's a prorogation, we automatically don't travel, because the money stops. If there's a reassembling of our committee, we may lose corporate memory on the issues we want to discuss with the people we want to discuss them with, because we don't know what the make-up of the committee will be.

    So there's no way I can accommodate Peter's request. I think the only time we're going to be able to go will be the day after Labour Day, and we would return two weeks after that approximately. If it's 13 days, it's 13 days. Peter, we understand that you have important commitments, and you'll join us when you can join us. The motion would say the fisheries committee would travel on September 2, returning on September 16. Then we would have most of the houses in session. In Norway there are municipal elections taking place at that time, but the federal members would be floating around and available to meet with us.

    Mr. Hearn.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: The timing is perfect for me, but if others were inconvenienced, perhaps the first break in the new session would do, but this is probably a very indecisive area, there mightn't be a session.

    The Chair: That's exactly the point, there mightn't be a session. If it's shut down by way of prorogation, we can't travel no matter what we've done, because there's no money. I think we have to go.

    Could I just bring to your attention one thing. We sent out this spate of letters to various fisheries committee chairs around the world. We have now received one answer, from the chairman of the fisheries committee in the United Kingdom. The clerk will pass it around after it's duly translated. I view it as a very positive letter, albeit short--anything positive is better than no reaction or some negative reaction. So I think it will be worthwhile for us, and we will have paved the way for these requests for meetings, because this chair has already undertaken to pass the report around to the members of his committee. I think we're pretty well done with all of them now, Jeremy.

Á  (1130)  

    The Clerk: There are about five or six where we haven't received the translations back, in Estonian, Finnish, Korean, and two or three more I can't recall offhand. The vast majority have gone out.

    The Chair: I've signed letters in well over 10 different languages, and they've gone to the appropriate committees. Of course, the English and the French went immediately. So we're doing the paperwork on this, and we'll see what happens. So that's the issue of the trip.

    Mr. Hearn, you wanted to say something.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: I was just going to add that last week I was in England and Scotland with the modernization committee and took advantage of the time, as we met with different parliamentarians, to raise the fishing issue. They are completely vicious about what's happening to resources, which have practically disappeared. They're blaming the Europeans, as they say, particularly the Spanish. They have the same problems we have. The minister for ACOA and I are going in to make the official announcement of the benefit package for Newfoundland, so I'll have to try that out. I just ran across him and said, I think the time is right for somebody to take the leadership. There are other countries having the same concerns we have, everyone in his own little huddle, and it's about time for somebody to take the leadership.

    The Chair: I think we can do that, we can take charge.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: I should have followed up, I should have kept going.

    The Chair: I understand the Governor General is paying a state visit to Iceland shortly after we're there, so perhaps we can piggy-back on some of the interest that's going to develop.

    We can now move on to the Fraser River report. We should go in camera.

    [Proceedings continue in camera]

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    The Chair: [Public proceedings resume]

    We now have a quorum.

FISHERIES AND OCEANS

ç	Vote 1--Operating expenditures..........$1,034,353,000

    The Chair: Shall vote 1, less the amount of $258,588,250 granted in interim supply, carry?

    Mr. Hearn.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: I wonder how people vote on something when they have absolutely no idea what they're voting about.

    The Chair: That's out of order. Of course, all our members have already been briefed on all the estimates.

    (Vote 1 agreed to)

    The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, could we have discussion before we vote?

    The Chair: We've already voted.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: I would have asked for a recorded vote.

    The Chair: You can ask for a recorded vote on the next one if you're here.

ç	Vote 5--Capital expenditures..........$154,018,000

    The Chair: Shall vote 5, less the amount of $38,504,500 granted in interim supply, carry?

    (Vote 5 agreed to)

ç	Vote 10--Grants and contributions..........$170,094,000

    The Chair: Shall vote 10, less the amount of $56,698,000 granted in interim supply, carry?

    (Vote 10 agreed to)

    The Chair: Shall I report the estimates to the House?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    The Chair: That's it, we're all done.

    [Proceedings continue in camera]