Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to share my time with the member for Newton—North Delta.
I first would like to focus on the environmental aspects of the issues. Our fish and salmon stocks are a major part of our environment, and environmental issues go right to the heart of economy, the well-being and the vision of our country.
When it comes our environmental position in the world today, we can look at some of the reports see what the rest of the world is saying about us. The OECD rated 24 countries and rated us last. We could look at the Fraser Institute and the environmental issues that it has raised. The Conference Board of Canada rates us in the bottom quarter. The Environmental Commissioner has found many flaws in our environmental policy. She basically says that we are great talkers, but we do not do very much. This example today is the perfect one. Canadians have been totally misled Canadians about our great environmental conscience. We have failed in preserving another fish stock, for which should take responsibility.
On the ground, we have brownfields or contaminated sites in most all of our areas. Three cities are dumping raw sewage into the ocean. We have boil water warnings in over 300 of our locations in Canada. We have smog days in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver. We have leaky landfills. In Ottawa we have a $45 million lawsuit for a leaking landfill into adjacent property. That is starting to happen right across the country.
We are not the pristine wonderful environmental place that we like to think we are. We like to hide behind international agreements and say how wonderful that we signed them. Yet we have done nothing to live up to those kind of commitments.
Now we have DFO. The Department of Fisheries in my area and in parts of Alberta have a rather different connotation than they do in Atlantic or in B.C. To us, DFO represents a group of people who come out in flak jackets and guns on their hips. They say that because there are minnows in little ditch, we had better spend $200,000 or $400,000 to ensure they are protected. Lord knows, they might be part of our fisheries in the future.
In my constituency a bridge could not be used because it put shadows on the river and the fish might not swim through the shadow, even though it did not touch the bank.
DFO people burst into a provincial government office, guns in hand and flak jackets on, because they were collecting information. DFO does not have a very good reputation in many parts of the prairies, and now in British Columbia. What is it doing with a very important resource, the salmon fish stocks in British Columbia? I am afraid it is not a lot different. While the flak jackets and guns may not work in B.C., the mismanagement of the fish, particularly of salmon, certainly fits.
I have to go on the reports of the Environment Commissioner. In 1997 she identified the very fact that the salmon stocks were in crisis. She said that the science had to be put in place and that action needed to be taken immediately. That would be the only thing that would save these fish stocks. She again identified that same problem in 1999 and again in 2000. Again she said that action had to be taken and that the science was needed. The situation needed to be studied to determine what was happening. We needed to have our ducks in a row, if we wanted to save the fish stocks.
Lo and behold, a wild salmon policy was put in place in 2000, but never implemented. That is again a lot of talk, a lot of posturing and a lot of “we care about the environment”, but no action.
Will we have to wait until there are no more salmon and then look back in a historical sense and say that if we would have had the science, if we would have done the studies, if we would have listened to the public, we could have saved the fish stock. That is not a very good record or process in terms of saving eco-systems.
I have to look again on page 4, in chapter 5. I have a lot respect for our Environment Commissioner. She is dedicated to the Canadian environment and what we should do for it. She said that in the past seven years her office conducted three audits on the management of Pacific salmon. In 1997 she reported that Pacific salmon stocks and habitat were under stress. Canada's ability to sustain Pacific salmon at the existing level and diversity was questionable, given the various factors influencing salmon survival, many of which were beyond its control, while Fisheries and Oceans Canada helped build up major salmon stocks, other stocks were declining. She said that habitat loss may have contributed and she went on to explain that.
In 1999 she reported that the Pacific salmon fishery was in serious trouble. Long term sustainability due to overfishing, habitat loss and many other factors were the reasons why this is not a sustainable fishery.
Then in 2000 she reported again that nothing had changed, that the Department of Fisheries had not reacted to these reports or to what the people were telling them on the ground, which implies that there is an awful lot of incompetence, unwillingness, laziness and sheer stupidity in terms of how the fish stock is being handled. When people care about the environment, when they have been involved in environmental movements for the last 30 some years, they get pretty upset when they read those kinds of damning statements by a government official.
She concludes that DFO has failed miserably in its actions in this whole area. I am sure if I knew more about the cod industry and Atlantic Canadian fish stocks, we might say the same. Maybe that is why we do not have a cod industry. I am sure there were local people crying out back then saying that the stock and habitat were in trouble. There are all kinds of reasons why and the government needs to manage it. Obviously, that is what we are pleading for today. We are asking that the government take notice of these reports and the situation and immediately do something about it.
Above all, the fisheries critic, the natural resources critic and certainly myself as environment critic want to emphasize that need to get the science in place. We need to understand the science of these fish stocks. I do not believe this is a massive study. I believe a lot of work has been done, but somebody needs to take notice of that science, put it together and look at such things as climate change and all the other things that have an impact. Then we need to have a management strategy. We need to be sure that it is managed efficiently, effectively and equally so everyone is treated equally in the fishery.
Above all, what I have learned in the entire environmental area, is that consultation is probably the number one heart of this. The former environment minister, for instance, would think of public consultation as having a select list of usually Liberals who live in a certain area come and consult with the public. It is not about that. It is about talking to the stakeholders, the environmental groups, the professors, the fishermen and the people who work on the ground. Those are the people who need to be consulted. When they are, we will get the answers as to what is wrong and what should be done immediately.
We ask for a full investigation. That is the least the government can do in an make an attempt at this eleventh hour to try to save this fish stock.