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Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)

May/3/22 10:05:34 a.m.
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, presented on Monday, February 28, 2022, be concurred in. He said: Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the hard-working people of South Shore—St. Margarets, including over 7,000 fishermen. I rise to speak in response to the concurrence motion before us in consideration of the third report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. This report, when originally tabled in Parliament in the first session of the 42nd Parliament in June 2019, was entitled “Aquatic Invasive Species: A National Priority”. It is very good reading if members have not had a chance to read it. I hope all members have. This excellent unanimous report has been ignored by the government and that is why we are debating it today. Like all of its other virtue-signalling initiatives, the government claims that it is protecting the biodiversity and health of our oceans and freshwater resources. The Liberals talk the talk, but they do not seem to ever deliver. The government has not developed a single response to this study, so let us take a look at the report and the government's record on these issues. Aquatic invasive species, for those who do not know, are invertebrates or plant species that have been introduced into an aquatic environment outside their natural range. In other words, they have come here to Canada from some other part of the world and are not natural to our oceans or fresh waters. Once introduced, aquatic invasive species populations can grow, and can grow quite quickly, because they do not have any natural environmental predators or things that would prevent them from multiplying. As a result, they can out-compete our native plant species and our native freshwater species, consuming resources and taking over the biodiversity of waterways. They can even alter habitats and make them inhospitable for our native species. That is particularly concerning when we have a number of species at risk in both freshwater and saltwater bodies. They are put in further jeopardy by the introduction of aquatic invasive species, plants and invertebrates. The Minister of Fisheries has the responsibility under the Fisheries Act to protect fish and fish habitats. Canada has also signed international agreements on aquatic invasive species, including the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, signed by the Brian Mulroney government in 1992, when I was a senior adviser to the then foreign minister, the hon. Barbara McDougall, who was the member of Parliament for St. Paul's. It was also signed by the then environment minister, the hon. Jean Charest. John Crosbie was Canada's fisheries minister at the time, so there was a very powerful trio of senior ministers committed to this international convention. In 2019, though, Canada's commissioner of the environment and sustainable development published an audit on the government's performance of the aquatic invasive species area. The audit concluded that DFO “did not determine which aquatic invasive species and pathways posed the greatest risks to Canada” in our system, and “did not systematically collect or maintain information to track [them].” What has happened since then? The former minister of fisheries was defeated in South Shore—St. Margarets in 2021, and the current suburban Vancouver Minister of Fisheries, with no commercial fisheries in her riding, has done absolutely nothing to respond to the recommendations of the commissioner of the environment and those of the standing committee. As for the government's claims, we are finding at the fisheries committee somewhat fake claims of listening to the science and DFO. The commissioner of the environment stated that when DFO “developed the 2015 Aquatic Invasive Species Regulations, it did not always use science-based information”. I know that would probably be a shock to many members, but those who have studied the area know that DFO was using science less and less in its decision-making. Why would we expect the government to actually live up to its promises when it never has in the past? Another example is the legal partnership with the United States to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species in the Great Lakes, among other important priorities. Through the bilateral treaty with the United States, both countries are financially obligated to support the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Canada provides 31% of the funds for the commission, primarily aimed at dealing with sea lampreys and zebra mussels, and the United States provides 69%. Sea lampreys, in case members do not know, are an invasive species in the Great Lakes. They are essentially little eel-like vampires that latch onto a fish and drain the blood out of the fish and kill it. The Liberal government budget in 2017, four years ago, allocated $43.8 million over five years, supposedly of new money, to support the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in the fight against sea lampreys. While DFO may have received the money, DFO must have diverted it to something else. I am sure when finance puts it in the budget, the money goes to DFO, but DFO ended up paying only half the annual cost for invasive species in the Great Lakes. The U.S. has had to pick up the tab for the remainder. However, the U.S. is fed up with being DFO's patsy, and the deadbeat government is not paying its international bills for the program. It got so bad that the U.S. Congress this year threatened to not only withhold payment of this year's allocation, but also not pay the Canadian side's bills. This means sea-lamprey prevention would disappear this year and the sea lampreys would become a greater threat to our fisheries in the Great Lakes. I raised this two months with Minister of Fisheries in committee to try to get her to commit to paying the bills. When I told the minister the best way to deal with sea lampreys was to pay our bills, she sort of mumbled “yes”. Now in 2022 we hear, “It's déjà vu all over again”, to quote Yogi Berra. The government, under pressure from the official opposition, has now committed $48 million over the next five years to support the sea lamprey program and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. However, what we know from the past is that—

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Rick Perkins

May/3/22 10:13:04 a.m.
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I appreciate that, Madam Speaker. We are splitting the time. An hon. member: With whom?

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Rick Perkins

May/3/22 10:14:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal deputy House leader from the NDP should know that we do not have to name the other individual when we are splitting our time; he should read the rules. The lack of commitment by both the NDP and the Liberal government is seen again in Miramichi, where the government does not put its money where its mouth is. The rapid population increase of striped bass has raised concerns over the ecosystem and balances, further straining the wild Atlantic salmon. The fisheries committee issued a report on this destructive situation in May 2019, and the government has yet to implement any of that either. If that is not enough on the Atlantic salmon, there is pressure in the headwaters of Miramichi Lake, where DFO actually approved a smallmouth bass invasive species program, but last year stood by and did not enforce its own permits when a few protesters went out on the water, so the commitment of the government is pretty slim when it comes to actually backing up its words with action on invasive species. If the government does not deal with the smallmouth bass problem in the head of the Miramichi, we will end up having even more pressure on the diminishing wild Atlantic salmon. The permits have been issued this summer for that same project in Miramichi Lake on smallmouth bass, and I am hoping the minister will actually do her job this year and ensure that conservation and protection officers of DFO actually enforce the permits and allow this invasive species to be managed in Miramichi Lake. My hope springs eternal, but the record shows that the government will likely do otherwise. I would urge all members to take a look at the report and read it if they have not. They will understand that across Atlantic Canada, through Ontario, through the Great Lakes, in the Prairies with the zebra mussels, and in British Columbia we have a massive issue of invasive species, and the Liberal government of today is not doing anything to implement the recommendations of either the standing committee reports or the environment commissioner.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Rick Perkins

May/3/22 10:17:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know the member for Winnipeg North cares about the invasive species in Manitoba; anyone who is a responsible member of Parliament will care about the destruction of our natural biodiversity. Obviously, even though I am seasoned, I was not actually here during those days. I can only look at the record of the current government for the last seven years of promising to bring in money to implement invasive species programs, actually allocating it in the budgets, as it did in 2017, giving it to DFO, and then DFO using only half of it for invasive species and mysteriously putting the rest off somewhere else. After we pressured the government to actually pay the bills and not be a deadbeat, it finally put it, again, in this year's budget. It is almost the same amount of money: Last time it was $43.8 million, and this time it is $48 million. It is almost the same wording, saying it is going to invasive species, but again, as I said in my speech, I doubt the government will live up to that. DFO will find some other purpose for it. Perhaps it will go to the 178% in senior executive growth in six years in DFO rather than invasive species.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Rick Perkins

May/3/22 10:19:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from the deputy House leader for the Liberal-NDP government. The answer to that question is this: What is obstructionist is Motion No. 11, which takes away democracy in the House, threatens prorogation at any time, and removes quorum from the standard, 400 years since Magna Carta, of parliamentary democracy. Those are the things that are undemocratic. It is quite shocking, actually, that the party of Tommy Douglas, of Ed Broadbent and of Jack Layton has sidled up to the government to reduce democracy in this country in a coalition government, ignoring the will of the Canadian public, who only voted for a minority government and who did not vote for the socialist agenda to be implemented by the Liberal government.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Rick Perkins

May/3/22 10:21:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, absolutely, the fiduciary responsibility for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission should go, like all other fiduciary responsibility in international agreements, back to Foreign Affairs and allow DFO to manage the policy element of it. Of course, during all the years when the Harper government was in DFO, we actually paid all our bills for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, unlike the NDP-Liberal coalition, which believes that we should take the bill that we get from our neighbours in a treaty, throw it in the garbage and let them carry the weight.

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