- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- South Shore—St. Margarets
- Nova Scotia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,927.65
- Government Page
- Dec/8/23 8:52:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, lobster fishermen in my riding are asking to axe the tax, and as a result, they want a recorded division.
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- Jun/5/23 11:55:13 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue's community and that of the member for Manicouagan are going through right now is very similar to mine.
One of the experiences I had, and it was not a good time but a very difficult time in the community of Shelburne, was that, when the lobster season was ending, I asked the government if it would extend the lobster season to get the traps out of the waters because the lobster fishermen were most of the volunteer firefighters, and they were also evacuated from their homes, so they could not get to their boats and could not get on the water. The government accommodated that and continues to accommodate that.
I was behind the lines with the volunteer firefighters. Most of our firefighters in rural Canada are volunteers. They are putting in 18-hour days around the clock to try to deal with this, and for the rest of the day, they are sleeping at the fire station where they are.
I am wondering if the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue could share with us any of what he is hearing about the role of the volunteer firefighters in his community and that of Manicouagan and other communities in Quebec.
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- Nov/28/22 2:05:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from Halifax, down the south and western shores of Nova Scotia, is Canada's most lucrative fishing region, where the lobster season will open this week. It is dangerous work fishing in the North Atlantic in the winter. This year, fishermen are facing more challenges. If the howling winds, frigid temperatures and unpredictable waves were not bad enough, the Liberal government's taxes are making it more difficult for fishermen to fuel their boats and make a living.
The government's unscientific closures for the bait fishery have made it tougher and more expensive for fishermen to set their traps. The men and women who make a living on the sea feed Canadians and, in southern Nova Scotia, the lobster industry is the main economic driver. Families depend on a thriving lobster season to pay the bills and put food on the table. I hope everyone in the House will join me in wishing all the fishermen in lobster fishing areas 33 and 34 a safe, successful and prosperous lobster season.
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- Sep/27/22 2:36:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since the hurricane, I have been speaking every day with fishermen and fishing organizations about the damage caused by the hurricane and the needs of the industry to recover. As I said, it is clear that we need some new programs to deal with this.
It has been four days since the hurricane, and the minister has yet to call a single fishing organization in Atlantic Canada. How do I know this? It is because I talk to them to every day and she does not.
How will the minister design new programs that respond quickly if she does not talk to the fishing organizations and the people most impacted?
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- Sep/26/22 2:46:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, good wishes are not enough. If this happened on the Trans-Canada Highway, reconstruction would be happening now. There are only a few weeks left until winter sets in. We cannot wait weeks for assessments, months for design and permitting, months for tendering and months for construction. DFO needs to use its enormous power now to begin rebuilding now.
When will DFO do its job, support commercial fishermen and get to work?
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- May/30/22 8:11:59 p.m.
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Madam Chair, in January, the minister said at the FFAW that she would leave as many fish in the ocean as possible, that was her goal, and to grow as many plants as possible, and that fishermen could find another job.
Could the minister please inform this House what job she was speaking of?
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- 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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- Apr/25/22 3:08:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what is lost in time is any answer from the government.
Recent decisions by the government, which take away fishery licence holders' quotas on the east and west coasts without compensation, are counter to the long-standing policy of “willing buyer, willing seller”. DFO sources tell me the minister was about to expropriate 15% of lobster traps from licence holders, without compensation, to give to first nations. This would be devastating for these fishermen.
Will the minister state in the House, categorically, that the government will not expropriate from lobster fishermen?
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- Mar/31/22 2:50:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Unifor issued a news release on its meeting with the Minister of Fisheries that stated that the minister said her goal was to leave as many fish in the water as possible and that fishermen would need to sacrifice their jobs for climate change. In a statement responding to the release, the minister did not deny this.
Is the minister's actual goal to shut down the fishing industry?
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- Mar/25/22 11:59:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, last year, a week into the Atlantic mackerel season, a confused DFO closed it. A few days later, it opened it and fishermen landed their quota within about two days in locations where mackerel are not traditionally found. DFO has not assessed the stock off the Scotian shelf in more than a decade, yet it continues to cut the quota. The NDP-Liberal government just closed the healthy Pacific herring stocks against the science. Holy mackerel.
Will the current government start listening to fishermen, or is it “just incompetent”?
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- Mar/23/22 2:36:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the last two weeks, B.C. crab fishermen off Tofino had 50% of their quota expropriated and given to others without compensation. Maritime elver fishermen had their quota expropriated and given away without compensation last week. The NDP-Liberal marriage ceremony is over and the Tofino honeymoon is on, but it is the fishermen who are being hurt by the consummation of this marriage.
Will the Liberals listen to the NDP-government member for Courtenay—Alberni, who called on his government to fairly compensate fishermen for this expropriation?
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- Feb/15/22 3:06:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today more fishermen have been lost at sea, and our hearts go out to them.
Captains know the risk of sinking while fishing. What Adam Newell was not counting on was losing his vessel while tied up at the DFO wharf. Adam saw his vessel smash into the rocks tied to that wharf. DFO wharfs are falling into the ocean. Adam would not have lost his vessel if the government had not ignored four fishery committee reports to this House.
When will the government act so more vessels are not lost tied up at the wharf? Without wharves, we cannot fish.
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