Canada's Fisheries Act
February 9th, 2007
To; Dr. James D. Lunney
Nanaimo--Alberni, Conservative MP
Dear Dr. Lunney,
I am confident that you are aware of the proposed Bill C-45 to drastically change the Fisheries Act. This letter is to urgently request your position on the Federal Fisheries standing committee to not support Bill C-45 to proceed as is, without further and transparent consultation with the citizens of Canada, particularily your constituents on Vancouver Island's west coast. This process has in fact not been a consultative process in any way with Canadian citizens, and will affect the rights of all non-aboriginal Canadians to their proven constitutional right to fish.
In Minister Hearn's recent rebuttal to NDP Fisheries Critic Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore), Mr. Hearn claims support from The PEI Fishermen's Association, the Food, Fish and Allied Workers (FFAW) union in NL, and the First Nations represented by the Atlantic Policy Congress. He did not include or claim support of any group or association from Western Canada, namely those affected in your current riding.
Admittedly, the current 138-year-old Fisheries Act may not best serve all the interests of Canadian citizens, but the process to rewrite the Act has to be transparent and consultative with those affected. It is our strong view that this process has indeed not taken place, and the proposed Bill C-45 has not been developed and approved through a democratic process in the best interests of Canadian citizens.
As written by Otto Langer, past Federal Fisheries Biologist, the following questions to Minister Hearn are quite pertinent to the issue before us.
Jay Mohl
Chairman Tofino - Ucluelet Sport Fish Advisory Committee
Director Sportfishing Institute of B.C.
Chairman Tofino Harbor Authority
1. How is vague and off the topic consultations of 2005 and 1999 relevant to public input into the new Fisheries Act considering that the public did not know they were to be commenting on upcoming legislation. This is not a democratic process.
2. How can you as Minister stand behind totally unacceptable excuse of consultation especially when it took place under the previous government? Also Bill C-45 was developed under the previous government. You did not respect the previous governments work on climate change so why would you accept their work on a ‘new’ Fisheries Act? Why does your government not take a new and open approach to an effective Fisheries Act that will serve Canadians and fish and fish habitat challenges over the next few decades?
3. The government schedule on pushing through a new Fisheries Act must be delayed to allow proper and full national public input before it is rushed into second reading. If you chose not to do that, allow the Standing Committee adequate time to hold those national discussions and allow much needed input and upgrading of Bill C-45.
4. Above all, why is so out of touch of what meaningful public consultation is all about and what are you as Minister going to do to upgrade their skills and will power to consult with the public in a true and transparent manner?
In that this issue is moving forward without proper public you are respectfully asked to respond to this matter before all options for consultation are well passed. Over the past several years the fishery resources of Canada and the natural ecosystems related to those fish have suffered by weak fishery leadership in Ottawa. Is that the legacy you want to leave for our fisheries resources, your government and Canadians in this time of a green awakening in your government?
Rona Ambrose, the past Environment Minister, acted ‘too brown’ in a country that awoke to the environmental challenges facing all Canadians? For your government to be a bit greener, this awakening has to extend well beyond climate change. If you, as Minister of DFO show no greater leadership on this file you will also be seen and recorded in history as the ‘Rona Ambrose of Fisheries and Oceans’.
Otto E. Langer MSc R.P Bio.
Aquatic Ecologist and Fisheries Biologist
Canada fisheries act Bill C-45
March 4th, 2007
The following is an outline of what is happening within our federal fisheries process, as written by Ralph Surette, a veteran freelance journalist living in Yarmouth County. We sure look forward to again focusing on providing updated fishing reports for the Tofino and Ucluelet B.C. area, and less focus on the complexities of fish politics.
"IF FISHERIES were taken seriously in Ottawa, here's something that would be on top of the TV news right now: an uprising against a proposed new Fisheries Act (Bill C-45) that would, by all appearances, give the minister of fisheries and his bureaucrats arbitrary powers over fishing; subvert national standards for fish habitat protection; and undercut the security of fishermen's licences and fish allocations - that could be farmed out to friends of government, big corporations, or anyone the minister chooses.
Privatization, politicization and concentration of power at the centre - the increasingly clear trademarks of the Harper government - are being introduced to fisheries. Protests have been pouring in from most significant fisheries, sports fishing, and environmental organizations across the country.
The three opposition parties are opposed and, interestingly, the Conservatives are feeling heat from within. B.C. Tory John Cummins, a former fisherman, was kicked off the Commons fisheries committee by Prime Minister Stephen Harper for opposing the new law. And even in the Tories' Alberta heartland, there's pressure on MPs from those worried about preserving waterways in the face of the oil boom.
The objections centre on a number of points, but primarily these.
C-45 gives the Department of Fisheries and Oceans the power to enter into fishery management agreements (MFAs) with provinces or "other organizations" of the minister's choosing. In particular, habitat protection can be downloaded to provinces, thus destroying national standards for habitat protection, and weakening that protection at the same time since most provinces can be counted upon to favour development over environment. There are also what critics see as loopholes to allow mining and other interests to befoul waterways.
MFAs also allow DFO to hand out quotas to favoured groups - even those without licences. Even to the local Tory association, as the wags are saying. Since these MFAs can be pretty well secret - something else left to "ministerial discretion" - a fisherman could be arrested for fishing illegally while not even knowing that his quota had been given to someone else. DFO also gives itself the right to force fishermen, as a condition of the licence, to fund research projects or anything else ministerial discretion deems useful. The law also makes licences non-transferable.
There are deeper issues. The law implicitly ends the fishery as a "common property resource" - a legal principle going back to Magna Carta. However, and contradictorally, it also prohibits licences from becoming "property" with certain rights attached. Bureaucratic - and perhaps political - considerations, rather than legal principle, will be the foundation of this new order, with all the potential for abuse therein.
There may also be Charter of Rights problems - in that bureaucrats, in secret and without oversight, may make or change regulations that could send fishermen to jail. The Constitution gives that right only to cabinet.
Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn protests mightily that C-45 is based on broad, even unprecedented, consultations - yet hardly anyone who is anyone in fishing or the environment can remember being consulted. And he insists that the objections to C-45 are nonsensical - regulations will be introduced to cover all the perceived shortfalls.
What he's saying is "trust me." And the answer is: no, not for a minute. This bill is too consistent with the manipulations of the Harper government generally. Even to the point that what looks like good ideas at first glance in the bill are soiled by the political context.
One of these is the measure to create fisheries tribunals. Prosecuting poaching and other minor fishery infractions is slow and awkward in the courts. Expediting these cases through administrative procedures - with the accused having the right to appeal to the courts - seemed like a good idea. However, with the Harper Tories packing the regular courts with their soul-mates, would these tribunals be the same - with secret hearings letting friends of government off the hook?
Furthermore, there's been the problematic refusal to join in on the trawler ban in international waters, the appointment of one of Hearn's Newfoundland political friends as "fishery ambassador" - whatever that is - and projected budget cuts for science, conservation and protection in DFO over the next three years.
With all opposition parties opposed, C-45 looks like it's going nowhere. But with this kind of work afoot, it's another reason for sober pause as the Harper government rises in the polls and seems within striking distance of majority government."
Ralph Surette is a veteran freelance journalist living in Yarmouth County.
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