Karen Kraft Sloan

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 29th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, on the main motion for Bill C-4 where it is being recorded as being sent to committee after second reading, I would like to vote against that.

[Kyoto Protocol, October 29th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, contrary to what the Kyoto naysayers may think, it is Mother Nature who will have the final say on Kyoto. Alberta Environment Minister Taylor and Premier Klein may come to understand this obvious point if they consulted their own experts.

On October 24 Premier Klein received a letter from Professor David Schindler, Canada's most eminent water ecologist, and 56 other Albertan scientists inviting the premier to attend a Kyoto 101 briefing. The roaring silence that has ensued suggests that the province prefers its policy of not consulting its own experts or its own citizens, preferring instead to spend money, public money, attacking the protocol.

This do-nothing strategy will ensure that the impacts of climate change costs to Alberta will be massive. The costs of climate change are not simply regional in scope, they are pan-Canadian and they are global.

Action must be taken now. A lesson from Premier Klein's most qualified experts would teach him this.

[Species At Risk Act, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my riding of York North is a microcosm of Canada. There is a very strong urban component, but there is also a very strong and vital rural component, so I understand the concerns of landowners.

I would also suggest that we have to look at what is in the legislation. We have to look at what lands will be affected. We also have to look at the process that will be involved when the government undertakes the endeavour to protect endangered species.

There are many opportunities for consultation. There are many opportunities for voluntary initiatives. In fact the recent agreement that we reached around critical habitat protection allows for a variety of measures to come into play before a prohibition would actually affect a landowner. One would even have to ask how many landowners would really be affected because we are only talking about federal lands.

We have often been asked who pays the cost when we protect an endangered species. I would ask members and indeed I would ask all Canadians, who pays the cost when the species is gone forever? We are talking about species on the brink of extinction. We are talking about species that will be lost to our planet forever. What price do we put on the last eastern cougar? What price do we put on the last St. Lawrence beluga whale? These are questions we have to ask ourselves.

[Species At Risk Act, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Davenport.

Today represents the end of a very long road for many of us. I have been working with some of my colleagues on the very incarnation of this legislation since 1996. I am sure they would agree with a now defunct musical group who once sang, “What a long, strange trip it's been”. Ironically, the development of an endangered species law has almost made endangered species out of a number of us.

Until very recently I was convinced that I would have no choice but to vote against the bill. Voting against one's government is never an easy decision to make but at times it is necessary for a member to exercise this option.

The environment committee reported a much improved bill in early December 2001. On February 18, 2002, the government tabled its proposed amendments to the bill. I was heartbroken, as were many of my colleagues on the committee, to see so much of our hard and thoughtful work rejected by the government.

With the February report stage motions, Bill C-5 became, in my view, unworkable for the simple fact that it no longer made biological sense.

Afterward, certain newspaper editors took to criticizing those many of us who rose in this place to defend the committee's work and to express concerns about the proposed government amendments. The public was told that we were nitpickers. The public was told that if we really cared about preserving wildlife we would set aside our concerns. These were not just our concerns. All of us here attempt to reflect the views of Canadians.

Let me tell the House what Canadians were telling us through the tens of thousands of letters, postcards and e-mails they sent to Ottawa. Among other things, they asked that, in a bill full of discretion, cabinet control and escape hatches, the federal government at least guarantee that it will protect critical habitat protection in its own backyard. Indeed, a Pollara poll released last month indicated that 76% of Canadians believed that the law should require this. Canadians also wanted improvements made to the listing process.

To the government's credit, it listened. Individuals in the Prime Minister's Office worked hard to address some of the key concerns that Canadians and a number of Liberal caucus members had about the bill.

I would be lying if I said that the bill before us is without flaws. It is not. For example, it does not prohibit the killing of a listed species everywhere in Canada, which one would expect to be a basic tenet of an endangered species law. It backs away from the protection of migratory bird habitat. There are no timelines on the development of action plans, which concerns me a great deal. The bill is also profoundly discretionary. I have to say that this makes me very uncomfortable.

However, lest I be accused of being unreasonable or a perfectionist, and I have certainly been accused of much worse, I always felt that if the government were willing to move toward the committee language around listing and the protection of critical habitat protection in federal jurisdiction, then I would consider supporting the bill.

I am pleased to say that good changes were made in those areas in the past few weeks, and I commend the government for that. I believe that the shortcomings of the bill must be balanced with the positive changes brought about by last week's amendments and with the need to have a statute in place so that we may begin to protect species under this new framework. We are embarking on a new journey with this bill and it is time that journey begins.

I want to thank the thousands of Canadians in all walks of life who took the time to write, e-mail and fax their members of parliament and to appear at committee asking that the legislation be strengthened in key areas. For those who believe that such efforts are always futile, I point to the changes that have been made in the legislation, both at committee stage and last week, as proof that this is not always the case.

I would also like to thank my colleagues in the government caucus who saw opportunities for improving the bill and who worked together to ensure that these improvements happened.

I emphasize that members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development worked closely together on this bill through many hours of hearing witnesses and considering amendments with great camaraderie and co-operation. Good debate was had, compromises were struck and decisions were made about how to improve the bill. Our work resulted in common ground and was based on the testimony of scientists, aboriginal peoples, conservationists, academics, industry representatives and Canadians from all walks of life. As such, the results of our deliberations were sound and clearly struck a chord with the public. I thank my committee colleagues for their tireless efforts.

Government and opposition backbenchers alike often feel powerless and far removed from the true machinations of government. Our points of influence at times seem restricted to private members' business and to our work at committee. When those arenas appear fruitless, it is easy to sink into a state of despondency.

The late changes to Bill C-5 should encourage all members of the House. Reasonable informed arguments strongly supported by the public have clearly succeeded in improving the bill.

Finally, I want to talk about species at risk, not the bill, not the rhetoric, but the species themselves which sadly, were often lost in all of the debate. What we are talking about at the end of the day is life, the life of a species, a species whose very existence has come to such a perilous point that it must turn to humanity to save it. In many cases we are the very threat it faces. The irony of depending on the executioner for help is not lost on everyone I hope.

Yet we have often lost sight of species during the months of deliberation. Why? Because we allowed the voices of politics and economics to ring loudly in our heads to the point of distraction. In the clamour for money and assurances that players would not necessarily have to act, and in the posturing and the politics around jurisdictions, responsibility and flexibility, we often forgot what it is that we set out to do: to protect lives.

Perhaps this is to be expected. Parliament at times seems to bow to those who shout loudest or issue the gravest warnings. As we know, the species we are charged with protecting have no voice in this place. I have not been lobbied by a lichen, a turtle or a willow. I have received no threatening letters from a mole, a salamander or a piece of moss. No sunfish has approached me cap in hand asking for consideration of his troubles.

Tonight we will cast our final vote on Bill C-5. I remind my colleagues that it is the species that will ultimately vote for the bill. They will vote for the so-called approach of Bill C-5, its so-called philosophy, with their very lives. They will either survive or they will not. How is that for accountability? And that is what the bill is really about.

[Species At Risk Act, June 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I have ever worked with a finer blue heron in all my political career. It is important for the viewers who are watching to understand that we often do not get the opportunity to have a view of the committee work which, in many respects, is the real work that parliamentarians do, particularly backbenchers.

I had the opportunity to work in the committee with the member for Fundy--Royal, the NDP critic; the critic from the Bloc; and the critic and environmental members of the Canadian Alliance. It was a wonderful committee process. We made very good gains with very productive results.

Could the member tell us a bit more about his national action plan on stewardship? It would elucidate for members and for viewers watching the concern of the member for Fundy--Royal both on the biological needs of protecting species and on some of the economic interests of landowners, et cetera.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as I began my portion of the debate on this very important topic, I reminded members of the House and indeed Canadians who might have been watching, that the Pest Control Products Act was 30 years out of date.

The new PCPA that amends and would replace the Pest Control Products Act is a very important act and is long awaited. No doubt science has improved in the past 30 years as well as has our understanding of developing an appropriate regulatory regime. We are very pleased that the minister has brought this act forward.

I also identified a number of things in Bill C-53 that I supported. I would like to make an additional comment on this and that is there will be a mandatory special review of any pesticide that has been banned or voluntarily withdrawn by an OECD country as we recently saw in the United States. I identified a number of positive things in the act, and I want to remind members of the House and people watching that, less I be accused of being too cheery, I believe there are some shortcomings to Bill C-53; instances where the environment committee's recommendations are not reflected in the bill.

I am currently the government vice chair of the environment committee that undertook a one year study of pesticides and the regulatory regime in Canada around them. I am optimistic that the health committee can address some of these shortcomings, but I would like to focus on just a few now.

For example, the committee called for a clear and unequivocal statutory mandate to be given to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency. The PMRA, although currently not an arm's length agency, has all the attributes of one. We felt therefore, that clearly identifying the de facto decision maker would be an important step in making the regulatory process more open and transparent. This has not been done in Bill C-53. The agency is not even mentioned in the bill.

The committee also called for a clear definition and application of legislation of the so-called substitution principle as is used in Sweden's environmental code. This would require that older pesticides be replaced with newer, less toxic products and non-chemical alternatives as they became available. This has not been done.

While I am talking about principles, a popular theme these days, let me address the question of the precautionary principle. The committee recommended the precautionary principle be enshrined in the bill's preamble as it is in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or CEPA and this was not done.

The committee called for the precautionary principle to be enshrined in the bill's administrative section as it is in CEPA and this was not done. The committee also called for the precautionary principle to be enshrined in the operative sections. Under the bill, the minister may invoke the precautionary principle in the course of a re-evaluation or a special review. Unfortunately, it is not mentioned. At a minimum, and in the interests of cross-statute consistency, Bill C-53 should reflect CEPA in this matter. The result is a weak acknowledgment of the precautionary principle.

Finally, the committee recommended that the new legislation contain measures that would allow for the broadest public disclosure of information to the public similar to those requirements in sections 51 to 53 of CEPA. However sections 42 to 44 of the bill, which outline the proposed access to information, are not equivalent to the CEPA provisions. Again, for the sake of cross-statute consistency, this should be addressed.

The committee recommended that so-called confidential business information be narrowly defined in the new legislation to encompass only information that would be truly prejudicial to the financial or competitive interests of the person to whom it belongs. Unfortunately Bill C-53 uses too broad a definition. I hope this will be addressed when it moves to the health committee.

In closing, I look forward to working with my colleagues on the health committee in the weeks to come on this important legislation. During the environment committee's study of the pesticide regime I learned first-hand how passionately Canadians feel about the issue. I am optimistic that at the end of the day the minister and the government can deliver a modernized Pest Control Products Act that will protect the health of all Canadians, particularly children and other vulnerable groups.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech I want to make a comment on the issue of DDT for the member of the Canadian Alliance who asked the member from the Bloc why he mentioned the issue. I think the issue of DDT is very informative in terms of what we are looking at with regard to the Pest Control Products Act.

First, in 1951 studies indicated issues with regard to human health. If I may share a personal anecdote with the House with regard to DDT, in 1951 my mother was carrying me. I was born in 1952. All members can do the math. I am getting very old now. In 1951, a year before I was born, studies showed that DDT was affecting human health in a negative way. DDT was not banned in Canada until 1978. In January 1978 my daughter was born. Here we have a situation where two generations have been affected by a chemical when it was understood that there were human health problems associated with the use of that chemical.

How does this relate to the Pest Control Products Act, an act that is 30 years out of date? When we talk about the kinds of pesticides and chemicals being used to control pests, yes, as the speaker from the Canadian Alliance said, there has been a new generation of pesticides, but there also is a huge proliferation of pesticides of which we have no understanding and no real knowledge in regard to some of the human health and ecological problems. As well, we have information on pesticides which we are not acting on.

Therefore I am pleased to rise in the House today and speak to this long awaited Bill C-53, the new pest control products act. Indeed, it is an act that many people have been anticipating for a long time. It will amend an act that is 30 years out of date. In May 2000, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development tabled a report in the House of Commons entitled “Pesticides: Making the Right Choice for the Protection of Health and the Environment”. It was the result of a long study of the pesticide regime in Canada, during which the committee heard a great deal of disturbing testimony about life under the very outdated Pest Control Products Act.

The committee's first recommendation in the report was that the Minister of Health introduce new pesticide legislation as a matter of top priority. Despite the delay, I commend the minister for finally bringing forward Bill C-53. Canadians have been looking forward to the arrival of the bill for a long time.

More important, I congratulate the minister for what is in the bill. On a number of critical issues, the government clearly has listened to the testimony of witnesses and to the recommendations of the committee. The new PCPA strengthens our pesticide regime quite simply by bringing it up to date with modern science, with modern concerns about these products and with modern expectations of government transparency in the protection of human health and the environment.

What is to be applauded about the bill? There are a number of things. To begin, the emphasis of the standing committee's work was on vulnerable populations and, of those, especially children. As we heard over and over from witnesses, children are not little adults. They run a greater risk of exposure to pesticides because of specific characteristics of their physiology. They are developing organisms. For example, they drink more water and breathe more air per kilogram of body weight and thus can absorb larger quantities of pollutants present in the environment. Their diets are appreciably different, consisting largely of fruits, vegetables and mother's milk. They have habits like rolling about on the grass, and little kids like to eat dirt. Because of this, compared to adults, they are exposed to pesticides to a greater degree. For this reason, the committee was greatly concerned that a new pesticides bill grant legal recognition to vulnerable populations, including infants, children, aboriginal people, professional users of pesticides, people in poor health, pregnant women, seniors and others. I am pleased to note that it does.

In addition to recognizing vulnerable populations, the bill would apply margins of safety for protecting them. The U.S. food quality protection act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to use an additional safety factor of 10 when assessing the risks posed by the presence of a pesticide in the diet of children. There is no such legislative requirement in Canada under the current act. For this reason, the committee called for the use of an additional safety factor of 10 in determining the tolerance of pesticide residues in foodstuffs. This recommendation is addressed in the bill. However, I believe it requires clarity and perhaps some amendments to provide that clarity. I hope that the health committee will look at clause 11 very closely.

The bill also calls for a greater margin of safety in using pesticides around schools and homes, which is commendable. During its hearings, the environment committee heard alarming stories about the safety of workers handling pesticides. The committee agreed that such workers need the same level of protection now afforded to workers handling other hazardous substances. For this reason, it recommended that the new legislation ensure that pesticides meet the workplace hazardous materials information system requirements. Although the bill does not specifically mention WHMIS, I am pleased to note that it does include the ministerial requirement that a material safety data sheet for each product be provided to workplaces.

The committee was also greatly concerned about the state of product re-evaluation under the current act. Presently there is no timeframe for re-evaluating pesticide products. Re-evaluation ensures that product registrations are supported by up to date science. Not surprisingly, with no timelines we are far behind in reassessing them. Under Bill C-53 all pesticide products would be re-evaluated every 15 years. Unfortunately, there are no timelines associated with the completion of the process. Again, this is an area that I hope the health committee will address.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that when we continue debate on Bill C-53 I will be able to continue my presentation on these issues.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the government's Motion No. 76 guts the committee's amendments to clause 50 which pertains to action plans. It deletes timelines for their completion which is rather astounding. This is another in a long line of so-called flexible measures in the bill. With this change there is no longer an obligation to finish this crucial step in recovery planning so that getting on with protecting and recovering species can commence.

It is worth noting that the government's Motion No. 78, which unfortunately was lumped into Group No. 2, removes timelines on the actual implementation of action plans. It also refers the implementation of action plans protecting habitat on federal lands to clause 59, which in turn renders a “must” develop regulations to a “may”.

All of this is to say that under these motions, the government absolves itself of any obligation to complete an action plan in a set period of time or to ever implement it once it has been completed. This too is called flexibility. I call it an abdication of government responsibility.

What we are talking about here is losing a species forever. The committee continually asked for something very reasonable, that is, just do not kill the last ones. We cannot do this unless we protect the places they need to survive. To do that we need some assurance that action plans will be done in a timely fashion and more to the point, will be put into place and not disappear into the void.

For these reasons I call on all members of the House to defeat these motions.

I turn now to government Motions Nos. 6, 16, 17 and 20. It is with a particularly heavy heart that I address these motions. They make a number of pronounced and surprising changes to the language setting out the national aboriginal council on species at risk. I say surprising because the council language was introduced by my colleague from Churchill River with the blessing of the government.

I know that my colleague worked long and hard to secure the support of the aboriginal and first nations communities for the language that was ultimately passed by the standing committee. He must have been as surprised as I was to see these motions on the notice paper.

The government motions essentially do four things to the original language around the aboriginal council in the bill.

First, they change the concept from one of a council to one of a committee. This is not some minor semantic variation of a concept. Rather it reflects, I would argue, a downgrading of the original council's role. Why this has appeared at the 11th hour is unclear to me.

Second, the motions now make the very creation of the aboriginal committee discretionary. This is bizarre. With the government's support, the committee passed language that made the council's existence a fact. Now the government has changed its mind and is seeking instead to make the existence of the aboriginal committee a possibility, another maybe. I suppose this is another instance of flexibility. This bill is so flexible we should rename it the Gumby act.

Third, the government motions change whom the national aboriginal committee advises. Formerly it was the Canadian endangered species conservation council, which is comprised of the competent ministers and provincial and territorial ministers. Now the national aboriginal committee advises only the minister.

Finally, where the council's advice and recommendations were formerly sought and considered, the committee's role now is to simply advise.

These are profound changes to the original aboriginal council language which, I stress again, enjoyed almost unanimous support at committee. I was dumbfounded to see these motions on the notice paper.

I must emphasize at this point that the committee did its work despite the message imparted to it at the outset of its comprehensive study, mostly via the media, that the government would not entertain anything other than superficial alterations to the legislation. This is appalling. Our committee rejected that message and for that it should be applauded.

Nonetheless, it is indeed a painful process to watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of work be so flippantly rejected by the government. Many of the substantive improvements to the bill that a majority of committee members agreed to make have been torn up and thrown in our faces.

Even more bizarre is this set of four motions and what they represent. For the record, the government is gutting amendments that it supported at committee.

The government with a great deal of fanfare asked the committee to support these changes at the clause by clause phase. The committee was happy to comply as members recognized the importance of this initiative. I must add that it was one of the best days we had at committee. There was a sense in the room that for all the right reasons and in a spirit of great harmony, respect and trust, the aboriginal council initiative represented parliament and committee work at its best.

The council is crucial to the success of the bill and to the often proclaimed spirit of co-operation upon which it is built. How then can the government hold up its head and say that these four motions merely tinker with the aboriginal council? They do nothing of the sort.

These motions swing a scythe through all of the negotiations, all of the promises, all of the time and the energy that went into the development of what became section 7.1 of the committee report. Perhaps more important, the motions destroy whatever trust had been so carefully developed over the many months of consultations with the parties in question. That trust is not something to be taken lightly, yet it appears that it has been.

It is a sad day therefore when a government member who was at the centre of those consultations has to rise in the House and move to amend government motions that themselves seek to gut carefully developed government supported language.

My colleague from Churchill River deserves special commendation for his hard work, his patience and his desire to improve a badly flawed bill. My colleague's amendments seek to restore some of the language that the ship of state is trying to torpedo. I commend him for that.

I call on all members of the House to support the motions of the member for Churchill River and to defeat government Motions Nos. 6 and 16.

[Species at Risk Act, February 26th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, before I speak to the amendments in Group No. 3 I would like to dispel a couple of myths about the committee's work on the bill.

First, is the myth that the standing committee's changes would make Bill C-5 more coercive. This word is being applied to any change to the bill agreed to by the committee that is contrary to the government's position.

As I noted the last time I spoke the committee fully supported the co-operation first principle. It was foremost in virtually every discussion we had in the many months of our study. The committee sought to inject clarity and predictability into the bill. Most Canadians would believe this is a good thing but we are being told such things are coercive.

Even the committee's version of Bill C-5 is heavily laden with discretion. Every consultation mechanism and opportunity for private stewardship would remain in the bill. They were in fact strengthened by the committee and are available in black and white for anyone to read. I challenge those who claim that the reported version of the bill would be coercive to stand in the House and point to those sections of the amended bill that would support this thesis.

Second, is the myth that 80% of the committee's amendments have been accepted. I do not know what system of accounting produced this figure, but I suggest that the parties involved in this calculation have a brilliant future ahead of them with Enron. A precursory examination of the government's motions clearly indicates that little of the substantive work of the committee has been accepted, including virtually every amendment the committee made to the core issues of the bill.

Furthermore, there are numerous government motions entitled technical motions that are in fact reversing motions. In case after case they change every committee amendment to a particular clause, save for one minor syntactical change. Yet these are described as supporting the intent of the committee and called technical amendments.

As someone who sat on the committee for the duration of the study I am well placed to tell the House what its intent was. The intent of the committee was to improve the bill to reflect the input of the witnesses we heard, to reflect the diversity of views around the committee table, and to improve the biological basis of the legislation. Many of the government motions in no way support this intent.

I will speak to the motions at hand. Government Motion No. 9 and Motion No. 10 would delete the words geographically or genetically distinct from the definition of wildlife species. The committee inserted the language to make the definition consistent with COSEWIC's practice. The original version of Bill C-65, the precursor to Bill C-5, defined species to include geographically distinct populations. This was the government's language. The government changed its mind in Bill C-5. It deleted the reference to geographically distinct populations and replaced it with biologically distinct, which is self-evident, narrower and certainly far more confusing.

Dr. Geoffrey Scudder, former president of the Canadian Society of Zoologists and fellow of the royal society testified before the committee as follows:

The term “biologically distinct population” is vague. It does not make any sense at all to me as a biologist.

There are good reasons for protecting geographically distinct populations. Geographically distinct populations are typically genetically distinct as well and preserving genetic diversity is a key objective of the convention on biological diversity, a convention to which is Canada is a signatory.

On the current reassessed COSEWIC list a number of species, as we heard last night are geographically or genetically distinct populations. They are identified as such on the list. With the rollover of the list we have a contradiction between these subspecies on the COSEWIC list and what the government wants to do to the definition of species.

The government's definition is inconsistent with COSEWIC's definition and its longstanding practice which has been to list geographically distinct populations of a species, for example, the St. Lawrence beluga whale, the eastern cougar, et cetera. One might ask, is this just the committee's opinion? No. COSEWIC itself disagrees with the government on this definition and wrote in its brief to the committee:

The geographic, as well as biological, distinction of populations is a key criterion in the recognition by COSEWIC of an evolutionarily significant unit.

It is not just the standing committee and the broader scientific community the government is ignoring, but it is ignoring COSEWIC itself, as it has on numerous key issues in Bill C-5, including the listing process. This is the same COSEWIC that the government tells us it will listen to with great attention.

I turn now to government Motion No. 66. This motion guts the committee changes to clause 37 which pertains to recovery strategies. The committee agreed to insert language granting the minister discretionary authority, and I stress discretionary authority, to take interim habitat conservation measures for a species between the time it is listed and the time the decision is made whether or not to protect its habitat, a period that could last for a year or more.

The government has said that this power already exists in the bill in the form of emergency orders. Yet this is available only if there is an emergency that threatens a species' survival, a very rare situation and one requiring cabinet approval.

There will likely be many situations of threats to a species or its habitat that are serious but that do not necessarily threaten the survival or recovery of the whole species. For this reason, the government's arguments ring hollow. It clearly does not understand its own bill.

Without interim conservation authority, Bill C-5 will create a perverse incentive. If a logging company, for example, knows that a species has been listed and its habitat may, and that is only may, eventually be protected, it will have an economic motivation to accelerate logging of that habitat in order to avoid legal restrictions if the bill's habitat protection measures kick in. To avoid this, authority to create effective interim measures is required.

The committee agreed, yet the government has decided to gut this. It argues that this contradicts the bill's principles of transparency and accountability. In numerous other clauses of the bill, the government is gutting committee amendments that insert criteria, that insert public consultation, that insert reporting mechanisms. Yet in this case, it claims that the committee is blurring these lines.

Government Motion No. 120 removes permitting from the penalties section. I remind the House that there is no mandatory habitat protection of any kind in the bill, either within areas of federal jurisdiction or without. It is all discretionary. It is perfectly possible that a species could go from the beginning to the end of the process that the bill lays out and never have its habitat protected. This is a critical failure of Bill C-5 and the reason it cannot be said to have a biological foundation.

The committee agreed that the government should be required to protect habitat in federal jurisdiction. One way to do this would be via the permitting section.

In the original Bill C-5, the competent minister has the authority to enter into an agreement or issue a permit to people authorizing them to affect a listed species, its residence or its critical habitat. If the terms of such an agreement or permit are not met, or if the permit or agreement is never obtained, what are the repercussions under the original Bill C-5 vis-à-vis habitat protection? There is little or none.

The committee agreed that this should not be the case. In the context of changes to clause 74, which will be debated in Group No. 5, the committee agreed that there should be repercussions. For this reason it amended the list of penalties in clause 97 to include the failure to obtain or comply with an agreement or permit under amended clause 74(1). Government Motion No. 120 eliminates this as a penalty.

It disproves the suggestion that Bill C-5 is heavy on volunteer initiatives at the front end backed up with solid legal protection in the event that those initiatives fail. There is nothing solid about this motion and its intent. There is no penalty if a person does not get a permit and if a person does get a permit, there is no penalty if it is not complied with.

I call on all members of the House to defeat these motions.

[2002 Winter Olympics, February 21st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it gives me pleasure to stand today to acknowledge the accomplishments of two of our Canadian athletes who earned medals at the Salt Lake City Olympics.

I congratulate Veronica Brenner of Sharon, Ontario from my riding of York North who placed second and won the silver medal in the aerials event, just ahead of her teammate Deidra Dionne. A three time Canadian champion, Veronica Brenner has been one of Canada's most successful women's aerialists and is considered a veteran of the sport of freestyle skiing. Veronica has made an astonishing comeback this season after a serious injury she sustained in the fall of 2000.

Deidra Dionne won the Olympic bronze medal in the aerials event on the strength of a tremendous second jump. This talented young athlete promises a golden future for Canadian freestyle skiing.

I am sure hon. members will join me in congratulating these fine young athletes for their great victories.