Jean-Yves Roy

[Women Farmers of the Lower St. Lawrence, April 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the women farmers of the Lower St. Lawrence make a remarkable contribution to their region's development, particularly as shareholders in family farms.

Some 36% of women farmers own shares in family farms of the Lower St. Lawrence, compared to 19% across Quebec, almost double the Quebec average.

These women do not limit their participation to accounting or management, but work where they want in the various activities and related organizations.

This is based on the information provided by the Conseil du statut de la femme du Québec in a statement of opinion on the living conditions of women and regional and local development in the Lower St. Lawrence region.

It should come as no surprise then that Ms. Sophie Gendron of Kamouraska was chosen as Quebec's woman farmer of the year.

Thanks to all these women who work toward the development of their region.

[Fisheries and Oceans, April 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we know that there is pressure from certain groups to lower the seal quota. Experts, however, maintain that it should be increased, and soon, in order to protect the resources.

Will the minister tell us whether he intends to follow the advice of the experts and raise the seal quota immediately?

[Fisheries and Oceans, April 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the harp seal consumes almost 40,000 tonnes of cod annually off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The same department says that up to 500,000 seals a year could be hunted. But the limit in the seal management plan for 2002 is 275,000.

In light of this, will the minister agree to an increase in the seal quota for the next five years?

[Regional Development, April 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, during the last federal election campaign, Liberal candidates made promise after promise to assist development in the region of the Gaspé Peninsula and the Magdalen Islands.

A year and half later, people in the region are still waiting. The Liberal member from Bonaventure--Gaspé--Îles-de-la-Madeleine--Pabok has a bad record and, like his government's record, it borders on the ridiculous.

The socioeconomic situation in the region is worsening. People are leaving in droves and time is ticking away without any action on the part of the Liberal government. To put it simply, because of the federal government, Forillon is expanding, as the Gaspé saying goes.

According to the group l'Action des patriotes gaspésiens on its website, the Liberal member from the Gaspé peninsula has done nothing for the region, that is right, zero. He ran as a hero; 18 months later, he has gone to zero.

This Gaspé organization's website also makes reference to the former minister responsible for Quebec. The fast-track promised at election time quickly became a slow-track. That is what Liberal promises add up to.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but he may have misheard or misunderstood certain things.

I did of course refer to DDT, because that was the example I wanted to use. I wanted to use that very specific example because it is an actual example of the use of a pesticide which had, and which obviously caused, major environmental hazards.

He spoke of the raptors as being affected, but they are not the only ones. In all countries where DDT was used at that time, this highly toxic substance was found throughout the food chain. Of course, it had an impact on human beings. What would that have been? Research could be done today, updating the situation, and then we would perhaps have a better idea.

My colleague has raised another point. Today, of course, certain pesticides can be considered less dangerous, less harmful, than at that time, 30 or 40 years ago. Nevertheless, it is often only in the long term that there is an awareness of the potential effects. In the short term, we can say, “Yes, a given pesticide does not seem to be highly toxic”. If it is not biodegradable, however, in the long term it can obviously be dangerous. A pesticide that is not biodegradable inevitably ends up in the food chain and inevitably also in our environment.

When my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis referred just now to the 500% principle of precaution, I am totally in agreement with him. We must have total or near total assurance, if this is possible, that the pesticides we use are not dangerous in the long term to human health and to our environment. One of the points he raised was the very serious problem posed by the use of thousands of tonnes of pesticide products.

I would also like to add, as I did in my speech, that our countries must not stop using highly toxic products, stop manufacturing them, ban their use, and then send them off to the third world, as has been done in the past.

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

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie mentioned yesterday, I want to say at the outset that the Bloc Quebecois will support Bill C-53, an act to protect human health and safety and the environment by regulating products used for the control of pests.

I also want to thank my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis, who just spoke. He was environment minister in Quebec. In many respects, I agree with what he said, particularly with regard to the number of years that we have been using pesticides and the impact they can have on human health.

We have been using pesticides for many years. We started using chemical pesticides 40 or 50 years ago perhaps. We have very little knowledge of the impact that these pesticides may have had on our lives, on the lives of our children and on the lives of the elderly, as the member pointed out.

He gave a very good example when he mentioned the use of DDT. Everyone will remember that 25 or 30 years ago, DDT was used on a large scale. Researchers found traces of that product in animals in Canada's and Quebec's far north. These animals were still carriers years after the use of DDT, a very common pesticide at one time, had stopped.

I clearly remember that in Quebec, before the introduction of Bacillus thuringiensis—which, incidentally, was developed by a Quebecer—highly toxic chemical pesticides were used in our forests to control pests such as the spruce budworm in New Brunswick and in other provinces. There was no real control over the spraying of that pesticide. It was sprayed all over our forests and even over inhabited areas. As a child, I was exposed to these highly toxic products before biological pesticides were developed. It happened in my province as well as in other Canadian provinces. I am sure that many people my age were affected by the chemical products that were used in those days.

So what is the purpose of this bill being introduced? This bill is to replace legislation that dates back to 1969. It is legislation that is now outdated and should have been replaced before now, given the environmental awareness that has developed in recent years, and our awareness of things that have been done and the impact pesticides can have on our lives, on the lives of our children and on our environment.

There is another element that I consider important. I am the Bloc Quebecois critic for fisheries and oceans. As such, I am fully aware that chemical pesticides used, which in most cases are not biodegradable, can be found in the environment, in streams and rivers, and ultimately, in the oceans. They can also be found in the food chain.

What are the consequences? Obviously, when fishing in a polluted ocean, the resource is polluted. If you eat what is caught in the ocean, you are ingesting a resource that is highly toxic.

At the present time, we do not know enough about the consequences of using this resource to be 100% reassured about what has taken place until now.

As I was saying, we obviously support Bill C-53 in principle, but we would like to see a number of amendments. We know that the bill will be referred to the Standing Committee on Health.

I will summarize, as my colleague from Rosemont--Petite-Patrie did yesterday, the main amendments to Bill C-53 that the Bloc Quebecois hopes to see.

The first amendment that we would like to see stems from the fact that Bill C-53 does nothing to speed up the registration process for less toxic pesticides. A focus group was set up in Quebec by Minister Boisclair last October.

In fact, this group wanted the registration of less toxic pesticides to be speeded up. The reason is quite simple. Currently, non organic pesticides are being used. It would be necessary for the government to invest into research and to foster the registration of less toxic pesticides, particularly organic ones. But it should also be cautious.

The government should foster the speeding up of registration, but in taking the precautionary principle into account, as my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie mentioned yesterday, and as my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis said earlier. It seems to me that the precautionary principle is lacking, or at least not present enough in the bill before us. As my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis mentioned, this is an essential element, and we ask that the bill be changed, amended, improved. This opportunity to amend the bill would allow us, as a society, to have less toxic products that can be used in a much safer environment.

Second, the bill does not suggest any alternatives to current pesticides. As I indicated, we should have alternatives. Of course, the government can ask people to stop using specific pesticides, but it must at least provide alternatives. Alternatives are necessary, not only in terms of biopesticides, but also when it comes to agriculture; reference is made to organic agriculture. Since I represent a rural riding, I know full well that, in the industry, farmers are still using products that may be considered as highly toxic and that it is necessary to have some control on the way these products are used.

There is also another element that is close to my heart. I remember quite well that, in the last 20 or 30 years, when a highly toxic pesticide was banned in more advanced societies like Canada or the United States, the companies manufacturing these products would make them available in the third world. This may not have been taken into account in the bill, but it might be important to do so.

Today it would be necessary to consider that what is going on elsewhere in the world may have an impact on us, on our societies, in the long term. What goes on in the third world can have an important impact. If highly toxic products are used in the third world and end up on our market, then we will have a serious problem in the more or less long term.

As I said, this bill proposes no alternatives to the pesticides in current use, as was recommended in their respective reports by the focus group on the use of pesticides in urban areas I have already referred to—and will come back to later—created by the Quebec Minister of the Environment, and the Standing Committee on the Environment of the House of Commons.

In its report, the standing committee even recommended incentives be given for organic agriculture, as I have already mentioned, as well as sustainable pest control strategies. What does this mean? It means developing new approaches to controlling pests and stopping the use of highly toxic products which can be harmful to human health.

For example, as my colleague from Rosemont--Petite-Patrie pointed out yesterday, certain European countries offer financial incentives to encourage growers to eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, that is chemical fertilizers. Bill C-53 seems to have been completely stripped of any recognition of the importance of research and development of biopesticides.

We can hope that chemical pesticides, pesticides potentially hazardous to human health, will disappear, but there must be alternatives available, and research must be developed and encouraged if the process is to be speeded up.

Another thing that was recommended by the standing committee is for there to be a re-evaluation by the year 2006 of all pesticides that were registered prior to 1995. Once again, the bill seems not to have set a time limit for the re-evaluation of old pesticides. This is an important point.

Basically, even though we have a bill and are trying to replace pesticides said to pose health risks to humans, if we do not re-evaluate the pesticides that are being used, that were used in the past and that are still used today, it is obviously useless to try to go any further.

It is important to consider that we can already, through serious research, come to the conclusion that the pesticides that were in use 20 or 30 years ago—earlier, DDT was mentioned—can be considered as posing health risks to humans. We have a laboratory precisely because these pesticides were used for so many years that we can now evaluate them in a very real and serious fashion. When it comes to evaluating biopesticides, it is the same thing. We are told that it is always a matter of time, that it takes a lot of time to evaluate these products.

There is another important factor to consider in the bill and regarding which amendments are desirable. The bill includes what I would call a wish, in the form of a special protection for children, infants and pregnant women.

I find it hard to see how, through a bill such as this one, we could, without being specific, protect children and infants in a special way, considering that it is society as a whole that is affected by pesticides. In light of this, how can we single out infants, except when they are directly affected in their immediate environment by chemical pesticides or by pesticides that pose health risks?

Earlier, I discussed the position defined by Quebec, by the focus group set up by Minister Boisclair. This position goes much further than the bill before us. On October 15, Minister Boisclair announced the creation of the focus group on the use of pesticides in urban areas. The objective of the focus group was to identify possible solutions that would allow Quebecers to reduce their dependency on and the risks of exposure to these products, including those used to maintain lawns, for environmental horticulture and for extermination purposes, while developing a sense of responsibility among citizens.

A sense of responsibility is very important, and one of the aspects I wish to mention is developing people's sense of responsibility. This is an aspect which is very difficult to control, however. Developing people's sense of responsibility has to do with methods of pesticide use, with people using pesticides in their immediate environment, either on their lawn or on their fruit trees. People often have very little information about how these pesticides should be used. They use them any old way. Sometimes they may very well misuse products and not be aware of their possible hazards. Even if each of these products is very clearly labelled and the recommended use very clearly indicated, not everyone is an expert on pesticides and sometimes amounts can be considerably increased and pose a threat to human health.

Some fifty or so organizations and individuals presented briefs to the group formed by Minister Boisclair. Over half of these organizations, representing municipal government, the research, health and business sectors, and ecological groups, expressed their views during the four days of consultations held in January 2002.

The focus group and the people who presented briefs at the hearings made 15 major recommendations designed to considerably reduce the use of pesticides in urban areas.

But I would like to see this go a bit further than the urban setting. I would like to see rural areas included, because we are well aware that pesticides are also used in farming. They are not restricted to urban areas. They are also used in our towns, our villages and our countryside. I would like to see a broader approach taken and all of society made aware of the problem of using pesticides, which can be potentially dangerous to human health.

The first recommendation of the focus group is to ban pesticides, unless action levels have been reached or the survival of plants is being threatened, as one of my colleagues mentioned earlier.

The group asked that this be done within a quite short deadline. This provision seems to be lacking in the bill. In the bill before us, it seems that the government does not wish to ban the use of pesticides in the more or less long term, among other places in urban centres, as other members have mentioned. These are pesticides that are used only for lawn and park improvement in cities.

We will have to raise people's awareness. We will have the raise the awareness of businesses that are using such pesticides. We will have to allow them to have access to organic pesticides and make them aware that the use of specific chemical non biodegradable pesticides may be harmful to human health, even to those who spray them, that is workers in these businesses. Consequently, it seems important to me that the government should try, through an amendment to the bill that will be sent to the Standing Committee on Health, to set a deadline to ensure that the use of potentially harmful chemical pesticides be banned in green spaces and on our lawns.

Other recommendations were made by Minister Boisclair's focus group on the use of pesticides, including environmental management training for those working around the public, such as lawn care businesses, those who sell pesticides, professionals who provide services or those who work in public areas, so they can give advice and set an example. Those who work in public areas include municipal employees.

Public information and education with regard to the risks associated with the use of pesticides, with regard to environmental management and with regard to alternative methods and products must be an important part of the bill. The public must be informed and educated on this issue as quickly as possible so that people become aware that the use of these products can be extremely harmful to their health and, in the long term, to human health and to the environment.

One wish expressed by the focus group, and it is something that I mentioned myself, is that alternative methods using less harmful products be made available. We cannot ask people to stop using pesticides if they do not have access to much less dangerous products that would therefore be less harmful to their health.

The focus group also wanted to see an adequate regulatory framework, including the adoption, in the near future, of a pesticide management code that could accelerate the implementation of environmental management.

Since I am running out of time, I will conclude by saying that we agree with the principle of the bill, but it needs to be amended to give it more teeth because, as it is now, it seems to be nothing more than a paper tiger.

[Fisheries, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this evening's debate on overfishing in the boundary area, that is that area of Atlantic Canada which is beyond the generally recognized 200 mile limit. I would like to thank the hon. member for St. John's West for this opportunity to express our views on the fisheries situation, particularly the Atlantic sector.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the minister has today announced the closure of our ports to the Faroe Islanders, who are accused of breaking the recognized regulations and illegally overfishing our waters and even the waters beyond them.

To clarify the situation, the Faroe Islands, with a population of 45,000, are an independent community attached to Denmark. They are one of the countries that does not respect internationally recognized rules on fisheries.

Before entering into the debate, I would like to see us address the situation in the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap, as well as within the 200 mile limit, in Atlantic Canada, as far as this resource is concerned.

The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has done a complete tour of Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec this past week. During that period, the incident of the boarding of the Russian ship to which my colleagues have referred made us aware of the situation. Representatives of the Government of Newfoundland, the people of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Quebec-- both the Gaspe and the Rimouski area—vented their frustrations to us and shared their feelings about the fisheries situation in this region. Foreign ships take advantage of the opportunity to appropriate our resource, waste it and overfish it so that it is not there for us to use and to take advantage of.

When we visited the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, owned and operated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and mandated to audit the status of this resource, two of the institute's biologists were just releasing a study. I will offer hon. members a summary of the content of the Radio-Canada news reports for the Gaspé and Îles de la Madeleine areas.

On March 19, 2002. while the committee was in the area, the following was being broadcast:

Alarm sounded by two biologists: adult cod biomass decreasing.

According to Alain Fréchette of the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, the biomass of adult cod has decreased by 30% in the northern part of the gulf over the past year

This happened when the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was visiting the institute, at the time when a Russian vessel was arrested and at the time when other foreign vessels were taking advantage of the situation to make away with our resource.

To continue:

Mr. Fréchette does not understand this decrease—

I am somewhat surprised that he does not understand this decrease.

—because the number of cod has been increasing slightly every year since 1994.

Another biologist, Ghislain Chouinard, from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, from a Department of Fisheries and Oceans institute, affirms that the situation is as dramatic in the southern gulf.

Therefore, the situation does not only exist in the north, but also in the south. Moreover:

Biomass decreased 6% this year. The drop would have reached 12% if a 6,000 tonne quota had been authorized.

We know that foreign countries are increasingly coming to fish outside of the 200 mile zone. We know that foreign countries are stealing our resources, and we have known this for years.

What was our reaction? We took the diplomatic route. What kind of results has the diplomatic route produced? Absolutely none. Not only has it produced nothing, but our resource continues to vanish. Will we continue to pursue diplomatic discussions and resist taking more forceful measures to solve the problem once and for all?

In 1995, there was a great commotion: a Spanish trawler was arrested. Now we have arrested another one. Since 1995, in seven years, what has happened? Have we solved the problem? Have we found any solutions to remedy this situation?

I have a document here that analyzes what happened in 1995, during this great commotion. I have a plethora of articles and texts that have been published since 1995. I have all kinds here and all of the titles are negative, because since 1995, we have taken the diplomatic approach, we have been content to discuss. We have placed our trust in an organization called the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization.

This is outrageous, because we provide 50% of the funds to support this organization. We are being robbed of our resource on a regular if not a daily basis in the gulf, outside the 200 mile limit, with the result that we no longer have that resource inside the 200 mile zone. We are funding a totally ineffectual organization. We are funding an organization that has absolutely no credibility. And we are funding it to the tune of 50%, because we want to act in diplomatic fashion.

We have been acting diplomatically for 20 or 30 years and the problem still persists. Are we going to act diplomatically until the resource is totally gone, until there is none left for our communities, whether it is in Newfoundland, in the other maritime provinces, in Quebec, in the Lower St. Lawrence region, particularly in Cap-Chat, where a large number of groundfish fishers are in a difficult situation? Are we going to wait until there is no resource available? Are we going to wait until everything is gone, until the resource has been completely eliminated, before taking effective action?

I want to go back to the text to which I was referring earlier, and which more or less summarizes what has been going on since 1995. That text was published in 1995, but the situation remains the same. It is from a scientist, Pol Chantraine, and it was published in Le Devoir . It summarizes what happened in 1995, following the arrest of the Estai . It reads:

In spite of the fine speeches, of the jubilation on the docks of St. John's, in Newfoundland, and of the awards given to the captains of the Canadian offshore patrol on Easter weekend—

And now we are getting close to Easter, seven years later.

—the upshot of the turbot crisis launched a few weeks ago with the arrest of the trawler Estai is hardly impressive, even if the entourage of fisheries minister Brian Tobin cannot stop congratulating itself as though they had won Canada's greatest victory since 1945.

First, Canada had to give up half of its turbot quota to the European Union in order to get an agreement. Then, under the agreement, the Spanish, the main European fishers of turbot, will still be able to take some 5,000 tonnes of this fish after April 15, 1995, which will bring the total of their catches to more than 12,000 tonnes, instead of the meagre 3,400 tonnes they were allowed by NAFO in February.

What does NAFO do? Absolutely nothing. What purpose does it serve? Absolutely none. Even after all the to-do over the arrest of the Estai , Canada was obliged to give up three times what it was allowed by NAFO earlier. And this was in a 1995 document. The situation has become worse since.

Not only has the situation grown worse but these are the observations in the material I have been able to gather following the announcement that we were going to have an emergency debate this evening. I can give titles. A Fisheries and Oceans Canada press release dated March 11, 1999, is titled as follows, “Canada Calls for World Action to Bring International Fisheries Conservation Regime into Force”.

Well yes, of course Canada is calling for it, but other countries are not interested. What they want is to help themselves to our resource and sell it on the market. Certainly, I can go and see my colleague and make whatever request I wish; he is free to say no and to continue doing whatever he wants. That is what Canada is doing: letting other countries do what they want. It is letting other countries help themselves to our resource, completely exhaust it, and we, good little sheep that we are, are saying,“We are asking you, we are begging you”. That is one of the texts.

Another press release bears the following title, “Minister of Fisheries Continues Push for Action on International Fisheries Conservation”. That was in 1999. That produced big results. Since then, the situation has grown worse. It is as simple as that.

“Foreign fishing in and outside our waters”. With regard to the nose and tail of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, another document refers to an “environmental disaster”. It was published in 1997. I could quote from a large number of documents.

Scientists have been telling us about the situation and have given us evidence. For 25 or 30 years, they have been saying that overfishing must stop and that we must better control our resource and ensure it can continue to prosper if we want to keep harvesting it.

In my capacity as a member of the Bloc Quebec, I toured with the Standing Committee on Fisheries last week, as did other members from all parties. I was rather surprised by what I heard from local communities as well as from the minister of fisheries for Newfoundland.

The minister of fisheries for Newfoundland came to tell the standing committee of the House the same thing that we, in Quebec, have been saying for years. The minister came to ask the government to allow some form of joint management, which means that each province would be involved in managing the resource and the utilization of this resource. He gave Quebec as an example. I mentioned to him that Quebec was not involved in managing the resource. Only the Government of Canada, through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, has the power the manage and protect the resource.

Unfortunately, ever since this power was handed over to the federal government, the situation has been getting worse every year. What the minister of fisheries for Newfoundland is asking for is more than Quebec ever obtained in the past. He came to ask for the right to be involved not only in transforming the resource but also in managing it, to ensure better protection of that resource.

Elsewhere, in other provinces, people in local communities reminded us that they wanted to be consulted. They told us repeatedly that the consultations carried out by DFO were meaningless. Basically, the department was having consultations but not listening to anyone. In some cases, the report was even ready before the consultations had begun. That is what happened for instance for class B fishing permit holders.

What do the people from Atlantic Canada and Quebec expect from the government? They want the government to be efficient.

Of course, we can continue to use diplomacy, to negotiate with countries fishing on the Grand Banks around the 200 miles limit, off Newfoundland. We can always ask these countries to sit down with us and negotiate. However, more aggressive measures are also required.

Anyway, those who have economic interests to protect, who are currently overfishing and getting away with it, can agree to sit down and negotiate, but we know full well what the result will be. They will string us along. During the negotiations, they will keep overfishing and destroying our resources.

So, I would ask the government, with the consent of the provinces—in fact, the fisheries ministers from Atlantic Canada should be meeting in the next few days—to think about the impact resource management is having on local communities. I would ask them to think about the impact it has on communities like Cap-Chat and other communities in the Gaspé and in Newfoundland, which are in dire straits.

And I would urge the government to act now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-5, an act respecting the protection of wildlife species at risk in Canada.

First of all, this bill reminds me of the early 1980s, when I was the mayor of a small municipality of about 4,000 inhabitants. When plans were made to create a national park in an area containing endangered species, our municipality had to invest considerable money in attaining its objectives, with the help of Parks Canada, of course.

The municipality had to clean up its water, because used water was being discharged into the St. Lawrence River at the proposed site of the park. At the time, I, as the mayor, and the council members were seen almost as cranks, people who were going to squander the taxpayers' money to save threatened bird species.

Twenty or so years ago, the environment was perhaps not the important concern for most people that it has become over the years. The bill before us today, which has a very specific objective—to protect species at risk—has undoubtedly been requested by taxpayers. Unfortunately, we cannot support this bill because, once again, the federal government is interfering extensively in provincial jurisdictions.

However, we should perhaps keep in mind the impact this bill may have on endangered species in our societies. We should perhaps also recall how the planet has evolved, how our environment has evolved since there was first life on earth. In fact, the situation today is the result of 4.5 billion years of evolution.

Man, humankind, is undoubtedly the creature which appeared last, but which has had the greatest impact. Over the years, man, by acting as he has done on this planet, is perhaps the being that has contributed the most to the destruction of his environment. Let us not forget that the evolutionary process has provided the human beings on this planet with a large selection of living organisms and natural environments.

We have only to look around us here. Leaving this House, we can go out to parks, along the Ottawa River, into Gatineau Park, and everwhere are surrounded by natural environments we often neglect to pay any attention to.

A decrease or degradation of biodiversity affects us all, and can have unexpected consequences for all human beings, for our living environments, and for our health in particular.

In Canada, as elsewhere, attempts have been made for some years to control the phenomenon of environmental destruction. Since the 1970s international conventions have been signed in order to control the trade in certain animal and plant species, in order to protect them from extinction.

Again this week, television news reports have shown us how certain species are disappearing, in Africa in particular, where people are engaged in trade involving endangered species. At the Rio summit in 1992, a number of countries in the international community, Canada included, signed the Convention on Biodiversity and made the commitment to initiate or maintain the existing legislative and regulatory provisions necessary to protect threatened species and populations.

Not long after, moreover, the government made the promise in its red book to commit to long term protection of the species that populate our planet. In that same vein in 1995, the Minister of Environment of the day introduced a first bill.

This provoked an incredible number of protests and criticisms—from environmental groups in particular, and others—that the environment had not yet really entered into our collective mores.

One of the main criticisms regarding this bill was that it was limited to federal lands. Environmental groups reproached the federal government for only intervening on lands that it owned, when it should have been intervening on all lands that required it. Once again, I repeat, such interventions would have to be done with the agreement of the provincial governments, including Quebec, which already had major legislation in place that protected species at risk to a great extent.

It is important to remember that at the time, only four provinces had laws to protect endangered species. Environmentalists pointed out that it was important for the government to act across the country. Once again, it is important to note that there were only four provinces, including Quebec, that were equipped with legislation to protect endangered species. As usual in the Canadian federation, Quebec was ahead of the others. This is nothing new, this is the case in a host of areas.

In 1996, the federal government proposed a Canada-wide agreement to the provincial and territorial ministers of the environment. This lead to the bill now before us. That agreement was the Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk.

In October 1996, the ministers responsible for wildlife gave their agreement in principle, which means that they finally accepted the principle of the bill and came to an agreement. At the time, Quebec environment minister David Cliche signed the accord, but he did not agree with, among other things, the federal government's interventions, which did not take into account provincial laws and regulations on the protection of threatened species.

In fact, our position and that of Quebec are the same as the one that the Minister of the Environment, Paul Bégin, stated as soon as his federal counterpart's bill was tabled, namely that this legislation was mere duplication. This is why we will vote against the bill.

Again, we agree in principle with the objectives of the bill, but we cannot accept it, since it creates duplication in provincial jurisdictions. In our opinion, this bill is not very useful to Quebec, considering that we already have regulations and laws protecting threatened species.

When the bill was introduced by the federal government, the Quebec minister indicated that this legislation sought not only to create a safety net for the protection of threatened species and their habitat on federal sites, but also on the whole Quebec territory. And we cannot agree with such a measure. We agree that the federal government must be able to take action to protect threatened species. It must do so, but by agreeing with the provinces, by accepting Quebec's jurisdictions, by accepting that Quebec is already ahead in this area, and by working with provincial governments.

The main criticism that we have regarding this bill is that it creates duplication, in that the federal government is once again duplicating regulations that already exist in Quebec. Instead of co-ordinating its efforts, of investing with the province to protect threatened species, the federal government is duplicating, it is creating a new structure and it is adding a new army of public servants to protect threatened species, while Quebec already has the necessary instruments.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

It would appear that it was one of my colleagues' birthday. I was not aware of that. Allow me to wish him a belated happy birthday.

I do not think that any taxpayer remembers the date the budget was tabled: December 10. This budget is without a doubt one of the worst budgets ever brought down. It is a disaster budget the government felt compelled to introduce in response to the events of September 11.

The Minister of Finance, who was not going to introduce a budget at this time, decided to do so. He has invested—we will recall—$2.2 billion into security, or so it seems. I say or so it seems, because we will see over the next few years where the $2.2 billion earmarked for security will actually be spent.

This budget was brought down when none was expected. The Bloc Quebecois would have liked a budget ensuring an equitable distribution of the collective wealth. Apparently, we had a good economic performance, and despite the September 11 tragedy, this performance, although not as good, is still acceptable. Some distribution of the collective wealth was therefore to be expected.

There were big expectations in so-called remote regions, such as the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspé, and the Magdalen Islands. But the latest federal budget quite simply ignored the regions. It contains no real measure to help those in trouble or to support the economy of regions affected by the September 11 tragedy.

In short, this budget ignores the unemployed. My colleague from Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup--Témiscouata--Les Basques has made that point very clearly earlier. Seasonal workers, whose status is often precarious, are left out. This budget has nothing at all for seasonal workers, nothing to help them out.

It is also a budget that completely abandons seniors. My colleague from Champlain, who sits next to me, has been touring Quebec these past few weeks. He has told this House that in the last eight years, this government has taken more than $1.2 billion away from seniors, the least well off members of our society. These are people who are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement. The government has been depriving them of that money for eight years, taking $1.2 billion away from them.

This is a budget that abandons seniors, the disadvantaged and the poor. It is also a budget that abandons the workers. My colleague from Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel referred to this earlier, when he spoke of those who lost their jobs following the events of September 11 and those who are loosing their jobs now because the economy has slowed down since these events. There is really nothing in there for the unemployed.

We must understand that these people are confronted to a difficult situation. It is not easy for them, particularly those in the airline industry, to find a new job.

It is also a budget that abandons the rural areas.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, you are pronouncing the name of my riding well. I think you are beginning to get used to it and I am pleased about it. I do like to hear you say it.

Bill C-49 before us is entitled Budget Implementation Act, 2001. I do not know if taxpayers and listeners remember the date the budget was tabled. That was on December 10.