Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to the witnesses for devoting their time to be with us today. I want to particularly thank you for the comments, which were respectful and informative.
Chief Louis in particular, I found your comments to be very refreshing and helpful. Actually, when the question was asked, “How did you get to the point of working with others the way you do?” I can see it in your approach today. It is about good communication and people skills and I really appreciate that.
I also appreciated your comments about the importance of socio-economic factors. I recall very well in the hearings we had on SARA that there was some push from some parties to try to write out and get rid of the socio-economic impacts of matters in SARA.
I do want to ask you about one item, though, that concerns me in SARA. I assume you know that as soon as a species is listed, there are automatic prohibitions against destroying the residence of even one individual of a species or killing even one individual of a species or doing anything to critical habitat. You're aware of that I assume?
It has sometimes occurred to me that it isn't helpful, because it results in delays in listing species until some of those socio-economic items can be worked through. It has sometimes seemed to me that it would be better if we could list a species as endangered or threatened without those prohibitions automatically kicking in and shutting down all of those socio-economic uses that are required, and then give the appropriate time to studying the recovery plans, which take into account socio-economic uses. Am I off track on that? Do you understand my concern about the automatic and immediate prohibitions being somewhat inconsistent with the need to respect the socio-economic uses of the land?