Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to start with the SARA and Mr. Sopuck's and Ms. Leslie's comments and questions on that. There's one thing that always strikes me. I remember a few years back on this committee when we were doing a study, and we had some members from the cattlemen's association—I believe it was the Alberta cattlemen's association who were here. A comment they made really struck me, and it has stuck with me. They said, “if a species at risk is found on a rancher's land it must be assumed that the land manager is doing things right”. I found that to be a very interesting comment. Quite often an endangered species is found on their land, and they're loath to report it because all of a sudden somebody comes in and says they have to change everything they're doing, yet this species is thriving on that property.
That brings me to another point. I was sharing with some of my colleagues a couple of pictures that I took out my back window yesterday morning before I flew in to Ottawa. A couple of deer were feeding at the bird feeder in my backyard. That was within the perimeter, Rob, so there is a lot of wildlife. I have foxes, skunks, coyotes, and deer in abundance, right inside the city of Winnipeg, on my property.
Getting back to the wetlands conservation aspect, on my property I have a wetlands area. I have a five-acre property and I have left about 2.5 acres of that as a natural wetland area. I actually face a lot of pressure from some of my neighbours and especially from the construction industry, which is always looking for spots to get rid of their fill. They always come to me and say, “You have a wetland back there. We should fill that in. That's a problem”.
How do we overcome that kind of attitude within the urban environment and even from these people, who see this wetland right away as a problem rather than as a great solution to a lot of issues?
Mr. Olson.