Mr. Speaker, over two decades ago Parliament passed into law the Canada Wildlife Act. This was a key piece of legislation in the effort to protect our country's wildlife. It enables the federal government to carry out wildlife research and, in co-operation with the provinces, to undertake a wide range of conservation interpretation activities for wildlife and its habitat including the protection of endangered species.
Since 1973, however, we have seen far-reaching changes in our approach to environmental issues. These changes necessitate updating of the act. We have come to see the crucial importance of the interrelationships between these issues and the need to integrate the environment and the economy. We also recognize that the issues we face are complex. To address them successfully we need co-operation across jurisdictions and even across borders.
This new understanding lies at the heart of sustainable development or sustainability. Sustainability recognizes the need to keep human activities within the limits of the ecosystem's capacity to sustain. It means integrating economic and environmental goals. It also means building a wide network of partnerships to achieve these goals.
At the United Nations earth summit in 1992 the world community gave its support to sustainable development. In the area of wildlife it adopted the convention on biological diversity. Canada was one of the first industrialized countries to sign this unprecedented agreement.
Signatories to the convention must regulate or manage biological resources to ensure their conservation and sustainable use and must establish a system of protected areas to conserve biodiversity. The convention calls for conservation efforts to consider all species within an ecosystem and requires countries to develop legislative provisions to protect endangered species.
We have welcomed the new international commitment to maintaining biodiversity because wildlife has a special importance to our country and to the vast majority of our people. Canada is indeed fortunate in still having natural spaces largely untouched by development where wildlife abounds in a free state. We all take pride in our vast wilderness areas and the creatures that inhabit them. They help to define the identity of our country.
As well, Canada's living natural resources make a major contribution to our economic well-being. According to a Statistics Canada survey on the importance of wildlife to Canadians in 1991, expenditures associated with all types of fish and wildlife related recreational activities contributed at least $11.5 billion to our gross domestic product. They generated $4.4 billion in tax revenues and provided 250,000 jobs.
The same survey shows that over 90 per cent of Canadians took part in wildlife related activities during 1991, devoting to them a total of 1.3 billion days and $5.6 billion. Those figures indicate that wildlife plays a major part in Canadians' recreational life. Further, 86 per cent of Canadians support wildlife conservation.
For all these reasons we must ensure the health of Canada's wildlife. The amendments to the Canada Wildlife Act will help achieve that goal.
The bill under consideration will broaden the scope of the Canada Wildlife Act to apply not simply to non-domestic animals but instead to all wild organisms. That shift will bring the act into line with the biodiversity convention.
The bill will also make it possible to create marine natural wildlife areas, not only within the 12 nautical mile limit as at present, but all the way out to the 200 nautical mile limit. This will allow much greater protection of the Canadian marine ecosystems important to wildlife.
The amendments establish regulatory authorities for marine protected areas. They strengthen enforcement related provisions. They will help deter illegal activities such as poaching by setting a maximum penalty of $25,000 and/or six months in jail for serious offences.
These changes will help ensure that future Canadians enjoy the same benefits we do from flourishing wildlife populations. However protecting Canada's wildlife is not a task for the federal government alone. To a large extent managing wildlife is a responsibility of the provinces and the territories. Only by working with them can the federal government promote our national wildlife objectives.
Canadians can be proud that the different levels of government have a record of strong co-operation on wildlife issues. In 1990 the federal and provincial governments adopted the wildlife policy for Canada. This calls for effective legislation conserving wild animals and plants and ensuring that all uses are sustainable.
It also calls for penalties that pose effective deterrents to the illegal use of wild species. More recently federal, provincial and territorial governments together have been developing a Canadian biodiversity strategy that will set out the manner in which Canada will implement the 1992 global biodiversity convention.
That same co-operation is central to the Canada Wildlife Act. For example, the act provides for co-operative management areas on provincial lands. While the federal Minister of the Environment will have the authority to appoint provincial officers as wildlife officers, these appointments will be made only with the agreement of the provinces concerned.
The amendments define the authority and powers of those officers and provide for inspection and search and seizure procedures in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Federal and provincial governments will also continue their co-operation on the management of endangered species. That co-operation dates back to 1988 when the responsible government agents launched the RNEW organization and strategy.
RNEW stands for recovery of nationally endangered wildlife. Its goal is to have all agencies and organizations work as a team to rescue species at risk from extinction and to prevent vulnerable species from becoming at risk. The need for such teamwork is all too clear because the list of species designated as endangered is growing ever longer while the list of recovered species remains all too short.
RNEW brings together the directors of federal, provincial and territorial wildlife agencies plus the heads of three major national wildlife organizations: the Canadian Nature Federation, the Canadian Wildlife Federation and the World Wildlife Fund Canada. These officials set up a team to prepare a
management plan for the recovery of a particular endangered species, a plan eventually to be carried out by the responsible governments in co-operation with universities and conservation organizations.
Successes achieved through the RNEW program are gratifying, but they must not make us complacent. There are more cases by far in which Canada's wildlife populations are suffering from the effects of such problems as loss and degradation of habitat, overharvesting, poaching, disease and the impact of toxic substances. Yet the few successes are invaluable because they clearly show us the way forward. That way is through co-operation of the different levels of government and concerned groups outside government.
The amendments to the Canada Wildlife Act reinforce that co-operation. They will enhance protection for Canada's wildlife and help us advance the goals of sustainability.