Madam Speaker, I thought it would be appropriate to say a few words on the endangered species act. I am tempted to make references to those across the way, with the election coming and so on. I could get into it for ages and we would all have great fun with it.
This is a very serious bill. It is always difficult when there is a certain amount of emotion involved. We want to protect animals, wildlife and various endangered species in the country. We do not want to see anything being harmed or eradicated, not even members over there. We have to keep a few of them around. I cannot keep myself away from it.
There are problems with a bill like this one. The government may have intended to come out with something very meaningful and something very worthwhile in terms of protecting endangered species. However, either because it was ill conceived or because for some reason it was put out the way it was, we have problems with it. People in communities, business, different organization and sports groups have problems with the bill.
In a lot of other government legislation I have discovered through the committees I have sat on that there seems to be a very bad tendency. It is a style of government that caused me to get into government to hopefully see some change in it. There are committee meetings to study legislation at that level and to get input from people who say what they like or do not like and what they want included, yet the government is not prepared to listen.
I have participated in a couple of studies by committees when the input from the population, the voters, the taxpayers, has been overwhelming and the government for whatever reason chose to ignore it. I do not know why the government spends the money it does for consultation with the public if it is not prepared to listen. We heard a lot of concerns raised by industry, ranchers, farmers and people who go into the woods for recreation. Even they feel they may have problems.
We put forward a lot of amendments. We want to support the bill but we simply cannot do so in its present form. We get into a real conundrum when the government says it is doing this to protect endangered species and anybody voting against it does not want to protect them. That is not true.
In their heart of hearts members know that. It might be a little difficult for them to admit it on the eve of the election but they understand it. When we return to the House after the election in whatever make-up it is, maybe we can learn to work a little better together. I hope government, whichever government it is, will bring forward legislation and will listen to people. Hopefully it will listen to the points raised by the opposition and the public but it does not mean they will be automatically accepted. Sometimes of course there are at least two points of view in the public domain. These things have to be considered.
There were a lot of good amendments brought forward on this bill and they were rejected out of hand. That is very unfortunate. Had the government made these amendments to the bill, it would have found support. We could have moved the bill through the House quickly, even on the eve of the election.
I hope when we return after the election that those members opposite will have learned to co-operate, perhaps with the opposition or perhaps as the opposition. I shall look forward to that.