Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. The short answer is that it bewilders me. I do not know why the government would choose a political route rather than a scientific route to describe and list species at risk.
As my colleague mentioned, private industry, which one might think would be opposed to listing species in any way which would interfere with business and ultimately profit, is telling the government to go further. I do not believe the pressure came from the private sector. I am only speculating, but I mentioned in the text of my remarks that I believe part of the problem is internal. There is pressure from various government departments that do not want somebody else telling them how to run what they consider to be their business, if I may put it that way. I would suggest that it is not just their business; it concerns all of us.
We really must act on this because time is running out. It is not only these species that are at risk. As these species disappear, we are learning some stark lessons about our own mortality on this planet.
To summarize for my hon. colleague, I do not know the answer to his question. I do know it is fundamentally important that these decisions be science based and not political in nature. The reason for having scientists make scientific decisions is clear. I fear the ability of lobbies to say that species are on land or water used by humans and, therefore, they should not be protected because it would interfere with us. I would not want to open the door to that kind of lobbying and I do not think we need a larger lobbying industry in Ottawa. Our species would suffer from that kind of development.