Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time. I am pleased to address the topic of endangered species again in the House of Commons. My party supports the government bringing in this bill early in the legislative calendar. Our party members from coast to coast have repeatedly voted at national assemblies for the creation of such legislation if it works in a pragmatic way to find the balances needed to be a viable law.
The specific purposes of the enactment are to prevent Canadian indigenous species, sub-species and distinct populations of wildlife from becoming extirpated or extinct, to provide for the recovery of endangered or threatened species and to encourage the management of other species to prevent them from becoming at risk.
The committee on the status of endangered wildlife in Canada, commonly known as COSEWIC, is an independent body of experts responsible for assessing and identifying species at risk. COSEWIC's assessments are to be reported to the Minister of the Environment and to the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council. It authorizes the governor in council to establish by regulation the official list of species as risk based on that process.
The legislation requires that the best available knowledge be used to define long and short term objectives in a recovery strategy for endangered and threatened species. It provides for action plans to identify specific actions. It creates prohibitions to protect listed, threatened or endangered species and their critical habitats. It recognizes that compensation may be needed to ensure fairness following the imposition of the critical habitat prohibitions. It creates a public registry to assist in making documents under the act more accessible to the public.
The government claims it is consistent with the aboriginal and treaty rights and that it respects the authority of other federal ministers and provincial governments, as the legislation has a shared federal-provincial jurisdiction.
Our party has a principled approach to the bill. The written constitution of the Canadian Alliance, under point no. 10 in the addendum under statement of principles, states:
We believe that government must act for the benefit of future generations as much as for the present, maintaining policies that will nurture and develop the people's knowledge and skills, preserve a stable, healthy and productive society, and ensure the responsible development and conservation of our environment and natural heritage.
Further in the party's published declaration of policy about the balance between environmental protection and economic and social development, paragraph 44 states:
We are committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and endangered species, and to sustainable development of our abundant natural resources for the use of current and future generations. Therefore we will strike a balance between environmental preservation and economic development. This includes creating partnerships with provincial governments, private industry, educational institutions, and the public, to promote meaningful progress in the area of environmental protection.
Paragraph 45 states:
We believe responsible exploration, development, conservation and renewal of our environment is vital to our continued well-being as a nation and as individuals. We will establish a unified and timely “single-window” approval process, and will vigorously enforce environmental regulations with meaningful penalties.
Paragraph 46 states:
Canada's water is an especially precious resource over which we must maintain complete sovereignty. Any federal legislation dealing with this resource will respect that jurisdiction is shared with the provinces.
My assertion is that the Canadian Alliance is a lot greener in character than portrayed in the media.
Significantly, we temper our environmentalism with responsible attention for the pragmatic. We will not be tempted to propose things that cannot be realistically delivered, unlike what all the other parties have done from time to time. The government talks a great line but has done little in substance on the environmental front since 1993. Certainly its accomplishments do not match up to its overreaching rhetoric.
A sticking point with the bill will be cost. When action is taken to change human behaviour for the national and international good, we must organize ourselves so these broad objectives are indeed broadly shared in cost. We can probably look to the case law around expropriations for guidance rather than the current suggested formulas. Certainly the mechanics must be placed in the bill rather than left to uncertainties and the changeableness of regulation. In my view, it is the major shortcoming of the bill.
The government is to be commended for again attempting the bill. However if there is no receptivity to amendments at the upcoming committee and report stage, then the whole world will know that what is important to Liberals is the name of the bill. They can then say that they actually have a bill, rather than putting in place a workable set of rules that will actually save species. I do not think the current form of the bill will do it.
There is also a huge body of additional expertise available to find a better balance which must be incorporated if we as a society are going to save anything.
In conclusion, I am claiming that a Canadian Alliance government would be proactive on environmental issues in a responsible way. While being a leader, we would work most diligently at the international level to bring our neighbour states along because in many respects protecting endangered species knows no borders.
The government has not told the truth to Canadians about the ramifications of the Kyoto agreement. Therefore I am not so sure that it is entirely sincere with its endangered species bill either. That remains to be seen.
We will work to make the bill more effective in a pragmatic way, for the earth is our home for now and we have stewardship responsibilities for all it contains. The public will is there to do good things. Let us hope that the government will also find it.