Madam Speaker, I will begin by saying that the Alliance will not be supporting Motions Nos. 1 and 6 put forward by the Bloc Quebecois for the reasons outlined by my colleagues.
It is worth repeating some of the difficulties that Motion No. 6 would bring to the legislation. It would bring provincial ministers of the environment into all the discussions regarding the criteria of eligibility and, in doing so, would introduce some different criteria of acceptance into every province. The bill needs uniformity and this would be a hindrance to that particular aspect of this important legislation.
If we were to pass Motion No. 6, or Motion No. 1 which is similar, I think it would create more problems than the bill attempts to solve. For that reason, we will not be supporting Motions Nos. 1 and 6.
Motion No. 10, brought forward by my colleagues from the Conservative Party, is an attempt to curtail some of the vagueness of the bill by introducing some eligibility criteria. We are supportive of that idea.
The purpose of the bill has been laid out and we are supportive of the intent of the bill. We have some questions and ideas for improvement in terms of how to implement the bill. We have some issues with some aspects of the bill that I believe are worth noting.
I want to state that the Alliance is committed to protecting and preserving our natural environment and endangered species. That is very clear within our policy and perspective. We want to work together with members from all sides of the House and the government. We commend them for moving forward on good initiatives that have to do with protecting our environment and enhancing sustainable development. Those are good, broad and general notions to pursue which we support.
My colleague from North Vancouver pointed out some rather glaring difficulties with the whole appointment process in terms of governor in council appointments, which is an aspect of this bill. He highlighted, from his own experience, some wasteful instances of taxpayer dollars being spent in ways that perhaps could have been allocated to priority areas, such as health care, education, reducing taxes and those kinds of very important priorities.
I want to talk a little bit about the appointment process that would be created by the bill. I believe the chairperson along with a minority number of directors and members are appointed by the governor in council, who would then appoint the remaining members to complete the 15 person board of directors. We do have some concerns that the foundation could become a possible patronage arm of the government.
We know that the government must appoint many people in many different arms of the government, related agencies and boards. We know that is a reality, but we would like to see a process that would have the most competent and trained individuals for positions like that.
We have seen examples in other areas, not particularly this one area that has been brought forward, where appointments have been somewhat questionable. We always raise the concern when the issue is brought up within any legislation that there needs to be a more transparent and accountable process in place for appointing individuals to government boards or to arms of the government.
One example, of which I am very well aware and which happened not too long ago, was the appointment of a former colleague of ours here in the House, Mr. Sekora, who was representing Coquitlam.
He was appointed as a citizenship judge. He made some rather outlandish remarks in the House which are documented in Hansard . We are all well aware of them. It showed insensitivity on the government's part to appoint an individual who demonstrated a lack of sensitivity on issues to do with immigration.
Even after the election he made comments that were rather derogatory to immigrants in his own community. He was then appointed a citizenship judge. His record seems quite contrary to the kind of individual one would appoint to a responsible position.
The actions and past experience of that individual give us reason for concern. We also see, through another piece of legislation, governor in council appointments where individuals appointed to boards are perhaps not the best selection in some cases. That raises concerns for us, and obviously we have the same concern with this bill. We encourage the government to, and hope it will, select individuals who are the best for the job in this area.