Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to take part in this because I have great sympathy for the member's bill. I think we should use the Criminal Code to sock it to the people who trade in the body parts of animals.
This is an issue that goes back to the very soul of western Canadian history. We will recall that the buffalo were hunted first for their meat, then they were hunted for their hides, then they were hunted for their tongues and finally they were hunted merely for their bones, which were to be dried on the prairie and used as fertilizer. So more than 100 years ago we will recall that this ghastly thing of destroying a species, which was common at the time, merely for one part of that animal, basically destroyed the buffalo of the prairie and the way of life of the aboriginals of the prairie.
In spirit I really do support the member's bill. I think she was very right to have brought it before the House because this is a practice that has occurred in other parts of the world that has led to the extirpation of animals that were common.
I only slightly disagree with some of the other speakers. This is not an issue of endangered species. This is an issue of common species that face destruction.
However I do have problems with the bill. I have to be absolutely candid with the member who has moved the legislation. I have two fundamental problems. I cannot say that I have gone into the legislation in such great depth that I can be seen as any great authority on it, but I did find, in examining the bill, that the concept of body parts of animals is not very well defined. I would be fearful, as the bill is currently framed, that it might reach too far and might indeed reach out to animal pelts, muskrat pelts and those types of things that are collected. I am sure that could be repaired. It could go to committee where I am sure it could be fixed up if it is genuinely a problem in the legislation.
However, oddly enough, the thing that I find most difficult with the legislation is the section that reads:
For greater certainty, nothing in this section shall be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
I would be fearful that that particular section would be an invitation to some Canadians to abuse their right to collect the animals. What we would be doing is giving to one group of Canadians an opportunity to carry out the very abuses that the member is trying to prevent.
I think it is a great effort and I wish I could support it but, unfortunately, I do not think I can.