Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to participate in the report stage debate on Bill C-5, an act respecting the protection of wildlife species at risk in Canada.
Often we have to make comparisons with what we have seen the federal government do in other areas with respect to issues as important as this one. We cannot but notice that every single time Quebec is ahead because it has taken the lead, because it wanted to be a pioneer in areas it believed were of paramount importance, it ends up being penalized for being a pioneer, for acting faster than the federal government in areas under its jurisdiction, be it shared or sole jurisdiction, especially when we know what is happening in health care.
When the GST and the QST were harmonized back in the mid 1980s, Quebec took the lead. We thought it was a good way to make sure that businesses could see their way through a double taxation system where some goods were taxable and others were not. As a matter of fact, this harmonization was never completed because the federal government has not seen fit to help us out with it. We have nevertheless managed to harmonize the GST and the QST to the maximum.
A few years later, the federal government announced it was going to harmonize the provincial sales tax in the three maritime provinces with the GST and gave them $900 million in compensation. Quebec had taken the lead and was penalized for it. It had not demanded any money to harmonize the GST and the QST when it did it without help from the federal government.
It is the same thing with the Kyoto protocol. In the 1970s, as a result of the energy crisis, the Quebec government decided to go green. Today we are faced with the following situation. If you look at what is happening in Quebec, it has the best performance in America with regard to greenhouse gas emissions. Once again, we have to pull the rest of Canada along to have the Kyoto protocol implemented and move forward to protect our resources and the environment.
Once again, Quebec is being made to pay for having led the way, for having made a commitment to the environment. While we were footing the bill for that commitment, while the continuation of extremely polluting practices in the rest of Canada are now being debated, these are costs that companies in the nine Canadian provinces will not have to assume, with the result that the costs of what is produced in the Canadian provinces do not reflect the true damage to the environment. Because we took the initiative, we are once again being penalized, because the rest of Canada is dragging its heels on the environmental protection issue.
In addition, when one looks at the fiscal imbalance in the 1960s, we—I am talking about Quebec—asked the federal government for tax points, because we were sure that that was the best way of restoring some sort of balance between the federal government and the Government of Quebec. But, in those days, this was not what the other provinces wanted. It took another 12 years, until 1977 to be more precise, for the provinces to understand that it was in their interest to obtain tax points in order to fund the various health, education and income security programs. Once again, we led the way.
With Bill C-5, we find ourselves in the same situation again. In 1990, over 11 years ago, the Bourassa government passed legislation on endangered species, on wildlife conservation, and on fisheries resources practices and conservation. We made this commitment to protect endangered species and their habitat 11 years ago in Quebec. Now we find ourselves in a situation where the federal government is not respecting what was done and wants to impose pan-Canadian legislation on endangered species, with no regard for provincial jurisdiction.
In 1996, my colleague, David Cliche, then Quebec's minister of the environment, agreed to sign a federal-provincial accord on the protection of endangered species on the following condition.
I think things were clear back then. That one condition was that the agreement should not ignore Quebec's jurisdictions, it should not ignore what had been done since 1991, and it should ensure a degree of complementarity regarding the protection of species at risk and their habitat, based on what was done by Quebec and the other provinces and by the federal government in their respective jurisdictions.
We have nothing against a federal act on the protection of the environment, to the extent that it applies strictly and exclusively to areas where the federal government has full jurisdiction such as, for example, Parks Canada. It goes without saying that migratory birds come under federal jurisdiction. But jurisdictions must be respected when we come up with an act that deals with all the species that are endangered or at risk, with wildlife conservation in general, and with fisheries conservation.
Clause 32 of the bill is particularly dangerous, since the federal government may decide alone that a province, for example Quebec, does not fully respect its vision concerning the protection of species and wildlife habitat. We know that, for the past 10 years already, the Quebec government has been actively involved in wildlife conservation, and in the protection of endangered species in particular, through a good and well thought out piece of legislation.
With this clause, the federal government could create some incredible duplication in an area that is already well looked after by the Quebec government. For example, the bill refers to conservation officers. They are actually called federal enforcement officers. But it is the same. The federal government could invoke clause 32 to say “Quebec is not doing its job properly”. We know how members opposite can resort to demagoguery. The federal government could say that Quebec is not doing what it should the way the federal government wants it to be done and use clause 32 to appoint federal enforcement officers who would work alongside with conservation officers governed by the Quebec act.
It could also put into place plans for the restoration of animal habitats, as the Quebec legislation, which I would remind hon. members has been in place for 11 years, is capable of doing. We have the experience and the resources to do so. The Quebec legislation already has provisions for habitat restoration.
We can see where things are headed. It could have been so simple. It would seem that simplicity is anathema to the federal government. It is incapable of doing anything simple. The more complex things are, the happier it is. The more likelihood of stirring up disputes, the happier the people over there are. It can be seen with all the matter of tax imbalance how the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is exhibiting shameless cynicism and just brushing aside the opinion of leading Quebec specialists and organizations. He even dares to take excerpts from their brief and quote them out of context, in order to make them appear to say the opposite of the general thrust of the brief.
We can see how those on the other side have the capacity to be what the miners call powder men, the ones who set off explosions. Once again, here we are in a situation where it would have been easy to say, “We are going to respect jurisdictions. We are also going to respect existing legislation. In Quebec you have been at this for 11 years. You have been protecting endangered species with three very specific pieces of legislation with teeth”. They could have said, “We respect that“. The federal legislation could have been limited to federal jurisdictions. But no. It is way easier to stir up trouble, as is the wont of those people over there.
As soon as there is an opportunity to impose a clear desire for still greater centralization, they go ahead and do it. As soon as there is an opportunity to stir up federal-provincial squabbles, they go ahead and do it. As soon as they see a situation with the potential for literally crowding out the government of Quebec or the provinces, even in areas under their jurisdiction, they go ahead and do it.
Who do these guys think they are? How can people who contribute, as they do in Quebec, some $40 billion in various kinds of taxes, accept having such troublemakers across the floor from us?
We are going to fight this unacceptable bill. We, the Bloc Quebecois, are going to win that fight.