Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-5, the endangered species bill. I will speak from my standpoint of being a farmer.
We would have to go a long way to find better stewards of the land, the resources and wildlife on it, than farmers. Farmers are aware that we must be good stewards of the land because if we are not we simply cannot continue to do what we do for our livelihoods.
I would like to dwell on some of the positive aspects that the Canadian Alliance has brought to the bill. We believe that a balanced plan to conserve the biological diversity of protected, endangered species is critical for balancing a healthy environment and for a high quality of life for all Canadians. We must have the ability to feed ourselves to maintain a healthy environment and be sustainable. There has to be a balance. Endangered species legislation must encourage critical conservation through community-based stewardship programs, incentives, respect of private property rights, and full compensation.
My friend from Saanich--Gulf Islands referred to the possibility of us learning from similar legislation passed in the United States. Americans found that their legislation did not lead to better conservation or better protection of endangered species. In fact it led to harsher environments for endangered species. People did not report a short-eared owl or some kind of rare butterfly, or mushroom growing on their property. They did not risk having the whole bureaucratic force descend upon them, being read the riot act and maybe even charged with something. They took the attitude of shoot, shovel and shut-up. That is absolutely counterproductive to what the legislation is trying to attain.
When I go fishing with my buddy Stan and his son Marty we do not catch all the fish in the lake and bring them home. We do not even catch our limit. We set out to bring home enough fish for supper. My wife and I like fresh trout very much so we catch maybe two, or if they are a little larger one will do. We do not take all the fish out of the lake. We leave some for next time. It is called stewardship.
What I find so offensive about the bill is that it takes an adversarial point of view with the very people it should be co-operating with. There should be incentives and co-operation. There should be encouragement for people in the farming business, and in industry as well.
However I want to speak specifically about farming because that is how I made my living for the last 35 years. The government is making a huge mistake by not bringing the farming, agricultural and ranching communities onside with it as full partners and participants rather than taking the big brother approach that we shall protect these endangered species.
Farmers may be aware of some of the species but certainly not all of them. We are aware that the whooping crane is an endangered species and I am sure that farmers who had a whooping crane nesting on their land would take extreme caution to stay away from it and not disturb it. However while they are doing that they should be compensated.
All of us work very hard to pay for our land and we work very hard once we get it paid for to make a living from it. It is a basic right that we should be able to enjoy the quiet enjoyment of our land and be able to farm it in order to produce food.
If we do not have control of our land farmers will be added to the species at risk list. People in Canada will go hungry when farmers are regulated to the point that they cannot produce food for our nation anymore.
There are many people with farm backgrounds in the House, not just in our party, but in all parties. If we go back a generation or two, there are probably agricultural links literally to every person in the House and certainly if there are not direct agricultural links, there is a need for people in the House to depend on agriculture to feed them.
I would like to talk about compensation and not just compensation on an ad hoc basis. This has to be compensation at fair market value. If we do not have the ability to dispose of our land at fair market value, then we never had ownership of it in the first place. Surely to goodness we have not come to that point in Canada where people will be deprived of the ownership of their land. I thought that was something that was saved for totally totalitarian regimes.
The points I am making are absolutely critical to the survival and the saving of the species that the bill intends to help. Farmers and ranchers are excellent stewards of the land. The last few years have been particularly difficult for farmers on the plains. It has been dry. We have had barely enough moisture to get a crop in my area. I am fairly close to the foothills so we get showers that come over the mountains and we get rain but 25 miles east of me those showers have completely petered out and the land is even drier and--