Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that although the current Minister of Health is obviously no longer the minister of justice, the issue of mandatory hunting rifle registration will continue to haunt her, and her government I might add.
With respect to the matter at hand, the species at risk legislation, let me begin by saying that in 1992 the convention on biological diversity obliged Canada to adopt measures for mandatory habitat protection of threatened and endangered species and a scientific listing of species at risk to be a part of that process, both of which actually this legislation is deficient on and actually does not meet those obligations.
Furthermore, I might add that it is unfortunate that it has taken the Liberal government so long to bring in this legislation. It has been in office since 1993 and here it is 2002 and, if I am not mistaken, this is the first piece of environmental legislation that it has ever brought in in all the years it has been in office, and the legislation falls short of our obligations under that 1992 convention.
Nonetheless, the species at risk working group, which was a coalition of well recognized and major environmental groups, as well as industry stakeholders, put together a series of consensus recommendations. The government is of course ignoring those recommendations in this legislation which has been its tendency in many other cases.
In many cases, industry stakeholders and, in this case, environmental groups with respect to environmental issues, are very much equipped to know the issues better than politicians quite frankly. The recommendations from these groups should be taken very seriously, not just flippantly disregarded as has been done in this case.
As I have said, that tendency exists in other areas, such as agriculture where farm groups have been proposing solid, sustainable agricultural policies and solutions to the agriculture crisis for years but instead of adopting some of those recommendations and listening to farmers themselves, the Liberals have stumbled from ad hoc agriculture program to ad hoc program trying to snuff out the fires of the crisis on a temporary basis. They do not seem to get it.
In any case, not only did the government ignore the consensus recommendations of the species at risk working group but members of the opposition in committee and, I might add, even some of the Liberal members of committee, worked very hard and proposed a whole series of amendments that they passed at committee to improve the legislation. Now that we are here at report stage, those amendments have been reversed by the minister, once again ignoring the advice and knowledge of people who have had a very close hand in working with the issues.
I will outline three specific deficiencies of the legislation. To be set up effectively, a plan to protect threatened and endangered species should include a science based approach: a list of threatened and endangered species that is put together by scientists and experts, not by politicians.
Second, if a species is placed on that list and a recovery plan stage is then entered into, that stage would include further scientific study and socio-economic assessments.
The legislation, however, involves political based decisions whereby there would be no requirement for the government to make a decision on recommendations by scientists or even to respond to them, no time line and the decision ultimately would rest with a politician as opposed to scientists. That is an obvious, glaring deficiency in the bill.
Third, there are provisions in the bill allowing for federal interference on private or provincial land but no mandatory protection for species at risk on federal land.
In the case of federal land, protection is discretionary on a case by case basis. Not only is that an inconsistency but it is obviously a wrong approach.
Protection of species at risk benefits everyone. No individual should bear the sole burden of the cost of recovery. Landowners who would be involved in the process should be subject to receiving fair and reasonable compensation. There is no clear provision for that in the bill either.
I want to address the issue of compensation for landowners. It is not in the bill but it will be dealt with, supposedly, by regulations from the minister. This is an approach that the government is increasingly taking every time it tables legislation. Instead of introducing comprehensive legislation that is very clear and thoughtful, it puts together these little framework shells of legislation and then accomplishes most of everything else through regulation. That is fundamentally wrong.
I would like to commend my hon. colleague, the member for Edmonton North, who, together with Senator Lowell Murray, co-authored a report entitled, “The Working Group on Democratic Reform”, a very exciting and comprehensive document of political, parliamentary and electoral reform. One of the recommendations contained in that report is regulatory reform, specifically, three measures are suggested.
First, that the government should be required to table a copy of the draft regulations before a bill is finally voted on in the Commons, or Senate if it originates there. Ideally, the draft regulations would be tabled at second reading or at the outset of committee study of the bill.
If that recommendation had been followed by the government, then the regulations pertaining to compensation for landowners could have been part of the process and could have been deliberated at committee where witnesses could have been called to testify about what they thought and amendments could have been proposed. It would have greatly improved the legislative making process.
The second recommendation in the report was with regard to new regulations under existing laws. It states that they should be tabled in parliament at the time of pre-publication so that appropriate committees can review them if desired.
Once again, that process is not followed by the Liberal government. When the time comes for the minister to table these regulations about compensation, there is no parliamentary scrutiny.
The third recommendation is that the disallowance procedure to rescind a regulation should be put on a statutory footing rather than being only an order of the House under the standing orders.
In fact the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations is currently struggling with that very issue right now. In December it voted to disallow some Indian-only fishing regulations that, as far back as 1997, were identified by the committee as being illegal, or what is called ultra vires the act, in other words, outside the scope of the act of parliament, and that the minister was making these regulations even though he did not have the authority to do so.
In December, because the minister kept dragging his feet and would not correct the situation, we finally voted to disallow those regulations. However the Liberal dominated committee, a few weeks ago, just outvoted us and is keeping that report away from parliament.
Those are some very solid suggestions for regulatory reform which I sincerely hope will one day be adopted by government.
Let me conclude by saying that the opposition coalition believes in protecting endangered species based on the principles of respect for private property, voluntary programs, co-operation, sound science and accountability. Without a strong emphasis on these principles, endangered species could become more threatened as the result of bad legislation. The current endangered species legislation does not sufficiently reflect these principles and we will continue to fight for legislation that is effective and that will work.