Mr. Speaker, I will start by rebutting the argument by the member for Mercier which really lacks credibility in view of the fact that the performance of the provinces is very poor. The jurisdictional issue the member for Mercier raised is totally out of place.
Let me put on the record that in the case of the province of Quebec, which did pass legislation to protect endangered species in 1989, there were 26 species recommended by scientists to the government of Quebec for the purposes of being threatened, therefore requiring protection. In the meantime, since 1989 only three have been legally listed in the province of Quebec. That means that of the threatened species in that province only 12% have been protected. The record for Ontario is not that much better because only 23% have been protected.
There is a profoundly wrong assumption being made. One could devote the 10 minutes allocated to that topic this morning but I will not do that. The wrong assumption is the perception amongst the political culture that turtles, lizards and salamanders, wolves or grizzly bears, any of the 300 plus species that are listed as endangered know what political boundaries are all about. That is the assumption being made and it is wrong.
We have to move out of that mental box and realize that if we were to fight on the grounds of political boundaries we would never tackle the nature of this problem as demonstrated and proven by the statistics province by province, which I understand one of my colleagues will elaborate on later.
On Motion No. 23 the committee recommended that the minister, within one year after the bill being proclaimed, shall establish a national stewardship action plan that would create incentives and other measures to support voluntary stewardship actions taken by any government, organization or individual in Canada.
Motion No. 23 introduced by the government would unfortunately wipe out this measure in the bill. It goes from mandatory to discretionary and it is contrary to statements made by the minister on various occasions in which he quite rightly spoke about co-operation, voluntarism and the importance of promoting voluntary action in protecting species. Motion No. 23 would nullify what is in the bill and I wonder whether the minister is aware of the content of the amendment prepared by his department because it is in clear contradiction of his public statements and his deep commitment to fostering co-operation and voluntarism.
Motion No. 35 deals with the listing which was the object of intensive discussions and study in committee. The motion is not supportable. It is not desirable at all. It causes deep concern because the problem of listing is not solved by the amendment introduced by the government. The committee found a reasonable solution to the problem which would take into account both political accountability and the fact that elected representatives come under pressure when allocating a natural resource. Members may remember the case of cod. At the same time it would take into account the importance of the recommendations made by the scientific community.
The scientific listing is proposed by a group called COSEWIC. It is an appropriate committee of scientists. That list would be sent to cabinet. From that moment and for six months it would be up to the politicians, to the elected representatives who are accountable under our system, to decide whether or not to accept that list. I submit this is a reasonable approach. It would balance the industry pressures by preventing the extinction of a certain species as happened in the case of cod 10 years ago. Unfortunately however, the government is proposing an amendment that would favour the status quo which would pave the way for the repetition of past mistakes.
Motion No. 49 would delete the work done in committee. It recommended a number of appropriate measures for the minister such as consultation with provincial ministers, wildlife management boards and so on, as well as public consultation. Unfortunately and regrettably, the public consultation is deleted by the amendment.
The minister seems to be, or the department perhaps, opposed to any timelines that were included in the bill as reported to the House. Timelines are necessary to provide an incentive for the provinces to act quickly given the track record of some provinces in listing endangered species, particularly British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario.
It is highly unlikely that a prohibition safety net could be implemented quickly, if at all, without some federal timelines in place. We see here a contradiction between public statements that have been made and the thrust of this particular amendment.
The effect of Motion No. 78 would be to delete the mandatory development of regulations that are needed to put into place the so-called action plans, which are an extremely important component of the bill.
The amendment proposed by the government removes a timeframe, with a rationale stating that 120 days is a very short timeframe for the development of regulations and that it would unnecessarily limit the amount of consultation in the development of regulations.
I would say that by removing the mandatory timeframe for the development of regulations to implement this action plan there is no guarantee that there will be swift action. This is a very important component of the bill, as reported back to you, Mr. Speaker, namely the retention of timeframes in this particular portion of the bill and in others as well.
This takes me to Motion No. 84. I will comment briefly on this motion by saying that it reverts back to the discretionary habitat protection on federal lands with no time limit for protection. The rationale given for explaining Motion No. 84 is, I would submit, erroneous because the clause of the committee's bill, as reported here, is purely co-operative in nature.
I regret that my time is up but, in conclusion, I would say that with this particular motion the government would be removing and violating very severely the stewardship agenda proposed in the bill.