Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-5. We have seen quite a few versions of this bill in the last several years. I have been in the House nine years and I am not exactly sure when the bill was introduced. It seems like a lifetime ago and it has not really gone anywhere. There is a huge debate in the country, not about whether we should have endangered species legislation or co-operation but about what is the best way to carry that out to get the result we all want.
Some people on the other side of the House seem to indicate that people in rural areas, farmers, ranchers, oil companies and forest companies, do not have any concern about endangered species or their habitat. That is a sad statement from the Liberal side of the House because it simply is not true.
My wife and I and our children have a 2,000 acre grain farm in Alberta. We enjoy the wildlife and habitat as much as anyone else but we feel it is pretty unfair that 30 million Canadians share the view that we want to be able to build up our numbers of endangered species.
I can think back to the 1950s when a fellow in the Grande Prairie area single-handedly took on the task of renewing the trumpeter swan population. The numbers were pretty low at that time. He had co-operation from landowners and he was able to bring that about. There was no heavy-handed legislation which said $250,000 for this and $500,000 for that. That is not to suggest that it cannot work but I do not think it would have worked in that case. Co-operation is a far better method.
It is a little ironic that a lot of people in cities and members who represent city ridings seem to be suggesting that we want to keep these endangered species and habitat but we want landowners to pay the full price for doing that. That is not a workable solution. It never has been and never will be. We know that in the United States it was not. If there is no co-operation from the people who are going to be directly affected in trying to maintain the habitat and species, it simply will not work.
I agree with the Liberal government that this is a laudable goal. I do not think there is a person in the House that would not agree with that. No one wants to see a species become extinct. I cannot think of one person I know who would want that to happen. But what is the best method of achieving our goal? By all means it is not a heavy-handed approach.
As I have said, we have seen the example in the United States. If landowners are not compensated, are they expected to bear the burden for 30 million Canadians? In western Canada there are about 200,000 grain farmers. Are they expected to bear the brunt of all of this? It would appear so. It is an unworkable solution.
In my riding of Peace River there are 10 million acres of agricultural land alone. That does not include the forestry and oil and gas operations which include much more land in terms of size. How can this be policed? It cannot be.
There has to be co-operation from the user groups to make it effective. It seems that common sense has flown out the window on the Liberal side by not including co-operation and compensation. It is simply not workable. We must be a little more enlightened about this. We must come to a better solution.
How many species of flora and fauna do we see in our major cities? I would suggest not many. It is hypocritical in the extreme that members representing urban ridings are trying to tell the rest of us in rural Canada, which takes up 99% of the land base, that we should do this on our own because they have wrecked theirs. There are not too many endangered species in downtown Toronto. A lot of them are gone. That is not their habitat. Their habitat is largely in rural areas.
We have a lot of moose, deer and wildlife in my rural area. People who live in the cities have to take a more enlightened approach to this. We all have the same goal in mind but they had better start paying their share of the cost.
I will use an example of what in my view is a good solution. It is a practical solution that has been used for quite a number of years. I refer to the Ducks Unlimited program. Ducks Unlimited expanded across the country. It is very successful in saving habitat for waterfowl. It started with the ducks and geese and has a pretty enlightened approach. It pays landowners to allow ducks and geese to stay in their natural state so they have an area to nest.
I was a grain farmer for 25 years and participated in the Ducks Unlimited program before coming to the House of Commons. I saw it as being beneficial and was willing to do my part, but I could not afford to do it all on my own. The Ducks Unlimited program paid us to leave our fields in ground cover so the ducks could hatch. It was successful, and its program has been expanded across the country. We now see more ducks and geese than we used to.
I am familiar with the program of the Alberta government which has feeding stations at harvest time. Grain is bought from grain farmers. It is spread out in certain areas so that ducks and geese have something to eat without raiding the crops of people and destroying their livelihoods. It is a very successful program.
Why would the government ignore a successful program like Ducks Unlimited and instead use a heavy-handed approach of legislation that has huge fines? It will not be successful. It is as simple as that.
We talk about criminal intent in Group No. 2. I suggest that if this is not a reasonable law that people feel they can comply with, there will be criminal intent. We saw it happen in the United States. Species were destroyed, which was the exact opposite of what the powers that put that policy in place expected and wanted. We have seen it happen before.
Farmers and ranchers cannot carry the burden of this for society. They are already struggling with very serious financial conditions, and we have a government that seems to be telling these people that for the good of the country they have to provide the habitat for endangered species. It will not work. It will have the opposite effect of the intent. It is criminal in the extreme to be putting forward programs like this that will actually cause, in my view, more endangered species to become fewer in number as a result of public policy.
After seven or eight years of discussing the issue, has the government not learned anything? Did it not learn anything from talking to people in the United States that had the heavy-handed approach with fines? I suspect not because it just keeps blundering on and pushing this forward.
I have outlined what I think is a workable solution. If we have the same goal in mind between rural and urban people, why not share the cost of protecting habitat for endangered species? It is a laudable goal and it is something we need to work on together.
I wonder about people in Montreal or Toronto who have residences with nice lush lawns. What if all of a sudden earthworms in their lawns became endangered species and the people were not able to fertilize their lawns, spray them with organic chemicals or others? What if they were told that their lawns had to be three feet high to protect the habitat. It simply would not work because there needs to be an incentive for people to do that.
I am calling for a better understanding by urban people as to the threat. The threat is that we will completely go down the wrong road on this in spite of examples that have taken place in other parts of the world, such as the United States. The goals will not be achieved.
After listening to debate on this for five or six years, it seems to me that any government that has not really heard this message is not listening. The government is holding hearings but it is not listening. It is not hearing what will take place and it is doomed to failure. I suggest this policy should be withdrawn and the minister should put forward a more co-operative approach that will be successful.