As the member for Windsor--St. Clair just said, after an awful lot of hard work. The provinces supported the provisions made by the committee but the government wants to reverse those very same provisions.
Why is it that we do not have mandatory protection of critical habitat on federal lands, or what we believe is federal jurisdiction, yet the bill has provisions to interfere in provincial jurisdiction or perhaps even on private lands?
The Government of Canada has no moral suasion to do that unless it were to protect its own backyard.
Were it advocated in the context of a series of amendments that if a federal law was going to intrude or engage on provincial jurisdiction, it would be only prudent for us to have some criteria that would outline that level of engagement.
This is not only my opinion in the Progressive Conservative Party and my DR cousins. It is the opinion of the NDP. It was the opinion at the committee level of the Canadian Alliance. It is also the opinion level of the provinces.
I quote from a letter that was sent to me, dated December 20, 2001, from the minister of natural resources in the province of Ontario who has cartage of issues pertaining to species at risk. In a letter written by a strong minister in that particular cabinet, the hon. John Snobelen, he states clearly in this particular instance:
The only obligation on the part of the minister is to “consult” with the provinces before making the recommendation.
As members probably know, this is the case in clauses 34, 35 and 61. The minister goes on to state:
However, it is Ontario's position that the wording and the intent of section 34, clearly undermined that the co-operative spirit and willingness of the provinces and territories to enter into the collaborative decision making required to build a strong national program. I appreciate the Standing Committee's suggestions for a criteria regarding the application of the federal safety net.
What is the Government of Canada doing? It is gutting this provision that the province of Ontario supports.
He does go on to say that he believes that the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council should decide on that final criteria. That is exactly what happens in clauses 34 and 35 because of the work of the committee. Now the government wants to gut that out so that the Minister of the Environment can arbitrarily go in whenever he happens to think it is appropriate or not, as opposed to actually setting out actual criteria.
It is not just Ontario that shares this particular opinion. We can look at the Tory government in the province of Nova Scotia which also has a very strong piece of legislation. I might add that it has the strongest piece of environmental legislation on species at risk in Canada.
In a letter to me dated January 7, the hon. minister, Ernest Fage, writes:
“However, “the safety net” is one of the provisions of the new Act which goes beyond spirit and intent of the Accord as you have stated--
Here he is referring to a letter I had written to him. He goes on to say:
--the lack of clarity around the term “effective” protection is problematic, especially as it relates to “a critical habitat”. We agree that a test for the “effective” protection acceptable to all jurisdictions needs to be developed”.
Guess what? The Government of Canada has gutter that provision as well. It is against Ontario and against Nova Scotia. However, we do have more. When we wrote to the province of Prince Edward Island to tell it about the fact that we had established criteria, it said that it appreciated the establishment of the criteria and the application of prohibitions under the proposed act within the provinces and territories. Prince Edward Island is currently in the process of reviewing the recommendations of the standing committee. The hon. minister in Prince Edward Island who is responsible for this particular file, Chester Gillian, had no problems with the committee's amendments in that instance.
Now we are against P.E.I., against Nova Scotia and against Ontario.