Mr. Speaker, as I start I want to commend you for your Latin and for your translation. I certainly apologize for any inconvenience that created for you, but I believe that there are biologists, scientists and, more important, Canadians who really want to know what is on the list. If there is one question that we are asked a lot it is: What are these endangered species and how we are going to know when we destroy one or when we have one on our land? In past debate I have used some examples from Saskatchewan but I have not seen them from other provinces. While that might have been a long ordeal, Mr. Speaker, and while the Latin probably was not picked up by a lot of people, certainly the English listing was important to Canadians.
I believe that in Group No. 3 we have further insulted our committee and we have insulted farmers and environmentalists. Each of these groups worked very hard on the bill. Our committee worked together very well to try to make it a better bill. Farmers are concerned because they are worried about their land values. They are worried about whether they will be compensated if they lose some of their quality of life and some of their income. Environmentalists are concerned because they want to know that habitat is being protected. They know that a species will not survive without that habitat being protected. They are concerned that the bill does not do that.
In Group No. 1 we talked about compensation, which the government has not put in the bill. In Group No. 2 we talked about due diligence versus mens rea, in other words, one is guilty until proven innocent, and the terrible toll that might take in terms of court costs and how that might eat up the little money available.
We are now debating Group No. 3 and we can talk about sustainable development and the whole socioeconomic impact of a bill like this, which is what I would like to dwell on, not specifically amendment by amendment, but I would like to talk about a few of these amendments and some of the things that I believe are problems in the bill.
First, there are a number of technical amendments in the group. Many of them do not change the bill very much and it is difficult to say anything about them. The biggest problem when it comes to technical amendments is that the government did not have time to do a technical amendment on compensation. Again it has said it will do that in the regulations so all land users out there should just be patient and trust that the government will in fact will include some form of compensation, but saying “trust us” does not go very far. There are not very many landowners or land users who will accept that. It is too bad that there was not a technical amendment covering compensation rather than the government saying it will just leave that to the regulations.
As well, there is no technical amendment that explains to provinces how the federal government will overrule what the provincial government already is doing. Again, the government is basically saying to the provinces “Trust us. We won't impose our federal jurisdiction on your species at risk legislation that is already there”. Again I say that the landowners and the provinces are not very happy with “trust us” when it comes to the technical part of the bill.
Second, co-operation should be there. There is a feeling within government, which we have detected in some government witnesses, some bureaucrats in Environment Canada, that the government knows best, that it can save species at risk and will do it with tough legislation and tough penalties. The government will charge $250,000 if people break the law and throw them in jail for five years and give them a criminal record. That hardly conjures up the idea of friendly co-operation among people.
Then we come to the key issue of the amendments, the socioeconomic impact. We heard many witnesses talk about how government should be concerned about the socioeconomic impact of preserving a species at risk. We listened to members of COSEWIC who said they will establish the scientific list. I believe they have been doing it for some 20 plus years and have probably been doing a pretty good job of establishing the list. Mr. Speaker will appreciate the list because he got to read it both in English and in Latin so he really knows the job COSEWIC has done.
However, the most troubling part of this whole thing is the issue of the group called SARWG, the species at risk working group, which is made up of groups from environment and industry. Let me mention a few of the names: the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, the Sierra Club, the Canadian Nature Federation and the Mining Association of Canada. Let me quote what this group, these environment and industry people, said. I am speaking to Motion No. 15. They stated:
The purposes of this Act shall be pursued to the extent possible while taking into account social and economic interests of Canadians.
That is the key issue. A group of environmentalists and people from industry say that we must be concerned about the socioeconomic impacts of preserving a species. If this is not done adequately the bill will be a complete failure. That is why we have made some amendments, specifically Motion No. 15. We cannot just simply say we will go by the scientific listing. We in fact must consider those socioeconomic impacts.
The second point is this: How much will the bill cost? Environment Canada basically has no idea of what it might cost. When it was questioned we did not get a figure. The environment minister says he has $45 million. The problem with saying $45 million, which seems like a lot of money, particularly to the farmer or rancher out there, is that it could be used up in a heartbeat just on litigation costs around the bill. The money, according to Environment Canada and the environment minister, should be used for conservation projects and for all kinds of stewardship programs, but how many stewardship programs will there be when the government is faced with all the litigation charges resulting from the bill?
I will very quickly mention public consultation. What kind of public consultation will there be? We talk about having round tables. What will these round tables consist of? What I am afraid of is that they will consist of a bunch of political appointees, friends of the party, who will get together to talk about how well the bill is or is not working. The round tables should consist of all of the interest groups: environmentalists, industry groups, farmers and ranchers. All the groups must be consulted. We must get the message out that it is not just due diligence and heavy penalties that make up the bill.
We have put forward Motion No. 4 in which we say landowners must be notified that they have a species at risk on their land. The government does not want to do that until it has its final plan in place and we just think that is wrong.
The whole bill is based on government saying “trust us” and we are saying that is not good enough. There is no compensation in the bill; it says trust us. People are guilty until proven innocent. It is a top down federal control over the provinces through the safety nets. There is total ministerial discretion. There is no communication plan. There is no habitat protection plan. How will this bill ever work? For all these reasons and many more we believe that the bill will in fact endanger the endangered species.