Madam Speaker, in this group of amendments a number of items need to be addressed.
The member for Red Deer did his job in condemning a certain approach. I would like to remind him that the mens rea issue was discussed at length and in depth at committee. The conclusion we arrived at after very careful and thoughtful deliberation was that there is a justification for that approach in certain extreme cases but not definitely in cases for which he understandably expressed some concern.
I would like to address an item in this group of motions that concerns aboriginal people. A motion was made in committee to facilitate and provide a broader basis for consultation with aboriginal people across the country. It was a matter that our colleague, the member for Churchill, espoused quite eloquently in committee. It resulted in an amendment that was made which we all thought was reasonable and desirable but which became the object of a motion by the government which in a sense in Group No. 4 unravels the consensus reached so carefully in committee.
I noticed with some sense of alarm the press release issued yesterday by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president. The changes made by the government at report stage are the object of the press release. The president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said the changes--
--do not currently reflect the constitutionally protected relationship between Inuit and the federal government. More specifically, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami feels the federal government has undermined the integrity of the Species at Risk legislation through its report stage motions.
The Inuit Tapiriit president put his finger on an issue we also raised, namely the unfortunate intervention by the government by way of motions. They are undoing the careful work made by way of consensus, intensive negotiations, co-operation and initiatives taken in particular by the member for Red Deer and the member for Simcoe North and others, to arrive at an all party consensus which resulted in the report from our committee.
Coming back to yesterday's press release by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the last paragraph reads:
Due to these recent events, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, along with other Aboriginal groups, have no choice but to withdraw their support from the Species at Risk Act. ITK will only support Bill C-5 if the federal government reverts wording concerning NACOSAR [National Aboriginal Council on Species at Risk] back to the Standing Committee version, or an honourable compromise can be reached between Aboriginal groups and the federal government.
I hope a solution can be found by way of an honourable compromise and by way of an amendment perhaps later on in this debate.
Too many of the motions, too many of the discrepancies and divergences of opinions that have been expressed during the debate rest on the federal-provincial accord arrived at in 1992 in Charlottetown. These were federal and provincial ministers who were responsible for wildlife and the environment.
What is the Charlottetown accord to which so much undue importance is attributed? It is simply a piece of paper. Those who signed it had no mandate by parliament or legislatures to do so. Since then they have had time to bring that accord back to their respective legislatures and parliament for a good discussion. They have not done so. It is a document that has no parliamentary foundation.
In addition there has been no public consultation on that accord. No parliamentary hearings have taken place. No debates in the House, or to the best of my knowledge in any legislature, have taken place on the Charlottetown accord.
What it has produced is very hard to measure. It is an understanding on loose concepts which has no real significance in the achievement of the goal, namely the protection of endangered species. It is a meaningless document which nevertheless is invoked frequently despite its insignificance.
I am bringing this into the discussion today because it seems to me that rather than being guided by the 1992 Charlottetown so-called accord which has no parliamentary or legislative basis at all, we should instead concentrate on the federal role, the federal responsibility for the protection of endangered species. We should give strong leadership because we have a constitutional base for the promotion of the protection of endangered species. Just with water alone and the species that move in water, we have a tremendous responsibility and constitutional mandate.
The federal government also has the moral authority to take a leadership role. Canadians and the public at large expect the federal government to take a leadership role. This is what should be guiding us in these deliberations.
Industries, specifically the mining industry and the forestry industry, and a number of environmental groups support the key changes the committee made to the bill regarding listing and habitat. This type of coalition is unprecedented. We must also keep in mind that 1,300 scientists have supported a strong bill and have said that the bill should go even further than it does in the protection of endangered species.
Never before have we seen such a broad industry-environment consensus on a major environmental bill. It is extremely unfortunate the government will not go as far as industry is willing to go in the protection of endangered species.