Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, before I speak to the bill and to the motions I want to acquaint you with the fact that I just received a telephone call from a constituent who raised a very interesting point. He is a senior in my constituency. He raised the point, with respect to the indexing of government pensions, that now we have a very peculiar situation in British Columbia.
As a result of the downloading of the government in Victoria, many of the costs, prescription and otherwise, that are facing him now are putting him in a position where he will be looking to the federal government for assistance to help him meet these costs. It is a very interesting situation in which we find ourselves when we have a complication between the federal and provincial governments.
Speaking specifically to the motions in Group No. 3, the issue of socioeconomic interests in public consultation is one that is exceptionally important in my constituency.
I will reacquaint members with the fact that I live in one of the most beautiful parts of Canada. It is right in the Rocky Mountains on the southeast corner of the province of British Columbia. We have caribou, moose, grizzly bears, lynx and cougar. We have every imaginable kind of animal in our area.
I take a look at the issue of the government deciding relative to COSEWIC, which stands for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, and take a look at some of the decisions that COSEWIC has already made in my constituency as it specifically relates to socioeconomic interests, particularly in the city of Revelstoke.
Revelstoke is a very interesting city with 8,500 people, nestled down between three valleys. They are isolated to the east. One goes over Roger's Pass to Golden which is an hour and a half drive. To the west one drives for approximately an hour to another small community called Sicamous. To the south one drives for the longest time over a ferry and on down to Nelson, about a two and a half hour drive. This is a community of 8,500 people who are completely isolated in one of the most pristine and beautiful parts of Canada.
The community has been hit a number of times economically by virtue of the fact that there are more responsible and sustainable logging practices that are now being practised. As a consequence, there has been a downturn in the level of employment available to the people. I commend the industry, by the way, for the fact that it has adapted very readily to these more sustainable logging practices and they truly are sustainable.
However, in picking up the slack, investors came in. Because of the exceptionally heavy snow load, which is typical for the Revelstoke area, and the beautiful snowmobiling terrain, investors came in with millions of dollars and invested in lodges right in or immediately around this isolated area of 8,500 people and were ready for the snowmobilers to come. They created a service, an availability for this recreation.
All of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, we had COSEWIC looking at the issue of the mountain caribou in the area. It changed the listing of the caribou and suddenly many of the trails were eliminated immediately.
For anyone to suggest that I or anyone in my party is not concerned about red listed or endangered species would be completely inappropriate because we are. The mountain caribou are a very special species of animal.
The fact of the matter is that there are many pressures on the Rocky Mountain caribou, not the least of which are predators. A predator eradication program used to be in effect in that area but the program no longer exists. As a result, the cougars, the wolves and coyotes just go after the caribou. It is something that simply is not taken into account.
Something else that is really very interesting is that as COSEWIC and other organizations have attempted to get a handle on exactly what is involved with the caribou, they have been flying in and dropping nets over the caribou herds. The caribou thrash around in the net until the helicopter can land and the members of these organizations can shoot the caribou with something that puts them under. They radio collar the thing, take the net off and then fly away in the helicopter. It is rather interesting that the caribou now are spooked by helicopters.
One of the other very responsible recreations in that area is helicopter skiing. All of a sudden people are saying that part of the problem here is the helicopter skiing. Excuse me, if they are going to spook the bejabbers out of the caribou by doing these types of studies, I guess they will run when they hear a helicopter.
We have another one in terms of endangered species and socioeconomic interests. In the far southeast corner of British Columbia is an area of primary growth forest. It is an area that is overpopulated with grizzly. Anyone who does not know anything about it will say that the grizzly are an endangered species and then they get into a whole list of prohibitions. In that particular part of my constituency there is an overabundance of grizzly. They are literally crawling all over each other.
Studies are being done on the grizzly, fortunately not by helicopter, whereby, through the genetic coding of hair taken from the grizzly which happens to be on their scratching trees, the number of grizzly in that area can be determined. However that is not good enough. We have the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society that is proposing a total preserve in this area to protect the grizzly. Why would it do that ? I believe I just said that we have an overabundance of grizzly. There has been responsible resource extraction in the area by the forestry and mining companies. There are open areas for the forage of the grizzly, which can then go over the U.S. border without going through customs, get into Glacier National Park in the United States or go over the Alberta border and not pay any more provincial sales tax and they get into the Waterton Lakes area which is primary forest.
All of a sudden we have a situation where we have people, who I can only presume are well-meaning, saying that we have to protect the grizzly when there is an overabundance. I have said it before and I say it again, like Yogi Berra said, “If it ain't broke don't fix it.”
Are there problems with grizzly in other areas even within my constituency? Yes, there are. There are problems with grizzly because of the encroachment of human beings into an area. There are problems with grizzly because of the imbalance of the predator to prey situation that has occurred because of human management.
With respect to this Group No. 3, the whole issue of taking a look at the socioeconomic relationship before there is any movement to take definitive action against people and against human activity that is under the species at risk bill is totally inappropriate. I say that on behalf of the people of Kootenay--Columbia who live and experience the wonderful wildlife that we have in Canada.