Madam Speaker, I am delighted to stand in the House of Commons, the House of the representatives of the people of Canada, to debate this very important bill, Bill C-5, a bill relating to the preservation of species at risk.
I believe this is an historic debate today. It will be one of the most significant debates of the last eight or nine years. The reason I say that is very simple. I have a belief in my heart that this will probably be the first government bill to be defeated in the House.
That in itself is a very optimistic statement but I really expect that this time all the Liberal members who worked so hard in committee to do what was right and who have been so dumped on by the whip and the government bureaucracy in this bill, will rise, as I think many of their colleagues will, in revolt. I would encourage them to do so.
I have to relate a little story. Not long ago I told one of the editors of a major paper in my riding of an instance in the House a number of weeks ago when there were no Liberals members at all. I am not speaking about now. I told the editor of the paper how I walked across the aisle and sat on the government side. I was perhaps out of order but I actually sat in the Prime Minister's chair, being the only member on that side of the House. I gave the excuse that there was a member on this side speaking and that it was very difficult to speak if one did not have an audience. I also said that there was something symbolic about the situation. I said that if no Liberals were ready to properly run the country that symbolically we were.
I told that to the reporter and she reported it in the paper. She said that I was a cheeky MP. Perhaps what I did on that occasion was cheeky but I made the point that government members, who have the majority and who by standing on a vote can cause a bill to pass or fail, have an awesome responsibility.
In this particular instance I think they have a wonderful opportunity to restore the sense of democracy, which ought to prevail in the House in any case, and that is that the wisdom of the committee and of the witnesses that were heard should actually be taken into account and should positively influence the legislation with which we are dealing.
Speaking of cheeky, I think if anyone is cheeky it is the arrogant Liberal government on the other side which thinks that whatever it comes up with in the back rooms cannot be revised or amended.
If any one of us in our relationship with other people, with our businesses or with our families were to give the impression that we could never make a mistake, that whatever we said was absolutely right and that whatever anyone else said was just automatically wrong because we did not say it, that would be the height of arrogance and it would go nowhere.
I believe that is what is happening with the bill, and I am very sad about it. The committee worked hard, heard from witnesses and made a number of recommendations to amend the bill and improve it.
Lo and behold, we come to third reading, because the committee reported. This was reported by all members of the committee, not just from one party or another. I believe in many instances these amendments were passed in committee unanimously. The committee reported Bill C-5 back to the House with amendments.
What happened after that? The government introduced a whole bunch of amendments at third reading. The only purpose of those third reading amendments was to nullify the work of all the witnesses and all the committee members.
I know that when I use certain words they reflect back on myself but I really cannot think of any other words to use than the words, what blatant arrogance. It is very unwise. I wish the government would wake up and recognize the collective investment Canadians put into their parliamentarians. It is not cheap. We know the expense of having individual member of parliament here, the office staff, the office costs and the travel costs, not to mention the salaries and the forthcoming pensions. All of that is a huge investment on the part of Canadians. I think it is about time that Canadians received value for that dollar.
If the Liberal members are not willing to finally assert themselves on this occasion, the best occasion I have seen in the over eight years I have been in parliament, and say that the work they did was valid, that they will stand by their work and that they will stand and vote against the amendments which nullify their work , then I think they will have missed a golden opportunity.
I was a math-physics major but I know somebody somewhere said that there is an opportunity, there is a chance given to men that comes but once. I think it goes something like, “a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the maximum leads on to fortune”. I have not referred to that poem since I was in high school. I am sure members can tell by looking at my hair that it was not years ago but decades ago. This is an opportunity for members to react.
My colleagues have talked about these different amendments. I think it would be a waste of my time to go through all those amendment again. My appeal is simply to those members who will read this speech in Hansard or who are watching it now on closed circuit television in the House of Commons, and my appeal to them is very straightforward. Let us do what Canadian taxpayers and Canadian voters have sent us here to do and are paying us here to do, which is to do what is right.
I would like to emphasize this further. In my whole life I have not very often been able to say that everything I have done today is right. I probably make one or two mistakes every day, sometimes three or four and sometimes more. I think it is a missed opportunity on the part of the government to not listen to the committee and to the witnesses who appeared before that committee. It is forcing through a bill with a bunch of amendments to get its way when what that produces is a bill far less effective than the bill that would result if these amendments by the government would be turned down in order to give us the bill that the committee studied and improved.
Why would the government not want to have an improved bill? We walk into the stores and we see soap and bread that is new and improved. It is better than it was before.
I subscribe to the theory that when the bill went to committee it was not as good as the bill which came back from committee because of the work members of the committee expended on it. They studied it and came up with some amendments.
I have to emphasize over and over again that the members of the House, who really believe their work was valuable and that they did improve the bill, should, in this particular case, although I hate to counsel defiance, defy the authority of their whip, stand their ground and say that they have done good work and that they will stand by it. I would like to see that. I intend to do that. I will vote against these amendments which undo the committee work. I invite all hon. members to join me in that.