Mr. Speaker, personally, I am very happy to speak today, April 18, 2002, the day after the 20th anniversary of the patriation of the Canadian constitution, which resolutely and wittingly denies the existence of the Quebec people. As a result, Canada still fails to recognize the existence of the Quebec people, in addition to other dishonourable measures when it comes the Quebec people. This a patriation and a constitution that no Quebec government has ever recognized, regardless of its political colours.
This event, which we do not hear nearly enough about and which thankfully was discussed a great deal yesterday, is a very serious event in the recent history of Canada and Quebec. As we saw yesterday, the current government is trying to gloss things over, referring to the charter of rights instead of to the real event, which was the patriation of the constitution, of the unilateral move made by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, this pseudo-democrat who had risked his head, and the future of his party, to make changes following the no result of the referendum. It is important to remember this.
The changes made were contained in the charter, the patriation and the new constitution, which not only failed to recognize the Quebec people, but which weakened the powers of the National Assembly then, and still now.
Indeed, it is in the same vein that Bill C-5 was introduced, an act respecting the protection of wildlife species at risk in Canada. It is important to view the introduction of this bill in its historical context.
This is an outcome of the Rio convention on biodiversity, signed at the time by the Government of Canada. The government wanted to follow up on it in 1995, then again in 1997. The bills were strongly opposed throughout Canada, and all died on the order paper. The government came back this year with Bill C-5.
In Rio, and this is an important element in the debate and in the underlying constitutional issue, the government made a commitment to, and I quote:
—develop or maintain necessary legislation and/or other regulatory provisions for the protection of threatened species and populations.
There is a commitment made to develop new provisions; this was done in this case as with others. Canada is signing treaties, not only without the consent of the House, which means that those elected to represent the people are not involved in the decision because there is no debate, but also without consulting the provinces.
In Rio the Canadian government made some very significant commitments in this area, without consulting the provinces, and Quebec in particular, which had—as I may elaborate on later—legislation in place since 1989 to protect endangered species.
Bill C-5 replaces Bill C-65, which was introduced in 1996. One of its key points dealt with the creation of COSEWIC, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife Species. In a report dated April 11, 2000 by Environment Canada, the following statement was made:
To date, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, COSEWIC, has designated 340 wildlife species in Canada as being at risk. Of that total, 12 are extinct, 15 others are extirpated in Canada, 87 are endangered, 75 threatened and 151 vulnerable. Of the 97 species whose status has been recently reassessed, 26 are headed toward endangered status.
The problem is therefore a real one. The governments and other stakeholders must intervene, but the rules must also be respected. Here we have the federal government creating a very unwieldy structure in which those mandated to do so, termed in the legislation competent ministers—nothing personal here, that is what the law says; we will identify no one, we will make no personal judgments—are the ministers responsible for Canadian heritage, fisheries and oceans, and the environment. One important point is that clause 10 reads as follows:
A competent minister may, after consultation with every other competent minister, enter into an agreement with any government in Canada, organization or wildlife management board with respect to the administration of any provision of this Act.
Whereas clause 11 reads:
A competent minister may... enter into an agreement with any government in Canada, organization or person to provide for the conservation of a species at risk.
This says a lot about the role that the Canadian government has decided to play in the lives of Canadians from coast to coast. Quebecers must be increasingly aware of this. Something very important is happening here, in this place, and in the Langevin building. It was decided here, following the 1995 referendum, which Quebecers almost won when they came so close to giving themselves a country, that Canada should never live again the intense hours that it experienced on the evening of October 30, 1995. Canada does not want to go through this again. It has decided to take the bull by the horns and to make this government the Government of Canada.
This is what underlies this bill and clauses 10 and 11. This is clearly stated in the social union agreement. The Canadian nation building is being carried out at the expense of Quebecers and Quebec, where legislation had been in place since 1989, and with total disregard for all existing laws. This is happening in every sector. We saw it with the millennium scholarships. Today, we are seeing it with the protection of species at risk. We saw it with parental leave and with marine areas.
There is no need to mention the government's shameless propaganda. It is so bad that even dromedaries in Africa display the Canadian flag. The government has a problem with visibility, or else it is obsessed with it. Sixty five per cent of the propaganda budgets, including for summer festivals, are spent in Quebec.
This government is present everywhere. Quebecers must realize that the federal government has decided that it would call the shots in every sector, thus showing its contempt for the constitution, for the history of Canadian federalism and for the National Assembly and government of Quebec.
I hope that Quebecers will keep this in mind. This government made a decision to patriate and use the 1982 constitution without a mandate, without consultations and without a referendum. Quebecers must take note of this and they must think about it, because there is no future for them in the Canada that is being built.