Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-292.
Bill C-292 is the proposed legislation to deal with the selling of wildlife and wildlife parts. I would like to say to the member for South Surrey--White Rock--Langley that her motivation behind the bill is admirable.
However, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Cooperation and on behalf of the government, I want to express the government's views as well as my own views because I have read the bill quite carefully and have researched the criminal code to see what actually exists in it.
As the government we fully support, as I do personally, ensuring that wildlife is preserved and protected in the best possible way, and that preservation and protection certainly has to extend to species at risk.
In fact there are many years of conservation actions behind us in Canada, and there are a number of statutes that are already on the books that accomplish the goal that the member for South Surrey--White Rock--Langley seeks to address with Bill C-292.
Let me speak about the tools that this particular private member's bill would create. The proposed legislation would create three indictable offences under the criminal code for selling wildlife or wildlife parts or for killing, capturing or possessing wildlife or wildlife parts for the purpose of selling them.
Under the proposal there would be exemptions from prosecutions for people who sell wildlife in accordance with a licence permit or an exemption order. The bill also says that the sale of threatened or endangered species would mean high penalties and that all offences would be subject to the money laundering provisions of the criminal code.
As the House may have noted at the outset of my remarks, these are admirable objectives and I commend the member for her bill. I cannot deny it. I do not think anyone else would deny that these objectives are in fact admirable.
I applaud, and I am sure that my colleagues would probably be unanimous in applauding, the notion behind these objectives. However we want to make sure that there is a good fit with other legislation in place or pending. This is very important.
I am a lawyer by training and I have had the privilege of practising in the area of administrative law. I know firsthand the difficulties that can happen at times when drafters of one piece of legislation have not done complete and adequate research of all the legislation that could impact on or have some bearing to a particular area or jurisdiction and we end up with anomalies.
That is one of the reasons even the government, either through the Senate or by its own bill, brings in bills to clean up, clarify or correct errors in past legislation that has already been adopted.
Looking at Bill C-292 and looking at the provisions that already exist under the criminal code for example, as well as other legislation, clearly Bill C-292 is not a good fit with the legislation that is already in place. I am not even talking about legislation that may be pending before the House at this time.
Therefore I would like to point out that in the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1994 and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, known as WAPPRIITA, there are dual procedure offences. These are also found in the Canada Wildlife Act.
Dual procedure offences mean that they can begin with a summary conviction or with an indictment. The maximum prison term set out for proceeding by indictment in both statutes do not exceed five years.
Let us also consider a piece of legislation that is currently pending, the government sponsored Bill C-5, the species at risk act. That bill as I mentioned, currently pending, is at report stage in the House of Commons.
One of the offences created in Bill C-5 is the prohibition on the killing, harming, harassing, capturing or taking of a wildlife species that is listed as extirpated, endangered or threatened. Bill C-5 also includes a prohibition on the possession, collecting, buying, selling or trading of a wildlife species listed as extirpated, endangered or threatened.
There is some overlap between this offence and the ones outlined in existing legislation, as well as the offences set out in the bill we are discussing today, Bill C-292.
Bill C-292 provides only indictable offences. The maximum prison terms vary from two years to eight years, depending on whether the offence is a first or subsequent one and whether the wildlife involved is an endangered species.
The question here is not that we need to do this. The question here is whether it is already being done and, if it is already being done, is it being done in a better way.
Is Bill C-292 the best way to accomplish the goal? Are the provisions about prohibiting behaviour that is traditionally associated with parliament's exercise of its criminal law power. Or perhaps we should say that Bill C-292 is describing a public welfare offence traditionally associated with regulatory matters in a civil context.
That is why I believe this approach is inconsistent with the classification of offences elsewhere in the criminal code.
The sale of wildlife, as I have previously mentioned and hope I have demonstrated, is well covered in existing legislation. Therefore Bill C-292 is a duplication and in my view is not necessary. I also submit that in many cases we would be using the heavy hand of the criminal code for some sales that would be considered quite minor, such as the sale of a few muskrat pelts or of one skin. I truly believe we do not need such a heavy approach.
Let me explain further. The offence of sexual assault is classified as a dual procedure offence, which means that the crown may elect to proceed by summary conviction or by indictment. From a policy point of view, it would appear inconsistent to classify the selling of wildlife as an indictable offence when other offences considered much more serious by Canadian society are classified as dual procedure offences.
I will not get into the cost implications to the provinces and territories if they were straight indictable offences, but I do call on the members of the House to remember that under the Canadian system provincial governments are those with the constitutional powers to regulate the use and protection of wildlife on provincial land.
I will not be supporting the bill but I do commend the member for White Rock--South Surrey--Langley for her good intentions with this.