Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is a valuable member of a committee that has worked very hard, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I sometimes hear his colleagues who are anxious to speak on this piece of legislation and I have been prompted to suggest to my good friend that he could perhaps read the legislation to some of his colleagues.
I hear a bit of a theme in his comments. I must say that it puzzles me somewhat. Members opposite talk about Kyoto, the fact that the science is flawed and that we should not continue down the road of consulting with Canadians so that we have the figures. We have a framework in place so that there is some surety, when we do ratify, about where we are going with this. This would seem to me and to the government as a sound way to go about bringing in good public legislation.
Members opposite talk about species at risk. Again, they want something in the legislation that is devoid of the kind of consultation and experience that we feel is necessary. Compensation is one of the tools that needs to be in the kit for species at risk because the government realizes that there is a continuum.
I am a little puzzled at the $45 million that my hon. colleague mentioned. That money has been put in and is being spent as we speak in stewardship programs to invite the very rural people to whom he is referring: ranchers, fishers, farmers and trappers. We have active programs where people are building nesting boxes for the burrowing owl and great programs in Ontario protecting the loggerhead shrike in its habitat. This year alone we have spent $10 million. The government is showing its good intent and is putting its money where its mouth is.
We need experience on the ground because the framework of the species at risk legislation is one of co-operation and voluntary partnership. There is no intent to have side door expropriation. I am a little bit disconcerted that Alliance members continue to talk about species at risk as if the government were looking for a side door entrance into expropriation. We have a regime of expropriation if that was the intent of the government, however we are looking at partnerships with people on the land.