Madam Speaker, we are debating a group of amendments to the species at risk bill. There are five groups of amendments and they are grouped to make it easier to debate certain common themes. This debate is on Group No. 4 and there are a number of amendments in this group.
I would like to affirm what all other members who have spoken have affirmed and that is that all Canadians would like to see species at risk preserved and protected for our future, our children, the protection of our environment and our own enjoyment. This is a bill that Canadians have an interest in, not only for now but for the future. The Canadian Alliance supports the intent of the bill which is to protect endangered species.
Unfortunately the bill is flawed. It fails to strike a reasonable balance between the interests in Canadian society of protecting endangered species and their environmental habitat, of protecting the legacy and the livelihood of many people in Canada, and the interests of the economic realities of any action taken by government.
I would suggest the House consider that the flaws in the bill are linked to the fact that government and officials in government have a poor track record of properly and satisfactorily administering some of these government activities. It is up to members of parliament to ensure that any uncertainties, any lack of proper balance in the way the government proceeds are addressed in the bill. We know from bitter experience that unless legislation is clear, unless proper balances are struck immediately in the legislation, that sometimes unintended consequences can take place.
I refer, for example, to today's auditor general's report on three contracts which were administered by the government, contracts for $0.5 million, $0.5 million plus $50,000, and $0.5 million plus $75,000. The auditor general found that the government, in administering just these three contracts, and the senior public servants responsible for managing the contracts, demonstrated an appalling disregard for the Financial Administration Act, the government contracts regulations, Treasury Board policy and the rules designed to ensure prudence and probity in government procurement.
The auditor general said the government files on the three contracts were so poorly documented that many key questions remain unanswered surrounding the selection of the contractor and the basis for establishing the price and scope of work for the contracts.
The auditor general's opinion was that the government did not receive much of what it contracted and paid for. This is just one example that was tabled minutes ago in the House of how government bureaucracies and government ministries completely fail to protect public interest or even follow their own rules when they are dealing with public moneys.
I emphasize that this is just one example giving us reason as members of parliament to ensure that flaws in a bill which can affect the livelihood, the future and the families of people involved in legislation are protected as strongly as possible.
Unfortunately in Bill C-5 that is not the case. I would like to suggest some of the concerns that we have with the bill. For some reason many of the recommendations made by an all-party committee dominated by Liberal members were ignored by the government. Many of the amendments that we are dealing with are efforts by the Prime Minister's Office to reverse the work of our members of parliament.
Members of parliament should take this extremely seriously. This is our work. This is our judgment that is being overruled, overturned, and interfered with by civil servants who, as the auditor general just said, demonstrated, in the case she investigated, an appalling disregard for the legal rules that they were supposed to follow.
We should become concerned when we see the same situation with respect to overturning the judgment, the work and the proposals of members of the committee. Many of these amendments are overturning legitimate work and judgments made by hard working, dedicated, and concerned members of parliament on an important issue, endangered species.
We have, for example, a rather odd determination by these amendments to overturn a recommendation that a national aboriginal council be set up. It would now be a national aboriginal committee. We have a whole bunch of amendments in this group to change the word council to committee. Why? Who knows why? It has never been explained.
The House committee which had a predominance of Liberal members suggested, proposed and recommended one way but all of a sudden it needed to be another way.
Then we have something called stewardship action plans which omit the committee recommendation to look at tax treatment and subsidies as a component of compensation for landowners who are affected by the legislation. Some individuals have decided they do not want to look at tax treatment or subsidies, so that is being taken out in these amendments. Looking at disincentives to comply with the legislation has been ruled out. The recommendation that we examine disincentives and deal with disincentives to comply is being taken out by one of these amendments.
We have an all party recommendation that the government provide technical and scientific support to people whose lands and activities would be affected by the legislation. However, the government does not want to give them scientific and technical support. It wants to give them information, not scientific and technical information, just information. It could be anything. It could be a letter saying that everyone is on their own and that it is hoped no one is jailed for breaching the regulations in the act. We do not know what information means but that word is good enough for the government.
We have a requirement agreed to by all members of the committee that the legislation be reviewed every five years. We are dealing with people's livelihoods, with changing ecological conditions, and with changing movement in the numbers of endangered species, and yet the government does not want to review this every five years. It wants to let the thing go on and on, on auto pilot, without considering the rapidly changing circumstances that would be inherently coming about as the bill is in effect.
We have a whole list of amendments that deal with public consultation and publishing of action plans. We feel there will not be the kind of transparency, openness and public input that Canadians have a right to expect in a mature democracy. We must recognize this when we are dealing with people's legacies. Many people that would be affected had ancestors and families that homesteaded the land. Their families have been on the land for decades if not centuries. They have farmed the land and they have ranched the land. This is their legacy. Their roots are in this country and yet we are asking them to be responsible for government activities with no clear compensation plan.
We are prepared to make them permanently liable, even if they never knew they were breaching or never intended to breach the provisions of this act. Worst of all, this is being done to Canadians in the face of recommendations of members of parliament from all parties in the House. The government is simply overruling some of the common sense recommendations of our own House committee.
I would certainly urge members of the House to uphold not only the spirit but the clear intent of the House committee on the legislation.