Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to address Bill C-5, an important piece of legislation. I want the House to know that the Canadian Alliance feels very strongly that there should be endangered species legislation. We have always argued that. However we have also always taken issue with the government's approach.
I remind the House that this is the government's third attempt at this legislation which should tell people something. It tells us that in the previous two tries it was very ham-fisted in how it approached this. It did not take the efforts of local land holders and lower level governments into account when it brought down its legislation.
As my friend from Souris--Moose Mountain pointed out, the government has been top down in the past. I admit that it is trying to correct some of this now but I have to fundamentally disagree with the chair of the environment committee who just spoke a moment ago. When we get down to the issues that are at the nub of the difference between the Canadian Alliance and some of the other parties in this place, it is the issue of compensation.
My friend across the way says that we should be comfortable leaving regulation to define this. However I think the member across the way would recognize that it is also true that when we do that things can go any which way. Because this is at the nub of the whole issue, the issue of compensation and what is fair and reasonable to fair market value, it should be laid out in the legislation.
I think the member would also acknowledge that the issue of compensation was clearly one of the big problems in the United States. Having no guarantee of fair market value for compensation invited the sorts of troubles the United States ran into. We all heard about shoot, shovel and shut-up which was the concept where it became a liability for property owners to have endangered species on their property because there was no guarantee of compensation, so people would destroy endangered species. In the end there was endangered species legislation that led to the destruction of endangered species, and we do not want that in Canada.
That was why we have been very tough on this issue. I grew up in a rural area and I had the chance to get to know mother nature a little bit. My father always took me out hunting when I was young. I appreciate the environment. My father used to get so angry at government programs that encouraged farmers to farm every square inch of a piece of property, really pay them to destroy the corners of fields where the pivots did not reach and there was wild habitat along fences. It led to the destruction of a lot of habitat and undoubtedly led to the decline of endangered species.
We want to avoid that so we are being as tough as we can be on the issue of compensation. We do not want a situation where somewhere down the road regulations are made or courts define this legislation in a way where there is not that full and fair compensation that the member who just spoke talked about. We need to have that or we will have exactly the opposite effect to what we were trying to achieve. We will end up putting in place a regime that encourages the destruction of endangered species. We do not want that.
In my riding we have burrowing owls. I think we have loggerhead shrikes still around. We have swift foxes. We have some animals that are on the endangered species list and we want to keep them.
In response to the chair of the environment committee I want to say that we are concerned about endangered species. We want them but we think that the nub is the issue of compensation.
Although the government has come some distance, it is thanks to a pretty powerful opposition, not only the official opposition, the Canadian Alliance, but from landowners and others as well.
A while ago the chair of the Liberal rural caucus, the member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey, rose and spoke in this place. Have members ever noticed how people start to conform to their environment after a while? The member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey is a chicken farmer. I see him conforming to his environment. He squawked, beaked off and his feathers were clearly ruffled but in the end he laid an egg. He laid an egg because for many months on end he told anybody who would listen how they were going to force all kinds of changes to this legislation and that if they did not do it that they would vote against the bill.
About a week ago that same member, who apparently represents a lot of rural MPs, caved in like a house of cards and said that they would be relying on the Senate to make the changes that they want. There were a number of changes. Some had to do with compensation, others had to do with how endangered species would be designated and those kinds of things.
In the end, once again we saw a Liberal member rise, make all kinds of promises about what he would do and when the whip came down he caved in. I think rural people, especially in Ontario, deserve better than that. They deserve better representation.
When rural Ontarians and people across the country who are represented in Liberal ridings have valid concerns and a member, like the member I just referred to, makes promises about what he will do if legislation does not get changed and then completely caves in, I think the country should note that and hopefully remember it and remind the member of it when they do not get the changes that they want.
The member sent out a press release and said that he had spoken to the minister and the Senate will go ahead and make the changes.On the face of it that sounds to me like almost a question of privilege. I do not see how he can go to the minister and somehow the Senate, which is an independent body, will do the minister's bidding. That to me is absolutely crazy. It presumes that the minister is calling the shots. I would think that the Senate would be upset about that because it sounds like it is completely in the pocket of the minister. I would think the Senate itself would stand up and say that it will do exactly what it wants to do based on what it thinks is best.
The Senate is supposed to be the chamber of sober second thought. Let us hope that it is. Let us hope that it brings about some of the changes that we would all like to see happen. However there is certainly no guarantee of that.
I really think the member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey completely overstepped his bounds and made all kinds of empty promises that he could never keep in the hope that somehow magically it would all turn out, but it did not.
I regret very much that we are seeing closure invoked on this issue. The government is again resorting to this anti-democratic method to close off debate on an issue that does not just concern the official opposition. Members on the government side, as I have just pointed out, are very concerned about this, as are members of the NDP, the Conservatives and the Bloc. Everybody has concerns about the legislation.
The government has already invoked closure more times than any government in the history of Canada. I think Canadians deserve to have their voices heard through their elected representatives. Unfortunately those voices will not be heard to the extent that they should be on this legislation.
I hope at the end of this debate, which will be prematurely cut off, that members across the way summon the courage to do what they said they would do and vote against Bill C-5.