Mr. Speaker, I can understand my hon. colleague's reaction, but to say that this has been going on for 30 years and that all of a sudden we are taking action is wrong. It is wrong to make such a statement in this House.
Legislation was put in place in 1994, and again in 1999. That was just five years ago. Recently, we passed legislation respecting species at risk, in force as of April 1, 2004.
So, to say that it took the government a long time to react, that this has been going on for years and that, all of the sudden, the government realized it and figured it had to legislate is wrong. I am sorry but legislation already existed. We had already identified the problem. We had passed legislation in this House in 1994 and again in 1999, just five years ago.
In spite of this legislation, it now turns out that we had to drop our lawsuits and the cases we had built, because there are holes in these laws. Therefore, we are correcting and amending them to strengthen our response in this respect.
We could take my hon. colleague's argument and ask, “Why do it right away? You could have waited. Hundreds of thousands of birds have died already”. Are we going to wait another year and let another 300,000 birds die? That is the question we have to ask ourselves.
Once we realize there is a problem, and have proof of its existence, and see that species at risk are dying off and that the legislation passed previously did not have enough teeth, it seems to me that we have a duty, as a responsible government, to act. We must not wait, come back in six or seven months and let more birds die in the meantime.
This bill is appropriate. For the past 12 months, officials have been working on finding a way to tighten enforcement. That is how we have come to this point, and today is the day. I am proud to see that my hon. colleague supports this bill.