David Anderson

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member came in perhaps a trifle late. As you explained, the debate is on the issue of time allocation.

Certainly, if I am permitted to depart from that strict issue, I would give the greatest credit to the committee members, including the hon. member who just spoke. They did an immense amount of work, not just on the current bill, Bill C-5, but also on the preceding bills, Bill C-33 and Bill C-65 in previous parliaments.

However, and I hope he understands this, the fact that I point out that the critical people who will be protecting endangered species are those who are out on the land, namely farmers, ranchers, trappers, fishermen and people who work in the woods, I hope does not suggest to him that somehow we are denigrating the work of the committee. No, these are the people who are particularly important.

With due respect to the hon. member, he comes from an urban riding. He spends a lot of time in the House. He is not always out there on the land. Perhaps he should give a little credit too, to those people on whom the bill will depend for its success and whose co-operation is so important in getting this bill.

I hope that does not denigrate the committee.

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that is not correct. As I just said in my answer to the member's first question, this legislation will apply to Canada as a whole, that is to all the provinces and territories. As the member indicated, in cases where a province already has species at risk legislation, the federal government will play second fiddle to the province. If the provinces need scientific or financial assistance, we will be able to provide that. We will work with the provinces and territories to ensure that all species at risk across Canada benefit from the best protection possible.

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as I wade through that lengthy statement I am having difficulty in finding the question.

The hon. member says we have not consulted with people who work on the land. We have. The hon. member is concerned about individuals who work on the land where these endangered species are found. I agree with him that these are the people who are most important in this legislation: farmers, ranchers, trappers, people who fish or people who work in the woods. These are the frontline people when it comes to protecting endangered species.

We have consistently sought the support of and worked with such people, and that is why in this legislation members will find that the approach we have adopted is user friendly. We stress that we will have programs in place that are protective rather than, as the opposition would suggest so frequently, coercive.

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should realize that it has taken us a long time to get this legislation out because the previous Conservative government did nothing about this issue. It was in our red book when we first came forward. We beat the Conservatives to the point where they were reduced to two seats because they were doing nothing on this issue.

Since then it has taken a lot of time. He is quite right. However when he says that we have not attempted anything for nine years, has he forgotten Bill C-33, or indeed the previous bill, Bill C-65? Has he forgotten how long it has taken with this particular bill?

We have been working on this continuously. When he is so critical of parts of days being used I hope he will remember, as he cozies up to the Alliance as he is so keen on doing, that the staff of the hon. Leader of the Opposition actually bragged about the way it was filibustering this particular piece of legislation.

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot make the commitment the hon. member is asking for. The legislation applies to all of Canada, every province and every territory. It does not apply only to land under federal legislative control, meaning Indian reserves or, for instance, military reserves or national parks. It goes much further than that.

However, should the member examine the legislation, he will see that if a province does an adequate job of protecting species at risk, the federal government will let it continue doing what it does to protect these species and will not override it.

If we have good agreements in place with the provinces and they know what to do, we will provide scientific advice and maybe also money occasionally. We will help them protect species at risk. However, there is no way this legislation will only apply to federal lands.

[Species at Risk Act, June 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the first point made by the hon. member was that the time allocation motion should not be put.

I point out to him when we combine Bill C-5 with the two preceding pieces of legislation, Bills C-33 and C-65, we have had a total of 93 days of debate in the House discussing endangered species legislation. That totals 246 hours in the House and committee.

The time has come for us to recognize that we are running out of time before the summer and we must get on with this because this piece of legislation has had more exhaustive debate than any other legislation that comes to my mind at the present time.

On the second point with respect to compensation, as the member well knows we attempted to draw compensation regulations initially but we found this to be quite new and experimental in some respects. We were unable to do so without risking denying compensation to people on the land who might conceivably deserve it under conditions which we have not yet fully envisaged.

We decided to have a period of experimentation. I can assure the hon. member that we fully expect to have compensation provisions and to use the compensation provisions in the act.

[Species at Risk Act, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the hon. member's support for the amendments that were tabled yesterday.

It is important to recognize that there is some difference here. The issue of compensation has been looked at closely. We had an excellent study done by Dr. Peter Pearse, professor emeritus of resource economics at UBC.

The difficulty of outlining in advance the rules for compensation proved to be beyond our ability to handle at this time. After we have had some experience with the process that we have put in place in the bill, we expect we will be able to put in clear rules for compensation.

[The Environment, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is confusing two things. First, the discussion of his first question is about the technical hearings that are going on on the four options put forward by the federal government and, I might add, any other option that any other province or territory might like to put on the table in their respective jurisdictions.

That is quite separate from the second report that he is talking about, which in fact is not part of these technical discussions. We will release that in due course. It is done in a somewhat different manner than normal. It involved outside people having the control of the process and analyzing the government's performance. We will present that to him just as soon as it is ready.

[The Environment, June 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there will be a series of consultations over the next few months.

The particular consultation to which the member is referring is essentially one for experts in the field who have been working with the federal, provincial and territorial governments over the last five or six years, perhaps some indeed for the last 10 years, on the issue. It is essentially a technical hearing. The numbers in each depicted community are limited to about 75 to have the most effective dynamics for such technical discussions.

I can assure the hon. member there will be full public discussions later this year.

[Species at Risk Act, June 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to lay upon the table, in both official languages of Canada, a document entitled “Proposed Revised Report Stage Motions at Report Stage of Bill C-5”.