David Anderson

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Hastings--Frontenac--Lennox and Addington who is more knowledgeable about some of the questions being asked.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am amazed the member would ask that question when his party is holding up the species at risk legislation which is in the House and should be passed right now. It is not the time to join with his cousins in the Alliance who seem to think it should be cancelled.

It is time for the Tories to take a wake-up call and do the right thing.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is one of those times that I am delighted to agree with virtually everything the member for Wild Rose has said. I have consistently said we do not want American style legislation because it does not work. That is why we have made this legislation rural friendly. That is why we have avoided the stick and talked about the carrot instead.

I entirely agree with him. I have had experience with that American legislation on the west coast with regard to coho salmon. The American legislation was not worth anything in protecting coho while the Canadian Fisheries Act was quite successful. On the east coast it was the same situation with Atlantic salmon. Indeed, I read something in the paper not too long ago about the right whale off the southern coast of Nova Scotia, and the hon. member from Nova Scotia will know this, where the Americans are asking why it is that the Canadians are so much more successful in their programs to protect this animal than the Americans when Canadians are using the Fisheries Act and the Americans are using endangered species legislation.

I agree with the hon. member entirely. We do not want American legislation here in Canada.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that I am being followed by an expert in the area of agricultural financing, so I will defer to the member from Hastings on this question.

I know, as he said to the House so eloquently and effectively today, that last year we put $3.7 billion into farm support. That shows that we on this side are willing to listen to a good case being made by people who may be suffering or who are in difficulty. It is clear from our record that we are willing to do that.

I will put the question regarding details of any further expenditures in the hands of my hon. colleague, who is more knowledgeable than I am.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I gather you cut me off because my time is being shared with the member for Hastings--Frontenac--Lennox and Addington, but I would like to respond to the hon. member.

He talks about the science being bad. What he forgets to point out is that scientific opinion on a ratio of about 1,000:10 has confirmed that the general feeling of scientists is that these extreme weather events are linked to climate change. He has forgotten that 110 of the living winners of the Nobel science prize agree that science shows climate change is a cause for these extreme events and we are suffering climate change now.

It is easy for him to get up and shout in the House that the science is wrong, but the other side never provides any science that suggests it is wrong. It just provides the usual Alliance rhetoric, which is so much like all the rest of the rhetoric it produces that it really does not add up to a sensible statement.

Furthermore, it is fine for him to say that no people in rural Canada support the government on species at risk. I can assure him he is quite wrong. We have substantial support and the reason is that we have written the bill and we have protected the bill from people who would change it to be coercive. We have written it to support rural people. He should know that. He is the very member who said that the his party's Kyoto position would help its fundraising. Now he stands in the House to say the government is all wrong and the Alliance is okay. No. The Alliance sacrificed the rights and the interests of rural people to its fundraising campaign.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Now of course he is shouting to prevent me from talking about it.

He is right, it is an area of twice the size of Vancouver Island. What is the cause? The cause is the change in climatic conditions, which is leading to less cold weather in winter and more snow, resulting in these beetles' overwintering and survival. Does he know that? He apparently does not because he is shouting at this time in his usual way, talking about something, but not talking about the issue in front of the House.

The reason for that is of course climate change, and rural Canada is suffering from climate change far more than urban Canada and it is suffering far faster than other countries such as the United States, which this party regards of course as the sine qua non which we must always follow in every respect.

Those members are wrong, because rural Canada is suffering. We have, as I mentioned, the problem of the pine beetle in northern British Columbia. We have the problem of drought year after year in southern Alberta. The problems we are facing simply cannot be papered over with yet another spending program, which that party keeps insisting is the solution for every ill: spend more money. Whenever the Alliance comes to any detailed problem, it is “spend more money”. Of course they are against it in general, but when it comes down to winning proposals, “spend more money” is the only thing they have to offer, as the hon. member has just done.

With respect to southern Alberta it is the same thing. With respect to areas such as the fisheries of British Columbia we are seeing the Pacific salmon move out of the Pacific and into the Bering Sea because of water temperature changes. We are seeing the same types of effects on the Atlantic coast. We are seeing problems such as the Red River flood and the Saguenay River flood and the ice storm here in eastern Canada in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. We are seeing all these extreme weather events hitting rural Canada and the Alliance has not bothered to pick up on it. Those members have not made the connection between the climate change problem on the one hand and the problems of rural Canada on the other.

In fact, when questioned recently, on April 4, just about a month ago, the hon. member for Red Deer, the Alliance's environment critic called the Alliance position opposing Kyoto “a political advantage” that “will help our fundraising”.

This is the approach the Alliance members take to the problems of rural Canada: ignore them so that they can improve their fundraising. That is the approach they take and that is the approach they think the government should follow. No way will we follow the lead of those people when it comes to rural Canada or indeed any other part of Canada, because it is a wrongheaded approach, it is a selfish approach and it ignores the interests of rural Canada.

My hon. friend from northern British Columbia who spoke earlier talked about the species at risk bill. We have consistently worked with rural people on this legislation. We had 155 consultative sessions, the majority of which were in rural Canada. They talked and we listened. We adjusted our policies. We changed our approaches. We deleted and altered sections of the bill because we listened to rural Canada.

Bill C-5 on species at risk is rural friendly, because if it were not I would not be here presenting it. I said last year before committee, before the House and everywhere I have spoken throughout the country that if the bill is not accepted by rural people, by people who are farmers, who are ranchers, who work in the woods or who are trappers or fishermen, then the bill is a failure. The reason is straightforward: those people live where the endangered species are. All these lawyers and professors are in classrooms and courtrooms and there are very few endangered species in classrooms and courtrooms, very few indeed. Out there where the rural people are is where the species are and that is why the legislation has been tailored to be rural friendly to the very people I have mentioned.

There is a balance here between the rights of landowners and land users and of course the species at risk. It is based upon co-operation, not coercion. It is based upon building trust, not just looking tough, as some have proposed. It is a part of the overall strategy to assist rural Canadians. In fact, at the present time we are spending some $10 million in rural Canada, right now, before the legislation has even come in, on about 108 recovery programs for species at risk. We are working with the rural people and creating stewardship programs, working to make sure that they are comfortable with what we are doing to protect endangered species. We have 160 habitat stewardship programs, currently engaging more than 400 individuals and organizations across the country. I have many examples here, but I will skip them because of course we are pressed for time. However, I will point out that this is what we are doing. We are getting out there with rural people to do what they do very well. I reject and will continue to reject the concept that we need to use the whip or a coercive law to get rural people to do the right thing. Instead, we will use incentives.

The issue of compensation has come up a number of times. There are compensation provisions in the bill, as I have replied to members here, but if we try in anticipation to write out every single possible eventuality whereby we think rural people might get assistance, then we will undoubtedly write laws which will exclude some because we have not had experience with the legislation. We have tried. We have had some very detailed work done by experts in this area. We have tried but failed to write that kind of legislation, so we will get three or four years of experience working under this legislation, whereby we will provide compensation where it is appropriate, on an ex gratia basis, and then we will write the regulations because we will then have the experience that we do not have now.

I would just like to end on this note. I have in my hand an editorial from the Edmonton Journal , which states, look, we have discussed the bill and discussed the bill, and it is high time now to simply get on with it, get it passed and get it working, and we can make the changes that we may need four our five years hence. I think it is really important to do that. I would suggest to the hon. members opposite that if they have the slightest interest in rural Canada that is what they should do too.

[Supply, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my colleague from northern British Columbia who spoke a moment ago. I am interested, of course, as to why the Alliance has brought forward this motion at this time. It is very clear that if you analyze the questions that have been asked in the House over the last period, and we can pick any period we like, six months, one year, two years, we will find that the Alliance has not been doing its job for rural Canada. It is quite understandable what those members have decided to do now: suddenly have a whole day's debate on the issue of rural Canada.

However, I can understand why, with them having dropped the ball so badly in support of the people who are their constituents while they rushed off to find imaginary scandals here and imaginary scandals there. They did all of this stuff while ignoring the constituents, ignoring the people of northern British Columbia and ignoring the people in the softwood lumber industry. They did all that, sure, and now they recognize that they are being severely criticized by the people out there in rural Canada and they are trying to recover.

It is a pretty shabby performance so far. It is the usual over the top rhetoric, which we heard from the hon. member, and of course the usual appeal to divisions in rural Canada and urban Canada. It is the usual approach, which has nothing to do with any of the problems of rural Canada.

Let me pick up on the hon. member's comment with respect to the pine beetle infestation in northern B.C. which he mentioned--

[The Environment, May 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the hon. member is aware of the total contradiction of his statements with respect to consultation with the provinces and just about everything we have heard from his party over the last eight years.

We have said clearly on this issue that we intend to consult with the provinces, territories, the affected industry and Canadians generally from coast to coast. At the same time we want a plan which does not penalize any region of the country in an unfair or unusual way.

We think such consultations with the provinces are necessary. They do not. That is fine. But at least it is clear who believes in the unilateral use of federal power and--

[The Environment, May 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there is a basic contradiction in the member's question. On the one hand, he complains of the remarkable economic achievement of Canada over the last eight years which has resulted in a 30% increase in output, without having commensurate increase in emissions I might add. On the other hand, he suggests that we should erode economic confidence and that somehow we should reduce emissions by not having that kind of growth.

What we are trying to do on our side of the House is to make sure we have an effective, growing economy and at the same time a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

[Agriculture, May 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I answered this question for the Alliance earlier this week. The section is section 64 of Bill C-5. If the Alliance members would care to read it they will find the phrase “provide fair and reasonable compensation to any person for losses suffered as a result of any extraordinary impact”. If they have difficulty with the long words we will help them.