Mr. Speaker, I wish to take about five or ten minutes to speak on this bill.
I am in support of the bill and congratulate the minister and the parliamentary secretary for their work in this regard as well as all officials of the environment department.
I want to take this occasion to raise an issue of local concern, one that affects very much the citizens of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell with regard to wildlife, particularly migratory birds. Perhaps when I introduce this subject some members might think that it is trivial issue. I want to assure members that it is not. It is indeed a very important issue for the agricultural community of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.
As you know, Canada geese spend the winter in the United States and come back in the spring to nest in Ungava, in northern Quebec.
Until some years ago the migration route of these birds was somewhere around Kingston, Ontario, and the birds would land, approximately 120,000 of them, on Wolfe Island and from there move north flying approximately in a north-northeast direction. For reasons that officials of the Wildlife Service of Environment Canada do not understand fully to this day, the birds have changed their migration route and are gradually flying farther and farther east. They now fly between Ottawa and Montreal. That is approximately the route.
They first stop in my riding and then in the Papineauville area. In fact, there is a Canada geese festival celebrating these beautiful birds on their way north.
They are a magnificent sight and like all my constituents I like to see them fly above. However, there is a community in my area which, for obvious reasons, finds that less enjoyable, and that is the farm community.
As I said, the birds stop in our area and their number can reach 75,000 to 80,000 at once. If the area was forested, they would do little damage. Even in a corn field they would not do much harm. But in a field of alfalfa or tender grass, very rich in protein because they grow on rich soil, they can play havoc. The losses suffered by farmers in my area are enormous.
I have here a report prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture which puts the losses at $240 per acre, and we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of acres destroyed every year. On several occasions, I asked the federal government to help these farmers. Unfortunately, I never obtained anything with the previous government.
I believe there are three solutions or three elements of solution to the problem we have in my riding. First, I think the agriculture departments of the Ontario provincial government and the federal government should implement a policy for compensating specific site owners, a program similar to the crop insurance they have in Quebec. In other words, if one specific producer loses part of his crop, he should be eligible. The Ontario plan does not allow for the analysis of such local losses. To be eligible, losses have to be regional and of course birds do not land on a complete region; they visit one site, destroy 300 or 400 acres at a time, but not the fields around that area. Therefore, that plan should be modified.
Second, there is a problem with the approach used to control birds when they decide to land on one specific field.
Until about three years ago farmers in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell were given permits by Environment Canada to shoot down one bird. The farmer would receive a permit to kill one bird. After killing the bird he would turn it upside down, pursuant to instructions given by Environment Canada, and spread out the wings. They are very huge birds. With the bird turned upside down it can be viewed from the sky by other birds and of course they would never go near that farm for the rest of the season. That was working reasonably effectively.
Three years ago Environment Canada took the position that the birds were gradually dwindling in numbers and we could no longer afford to do that.
That might be true, but I have a problem with that. If it is true the bird belongs to an endangered species, how come hunting those birds is permitted in the fall? If all that is true, why not prohibit fall hunting? In the past, I never succeeded in getting my point across to officials in charge of those issues.
It seems to me that if there must be control, it should be in the fall, when after all, it is a luxury to hunt them, not a necessity as it is in the spring when farmers should be allowed to shoot them. After all, perhaps only 25 farmers would be allowed to kill one bird each to avoid such serious losses.
Anyway, this was turned down. Instead, farmers were given, at great cost to taxpayers, guns and blank cartridges to scare them off. But, needless to say, these animals are extremely intelligent, over and above everything else, and once you shoot at them three or four times without hurting them, they are no longer afraid of your gun. So much so, Mr. Speaker, that farmers bought automatic propane guns that shoot once every half hour, or something like that.
Farmers in the area were explaining to me that for the first day the birds would leave when the shots were heard. On the second day they would leave about five minutes before the shots were heard. On the third day they would just tip their head up, listen to the shot and tip it back down again and continue eating. That is how effective that particular Environment Canada fiasco was for
my electors. All of this was a tremendous expense for the taxpayers.
Finally last year I thought we had the solution where Environment Canada offered to the electors of my area to establish a series of wildlife refuge areas.
Three areas had been designated as bird sanctuaries, one along the South Nation River, the other one near the Ottawa River, and the third one not far from Cob Lake, in my riding. Everything was planned, but unfortunately, the government withdrew its offer to supply funds. My constituents did not appreciate that at all. It happened under the former government, of course, not ours.
Still, material losses are nonetheless great, and that is what I want to bring to the attention of the House. As I said, to hon. members who deal with issues concerning the whole country, this may seem to be just a local and rather unimportant issue, but I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that when you lose-and I have the estimate here-when you lose $240 per acre and when you lose suddenly 200 crop acres, it is not very funny.
Several constituents of mine, several farmers in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell suffered losses because of that. There are two things I hope for. First, I hope that the federal government will convince the Ontario government to amend the crop insurance program so that these farmers can be compensated.
On the other hand, I hope that a solution will be found, either proposing sanctuary measures or restoring the program allowing each farmer to eliminate one bird every season, all the more so since, as I was saying, only about twenty farmers are involved.
I am not raising this point to tell you that I am not one of those who want to keep protecting that species, quite the contrary. However, I must stress that when people realize that no one wants to hear them, it sometimes happen that they take the law in their own hands. But there is no winner under such circumstances, because people will cause damage and will no longer respect these birds. What I want to do is make sure that that species will be protected. After all, they are a Canadian symbol and, what is more, they are very unique birds. I have been briefed about Canada geese.
For those of us who are English speaking, they are known as the Canada goose, a symbol of our nation until we put the loon on the dollar. Before that I guess the Canada goose would have probably been the most famous bird we had. It still is a beautiful creature.
I want to raise these concerns because they affect greatly the electors of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. At this time of year I am deluged with phone calls from farmers who see their crops being lost because of the damage being done. It is the role of the government that makes these laws, laws that I support, to ensure that they are made in such a way so as to not sacrifice the agricultural community. Both can co-exist quite well if we put our minds to making sure that that co-existence does not mean that one community is sacrificed for the other.
It does not have to be that way. All we need to do is work co-operatively. I am confident that with people like the Minister of the Environment, the parliamentary secretary who is a very able person in the area, that we will succeed where we have failed before in preserving the crops of the farmers of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.
And who knows, by establishing sanctuaries such as these, as we could, and as the department had suggested a year ago, perhaps we could increase the number of people who would go and see these beautiful creatures in their habitat. And the appreciation for these great birds would increase if we all worked together. That is, in any case, what I wish for, and I hope the department will examine that issue, which is very important for those I have the honour to represent in this House.
That being said I want to go on record supporting the initiative that is before us today and to again ask the government to think of the electors of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and the problem they have in this area of wildlife management.