Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the debate on the amendments in Group No. 1.
I know when we talk about compensation how important it is that people do not feel put upon or used or abused. Many farmers out in my former constituency of Beaver River are seriously nervous about the bill. If I were to say to anyone “Thanks very much, I am going to expropriate you and give you some sort of compensation”, one would like to think it would be fair compensation for the expropriation. Unfortunately from what we have seen here, it is pretty difficult for anyone to be guaranteed that the compensation is actually happening.
I do not think there is any one of us in the House who would ever say or believe that we are not committed to protecting and preserving Canada's natural environment and endangered species. All of us understand that. We know what pollution has done. We understand what urbanization has done. We certainly understand the difficulties and dilemma in which we all find ourselves in terms of being far more urbanized and what happens to any kind of species, let alone those at risk. Any of us who have spent any time in the country or the bush certainly understand and celebrate how important that is. I know for myself just how much I enjoy being out in the wilderness. I enjoy seeing any species.
I was in an odd place last week to enjoy some species. They are not terribly at risk, but I was in Vancouver a couple of Saturdays ago and saw three big fat raccoons having a wonderful time right in the middle of Stanley Park. They are nocturnal. I was driving around in Stanley Park at about 11 o'clock at night and there they were, raccoons. I got so excited I pulled the car over, stopped and watched them. It was marvellous. They are nocturnal, as am I. That is one thing I share with raccoons, to be nocturnal. I do not have to clean up the garbage after them and I know that they are pesky little critters, but I am happy to be able to celebrate nature and just enjoy any species.
To extrapolate this further and talk about species at risk, every one of us in the House understands how important it is to protect and preserve the Canadian natural environment and species, especially those at risk. However it seems to me that someone can go overboard. If we are going to protect this, there is always a balance that has to come into play. When I see some of the changes that have happened in the bill, unfortunately Liberal amendments are reversing dozens of key committee amendments made to the species at risk bill.
The committees do good work. Lord knows we have been talking about committees in this place in the last 24 hours and technically and theoretically how they are supposed to be masters of their own destiny and all that kind of stuff. We certainly have not seen that happen in the last 24 hours and how frustrating is that.
An all party committee got together and came up with excellent amendments to the bill. Liberal backbenchers worked their little hearts out as well in committee and made very good amendments. Now the government is reversing dozens of those excellent amendments. How frustrating that must be not just for opposition members who have worked very diligently at it as well, but for government members who think they are really making a difference, that they are having an impact.
Boy I tell you, Mr. Speaker, they are on committee. They are masters of their own destiny and away they go, championing this issue. They think they are doing an excellent job. What happens? Wham, right across the side of the head. The government in its wisdom is going to reverse dozens of those amendments. That must be very frustrating, not just for those who sit in the House but it is also frustrating for the environmental groups, the provinces and many landowners who have made excellent recommendations. They are critical of the minister's move.
These ministers think they can just stand up, have a little cough and make these pronouncements that they think they know better than anyone else. The minister unfortunately says he is always in the middle of consultations.
Our colleagues this afternoon talked about it, about how many kicks at the cat the government has had at species at risk legislation and how unfortunately it still does not have it right. It just spurns all these people, and there are groups that have vested interests in it.
Many of the farmers I know and represented out in Beaver River when I was in a rural riding are terribly frustrated with this kind of stuff. If something happens to their land, the government comes in, in all its wisdom, knocks on the farm door, catches them at the fuel tank or whatever, and says “Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help”. It would be enough to make my friend Fritz run to the back forty with the screaming meemies because he would be so nervous as to what was coming next. We hear “I'm from the government and I'm here to help you, and oh, by the way, I just forgot to tell you we are expropriating so many acres” because there is a particular species at risk. Then farmers cannot put in any grain, harvest it or feed the cattle on that portion of land. There has to be a balance there somehow.
My friend Fritz and many other people in the farming community around Dewberry where I taught school for many years are nervous, sick, about this because of the balance between environmental protection and their ability to make a living from the farm. I think farming is one of the noblest things to do, even with the 50 year lows of rainfall and moisture that many areas of the country are experiencing. These people need to have some assurances that they will be safe, that they will be protected and that they will not have a cabinet minister trying to make his name or his glory by saying “Three cheers for me, I am the one who finally got it through the House”. That is hardly a reason for a minister or a government to bring in legislation.
When we look at balance, when we look at what is respectful, when we look at Liberal backbenchers who have worked hard and come up with what they thought were very reasonable recommendations and amendments, suddenly the thing is just gone. I cannot imagine their unbelievable frustration.
The bill is void of the elements that were considered critical in the species at risk working group. Our coalition has brought forward some very good and vital concerns. I know that all opposition parties have done that and, again, the Liberal backbenchers have done that too. The government just kind of ignored that part of it. It cannot just brush over this and say it is busy consulting. It will look at a couple of groups it agrees with, which is never a really healthy way of consulting. Then it looks at what their aunt Martha and their cousin Stewart say. There they are. What in the world? We cannot call that consultations.
I think the species at risk working group was instrumental in coming up with a lot of good things, but it has been made completely null and void in the legislation. There were things such as critical habitat protection, scientific listing, a compensatory regime, and landowner notification and stewardship. I know precious few farmers who are not excellent, committed stewards of the land. They have lived on it most of their lives. They have loved that land because they have grown up on it. In many cases up in the Beaver River area where people homesteaded two or three generations ago, those are their homes and their roots. To have someone come in from the government and tell them they are not good stewards of their land is a dreadful thing and is so undermining and undercutting that no farmer should have to be subjected to that.
When we look at the reversal of dozens of key committee recommendations, we ask the question: What would be the motivation for a government to just turn its back on many excellent recommendations? One hates to be cynical, but it would appear that the minister will put a feather in his cap and say “We had three kicks at this cat but I will be the one to blow the trumpet, I was the one who got the species at risk bill through”.
It is far better to work on it properly, listen to all the stakeholders, the landowners and everyone else who has concerns about it, and get it right even if we need four or five stabs at it. Get the thing right before it is enshrined in law, before going around trumped up like a peacock, and I am not sure if they are on the endangered species list or not. I do not know if they are at risk, but I do know that having someone trump around like a peacock is not the best motivation for this kind of legislation.
