Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from South Shore for allowing me to share his time on Bill C-5. I will not be sharing it with my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska. He does not want to speak, so we are okay on this one.
I pay special tribute to my colleague from Fundy—Royal who has taken the lead. He has basically acted as the official opposition with respect to the legislation. He has been extremely effective. He is very knowledgeable about the legislation and in face put forward a white paper that has been more accepted by the stakeholders than the legislation presented by the government. He has spent an enormous amount of time and energy on the legislation and has spoken with great eloquence and great knowledge of the subject.
His white paper was accepted by a rather large stakeholder group encompassing the Canadian Pulp & Paper Association, the Mining Association of Canada, the Sierra Club of Canada, the Canadian Nature Federation and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
When we look at the people who came forward as part of that group we realize that it is a rather diverse group. It contains representatives from industry as well as environmental activists who sometimes do not get along very well with industry. They said they had to put together an effective piece of legislation that would work, not something that was warm and fuzzy and on the surface looked like the government was doing something. They presented some very good recommendations to the government and, lo and behold, none of them were incorporated into the legislation.
I will talk about some of the deficiencies of the legislation and about why the government has failed miserably in trying to protect something that Canadians want to protect. Since 1993 the government has said that there must be endangered species legislation. It was identified in the 1997 red book. Also the government mentioned it in the last three throne speeches in 1996, 1999 and 2001, but it is still not on the floor in the way it should be in order to protect all endangered species.
Let us talk about a couple of areas in which the legislation falls down quite dramatically. As my colleague mentioned, landowner rights would be impacted quite dramatically by the legislation.
I come from an area that encompasses an urban and a rural community. About 50% of my constituency is rural. The economic backbone of the area is agriculture. Farmers and producers of the area are stewards of the land. In most cases they accept responsibility for stewardship, not only of the land but of the habitat on the land and the endangered species.
Landowner rights are not reflected properly in the legislation. We in the PC Party agree that there have to be more carrots than sticks. That comment was made by my colleague from Fundy—Royal. If we think about it, there have to be more carrots out there than there are sticks.
There is no compensatory opportunity under the legislation to allow producers with endangered species and habitat on their land to continue their operations to the benefit society. People in Montreal, Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver and other urban centres are demanding that producers, ranchers and landowners make sure that the habitat and species are retained, but they are not prepared to pay anything for that to take place. That is absolutely wrong. If landowners are not able to farm, ranch or do what they wish with their property, the species will be endangered even further.
Right now the Americans refer to the three esses: shoot, shovel and shut up. That does not solve the problem. Nor will the legislation. We must make sure that fair compensation is provided to landowners, that the necessary dollars are provided.
The legislation would result in an inability to work with the provinces. It deals with federal lands but unfortunately only deals with about 40% of the problem. Some 60% of endangered species and their habitat will not be affected by the legislation. We should work with the provinces to make sure that the legislation is effective, not simply something that would be thrown out by producers or landowners.
Carrots and sticks, protection of critical habitat, partnerships with the provinces and scientific listings are some of the issues. It was mentioned earlier that responsibility for the identification of an endangered species would be given to the cabinet. Politicians, as much as we would like to think otherwise, are not terribly well respected in their abilities to put forward the truth and the necessary intelligence to ensure that the decision is a proper one.
We are suggesting the decision should be based on information from the scientists, the people who know the issue better than politicians. We are asking for decision making to be taken from the cabinet table and put into the hands of the people who know the issue. We should let them make the decisions on the listing of protected species. It is a very important issue.
There must be an accountability mechanism for citizens to ensure the government enforces its own act. If the act is to include an accountability mechanism, the PC Party believes there should be an independent process for the public to ensure the act is being effectively implemented. The process should allow citizens to challenge the federal government and not other citizens. We believe very seriously that it is the citizens who will enforce Bill C-5.
I believe and Canadians believe there is a need for endangered species legislation. The legislation that we are debating right now would not solve the current problems. It will go forward to committee where I ask the government to listen with an open mind. A number of stakeholders are prepared to come forward with some interesting amendments to the legislation. When it goes to committee, I ask the government not to handle it as it does other pieces of legislation.
It is too important for that majority government to ramrod it through. We must make sure that the legislation comes forward for final reading in the House in the proper fashion and is the proper piece of legislation. I look forward to the legislation coming back from committee in a different form.
