Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to speak tonight to the bill of the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette because it does speak to something that is very important in my riding of Timmins—James Bay, a riding that I am told is larger than the United Kingdom. Much of that is land based and the people are actively involved in the long time heritage activities of hunting and fishing.
I guess I will not be telling tales out of school, but after the 2004 election our leader took me aside and asked me what the biggest issues in my riding were during the federal election. I said that they were slot sizes for fish, the spring bear hunt and moose tags. Perhaps we ran a different campaign back home than the national campaign.
The reason these issues resonate back home is because they speak to people who feel that they are being increasingly separated from their ability to use their land. When policies are brought in that separate people from long time land activities, there is a sense of deep-seated alienation.
When people I met door to door started talking to me about wildlife policy at the provincial level, what they were saying was that they felt they had less ability to speak to the very issues that they and their grandparents have dealt with during their whole lives. The idea of recognizing the important heritage value of what our people on the land do is a fundamental priority that we have to make as politicians.
I have some questions about the efficacy of this particular bill. I know it is a short bill but I am concerned about the word “right” because of how it will be interpreted. Regardless of what we do or whatever our intent is in the bill, people will definitely be looking at the legal implications of proclaiming a right. I want to pose a few questions around that because in order to go forward with protecting our heritage values we must look at these issues closely.
I am not speaking today in my capacity as the heritage critic but as the member of Parliament for Timmins—James Bay because I have not been able to clarify for my own party how the issue of a right proclaimed at the federal level will work itself out in any kind of legislation.
As I said, there is a deep-seated sense of frustration by people who use the land and I again see the need to show some clarity. A perfect example in my riding is the cancellation of the spring bear hunt in 1999 where the Conservative government at that time made an arbitrary decision, without consultation, to pull the plug on the hunt because it was unpopular in urban centres. That decision was made after the spring bear hunt plans had already been made by the outfitters from across the north. People had already received deposits and had already spent the deposits buying supplies. In what was a case of cold political calculation, those people were left out to dry and it caused economic devastation across the isolated communities of the north that depended on the bear hunt.
The bear hunt was not something in which many local people partook. This was a hunt in which the American tourists participated but it was a crucial element in our economy. Was there a right that people should have been able to exercise to defend themselves? Perhaps. But is a right proclaimed by the federal government enough to protect provincial citizens because we are talking about policies that belong within the provincial jurisdiction?
Are we trying to proclaim a right that we can offer people at the federal level to supersede provincial legislation? Are we offering them a way of dealing with provincial legislation or are we simply reaffirming the right that already exists, which is the right of any citizen, for example, in Ontario, to get a fishing or hunting licence and go in for either the moose tag lottery or fishing.
Boy oh boy, I have been standing for almost three minutes and I have not spoken about the moose tag lottery. In terms of Orwellian drama, we cannot find anything more absurd in Ontario than the moose tag lottery. It seems that year after year northern hunters put in their money, buy their licences and go on the expectation that some day, maybe not in their lifetime but maybe in their grandchildren's lifetime, one of them will actually get a moose tag. Nobody ever wins so it is very much like the characters in Orwell. One wonders where all these moose tags go.
This brings us back to land use issues. What we are seeing in a province of nine million people is that everyone has the right to go into the moose tag lottery. It seems to be a very bizarre and Kafkaesque decision process of who gets to draw.
The question is, do the families who live in the north have a right to go to their provincial member and say they should be able to hunt at least once a decade? Do they have the right to say that a tag should come up for a hunting party? The problem then is whose rights take priority, because tags are set aside right across the province so any urban resident has the same right as a rural resident.
The bill talks about our heritage, the history of people who live off the land, who live off hunting for sustenance. Does the right to hunt for sustenance take priority over the right of an urban person to hunt for sport? For that matter, does the right to sell tags to outfitters to bring a commercial interest in hunting into the economy take priority above people who still can legitimately claim they hunt for food?
We have various questions about how these rights should be determined. I know it seems fairly complex on what seems to me to be a very straightforward and simple bill, but the question of rights and hunting will come up many times and we have to define this.
As a federal member, even though hunting is not within my jurisdiction, I still am very active on these issues. During the next constituency break another moose tag meeting will be held with members of our hunting population. They are very frustrated by the fact that the provincial government does not listen with respect to wildlife management policies. The provincial member and I have been regularly holding meetings with our hunters to come up with proactive alternatives. For example, the Quebec model is far superior to the Ontario model in terms of allowing for hunting tags.
After a group has managed to get a hunting tag, should that group not fall to the bottom of the next set of lotteries so that people can at least be guaranteed access? We are talking about access when we are talking about a heritage right. It is the right of the citizens of a region to access their own resources. They believe they have the right to access those resources. It is a conditional right at the provincial level because of the increasing pressure we are seeing on the land base. We have to be very clear about this.
We are seeing more desire for people to get out under various circumstances, some to restrict access for certain groups. In Ontario with nine million people plus who potentially want to hunt or fish, there is major pressure on the land base and on our animal herds and fish stocks. It is a very difficult situation. I know that some of the most unpopular people in northern Ontario tend to be the conservation officers and the natural resources people who have to balance competing interests. We are dealing with pressures on the land base, and we all want to maintain viable herds and viable fish stocks well into the 21st century.
How do these rights start to work themselves out? We still need to discuss this to find a way that we as a federal house can establish the heritage value, but also ensure that we are not leading ourselves or provincial jurisdictions into competing claims in court.
The issue of courts is where major areas in terms of hunting rights have already been thought out. We know about the section 35 rights in the Constitution, but those rights have never been clarified. What has happened is that they have had to be fought in the courts, decision after decision. I had a wonderful 20 minute dissertation here on the Powley and Blair decisions that I was about to wow the House with, but I see my time has run out.
As someone who lives on the land and usually has bears in my yard about once or twice a week thanks to our failed bear policies, I am very interested in where we are going with this. It needs to be said again and again that people on the land have a great respect for the land. Hunters and fishers have a deep abiding love for our natural terrain and will do what they can to defend it.
I would like to end with the great northern proverb that little boys who learn to hunt, trap and fish do not grow up to mug old ladies.
