Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-33, the species at risk legislation which has been brought in by the present government.
Like the other members who have commented on the legislation, I regret to say I am a bit critical of it. I am critical of it because of some obvious flaws in the legislation and because of the government's apparent lack of will and the half-hearted attitude it has brought to this legislation, and its total inability to bring all the stakeholders on side. Not only are business and industry disrespectful and not supportive of the legislation, but the environmental groups and lobbyists are also disrespectful and not supportive of this legislation.
I would like to start my speech with some comments taken from the speech of our party's environment critic, the member for Fundy—Royal. I would like to quote a paragraph from his opening remarks.
Canada has 351 species that are recognized as endangered or at risk. There is no federal law to protect these species. The government's proposed species at risk act, known as SARA, is long overdue. It is a long overdue promise, but it is very disappointing. This legislation is even weaker and less effective than Bill C-65, the 1996 federal endangered species bill, which died before the 1997 election. This new bill is unacceptably ineffective in several key areas, particularly habitat protection. The main threat facing endangered species is the destruction of their habitat, the places where species breed, where they feed and where they raise their young.
I read over the excellent speech of the member for Fundy—Royal. I was quite intrigued with that comment, but I would add one more point to the point he was making. Bill C-65 was brought forward in 1996 and died before the 1997 election. I predict the same type of demise for this legislation. It is not supported by any of the parties in the House and is not supported by the Canadian public in general. I suspect the bill could die before the election in the fall of 2000, which the government has gone to great task lately to say will not happen, which is a pretty sure sign that it will happen.
It should also be pointed out that the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was awarded an A grade on our paper, “Carrots Before Sticks”, for our outline of an effective endangered species legislation. The Liberal document which is before the House was awarded a D .
Obviously the government has missed out on this bill completely. It fails to understand what Canadian industry and environmentalists are looking for. It fails to understand much of what was alluded to by the New Democratic member who spoke previously, that whole principle of stewardship of the land.
Most people, farmers, forestry operators, landowners, city dwellers, first nations, Canadians anywhere, have some understanding of stewardship of the land. I grew up in rural Nova Scotia and I have a keen understanding of it coming from a hunting, fishing and farming background.
If we are going to leave something in this country and on this planet for our sons and daughters and their sons and daughters, we have to have a different approach to the way we look at species at risk and our interaction with the environment.
The Progressive Conservative Party endorses recommendations put forward by the species at risk working group, a multi-stakeholder association that involved both industry and environmental groups. The group examined ideas for an ideal bill, not this bill. It included representation from the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, the Mining Association of Canada, the Sierra Club of Canada, the Canadian Nature Federation and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
Those groups do not ordinarily get together in one room and agree on anything. Obviously they are looking at this legislation and saying that there is a need and how can they formulate an approach they can agree with, that they can combine forces and overcome some of the obstacles and put forward a piece of legislation that will be helpful to wildlife, the environment and Canadians in general.
If mining, pulp and paper and environmentalists can devise a workable solution, then the Progressive Conservative Party will certainly endorse their plan. We recognize that extinction is forever. As a result, we believe that all Canadians want strong and effective endangered species legislation.
The status of a given species is a matter of scientific fact, not of political choice. It is for this reason the Progressive Conservative Party believes there has to be effective legislation that must take action based on sound science. We are also committed to protecting the rights of landowners and users. We believe that no single individual or entity should bear the burden of recovery of any species when the benefits of the species protection are for all society to appreciate.
That is a pretty simple theory. That is not a complicated concept for the government or Canadians to grasp and they should embrace that concept.
It was mentioned earlier that the legislation in the United States has been very powerful in protecting species to a degree, but it has also been a deterrent to protecting species. Anyone who has followed the debate in the U.S. should know that among many of the landowners there are two points which they like to discuss. It is the two s points: first they shoot it and then they bury it, or shovel it. That is not the approach we want to take in Canada.
We do not want to bring in legislation which is so difficult to abide by that when individuals, farmers, forestry operators, mine operators, aboriginal groups, recreational groups and developers come across an endangered species, we force them to get rid of it. That does not work. We have to encourage them. That means the government is going to have to open up its purse strings. It is going to have to find some ways to encourage that, and it will probably be a financial incentive, to protect the species at risk and to build a comprehensive plan around it that will allow for continued protection in the years to come. That is why the Conservative Party believes that when designing a recovery plan, the bulk of the decision making should be left to the stakeholders and not the Liberal cabinet.
There are a few simple points which I would like to repeat. If an endangered species is found in a given area, then the landowner must be doing something right and he should be given all the tools to continue. He should not be penalized. He should not be told that there is a part of his quarter section or his 250 acre woodlot that he will not be able touch from now on. We have to find a way to compensate people to protect that endangered species which happens to be there.
We need to know a few things about the species. Is it a species that is simply passing through? Is it a breeding ground? Is it habitat that they depend upon? Is that endangered species plant or animal? Is it migratory? There are a number of issues and points that we need to better understand.
We agree with and support the recognition for voluntary measures. We fully endorse stewardship as a means of providing protection for species and their critical habitat. We endorse a graduated approach to stewardship with a full tool kit from material designed to engage the stakeholders positively in this process. This could include tax incentives, habitat grants, scientific support and in some instances it may need to include compensation.
The PC Party believes that simply making criminals out of landowners will not save endangered species anymore than making criminals out of law-abiding gun owners will make society any safer.
There are several core components of our species at risk debate: to protect critical habitat; to use carrots before sticks; to form partnerships with the provinces; to have a full and comprehensive scientific listing of species; and, the protection for endangered species and their habitat. We need recovery plans and accountability mechanisms for citizens to ensure government forces act on their behalf.
I will go back to point number six that I raised regarding the recovery plan. We support legislation that commits to a firm target and time lines for designing and implementing an appropriate recovery plan for endangered species, whether they are endangered, threatened or vulnerable. I would like to use for comparison the wild Atlantic salmon.
The wild Atlantic salmon population is in critical decline and the federal government needs to address this problem immediately. People are already saying that it is a crisis situation and the numbers back them up. The wild salmon stock has dropped from 1.6 million 25 years ago to only 350,000 this year. I would state that the 350,000 is probably a generous estimate.
The Gold River in Nova Scotia, which I live beside, is a small salmon river. We used to have a run of salmon come up in the spring every year. It was not a run like the Margaree, the Miramichi or any of the big salmon rivers in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick but it was a great little run of fish. We would get anywhere from 350 to 600 fish in that river. We would see them in the pools 25 or 30 at a time. We do not see that today. It is no good taking my kids down to the salmon pool to show them a salmon jumping up over the falls or coming up the run because it would probably take five trips before we would see one. It is a matter of bringing these fish back.
The Atlantic Salmon Federation is looking for $50 million in funding spread out over a five year period. This would allow the federation to tag, track and monitor stocks and provide valuable insight into the problems facing this species. Many different factors could be contributing to the declining numbers, including pollution and dams, but more research is needed if the wild Atlantic salmon is going to be restored to its former abundance.
The government has had an opportunity to act on this species. I am not talking about all the other species at risk. I am talking about this particular one, the wild Atlantic salmon. The government has failed to provide the much needed funding for raising salmon smolts and the salmon parr for release into our rivers.
We proved through our wildlife and salmon associations a decade ago that river specific salmon did much better than just any salmon dropped into our tributaries and our water courses. The government has known about this but has completely stopped advancing moneys for the hatchery program in Nova Scotia, and in fact has closed it down. It tried to divest it to individuals but most of those hatcheries have since failed. It put a little money into a few of them this year just to get the fish out of the hatcheries but there was no comprehensive plan. Meanwhile the salmon numbers continue to dwindle and diminish.
The government talks about endangered species but, quite frankly, talk is cheap. We have seen that for too many years from this government.
The core components of our species at risk legislation has been explained and debated and put forth at committee by our member for Fundy—Royal. It is critical that we look at protecting habitat. We have to find a non-intrusive way to do that. It is critical that we use carrots before sticks. We have to encourage, recognize and reward stewardship by offering more carrots and resorting to fewer sticks.
Adequate funding, which I talked about a moment ago, is needed to implement activities designed to support the stakeholders in their efforts to recover and protect endangered species.
The PC Party believes a new bill should apply to all lands except where equivalent provincial legislation is in place. If we listened to the debate from the members of the Bloc Quebecois, that is exactly what they were talking about. They were talking about jurisdiction overlap and whose responsibility it was for certain species. Obviously this government has not figured that out.
We do not need another Kyoto where the provinces are forced to pay for a plan imposed upon them by the federal government. The provinces themselves should be provided with sufficient resources to address the issue and to ensure protective and effective enforcement.
The PC Party supports scientific listing of a species at risk and of the identification of the critical habitat required for its recovery. The PC Party believes a committee of wildlife experts should be charged with this task. It should be a matter of science, not a matter of politics.
We go on to the protection for endangered species and their habitat. The PC Party supports the immediate prohibition against the harming of any endangered species or its residence, and the protection of the critical habitat of species through either co-operative agreements or legal measures following a multi-stakeholder recovery plan.
What we do not believe is simply implementing some program where there has been no reaching out to the stakeholders group, that there has been no co-operative effort on and that is little understood and little supported by the people who will be most affected by it.
We need some accountability built into the process. We need a mechanism for citizens to ensure that the government enforces its own act. If the act is to include an accountability mechanism then the PC Party believes that there should be an independent process for the public to ensure the act is being effectively implemented. This process should allow citizens to challenge the federal government and not other citizens.
We do not need to make this act complicated. We do not need to make this act somehow a confrontation between our forestry operators, our farmers and our fishermen. What we need is to bring in an act that encourages the protection of species at risk. What we have is an act that fails to recognize that all important tenet.
