Joe Comartin

[2002 Winter Olympics, February 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I stand today to recognize the efforts of two Canadian Olympians from my riding of Windsor--St. Clair.

Tonight five time Canadian champion Jennifer Robinson competes in the women's figure skating program. I am sure all members of the House will join me in wishing her the best of luck.

Last night Windsor native Ed Jovanovski turned in a phenomenal performance and was instrumental in Team Canada's 2-1 win over Finland. We all wish Ed and the rest of Canada's men's team the best of luck as they continue their quest for the gold.

I am sure that not only my constituents in Windsor--St. Clair but all Canadians join with me to say “Go Jennifer. Go Ed. We know you will do Canada proud”.

[Species at Risk Act, February 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, to pick up on some of the points made by the last speaker, the chairman of the committee and member for Davenport, I will begin by indicating that I have been through all the amendments in Group No. 2, and in keeping with the spirit and wording of the committee, I cannot find any to support.

However, given that we have such a short period of time to speak to these amendments and given the fact that a number of them are quite critical to the bill and to the work done by the committee, I will address them in a summary form, issue by issue, as I see them.

The first amendment I want to address, again in terms of trying to maintain the integrity of all the work done by the environment committee, which at this point, in spite of what we hear from the parliamentary secretary and the minister that there were various attempts here to strengthen the work that we did, that is not the case. It is just the opposite. A great deal of the amendments proposed by the government would, in effect, gut the bill and the work done by the committee. So much for parliamentary democracy.

Let me deal with COSEWIC, the scientific body that designates whether a species is at risk. We took a great deal of evidence around a number of issues of the work that COSEWIC does: its existing list; how it has the list; the number of species not on the list that it would like to get at in terms of determining whether they are at risk. The list we saw contained over 200 species but COSEWIC told us that there were as many as 1,000 species at serious risk but that the analysis had not yet been done.

COSEWIC brought a great deal of credibility to the process and specifically to the work done by the committee. What was very clear from what we heard from COSEWIC and, more important, from any sector that was concerned about the bill and about protecting species, was the importance of having the list done scientifically, not politically. The amendment that has been proposed would do just the opposite. It is to say that the government will do this politically not scientifically and that the scientists will have an almost insignificant role to play if the amendment goes through as proposed by the Minister of the Environment.

What we simply did was tell the scientific community that we accepted the very good work it had done historically, that we wanted them to continue to do that and that we would authorize and empower them to continue that work in a much more formal way.

The government is saying that if socio-economic issues have to be brought in, any decision that has to be made about protecting a species is something it would do, but the determination of whether a species is at risk or not is purely and simply a scientific one. The amendments that the committee proposed, which are now being gutted, would have achieved that end.

The next issue I want to address deals with discretion, or lack of same, that is in the bill as amended by the committee. What we were saying here, based on a lot of past experience, was that we had to present to the public, the citizens of Canada, an image and a reality that we as a government would carry out the purposes and intent of the act. We are serious about protecting species in this country.

If I can digress for just a minute in that regard, Canada has a major responsibility here.

We are a developed country but we have a large expanse of land where we can protect species. In terms of developed countries, we may be in the very best position to do that because we still have so many of our species that have not been destroyed. An undeveloped country simply may not have the ability to do this. A developed country, where a lot of species may already have been killed off, no longer can do this. Canada is in a very unique position and, I would suggest, we have a responsibility to the rest of the world to be very careful about what we are doing here and be sure that we are going to protect species.

The amendments that have now come from the Minister of the Environment and his department do just the opposite. They portray an image to the citizens of Canada of a government that is not serious about protecting species. They have taken out all sorts of time limits. They have introduced discretion all over the place. They have introduced consultation that at times is meaningless and at other times it has been taken out. What that consultation really does, if we look at the approach that is taken, is it benefits the government at every turn to delay the process, which I suggest was the government's intent. It wants the ability to delay as much as possible implementing the bill and the law that we hope will flow eventually from it.

I also want to address some of the Bloc amendments and some parts of the bill which the government supports, especially around critical habitat. It is the issue of provincial-federal jurisdiction. The committee spent a lot of time on this and heard from about 150 witnesses. The chair was unrelenting in keeping us working on this. The meetings were often lengthy and often held several times a week. That was the pattern we followed since last January.

During the committee process it became very clear, from opinions we got from lawyers and a former supreme court justice who had actually written some decisions in this area, that the federal responsibility, authority and jurisdiction was very clear. As a federal government, we do have the right and, I would submit very strongly, the responsibility to protect species. We have the jurisdiction to do that. Several Supreme Court of Canada decisions confirmed that opinion. I and my party reject the Bloc amendments that try to dilute that responsibility.

We reviewed every one of the provinces' histories of protecting species and by no means were they great histories. If the federal government did not do it, it was pretty obvious that the provinces would not do it. There are provisions in the bill that if the provinces are doing it we stay out of it, but if they are not going to do it, then we need the authority in the bill to move in and protect those species.

The work that the committee did is reflected in the amendments we put to the original draft which does in fact empower the government to step in when appropriate to protect species and save them from extinction. We totally reject the proposed amendments that try to dilute the federal power.

I want to spend a few more minutes on critical habitat. We did not understand, and to this day I do not understand, why the department and the minister were so adamant about not protecting and not intervening to protect species when they had the authority to do so. We heard what I would suggest are lame arguments as to consultation and co-operation.

This bill as amended by the committee is very strong in that regard but we have a fallback position in that we have the authority to step in. If it is a choice between offending a landowner, a provincial government or a territorial government and the loss of a species, we have the responsibility to step in at that point.

I have not covered at least two of the other major areas but I see that I have run out of time.

[Species at Risk Act, February 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if he really believes that, will he commit today to allow Liberal Party members who want to vote in favour of those amendments passed by the committee to stand without being punished by the government if they do so?

[Species at Risk Act, February 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday at the finance committee we saw the type of contempt that we get from the government as far as the democratic process. Even worse is the contempt it has shown for the work the environment committee has done over the last nine months on the species at risk act, the contempt it has shown for the input of dozens of environmental groups, business organizations and stakeholders, and the contempt it has shown for 60,000 Canadians who signed petitions supporting those amendments.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit today to allow those amendments to stand and let the House vote on them as is?

[Request for Emergency Debate, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we are seeking an emergency debate on the ratification of the Kyoto protocol. As members will recall from question period yesterday, this has become an issue of great concern to Canadians. I would suggest this is as a result of issues and incidents that have arisen in the last week or ten days, in particular the incident between the Prime Minister and the premier of Alberta in Moscow and the proposal put forward by the president of the United States with regard to its program dealing with climate change and global warming.

As I mentioned, questions were asked in the House yesterday. Great concerns have been raised on both sides of this issue in the last several days because of the uncertainty as to whether Canada will proceed with the signing of the accord. On one side, people involved in the fossil fuel industry are gravely concerned about what it may cost them. On the other side, the industrial sectors, including the farming industry, the insurance industry, the tourism industry, and the list goes on, are concerned about the economical impact of global change on them.

In addition there is great concern for the health implications if we do not proceed with the Kyoto agreement and the impact it will have. I say that in relevance to my riding where we have a very serious health situation which has been impacted to some significant degree by transboundary pollution. This pollution would be alleviated quite significantly if we proceeded with the Kyoto agreement and the reduction of those emissions.

I believe there are grounds for this to be an emergency debate because there had been a good deal of debate on this issue which appeared to be inevitably leading us to signing the Kyoto agreement. However in the last several days a number of incidents have occurred which have changed that. The emergency debate would allow all parliamentarians to debate the issues and bring forward information as to where Canada could alleviate a great deal of the concern in the country.

[Transport, February 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, approximately two weeks ago the Minister of Finance, speaking to a municipal conference, pledged a new deal in the relationship between the federal government and the financing it provides to municipalities.

This past weekend the Minister of Transport appears to be stuck in the old deal among the provinces, the federal government and the city of Toronto with regard to Toronto transit.

Will the Minister of Transport get in line with the Minister of Finance, go with the new deal, put some dollars on the table and get that project going?

[The Environment, February 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, while the Prime Minister continues to mutter his support for Kyoto, his policies leave much to be desired. Rather than listening to the oil companies and Ralph Klein, the Prime Minister should take the advice of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting in Ottawa this week.

Unlike the federal government, the FCM has a detailed plan to reduce emissions and help Canada meet its Kyoto commitments. It has called on Canada to achieve at least 75% of its Kyoto target through domestic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These reductions would create local jobs, save on energy costs and improve air quality and the health of Canadians.

The nearly 90 municipal government members of FCM's partners for climate protection program could reduce emissions by 30 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent within the next 10 years if they reach their targets, contributing almost 20% to Canada's Kyoto target.

I urge the federal government to support FCM's position and assist it in any manner that it can.

[Species at Risk Act, February 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the process during the last nine months, prior to the committee tabling the report with amendments, has been interesting. On this area in particular, I wish to acknowledge the work done by the Alliance members who sat on the committee because to a great degree these members were able to shift some positioning on this by other members of the committee, including myself.

When it came to this issue, we obviously had the same position in the sense of looking at what the issues were. On the one hand, there were concerns about protecting species and to make that financially possible. We did not make it impossible because of cost to protect species. We had that consideration on one side.

On the other hand, we had consideration for people who owned land on which endangered species were found or might be found in the future. We had to consider how to deal with their interest so that the cost of protecting the species and ensuring that they survived in a vibrant and healthy way would not be borne exclusively or unfairly by landowners or people with an interest in property.

When we looked at this, a number of the environmental groups that first came before us had the attitude of not having compensation at all. Again, because of the work of the Alliance members, people were drawn to looking at what was a fair way of dealing with this. I believe that was accomplished with the amendments at committee stage. Even though this is coming up in one of the other blocks, the government is now looking at taking back some of those measures which we put into place at committee stage.

I am a little critical of the Alliance members because they were a part of this group. There were a number of horror stories, red herrings, brought forward of just how bad the problem was. The issue that is always trotted out is the spotted owl in the United States. That is an example of environmental protection of an endangered species run rampant in overrunning all property rights and property ownership rights.

In fact the experience in the United States is nowhere near as bad as was made out. What I found most interesting was the experience we had in British Columbia. It was a limited area and there had been a fund set aside for about $5 million to compensate people. As part of that compensation fund there were also provisions for stewardship agreements.

The end result, and they had just about finished the process when the committee was meeting, was that very little of the $5 million was used. In fact, with co-operation on the part of the landowners and the government agencies in that case, the species was protected and very little compensation was paid out. All parties involved were satisfied with the process. I believe that is the more common response we get.

The bill has a number of provisions in it that provide for stewardship type agreements for co-operative arrangements. If those are carried out, in keeping with what we have seen in the past, the compensation issue may not be nearly as severe as has been made out by some parties.

Like my friend from Fundy--Royal, the NDP can support a number of these provisions. I would note that there are some that we cannot, in particular Motion No. 12. The purpose of this act is to protect species is as far as it needs to go.

I have some concerns with Motion No. 13 with regard to the use of the socio-economic interest of Canadians in that section. It is covered in other parts of the bill.

I would oppose some amendments simply on the fact that the members of the committee did good work and that work should be honoured. However there are some additional provisions that have come to my attention that we may not have covered in sufficient detail but we could support them.

Motion No. 28 is one of them. It is in keeping with the work done by the committee and the amendments made specifically to section 64 of the act. Motion No. 28 proposes amending clause 11 to provide for compensation in those circumstances of that agreement. This section could use that enhancement and we would support it.

Motion No. 103 also proposes amending section 64. After a great deal of deliberation, some of which I have already recounted, the committee came to the conclusion that the terminology of fair and reasonable, which was an addition to the section originally received from the minister, was the wording we felt most adequately, appropriately and accurately represented where all parties in Canada were at. I cannot support the proposed amendment to section 64 that is in Motion No. 103.

With regard to Motion No. 105, the terminology “provide fair market value” should be brought to the attention of the House. We heard a great deal of evidence from legal experts and other people who had backgrounds in compensation in a wide variety of fields. What was very clear, after hearing all that evidence, was the terminology of fair market value, although anyone with a legal background has an appreciation of what that means, brings baggage with it, baggage that is inappropriate in the setting of the bill. We were looking for a broader perspective on the types of compensation. After looking at all of that, including the definition of fair market value, the committee in its wisdom determined that the use of the term fair and reasonable was the most appropriate for the protection of endangered species in this country.

Motion No. 111 is probably a clarification of the committee's work and is one that all parties, which supported the rest of the work the committee did, could support.

Finally, Motion No. 128, as my friend from Fundy--Royal said, makes sense. If the government is aware that a species is at risk or is in danger and is on private property, it is simple enough to make the landowner aware of that and hopefully give the owner some direction on how to deal with that species. It should not conceal the fact. This is one of those sections that clearly is a housekeeping one and should go through.

I have indicated the motions we can support as a party. Going back though, I emphasize that the compensation issue is one that will be an evolving issue. I recognize that. However I strongly argue to the House that it is not as great an issue as a number of other ones in the bill.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the issue of speed, I have only been here almost a year. I have certainly never been through something like this so I suppose I am not as confident as the minister to speak to it.

Let me just suggest in terms of my trial background that I can see where there will be some significant issues around whether the committee will summons certain witnesses.

In particular the issue of national security will be raised. Does that then mean the committee will be coming back to you, Mr. Speaker, for rulings on witnesses or documents? Are we to get into that?

In addition to what I can see as a fairly substantial number of witnesses that would have to be called, we could get into some procedural harangues which would certainly delay it. I cannot answer my friend's question in terms of a time estimate. I would not even hazard trying to do that.

With regard to the other issue around conflicting statements, I have one answer to make. I will limit it to this in light of the time. I take some issue that perhaps there might not have been different conduct directed to our troops had we known about this.

Fourteen days ago the debate was raging over how POWs were to be treated and whether they were in fact POWs at all. I cannot help but say that if factual information had come forward at the time on these troops having apprehended these prisoners, the issues may have been dealt with differently.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to focus more directly in response to the question from my colleague, which was one of accountability around the particular role the minister should be playing at this time while the committee's work is ongoing.

I certainly agree with his suggestion that if the minister is not prepared to see the significance of the ruling, the impact it has had on his confidence, then, yes, the Prime Minister should insist that he step aside for this period of time.

I stressed in my opening remarks that it would be some time, but surely either the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister could be assigned responsibility for the department until such time as the motion is finalized by the House.