Rick Casson

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, there is a powerful lumber lobby in the United States, but there is also a powerful lobby in the United States supportive of our position.

Why are we not finding the allies that we need to promote our position instead of continually talking about the other side? Let us bring the parties together that will help defend Canada's position on this issue.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, perhaps it would be better if I did admit to what the member is saying, but on the other hand, if what he is saying is indeed true, that they were well aware this was coming to an end, that they worked hard on trying to bring the agreement to some resolution here in Canada and utterly failed, maybe it would be better to say that they did not do anything and here we are, but to say that they worked hard at it, that they did everything they could to bring the parties together yet still it came to this position, shows that the job was not done.

The thing is that we have a whole industry and thousands and thousands of families across the country suffering. We should have known that was going to happen long before this deal transpired. If what the member has just said was happening, why are we a year later still scrapping, trying to figure this thing out and people are still being harmed day after day?

This argument has turned on them. They say they were doing their job but obviously the job they were doing was not adequate and they should have been at it maybe earlier and maybe more intensely.

It goes to the whole global issue. If we want to maintain our position as a strong, viable part of the new global world, we had better get to the trade negotiations wherever they are, in whatever venue. We must be strong and firm in negotiating long lasting trade agreements that will benefit this country.

I urge members opposite, as the governing party for now, to make sure that happens so that every industry in the country can feel comfortable in the fact that their future will be stable and they can have confidence in investing further in Canada.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is good to rise today and speak to the motion, a motion brought forward by our party and particularly by the member for Vancouver Island North who, I agree with the former speaker, has probably forgotten more about softwood lumber than many of us will ever know. He has been on top of this file for years. He has done a tremendous job for this party and for the country to do what an opposition party should do, to criticize the government for what it has not done and to bring forward alternatives. Today is an example of that.

I want to make sure that people understand the motion we are debating. It states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the principles and provisions of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, FTA, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, including their dispute resolution mechanisms, should be fully applied to trade in softwood lumber, and it urges the government not to accept any negotiated settlement of the current softwood lumber dispute outside of the FTA and the NAFTA unless it guarantees free and unfettered access to the U.S. market, and includes dispute resolution mechanisms capable of overriding domestic trade measures to resolve future disputes.

That indicates that mechanisms are already in place through the free trade agreements that we have. The softwood lumber agreement that was in place expired. Free trade should have been the ultimate function that kicked into place but it did not.

For a country like Canada, which has been through one trade dispute after another with the Americans on softwood lumber, not to be fully prepared for the day that agreement expired was wrong.

I had the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. last June with the Canada-U.S. parliamentary group and meet with senators and lobby on this issue. We were fortunate enough to have a meeting with Secretary of Commerce Evans. We tried to let him know just exactly how important this was to Canada.

Mr. Evan's answer to us at that time was that they knew on a daily basis what was happening between Canada and the U.S. with regard to trade, that it was huge and that this was part of it, but that we were not to worry because it would be sorted out. That kind of attitude indicates to me that the Government of Canada did not do its job in letting Secretary of Commerce Evans know how serious the issue was. The government did not supply the Americans with the information they needed to understand our position so that when the SLA ceased to be in existence they could come to the table to work toward free trade.

As it turned out, a huge tax or tariff was immediately put on our lumber and it absolutely devastated the lumber industry. Some of the headlines we see about profits being down and losses being taken, as far as the companies are concerned, is one thing, but when one realizes the effect it is having on the families, the businesses and the communities right across the country, the communities that depend on softwood lumber exports and on the manufacture of the products, is something else.

Hopefully the Minister of Human Resources Development understands the implications of what is happening to the families across Canada. It has been a year now since the agreement expired and the tariffs were put in place against Canada, and the business industry has gone into a tailspin.

Some of the support that is in place for people without work is starting to dry up. As we stand here today discussing the issue, families are facing real life decisions on how they will feed their families and pay their rent. They are losing their homes and their way of life.

It is important that this issue be brought to resolution as soon as possible. It should not have gone on this long. There should have been a process put in place to end this before it started.

A couple of summers ago I had the opportunity, through invitations from the west coast forestry operations, the industry and the union, to tour the west coast. I did not know much about the practices that were put in place but they wanted to demonstrate how hard they worked as an industry to address some of the environmental concerns that have faced their industry, and there have been many. It was really educational to see the lengths to which the industry would go to protect the environment and ensure that the lumber industry was sustainable.

When an industry is in trouble and it does not have the funds to invest in proper environmental projects, those projects will suffer. This whole issue of the industry being in trouble has far reaching ramifications and through no fault of its own. It may have to backtrack. I am not saying it is but that would be one area that it would look at and say that it cannot afford to do some of the things it has been doing as far as protecting the environment because of the situation in which it finds itself. Hopefully that will not happen and we can bring the dispute to resolution very quickly.

The Prime Minister is meeting today with President Bush. Both countries have a lot to talk about but I hope the softwood lumber dispute is at the top of the list so we can get some resolution or some commitment from our American partners to come to the table and bring free trade to this industry.

This agreement was one of the largest trade agreements in the world. The lumber going across the border between Canada and the United States was unprecedented, almost in the world, as far as the value and what was needed.

The Americans do need our lumber. They do not have the supply themselves. In the interim, when we are being damaged by this situation, other countries are looking at that and taking advantage of it to seek out new markets in the United States, and they are finding them.

It is important for us to resolve this dispute quickly so we can maintain our market share or we will lose out on that as well. When we have an industry that is this huge, in so far as the trade aspect is involved, it has created on the south side of the border in the United States a huge lobby group that supports our position. The homebuilders and the Home Depot know they need our lumber. They know it is of high quality. They need it to build homes. It is better than the lumber they produce themselves and so we have a whole industry down there that is supportive of what we are doing and the position we are seeking.

We should have had that lobby lined up, onside and doing the deal for Canada long before this softwood lumber agreement expired. I heard the comment from across the way this morning that once the lumber agreement expired free trade was supposed to kick in. That is fine and that was where it was supposed to go but we are not naive enough to think that would automatically happen. We should have been ready for it. We should have been preparing ourselves, building the alliances necessary to bring our point forward and get it across in the United States.

Another issue came to light this week with the release of Statistic Canada's latest census numbers. This country is growing at a very slow rate and if we are going to maintain and create growth in the service and commercial industries, we need to find markets for our products, and that means that we will need trade agreements with the United States and the rest of the world in order for our people to create jobs and move Canada along.

We continually have situations which arise, and there are many. We could talk about agriculture, softwood lumber, potato farmers, cattle producers, tomatoes and it goes on and on. It seems that at every opportunity available we come under attack. The government and the country need to take a far more forceful attitude or position in negotiating trade deals.

We need to firm up markets for our products. We need to make sure industry is confident enough in the future of its markets and that it can invest, create the jobs and wealth that a country needs to grow.

It all comes together. The way it is shaping up right now, Canada will need to find vast markets outside of Canada to keep the growth going. We need to work on smart trade deals that do not always end up in dispute and cause harm to Canadians.

I hope we can have the support of all parties for the motion today. I think everyone in the House realizes how important it is to Canada as a whole.

[Canadian Wheat Board, February 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government and the minister of agriculture have spent plenty of time congratulating themselves for the recent victory over the United States concerning the Canadian Wheat Board.

However, celebrating this result is nothing short of delusional. The investigation did conclude that the wheat board is an unfair trader because of its special monopoly rights. Now the U.S. administration will certainly launch countervailing duty and anti-dumping complaints against Canadian farm families because of the Canadian Wheat Board.

Canadian farmers will have to continue this fight at the World Trade Organization and through the U.S. commerce department's anti-dumping complaint process. Significant costs will be borne directly by the western Canadian wheat and barley producers who are forced to market their grain through the Canadian Wheat Board. This is despite the fact that many farmers want the monopoly removed. Farmers should not be forced to pay to defend a system that they do not want.

If the Liberals would finally listen to farmers and the Canadian Alliance and make participation in the Canadian Wheat Board voluntary the basis of these complaints would be removed and millions of dollars saved.

[Species at Risk Act, February 26th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is good to be able to again speak to the bill. We have spoken to the previous two sets of amendments and this Group No. 3 deals with the social and economic interests and the public consultation process.

Before I get into some of that I want to refer to, the member for Davenport and also the member for York North, both members from the government side of the House, spoke up and brought to the attention of Canadians the fact that a lot of the amendments that the government has brought forward at report stage are to reverse agreement on amendments brought forward at committee. There was the committee doing its work and bringing forward witnesses to explain the detail of the bill and give their opinions. The committee members worked together to formulate some amendments to improve the bill. Then when it came back to the House at report stage, the government introduced amendments to reverse all that. If that is considered democracy in this day and age, there is something definitely wrong with the process.

We cannot support the bill if it does not address fully the issue of compensation for affected landowners. If this is not in the bill we will not support it. It is critical to the protection of endangered species. If we do not do this, we will be endangering endangered species more than we will be helping them. There was also the mens rea issue that we dealt with in Group No. 2 about how a person is guilty until proven innocent in that a person who unknowingly alters the habitat of an endangered species is guilty. Some means in the bill has to absolutely reverse that so that a person found guilty must be shown to have had some intent in mind when he went out to destroy an endangered species or the habitat. Those two issues are vitally important to our party and to the people we have been talking to.

Quite early this morning when I was in my office I got a phone call from a rancher from back home. It was two hours earlier for him. He had just come in from feeding his cattle and phoned me to see how the bill was progressing. He has had an interest in this issue since it was first talked about many years ago. This gentleman was raised and educated in the United States and he knows what has happened in the United States with the heavy-handed type of legislation there. He knows that it has not worked. He has kept on top of this issue and he is so fearful that if this happens in Canada we indeed will be putting species at risk instead of helping them. All Canadians are supportive, as our party is, of species at risk legislation that truly works and will truly protect species and their habitat.

I want to address some points about the social and economic interests. We have put forward Motion No. 3, which would require the socioeconomic interest to be considered in the legal listing of the species. The bill already provides that, to be considered in developing recovery methods. We think it is important that these issues all be balanced off. As we always see in legislation that comes before the House, it is a balance of social issues, economic issues, protection of the environment and the concerns of Canadians. We must bring in all of that and make a bill which brings in a balance that can work.

The Canadian Alliance also proposed in Motion No. 15 that:

The purposes of this Act...shall be...accomplished in a matter consistent with the goals of sustainable development.

That is absolutely critical. Where else but in an environment bill should we have legislation that deals with sustainable development? If a bill does not promote that then it is not doing its job. This is closely related to socioeconomic interests because it requires that this balance be struck between the environment and the needs of Canadians. As we know, it would be easy for all of us to move back into caves and not carry on the kind of lifestyle we have developed, but we have to do things another way. We have to be able to live the lifestyle we have developed and deal with environmental issues, together. If we do not do that then we are going in the wrong direction.

Often when I am speaking to high school and grade school classes I feel that my generation and the generation before us have done a very poor job on the environment and I encourage them as young people to pick up that issue, bring it forward and try to maintain something that perhaps we can start here. I encourage them to realize that we cannot go on affecting the environment the way we have in the past. We have to come to terms with living with the environment.

I refer again to the rancher who phoned me this morning. I do not believe there are any better environmentalists in the country or the world than the people who make their living from the land. Farmers, ranchers, fishermen and resource people know more about what needs to be done and how to do it than anyone else does, more, I would suggest, than people who live in the concrete jungles.

It is essential that the costs to industry and property users and the costs to the government in terms of enforcement resources be known before the government introduces legislation with such vast implications. This has been alluded to many times in other presentations, but we need to know these issues up front. We need to know the costs. Canadians have to be clear on the costs this legislation would bring into effect before they and we can honestly and with a clear conscience support the measures. In particular, we must know what the bill will cost the farmers, fishermen, loggers, ranchers and even the cottage owners and people who live in the country. Many people now choose a rural lifestyle and have a few acres. They have to know how this bill would affect them and what the government compensation provisions would be if it is implemented.

Here I come back to the whole issue of compensation if one's lifestyle and means of income change. I believe that all of society supports protecting species at risk and that all of society should be responsible for the costs of doing so. However, at this time the government has no idea of the total socioeconomic costs of the bill, so those avenues need to be explored and clarified in a lot more detail.

Then we get into COSEWIC, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, and I think everyone knows about it now. It is a panel of scientific experts appointed by the minister whose chief function is to classify species at risk and to recommend to determine the scientific list of endangered species. Quite frankly, that is who should decide what the endangered species are: people who are experts in the field. They should bring forward that list.

I want to go further with this. This is where the main controversy erupts. Environmentalists want the scientific list determined by COSEWIC to automatically become the list that would be enforced by law. The government wants cabinet to have the final decision as to which scientific recommendations are accepted and which are not and the government wants to have political control over which species are protected.

In committee, the Canadian Alliance proposed a balanced compromise which was accepted by the committee and has now been reversed at report stage by the government through an amendment. We argued that the scientific COSEWIC list should become the legal list within 60 days if the cabinet did not act to prevent it. That is a bit of a reverse onus, but under this approach cabinet would have the final say and would have to act to overthrow a scientific recommendation. That would mean that cabinet would have to say that the scientists have given it the list but cabinet does not believe it. As it exists now, by not acting, the list goes astray. We felt that was a really good method of putting in place the whole issue of government and cabinet responsibility. We felt it would force them to act, but if they were to act they would be acting against the scientific listing.

Then there is the whole issue of public consultation. When we started with this process many years ago compensation and consultation were two things that were very key to us. We feel that the Canadian public must be engaged at all times in this process if we indeed are to come up with a bill that will be acceptable to Canadians and that will work to protect endangered species.

[Species at Risk Act, February 25th, 2002]

moved:

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-5, in the preamble, be amended by replacing line 34 on page 2 with the following:

“be considered in the legal listing of species and in developing and imple-”.

[Species at Risk Act, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-5, an act to protect species at risk. This has been a topic of debate and discussion in Canada for many years and it is still being debated.

I would like to use Motion No. 23 in this group of amendments as an example of one of the problems with the institution of the House of Commons and its committee work.

The bill was prepared by the government, tabled in the House and then sent to committee for study. The committee was made up of members, including the member for Davenport who is the chairman of the committee, the Canadian Alliance members for Red Deer and Souris--Moose Mountain and others from the Liberal side such as the member for Halton and the parliamentary secretary, the member for Kitchener Centre.

Witnesses appeared before the committee. Members heard all angles about what was right and wrong with the bill. The committee then proceeded to a clause by clause study of the bill and amendments were brought forward from all parties to make the bill better and to reflect what members had heard from witnesses. This is not always an easy thing to do. There was debate and discussion and negotiations. Being a committee of the House, I felt it worked in a good way to bring about the right end, to bring forward a bill amended to the point where it would become somewhat more acceptable to Canadians.

Unfortunately we did not get all of the amendments we wanted. Many of them were voted down. One we were unable to bring forward was the issue of compensation which is still a huge issue to us.

With respect to Motion No. 23, the committee agreed to pass this amendment to the bill. However when the bill came back to the House for discussion, the government brought in an amendment to counter the amendment to the bill, thereby bringing it back to where it had been.

When an amendment is passed by a committee of the House, the majority of whose members are Liberals, one would think the government would support that amendment. No, it brought an amendment forward to reverse the amendment. So around and around we go.

When the government reverses an amendment passed at committee, it shows a total lack of respect for the function of the committees of the House of Commons. To me it means that government members on the committee are split on this issue. Hopefully when the bill comes forward for a vote those members and other people on the government side who support their position, will continue to support that position and will not vote in favour of the bill which has been changed from the amended form they agreed to.

The motion deals with the operation of a stewardship action plan. The committee wanted to make sure that when the plan was put forward, the minister shall act, not may act; the minister would have to do something to put this into place. The committee agreed to that but the government has put forward an amendment making this aspect at the discretion of the minister who may or may not act at all. This takes the power away from the bill and puts it into the hands of one minister who may or may not do something. That is not good enough. We feel that the word “shall” should be included. The government needs to act on these issues when they are brought forward. Things like this should not be at the total discretion of one minister of the crown.

Motion No. 35 is another government amendment to establish the legal list of species at risk. The committee debated this issue at length. Members came to an agreement but again, after the bill was brought back to the House, the government brought forward amendments to reverse what was agreed to at committee.

Committees bring in witnesses from all across Canada. In many cases, the committees will travel to different areas of the country to get input from various individuals. This is how members can get a good sense from all sides of what needs to be looked at, strengthened or changed.

Certainly there is a lot of discussion because these positions are not always the same, but it is an opportunity at that level to make some change. The motion is a reversal of the approach taken by the standing committee toward the establishment of a legal list of species at risk. Like the original bill, it would mean that cabinet must actively choose to place species identified by the expert scientific panel, COSEWIC, on the legal list. If it does nothing, then COSEWIC recommendations will have no effect.

The committee had placed a reverse onus on the government. If cabinet did not act within six months, then the recommendations would be added to the legal list automatically. Many groups felt that would be the way to go because if the government did not move on it, then it automatically would be added. By putting that reverse onus on the government, some direction or action was guaranteed. However an amendment has been put in by the government to take that out.

If recommendations come forward from the scientific community in Canada that certain endangered species should be added to the list and there was no action by the government, then they would not be added. We are suggesting if the government does not act, they should be added.

This is just another case of where what was agreed to by the committee has been changed. We must always keep in mind that the committee has a majority of government members on it. Therefore if something was agreed to at committee, one would think that the government would be in support of it, but as is quite clear here, it is not.

Motion No. 39 which the Canadian Alliance has brought forward, and to which many members have spoken, deals with the issue of a person knowingly killing, harming or harassing an endangered species. There have been many examples. How do we educate every Canadian to know what every endangered species looks like, what their environments are in which they live, and which ones are in their areas?

We have heard a lot about the burrowing owl. We are pretty confident that most people would be able to identify it on their property and to take the necessary measures to protect the habitat. There are many people on the land, through farming and ranching and the resource sector, who have implemented their own programs for protecting species at risk. I have seen some of them myself, particularly regarding the burrowing owl. However when it is an obscure, probably water-borne species, how are we going to educate every Canadian so that people know that every time they perform an activity on their land or in their resource sector they are not disturbing the habitat? It would be an almost impossible thing to do.

There has to be the aspect in the bill whereby we have to prove that the person knew he or she was going to destroy. If the person still proceeded with that activity, then certainly the full weight of the bill should be brought to bear, but if the person was an average Canadian carrying out his or her duties, livelihood, or even a recreational activity, that person should not have the weight of the bill brought down upon him or her.

One is innocent until proven guilty, but the way the bill is structured, one is guilty until proven innocent. That goes against everything in which our justice system believes. It ignores the basic part of the western legal history that criminal penalties are given only for offences committed with a criminal mind, mens rea . That is an absolutely critical part of what we need to have placed back into the legislation.

We hope we can get respect and support from the government benches on this. We know there is support. Many government members have supported what we have put forward. When the bill comes to be voted on, I hope they realize and remember that a lot of the things they fought for at committee to have amended or placed in the bill have now been reversed by the government. I hope they do not pass a bill which would endanger Canadians just for carrying out their regular lives not knowing they are at risk.

I want to finish on the issue of the bill going to committee where witnesses, experts in their field, come forward with the understanding that what they say will be listened to, that the committee will weigh the pros and cons of each issue and then it will come up with a more balanced approach to move that forward. When that happens, when it is agreed to at committee, it comes back to the House and then the government introduces amendments to reverse a lot of what was done at committee, that is wrong.

I hope the members on the government side who do not support the legislation will vote against it when the time comes to vote.

[Supply, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take the member to task about some of the numbers he is using regarding tax credits and actual dollars. Let us look at actual dollars. We are not even back to the 1993 level of actual dollar transfers to the provinces. We are still $500 million short in spite of the fact that inflation is up by 15% and the population is up by 8%. Knowing full well the concerns that Canadians have about proper funding for health care and the whole issue of health care in general, the government in its budget in December did not address how this will be structured in the years to come and there was no new funding.

The fact remains that over all the years the cuts the government has made to transfer payments amount to $25 billion. No matter how we add up the numbers, the fact is that transfer payments have been short $25 billion since 1993. I would like the member to clarify those facts.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to this issue. Back in 1997, we first campaigned for this position in a federal election and the protection of species at risk was an item for debate at that time. It was again in 2000. Here we are in 2002 and the bill is at report stage and there are still lots of items for debate.

This issue is an extremely important to Canadians and certainly to my constituents whether they live in the city or in the country. Whether they are farmers, lawyers or accountants, they realize that we have to do something if we are to protect our species at risk.

The Canadian Alliance supports meaningful legislation that will truly protect species at risk. However, if there is no compensation for lost property in the bill, then we will do more to harm species at risk than we will to protect them if we pass a bill that does not include those things.

Our country is the envy of many around the world. Being a young country, we have not had the opportunity to destroy our environment to the extent that many other countries have. When we advertise Canada, we show a pristine wilderness. We are proud of what we have as an environment, with all the animals and plants that go with that. Many countries around the world really wish they had the opportunity that we have right now; to do something to protect species that we have still in existence.

There are many more things in life on this planet than human beings. We have to realize that in recent history we have done far too much harm to our environment to promote what humans have believed at that time to be right. Now we realize that we have to go back and start to do some things that will be slightly different than what we have done so that the creatures of Earth are protected for our children and grandchildren.

The amendments are grouped in different areas, and this area is a key issue for me. If we do not put mandatory compensation into the legislation, we will promote some things that are probably less than constructive to our environment. We must be very cautious that we do the right thing so that we are not back here in a few years realizing that we have made a mistake and that the legislation has not protected species at risk but has put them at harm.

Let us do the right thing. Let us do it now. Let us look at these amendments, bring them forward and have the government accept them. I know it is not usual for the government to accept amendments from the opposition, but I believe on this issue, as the member for Red Deer stated at committee, the committee has worked in a co-operative way to try to bring forward the best legislation possible. However there are some things that have not been done and that is what we are here today to debate.

I want to focus on landowners, farmers, ranchers and resource people. If they know there will be full value market compensation offered to them for any of the earnings that are lost or any of the production that is taken away from them, then they will buy into this bill and will help to preserve species at risk. However, if there is a chance they could lose their ranch or farm and lose their means of income through the act because of species at risk being on their property, then we could get to what we have seen in the United States; the use of a heavy-handed approach which is the shoot, shovel and shut up approach. That is something we want to avoid at all cost. We need to have the legislation to address the situation and make it meaningful. If we do not have mandatory compensation in the act, then it will not protect species at risk. In some instances it will harm.

The whole issue of people inadvertently, and we will get into that in later amendments, harming species on their land, not knowing they were there and doing something to disrupt their habitat, goes back to this issue. If we are to make people aware that they have to be open, appreciate what is around them, ensure the species are there and the habitat is protected, let us ensure that they will be compensated.

If they voluntarily take some land out of production and have some loss in income, let us ensure they are compensated.

If the minister says that he will guarantee there will be compensation issues in the regulation, then let us take that guarantee and move it into this aspect of the process. When we vote on the bill, let us ensure that Canadians realize the compensation is in the legislation and is embedded in law.

People from the agriculture community have come to me. They are very concerned that this could be very detrimental if not handled properly. Some realize they do have endangered species on their properties. Many are going to extraordinary lengths already to ensure that the habitat surrounding these species is protected. We have to enhance and expand on that attitude. We have to ensure that it gets into the rest of our society. People who are voluntarily doing this need to be recognized and supported for that so this can move into the other aspects of the community.

The whole Pearse report, and I am sure we will hear a lot about that, said that the compensation should be 50% for losses of 10% or more. That is not fair. The compensation needs to be at fair market value. If society as a whole wants this act in place, then society as a whole should have the responsibility for implementing and supporting the act. The cost of protecting endangered species should not lie alone at the feet of landowners and people who have direct access to these endangered species.

I believe the whole compensation suggestion is not right. It has to be full compensation and it has to be up front. When this legislation goes into effect, we have to ensure that people realize the compensation issue has been addressed, that it will be there for them and that they can go at this with an attitude of co-operation and not the heavy-handed heavy stick approach that we have seen in the United States. It has not worked. We were hoping for more in the legislation to ensure that the proper things were being done in Canada.

I know we will have lots of opportunity later to address the issues or they will be dealt with elsewhere in the amendments. However, if the compensation is not embedded in the legislation, then the species at risk act will do more to harm species at risk than it will to protect them.

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

moved:

Motion No. 128

That Bill C-5 be amended by adding after line 3 on page 69 the following new clause:

“124.1 The Minister shall, in all circumstances, advise the affected landowner, lessee or land user of the location of a wildlife species or its habitat.”

Debate arose on the motions in Group No. 1.