Jim Turner and David Pope are two Alberta ranchers with different views of the federal government’s latest attempt to create endangered species legislation.
Turner, who ranches at Cochrane north of Calgary and co-chairs the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association environment committee, saw a legislative glass full of good governmental intentions.
He seemed to reflect majority farm organization opinion.
Environment minister David Anderson had unveiled a species-at-risk bill that promised incentives for landowners and co-operation to save species habitat. Sanctions would be a last resort.
“Endangered species can only be protected with the co-operation of the owners of the land on which they reside,” Turner said in a statement issued by the CCA.
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He said it had been a CCA lobbying priority. “We’re pleased to see our concerns have been heard.”
Just south of Calgary at High River, where he ranches and practises law, David Pope saw something quite different, a glass half empty but containing some dangerous legislative toxins.
“I’m shocked and outraged,” the Western Stock Growers Association member said in an interview. “It is a very top down, American-style endangered species law that will not work and should not pass.”
WSGA president David Wildman said the penalties and regulations will make ranchers and landowners reluctant to report endangered species.
“It’s very sad but when you are faced with losing your livelihood or having to work for government bureaucrats … on property bought with your own capital, some individuals may choose to sterilize their land,” he said in a statement issued by the association.
“It doesn’t matter how much co-operation and partnership is built into the front end of the act. Endangered species have become a liability instead of an asset.”
In Ottawa, as he unveiled the long-awaited legislation and vowed to get it into law by summer, Anderson insisted the government’s preferred approach is co-operation with landowners. Although rules have not been written, Ottawa has set aside $90 million for the next three years to fund recovery plans and compensation in cases where restrictions on use of critical habitat create an “extraordinary and unfair impact” on the business.
However, he said Ottawa is reserving the power to intervene to save land and to impose stiff fines and other penalties on those who willfully destroy habitat or endangered species.
“My view is that penalties will be used very rarely,” Anderson told a news conference.
“Most landowners want to do the best they can on this issue,” he said. “Most landowners don’t want to do the shoot, shovel and shutup thing. I believe we can make the co-operative approach work.”
At least initially, most farm leaders seem to be taking him at his word.
Through years of consultations and several federal false starts, farm representatives have worked to encourage governments to give farmers incentives to protect habitat, including compensation, rather than penalties if they did not.
“Obviously, minister Anderson listened closely to landowners because the new act has addressed our major concerns,” said Alberta farmer and Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association president Ted Menzies.
Manitoba hog and turkey farmer Bob Friesen, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, agreed.
“I think we can live with this,” he said in an interview. “But we’ll be watching closely to make sure the balance that is there is not disrupted in committee.”
In fact, a coalition of environmental groups immediately denounced the legislation as too weak. It leaves the decision over which species to protect in the hands of cabinet, once it receives a list of threatened species from a committee of scientists.
For a related story see page 92.
