At the behest of Todd Standing, a constituent of Mike Lake, a Canadian member of parliament from Edmonton, Alberta, took a 500 signed-named petition calling for protection of Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch and Yeti to Lake who was ready to submit it to the House of Commons for consideration. The bill, if taken seriously and passed would have put the mythical creature under the protection of Canada’s Endangered Species Act.

Fortunately saner minds within the House of Commons prevailed and Lake, under strong rebuke and criticism, removed the petition before it ever reached the debate floor.

Standing claims to have definitive proof for the existence of Bigfoot and states that if he can get a nation to pass legislation that will protect the creature then he will make his findings public knowledge.

“When I get species protection for them nationwide, I will make my findings public and I will take this out of the realm of mythology. Bigfoot is real,” Standing said.

After the petition was soundly removed from debate Lake, with his proverbial tale between his legs made this written statement: “I take seriously my responsibility to represent all of my constituents, regardless of whether or not I agree with their views. If a legitimate petition is brought forward by one of my constituents and deemed to be in order, I feel it is my duty to table it in the House.”

Some members of the Commons stated that they take endangered species protection very seriously, but to submit a law for passage about a creature whose existence has never been proven would only serve to belittle their efforts to save real species that are nearing extinction and make a laughing stock out of the program and of Canada’s House of Commons.