Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank the folks from the department for being here today. We appreciate that.
I also want to thank my colleague, Ms. Duncan, for bringing forward the great work the Province of Alberta has done in looking at mercury. They've also done some wonderful things, I'm sure you're aware, with the Water for Life strategies, and also the land-use framework they're using to make sure the environment there is well looked after. Not to mention that Alberta was the first province to move forward with greenhouse gas emission standards. So it's wonderful that our province is doing such great work and that we have so many Albertans here today represented in this committee, including our minister.
One of the things I want to ask about is an area of particular interest to me. I spent much of my previous time before Parliament working for Alberta Environment and also for Parks Canada, and one of the things that's near and dear to my heart, of course, and near and dear to the hearts of many Canadians, is our national parks system and our historic sites and our marine conservation areas. So I would like to get more clarification from the department on the initiatives that have been going forward and the plan for our national parks. The plan that was brought forward previously was quite ambitious in the creation of new parks and so on, but what specifically can you tell this committee about where that work has progressed? I know we've seen expansions of the Nahanni; we've talked about the freshwater area at Lake Superior.
Could you expand on this a bit and let this committee know what's being done to preserve eco-sensitive areas of the Canadian environment?