Environment committee  I think that again I have to base my answer on experience in regard to what you just mentioned, and again I have to go back to aquatic species and salmon. I think there was one of those areas in there that we looked upon as traditional knowledge. Some of those things in there were not only on the species itself, but on the timing of that species.

Environment committee  Yes, there is. With that whole thing on conversation, it has areas where, when you're doing the actual study or assessment, it calls for aboriginal traditional knowledge. That is a point where information can be entered. I forget what the actual name of it is, but it's collection of data on species right across Canada.

Environment committee  Well, we support a lot of local conservation groups. OCEOLA is one, which is located out of the Lake Country in the Okanagan. A program they're looking at is water flows that change from Duck Lake. What we really push is the aboriginal right to assist them in measures to protect that system.

Environment committee  One question came in from the South Okanagan Similkameen environment committee—namely, how does Canada ensure that its international commitments under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Convention on Biological Diversity are upheld in the course of its work to carry out the national conservation plan and complementary legislation, regulations, or policy processes?

Environment committee  If you're looking at identification, I think it goes overall, it's a combination. You can't get away from the fact that western science in conjunction with aboriginal traditional knowledge provides a very powerful mechanism for recovery and protection. I think there are some of those things in there—of having just baseline information on what species are on a particular land base and looking at what type of activity is being proposed, either present or future on that particular land base, then more or less arriving at a decision from there.

Environment committee  Yes, we do, and for our own reasons we do not access that program. Again, it goes back to the implementation of the Species at Risk Act. That's a real concern for us, because the collection of information has been proven, especially on wildlife assessments and like things, to have been used against us, and through that, have actually impacted us economically.

Environment committee  Yes, I'm very well aware of both instances. Also, if you were to go back and look at photos about a hundred years ago, you would see the hereditary chiefs on the west coast with sea otter. It's like any other species; there's a level of intervention that should be required, especially when they don't have the predators.

Environment committee  Well, my personal perspective is that I come from an area where we are non-treaty. There is no treaty signed in British Columbia and in particular where we come from in the south Okanagan. But I think treaties are also in the context of international agreements between two nations, which in this particular instance were the first nations and the European powers that came in.

Environment committee  I was just providing examples of how aboriginal traditional knowledge is actually used outside of what you would call “pristine”. In that instance, there were societies on the west coast that needed an increase of foodstuffs, just like any other society that's growing, and they came up with an innovative process of raised clam beds that were literally kilometres long along the west coast of Vancouver.

Environment committee  In its entirety? The Species at Risk Act has mechanisms to deal with that. The thing about that is, at the end of the day, it still requires a political decision to be made on a listing of species, which as long as it's followed through with each stage or step of the Species at Risk Act, should be fairly straightforward in that decision.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  What's required is not so much to make changes to the Species at Risk Act as to implement what's there. When you look at the Species at Risk Act, it provides opportunities for identification of species and some collection of traditional knowledge, but it also provides opportunities through the levels of recovery, planning, and other different aspects of that to actually have sound socio-economic analysis being conducted.

Environment committee  To more or less quickly elaborate on what you just asked, when you look at the environment, you can't just separate that from economics, but you also can't separate economics from the environment. If you look at the effects of one thing, on the one hand it may be economically viable to do something, but on a health level, it may not be a viable alternative, with long-term health effects—diabetes, heart disease, different other factors in there—or if you lose a single species but gain that one year or that bottom line on your business.

Environment committee  When you concentrate on a single species there are some things that may be overlooked. These are things such as economic impacts or not having the ability to look at the ecosystem as a whole because there's a difference between what we would consider recovery, where you concentrate on a single species and protect that, and it could be simply for meeting legal obligations or meeting other obligations internationally.

Environment committee  One of the examples of the application of traditional knowledge took place within our traditional territories in the Okanagan Basin. The Okanagan is a sub-basin of the Columbia Basin. In the past, there were arguments with DFO, and also the province, about having sockeye or other anadromous species in the Okanagan system.