Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Benoit, and thank you, all, very much for inviting us here today. It's an honour to be able to share with you some of the innovative work the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement signatories are doing as part of renewing Canada's forest industry. My name is

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much for your question. Let me start at the beginning of the negotiation of the CBFA. Fundamentally, the agreement, which was publicly announced in 2010, was a truce between two warring factions at the time: the Canadian forest industry and the environmental commu

Natural Resources committee  The agreement is an open agreement. In fact, we have working groups that are actively collaborating with first nations in their traditional territories across the country.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly. Thank you for the question. The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement features almost 30 signatories, who are currently working diligently and tenaciously to implement the agreement across the country. That's about 120 people at various working group tables. However, we h

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for your question. I'll start and then throw it to my colleague. One of the foundations of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement was a commitment from the forest industry to suspend the harvest in caribou range. In fact, they suspended harvests in some 29 million hectar

Natural Resources committee  Yes, including in Alberta. However, as we know, in Alberta there's a cumulative effects challenge, and the forest industry in Alberta is but one footprint on the Alberta boreal forest. The leadership the forest industry has shown in Alberta is getting the attention of the oil and

Natural Resources committee  Tenure reform is a long-standing and a challenging issue in Canada. One of the clear things that the CBFA and the collaborations that are going on bring to this question is the idea of an open, transparent discussion of how we're managing the forests and engaging the communities

Natural Resources committee  The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement and the commitments that the forest industry has made to that agreement will put the Canadian industry in a globally leading position in terms of its environmental reputation. It would be widely celebrated and have a broad base of support. T

Environment committee  Madam Chair, we'd be happy to come back.

Environment committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, committee members. I must say that over the last two attendances at your sessions, seeing you sprinting into this room twice gives me a new appreciation for the demands on parliamentarians. Thank you for all you do. Again, my name is Aran O'C

Environment committee  Our presentation focused on the concept of ecological benchmarks in the design of the protected areas network, particularly for the boreal area of Canada. Their intention is to be a control, if you will, that helps us better understand how we're managing the whole landscape of th

Environment committee  Maybe I'll lead off with a few comments and then turn to my colleagues. I'll just make a couple of quick observations. The first thing is that generally, in advancing protected areas across the country, collaboration is the key, by which I mean cross-sectoral collaboration with

Environment committee  I tend to agree with what Ms. Nowlan is saying. We need clear objectives and processes that get us towards these commitments we've made. A law is but a tool, and it needs leadership. To Mr. Stetski's point, we do need federal leadership, either to implement a new law that is pe

Environment committee  Ms. Lisgo was explaining the science-based approach that we're using to analyze the status of the protected areas network across Canada's boreal and to identify potential new conservation areas. Her point was that in the CBFA, we're committed to a science-based, science-informed

Environment committee  We didn't mean to besmirch the policy process. We're just talking about the critical importance of science to inform implementation of policy objectives.