Environment committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. It's a real pleasure to be here today. I'm very pleased to work with the committee, including answering any questions that you may have following my presentation. First, I'd like to share with you how proud I am to be part of the

Environment committee  Significant progress has been made this year, for example, on the Nahanni expansion from two perspectives. On the northern component of Nahanni, we've been working with the Dechi Laot'i First Nation to complete the consultation to establish the park boundaries. And then on the so

Environment committee  Yes. Those are all critical steps in terms of the establishment of national parks. In the case of Nahanni, it is to expand the national park and to get it to a national park reserve. And it's the same in terms of the Naats'ihch'oh National Park Reserve. It is to complete the cons

Environment committee  Mr. Chairman, approximately 750 other sites belong to community organizations, provincial governments, other federal government agencies—for example, National Defence has a number of them—which manage them. They are responsible for managing those buildings or places, and they rec

Environment committee  Pardon me, I would simply like to confirm that, in our budget, there is approximately $1.1 million for a grants and contributions program to support those organizations, which are third parties.

Environment committee  Thank you very much for the question. I think a lot of work has been done over the last several years in terms of achieving conservation gains through Parks Canada--work on the expansion of the Nahanni, the east arm of Great Slave Lake, the marine conservation area in Lake Super

Environment committee  In terms of understanding the processes, we do respect aboriginal rights, for example. As part of our park establishment process, there are two key steps. One, when there are still outstanding land claims for any given park, we bring a proposal forward for cabinet and then for pa

Environment committee  I can assure you that in Grasslands, we're still very aggressive in our land acquisition.

Environment committee  This is one of the most challenging but also exciting periods for Parks Canada. As you may know, 2011 will be the centennial of Parks Canada, the world's first national park organization. In the next few years, we will be investing $75 million, as announced in the recent budget,

Environment committee  Over the last few weeks, there were several announcements made in Quebec. One is the Canal Lachine in Montreal. It's an important asset for Parks Canada and for the community of Montreal. We're working in partnership with the City of Montreal to revitalize the canal. It was a $10

Environment committee  First, thank you very much for being here today. It's a great pleasure and an honour as the CEO of Parks Canada to be here to speak about the legislation or the order in council that's been submitted to your committee. This has been a long overdue process, from a Parks Canada p

Environment committee  I was notified this afternoon.

Environment committee  Maybe an hour ago.

Environment committee  I'm not sure.

Environment committee  That sounds reasonable.