Environment Committee on May 28th, 2009

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Did he cross swords somewhere along the line with the government?

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

I don't know.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So we don't know why. Other than the paragraph or two you received from Minister Prentice, we're not sure why his nomination was declined.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I caution you—we're talking about a third party. Even though you have parliamentary privilege at committee, I would caution you that we shouldn't talk about the man's personal details.

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

All I'm doing is quoting from the letter. I don't wish to impugn the minister's intent. This is simply a communication that I made with him to explain what I thought some of the ramifications of the decision might be.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Monsieur Bigras.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair,

We are falling out of our chairs reading and listening to your testimony today. The government thinks that your testimony is not justified, but, on the contrary, in my opinion, it deserves our full attention. It certainly proves that changes to the act are necessary, given the items you have described to us.

In your brief, you say, and I quote:

Since the passage of SARA, four successive ministers of the environment have accepted COSEWIC's nominees for membership and issued ministerial appointments to all (although the Hon. John Baird declined to accept one of COSEWIC's nominees to the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee in 2007).

Can you tell us the minister's reasoning in refusing to accept one of COSEWIC's nominees?

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

You are correct that in 2007 the minister, the Honourable John Baird, denied COSEWIC's nominee for a member to the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee. The nominees were individuals whose names were put forward as a consequence of consultation with the five national aboriginal organizations. Those names were a product of an extensive process of consultation. The names were put to the minister, but the minister declined to accept one of them and appointed someone else to that subcommittee. We were not told precisely why our advice was rejected.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

You recommendations were rejected, but was there consensus in the field? Was there consensus on this nominee among the representatives of the aboriginal peoples? Was the nomination supported by the experts in the field? Did you do the necessary checking?

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

Yes, this was a process organized by the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC in consultation with NACOSAR, the National Aboriginal Council on Species at Risk. It was a product of a process developed by COSEWIC, the subcommittee, and Environment Canada. It was a process that involved five national aboriginal organizations.

To answer your question, it is my belief that the nominations that were put forth at the time received strong support from the aboriginal organizations responsible for the nominations.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

In your brief, you also say the following:

This well-established precedent for appointments ended with the March 2009 decision by the minister not to reappoint COSEWIC's nominee for co-chair of the Amphibians and Reptiles Species Specialist Subcommittee. As a consequence, the minister has reduced COSEWIC's capacity to assess the status of amphibians in Canada, one of the world's most threatened group of vertebrates.

In your opinion, what is the impact of this decision by the minister to reduce COSEWIC's capacity? What is the impact on the amphibians in Canada, one of the world's most threatened group of vertebrates? What has the real impact been?

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

In the short term it's a little difficult to determine. It will take us a while. We will have to initiate a new call from membership for this position, which we will probably do within the next month. Hopefully it will attract suitably qualified candidates for this particular position.

In the interim, I am basically doing what I can to take up the slack in this regard, and we will do what we can to ensure that the ramifications are not particularly troublesome ones.

I might also point out that one of the motivations for this recommended amendment to the act is to initiate discussions or to have an opportunity for regular discussions with the minister, simply because when advice of this nature is rejected--and it might happen again, and for a variety of different species special subcommittees--it can be very problematic in terms of COSEWIC's planning and our workload prioritization responsibilities. We have a regular process by which we assess species at greatest risk of extinction in the country, and it would be very useful for COSEWIC to have a better sense of which appointments may or may not be accepted by the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Go ahead, Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I didn't realize amphibians were so political. This is a powerful moment.

I'm confused by some comments that were made in the interventions about whether decisions are political in nature. I had Mr. Watson tell me that decisions are political in terms of the appointment to COSEWIC, and then I had Mr. Warawa say that decisions are not political in terms of the appointment to COSEWIC. That's left me a little confused as to what the government's actual belief is in terms of accepting or not accepting appointments.

The tradition, you say, from 1998 to--

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. Appointments are political; I didn't say they were partisan.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's a matter of debate, but since we're now talking about the appointment process, I'll refer you to chapter 20 of Marleau and Montpetit, page 876. This is in reference to order in council appointees or nominees:

Questioning by members of the committee may be interrupted by the Chair, if it attempts to deal with matters considered irrelevant to the committee’s inquiry. Among the areas usually considered to be outside the scope of the committee’s study are the political affiliation of the appointee or nominee, contributions to political parties and the nature of the nomination process itself.

So the nomination process is outside of the committee's purview, according to Marleau and Montpetit.

That's in relation to appointments, but that's where we're headed, outside of where we're at in our study of the bill. That's some of the background on where we have to be careful in terms of where we go as committee.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

[Inaudible--Editor]...before you get into the details.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm saying that these are the things we have to be careful of. The process itself is one of the things that is outside our purview as a committee.

Mr. Cullen, continue with your question.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

On that point, before I go back to it, I didn't actually use the word “partisan”. I was very clear and specific, and I was only reiterating what I had heard. I'm sure that--

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Well, we'll check the blues and we'll go back to that again.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'm absolutely certain I didn't use the word.

Here's the question I have for you. In terms of the effect of a listing in COSEWIC, outside of the group made up of scientists who are interested in this particular body of work that relates to whether a species is endangered or not, who can be affected by a listing on COSEWIC? Can industry...? I'm trying to find out for average Canadians listening. Who would also be affected if something was listed or not?

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

That's an interesting question in many respects. Many people feel that the sole purpose of COSEWIC is simply to provide advice to the federal government for the purposes of including species on the national legal list, for which there might then be recovery strategies required if they're a threatened or endangered species, or a management plan if it's a species of special concern. Under those circumstances, if the federal government does indeed accept COSEWIC's advice and includes species on schedule 1 of SARA, there might well be consequences or limitations on activities by people, such as prohibitions in terms of killing or harming individual--

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let's talk about the activities. Obviously fishing would be one of them, in terms of whether to go out. I'm imagining there could be an effect on industrial projects, such as bridges, roads, pipelines, or large-scale mining. Are those the types of things that would possibly have implications on whether a species would be listed or not?

[Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings]

This is slightly out of the purview of COSEWIC, but my understanding is that part of the process for determining whether a species is included on the legal list is an assessment of the potential impact of that decision from a positive and a negative perspective.