Environment Committee on June 2nd, 2009

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

I want to come back to a point that I find very interesting and that you mentioned in your brief on page 3: the role of socio-economic analysis in listing. I took the time to reread the 2006-2007 annual report related to the Species at Risk Act and especially the April 2006 order in council. The order in council states that:

[...] the Newfoundland and Labrador population, the Laurentian North population, the Maritimes population of Atlantic Cod [...] and the Interior Fraser population of Coho Salmon [...]

were not added to the list because of the potential significant socio-economic implications of doing so.

Does it happen often that certain species are not added to the list because of socio-economic implications, thus resulting from the socio-economic analysis? Is it a frequent occurrence? What is the consultation process? How does it work? How is that kind of decision made?

[Patrick McGuinness]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bigras.

Basically what happens in those situations is that you have to remember you have two acts out there, which are complementary. That is SARA and the Fisheries Act.

With respect to fisheries, the federal government does have, if you will, a range of tools that can address issues, and in those instances where analysis shows there's going to be significant social and economic impacts—for example, on coastal communities involved in fisheries—then the government at that point in time takes a wide look at what tools are available.

Under SARA, it's a relatively blunt tool—that is, prohibition. Under, for example, the Fisheries Act, you could introduce measures in terms of closures and things of that nature. So in those instances where there has been, if you will, a decision on the fisheries not to apply SARA in terms of prohibitions, fairly stringent fisheries management regimes have been introduced that try to address the species at risk issue.

[Julie Gelfand]

Mr. Bigras, within SARAC, there is no consensus on where and when socio-economic implications should come into play.

Should it be when the species is determined to be at risk? Should it be when the strategy, the action plan, is being implemented? When should it come into play? There is no consensus on those questions. Clearly, industry associations would prefer to see the socio-economic analysis done earlier in the cycle, and environmental groups, I believe, would prefer that socio-economic interests be taken into account later in the cycle.

Is that about right?

I want to make sure that....

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

...there is a consensus.

[Julie Gelfand]

Yes, there is.

[Rachel Plotkin]

Can I add something, Mr. Chair? I think there's also an inconsistency within departments about how the socio-economic framework is applied to listings. So you'll see the majority of species that aren't listed are under DFO's jurisdiction or within the jurisdiction of Nunavut. But I also think there was agreement within the SARAC that the types of socio-economic valuations need to be expanded upon. So instead of just looking at what the socio-economic impacts are to a fishing fleet of listing a certain type of marine species, it's broadened to what the long-term socio-economic impacts are if this species becomes extinct because it's still allowed to be fished. What are the impacts on other species that are co-occurring within this ecosystem? What even are the impacts of degrading this ecosystem to the point that the functions and services it provides are no longer functioning?

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

That is good.

Why is it that critical habitats are hardly taken into account in recovery plan strategies? According to the figures you gave us today, which have been made public, 106 of the 278 recovery strategies were carried out to completion. So there is a problem when it comes to completing recovery strategies.

There is also another problem. The recovery strategies do not take into account critical habitat. We have subsequent, cumulative problems. As a result, if I understand correctly, species are not protected, and there is no recovery plan.

Why is there such a long delay in terms of recovery plans?

[Julie Gelfand]

The government does not focus enough resources on developing recovery plans. There is a shortage of staff, with too few biologists working on strategies.

You asked why we had not defined critical habitat. First, the definition set out by the federal government is not good enough. Second, they often tell us that they just do not have enough information. Some groups accept that explanation, and others do not. That is why legal proceedings have been initiated with respect to certain species.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Merci beaucoup.

[Patrick McGuinness]

Could I just add to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Be very brief. Mr. Bigras' time has expired.

[Patrick McGuinness]

One of the problems with recovery strategies is this fact that if we have, say, industry and environmental groups coming together and they can't agree, what then is recovery? That's why our brief also mentions that what we should be looking at are best practices. There are some recovery strategies out there that have worked very well, and those types of templates have to be developed and communicated. I think they will resolve some of these issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was simply going to give you my time and ask for your recommendations, but since you did such an excellent brief in providing recommendations, I'll quiz you on them.

I do notice that throughout your brief there's a running theme. It's resources, resources, resources. I guess my question would be, is it really an issue of lack of political will? How would you recommend...? Is it simply an issue that there's not the political will to actually give attention to this, or it's not seen as a very popular act to enforce? Or would you recommend that the focus should be on coming up with a strategy on how to resource this, possibly within the government, using external people, such as the community, plus NGOs, plus scientific experts, and so forth?

[Julie Gelfand]

I think most of the members of the SARA Committee would agree that Environment Canada simply does not have the resources. And probably within Environment Canada it is not seen as the highest priority. You had mentioned at the beginning of this session that there are issues around climate and issues around toxics. My experience over 25 years tells me that Mother Nature always takes a second step to Doctor Death.

So pollution is easy to fix. We think technology will fix everything, but when it comes to ecosystem services, biodiversity, and nature, they always gets short shrift. That's my personal opinion, not the SARA Committee's opinion, and I apologize for that. But maybe everybody agrees with me.

So it's not a lack of political will, I don't think. I think it's a lack of resources. The political part would be the lack of resources for the entire Department of the Environment for all issues. They're dealing with life on the planet, right? Yet they are the third smallest department in the Government of Canada.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Okay, but in your brief you raise the issue of resources over and over and over again, but you also make recommendations along the line that there needs to be more transparency and participation and engagement. So I would really welcome more of a concrete suggestion. Maybe you're suggesting that what the government needs to do is to get all of the parties at the table—representatives of landowners, NGOs, communities, first nations peoples, and the Inuit—and come up with the framework of how you're going to carry out these plans or implement the act. Or do you think it simply should be 100% the responsibility of the officials who work for Environment Canada?

[Rachel Plotkin]

There is a component under the act that is supposed to bring in multi-stakeholders, and that's the action planning. So the way the act was intended is that under the recovery strategy, the science is pulled together to identify what a species needs to survive and recover from. Then the action plan pulls together all affected stakeholders and landowners and interested parties and says, now that we have the science, how do we best move forward in a way that has the least economic impact?

But I think part of the answer to your question is that there is truly a lack of an appropriate policy framework to move forward on the act. There was an independent review done by Stratos, as commissioned by the federal government, looking at the failure to identify critical habitat. I think there are some instances where there isn't enough science, and there are some instances where there clearly is enough science and it is still not being identified—although, again, I should say that's my personal opinion, which might not be shared by SARAC.

But the people who were interviewed for that review by Stratos said that not knowing what effective protection meant, or the lack of a policy framework to know what it would mean to protect a habitat once it was identified, made them reticent to identify it. So I think the absence of completed policies is a significant component of why the act is not being effectively implemented.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I understand this is the first review of SARA, right? With CEPA, we had five-year reviews on and on and on for two or more decades. I'm wondering what your recommendation would be to our committee? What should the focus of this first review be? Should we be looking for people to tell us how to amend the act, which seems to be what happened to CEPA? Over and over and over again it was amended. I'm getting the impression, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you seem to be looking more pragmatically: yes, maybe the act can be perfected, but let's concentrate on actually applying what the letter of the law says right now. We're not actually applying it, including the community consultations, including the transparency and resourcing and so forth.

[Julie Gelfand]

I think the SARAC members would agree that where we came to consensus was on implementation. The implementation of the act is the key issue. Make no mistake, it is about resourcing. They simply don't have enough bodies. Think about the number of recovery strategies. We're off by 150 or something like that. It's pure human power we need to help get this off the ground.

I think some SARAC members will come to you with some recommendations for tweaking and some small legislative changes, but overall, the consensus of SARAC is that the law is workable. We really need to focus on implementation.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

As a lawyer, I'm delighted that you've identified the need to define terms. While I think that Mr. McGuinty is making an interesting suggestion, I frankly don't think it's necessarily your role or responsibility to come up with those. What I would certainly recommend is your recommendations on the framework and how to do it. I think you've done that to an extent in here.

When I worked in Indonesia--I think it was also in Bangladesh--I saw that when they table a law, they actually have an interpretation document. It actually tells you what is meant by those terms. I'm wondering if you think that kind of document might be useful, rather than going back and opening up the act and clarifying those definitions. Over time we may well have to. If it was done transparently, which, unfortunately, has not been the history of lawmaking in this current government, and we actually had an open, transparent process with academics and landowners and NGOs and so forth, do you think that would be a good way to come up with that definitions document? It could be seen as a public document for reading the statute.

[Julie Gelfand]

I guess my answer would be that we need that, whether it's part of the law or part of the policy implementation. It doesn't make a lot of difference to the species at risk or to the people trying to protect them. We just need those definitions to have clarity on both the industrial and environmental sides.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I've been provided information by some of the Inuvialuit who have been participating in the community consultation on the polar bear recovery. They very clearly commend the minister for taking seriously the issue of the fate of the polar bears. But they have very strong criticisms of how the community consultation is proceeding. Interestingly, they seem to concur with exactly the issues your organization has raised. They can't get access to the full report. They're saying that if they're going to generally give input on whether they think it's going to have a socio-economic impact, they should have a right to see the science that COSEWIC looks at, and so forth.

They also raise an interesting issue. They would prefer that the provincial or territorial and federal processes occur in tandem so that they're not overwhelmed with consultations. I'm wondering if you have talked about that kind of process?

[Sarah Wren]

We have certainly talked about the need, with regard to listing decisions, for timely consultations. SARAC fully recognizes that there is a suite of consultations that needs to occur. Certainly, with northern species, those can be expensive. I think SARAC understands that what we'd like to see is a process that's consistent and transparent. Anything that can make the most of multiple consultation processes to make sure they are as streamlined as possible is going to mean that decisions are made as quickly as possible. When it comes to species at risk, time is of the essence. So I think SARAC would support that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

We'll go to Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. It's very interesting.

At the beginning of your brief you said that consensus is not a prerequisite to providing advice. If advice is being given, and you do not have consensus, whose advice is it? If you do not need consensus to provide advice, then whose advice are you providing?