Environment Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[Julie Gelfand]

That is correct.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Your recommendations therefore focus on implementation, on—and I pulled out some of the words—looking at best practices for some of them that have been successful; allocating more resources to the people who have to do the job; making sure that it is both transparent and rigorous; and creating clarity around what the expectations and what the tools are.

Is that a sense of where we need to go and where we simply aren't now?

[Rachel Plotkin]

One of the things that's also implied by our recommendations, if I might say so on behalf of SARAC, is that we are highlighting the challenges of incompletion. So one of our recommendations would be completion.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

To go specifically to one of the issues around fisheries, Environment Canada is responsible for much concerning the terrestrial species, but DFO, I think, is more responsible for marine issues.

How effective has DFO been in implementing SARA, given the difficulties around habitat in oceans?

[Patrick McGuinness]

From our fishing industry's point of view, we feel it has been a responsible type of response. For the species that have been identified as listed, they are very responsible in terms of organizing consultations, getting the fishing fleets together, introducing mitigating measures, and trying to address the issues.

From the fishing industry point of view, we generally try to work collaboratively with the department, and so far the working relationship is satisfactory to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Let's have a very quick response, Ms. Plotkin, because time has expired.

[Rachel Plotkin]

I will just add that DFO has the significantly lowest rate of listing species that have deemed to be at risk by COSEWIC.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Woodworth, it's your turn.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'm grateful for the attendance of the witnesses today. I have to comment on the poetry of Sarah Wren's name. It is appropriate to have her with us today.

[Julie Gelfand]

We love it, too.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Also, I wish to thank Ms. Gelfand for expressing something earlier that has been bothering me for quite some time, and that is the disproportion that we seem to have developed in our approach to the environment toward balancing issues like habitat preservation and wildlife protection against the greenhouse gas issue. The greenhouse gas issue is the headline-grabbing, political point-scoring issue. It's a sad irony that Canada produces something in the order of 2% of the world's greenhouse gases, yet has such a wealth of biodiversity, and that the political chase is driving us into putting so many resources into greenhouse gases, perhaps at the expense of biodiversity.

Having said that, I want to begin with a question that may seem a little out of left field for you, because you haven't spoken at all about the issue of enforcing SARA. I don't know whether your committee has considered that or whether your committee is familiar with Bill C-16, the environmental enforcement bill, and the fact that it specifically did not comment on SARA because SARA was going to be before this committee. I wonder, if you are familiar with the environmental enforcement bill, if you might feel that the kinds of legal powers that were given to judges and the kinds of increases in penalties and other provisions that were contained therein, might be usefully adapted to SARA.

[Julie Gelfand]

This has not been discussed within SARAC. I don't think we can provide you with any comment. I invite you to ask some of the specific witnesses. The folks here are experts on SARA. Enforcement of SARA really hasn't been an issue yet because we're still at the very front end of implementation of the legislation.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Is there any other comment on that?

The other thing I was most interested in from your report has to do with the possibility of emergency listing. I take that to be distinct from the safety net issue, which has to do with federal-provincial relations. What I am imagining is that when COSEWIC recommends a listing, if they believe there is an emergency situation, COSEWIC would be recommending an emergency listing.

Am I getting that right?

[Sarah Wren]

Yes, or if the time lag is too long, there are provisions to have an endangered species looked at more quickly. The situations in which we might want to do that are, for example, if field biologists find new information from their field work that a population has declined by a significant percentage over the past year, or if a new species is found in Canada that we didn't know we had and it seemed to be critically endangered—a small population, very small numbers or a restricted range. There is the ability, then, to take speedy action to make sure the species doesn't decline while we're doing the necessary work in terms of consultations.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Good. That's what I was hoping to hear.

Would it be possible for that kind of recommendation to come from SARAC, or is that where it mainly would come from? I don't know where these recommendations come from.

[Julie Gelfand]

We'd have to come back to you on that. My response is that I believe that's already in the legislation. It's not a recommendation of SARAC; that's what the law says. But we have to double-check.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm really just trying to get some background about how the emergency listing process works, because to me it's a key piece of the puzzle if we have a mechanism that will permit exactly what Ms. Wren just said a few moments ago. I'd like to just understand how it works and who originates the emergency listing recommendation.

[Sarah Wren]

If I may, to our knowledge it hasn't been invoked, but it's covered in subsection 29(1):

If the Minister is of the opinion that there is an imminent threat to the survival of a wildlife species, the Minister must, on an emergency basis, after consultation with every other competent minister, make a recommendation to the Governor in Council that the List be amended to list the species as an endangered species.

Presumably, groups such as ours might make the suggestion to the minister that this be done. I don't think it's been done in the past.

[Patrick McGuinness]

My understanding is it would be a COSEWIC issue, for them to look at the species, and if they believe it requires emergency-type actions, that's their recommendation. It goes in to the government for consideration. The Minister of the Environment makes a determination as to whether he agrees or does not agree on whether it requires an emergency-type process.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much.

Your time has expired, Mr. Woodworth.

Mr. Watson, you get to bat cleanup.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing.

This committee undertakes the review of the Species at Risk Act. Of course, I represent an area where we have the most species at risk in all of Canada, down in Essex County. I think in large part it's because we have severely fragmented habitat down there, unable to sustain some of the various species there.

I want to ask a couple of questions. One, you're suggesting that...which, for a starting point, is very good when we're undertaking a review. Your report says essentially that the basic architecture of SARA itself is fine. It needs some fine tuning, and you've made some recommendations on how to fine-tune the architecture of the act.

I want to zero in on one thing more specifically. You've urged a review of the recovery planning provisions in the act to allow for more effective use of ecosystem approaches to recovery planning. I think largely the act takes a primary focus on individual species.

Is your recommendation with respect to ecosystem approaches to capture more species, perhaps, or is that a more effective way of capturing more species than the individual approach in defining habitat? It's always an individual approach; can we make some progress with respect to an ecosystem approach? As well, what would SARAC like to see as part of such an ecosystem approach?

[Patrick McGuinness]

I think one of the rationales behind that is simply resources--human resources. As you say, you have recovery teams in the fishing industry. Take the Cattlemen's Association or whatever; there are only so many people in that community who are really going to volunteer to be part of recovery teams.

What we have to do is keep those people in tune, keep them involved and so forth. For example, let's say you have a recovery program for a particular species in a particular area--in Essex County and so forth--and another species becomes listed. The object of the exercise is to wrap that new species into the recovery plan for the other species. You look at it in terms of an ecosystem approach, and you start to make this type of program here in SARA workable on the ground in terms of the limited resources of humans to participate in these types of activities.

You can see how many recovery strategies are required. For a lot of those, we have only so many people who are competent and who have the interest to participate in these types of activities when in fact they probably should be out fishing and earning money, right?

So from my perspective, that is the theme: just try to make it workable.

[Rachel Plotkin]

I think it's important to note, as you did, Mr. Watson, that SARAC did not make any significant recommendations to change the component of the act that requires that critical habitat be identified for each individual species.

I think it's hard to move forward in an ecosystem-based approach that ensures that all species will be adequately protected if we don't know what their basic habitat needs are. But there is room, again, in the action planning stage of the Species at Risk Act to then say, okay, I live in southern Ontario, or the Carolinian range; let's put it all together, and then when we develop our action plan, we can look at what's the most cost-effective way to move forward that captures protecting the ecosystems upon which these species depend and ensures that their individual habitat needs are met.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

In light of that, a program like the natural areas conservation program from Budget 2006, in partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, is the type of mechanism that can then be applied where we begin to address a particular ecosystem.

In terms of one of the other challenges, we are located, of course, on an international boundary. Now, ecosystems don't know a political boundary on a map. SARA currently has no mechanism for prioritizing different species in terms of action.

For example, there may be in Essex County a species whose range in Canada is only in Essex County, but it may in fact be thriving in a larger ecosystem down into the United States. Yet it's given, under the act, the same importance as a species whose habitat is entirely in Canada.

Do you think SARA should contain mechanisms to help prioritize species?

[Sarah Wren]

I'll give you an answer as a biologist. I hope the act intentionally maintains that focus on species in Canada for the very reason that we need to make sure we're preserving biological diversity across the range of species. So certainly the species at the edge of range in Carolinian Canada have characteristics that are different from those of species that might be found throughout the U.S. And I think it really behooves us as Canadians to make sure we're protecting that biological diversity, the genetic diversity, the population diversity. There is an important role to be played in making sure we're keeping those species at risk in Canada, or keeping them off lists where we can, and then doing what we can to protect the ones that are already on the list.

SARAC overall hasn't talked about the issue of whether species prioritization should occur, so I can't speak to the committee in general, but the biological reality is that we have a responsibility to make sure we're protecting all of our diversity in Canada.