Environment Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[Patrick McGuinness]

I don't think there are a number of models that have worked well, but at least in the fisheries—and I think most of the recovery strategies that are ongoing right now are in the fisheries—we have had some good ones come forward in Atlantic Canada, wherein we've had good cooperation between industry members and environmental NGOs, and also with Department of Fisheries and Oceans personnel, who have all come together. The essential point is that they came together and identified what they felt was a recovery target. A recovery target in that instance was simply to get the species back up to a level at which it would be deemed no longer a species at risk. Just that simple type of agreement got people to start working together and trying to figure out what would be a recovery plan to meet the target.

On the other hand, for example, we've had issues in British Columbia on which there's absolutely no meeting of minds concerning what recovery is. Is it as the previous questioner put it, to bring that species back to the highest level that's recorded in history? Unless you get over those types of humps and come to an agreement as to what a target is, then the recovery team seems to wander quite extensively.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

It might be helpful for this committee to receive a summary of that case study that you think worked well, so that we understand what worked well within that process.

Going to a more precise level of detail, let's consider section 27 and the nine-month timeframe. Your presentation seemed silent on that section. Why is that? Are there any specific thoughts that you have?

[Sarah Wren]

The short answer is that it's a silence due to lack of consensus.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay.

Finally, on the issue of stewardship, you indicate in your presentation that stewardship has taken a bit of a back seat with respect to SARA. What types of stewardship measures do you think should be more fully developed?

[Sarah Wren]

SARAC feels that stewardship needs to take a more prominent role. It's enshrined in the preamble of SARA, and everyone around the table at SARAC sees its importance as a tool. We talked a little bit about the habitat stewardship program within our brief, but we recognize that this is not the only tool that could be employed. There's certainly the potential for section 11 agreements, which would be stewardship types of agreement with resource users or land owners, which would allow a much more fulsome stewardship arrangement under the act. But we have yet to see implementation of those measures. SARAC thinks there's potential within such agreements to deliver significant stewardship measures.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much.

[Patrick McGuinness]

I'll just add that, for example, one of our fleets in Atlantic Canada had a very good stewardship arrangement with Environment Canada, in terms of funding, for developing a live release of bycatches of wolffish, which was identified as threatened. So there are opportunities of working with groups that have an issue and don't want to be the problem, but nevertheless are interacting. Those stewardship types of arrangement have proved to be very beneficial.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to cut you off there, because I have to be fair to all my members at the committee so that they get their share of the time.

Mr. Trudeau, you have the floor.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of the species at risk, what are most of the species at risk from? Where is the risk? Is it overhunting, overfishing? Is it habitat encroachment? Is it pollution? If there is a sense of what really is imperiling our species, what would it be?

[Rachel Plotkin]

For 85% of Canada's species at risk, the primary reason they're at risk is habitat loss and degradation and destruction.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I guess that would be mostly land species—or, would it be higher for terrestrial?

[Rachel Plotkin]

That includes marine species.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

That was my assumption, which is why I ask how important identification of critical habitat is in being able to protect a species. Can you move forward on protecting a species that is in danger of habitat encroachment and disappearance if you're not identifying what habitat is important to them?

[Rachel Plotkin]

It's here in the SARAC brief, so I will just reread it, because it is an area of consensus: that the identification and consequent protection of critical habitat is necessary to the recovery and/or survival of most listed species.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

If I look at the numbers, of 106 species that have been listed—

[Julie Gelfand]

There are more that are listed. There are more than 500 species at risk on the endangered species list.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Okay, there are more than 500 on the list, but recovery strategies were required for 278 of them.

[Julie Gelfand]

That is right.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Of those, 106 species had recovery strategies completed.

[Julie Gelfand]

That is right.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

So already we are significantly down on the list. But of those 106, only 22 have had critical habitat identified. Do the rest of the 106 need to have critical habitat identified?

[Julie Gelfand]

Yes.

[Rachel Plotkin]

It is mandated under the act: to the extent possible, based on the best available information.

[Patrick McGuinness]

I have a quick comment. In the fisheries, critical habitat is often extremely difficult.... As you well know, fish swim, and habitat is moving quite considerably because of migration and things of that nature. But there's no question that for fish such as salmon that go into a river or down the Fraser River, that critical habitat is well identified. Here again it is a combination of pollution plus urbanization that is causing demise in those cases.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Okay. So we have 106; 22 have been identified; of those 22, only eight have been even properly completed, or even partially completed. I think five and three were the numbers: “for all of the geographic extent of critical habitat of five of these species”, and part of it for three of these species.

So it is safe to say we're really not there in terms of identifying habitat, which, as you've said in your brief, is the first basic step toward protecting species at risk.

The bottom line is that SARA is not being implemented in such a way that is protecting Canadian wildlife in a way that it is supposed to.