Evidence of meeting #25 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sara.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:55 a.m.
Chairman, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
We would agree that you need to have effective conservation agreements that can be put in place and the guidelines to support their becoming an effective and moving tool.
10:55 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses, of course, for appearing as this committee undertakes the statutory review of the Species at Risk Act.
As an opening question, since we are reviewing the legislation and taking a look at our approach to how we will assess it, is the basic framework of SARA sound? Are we looking, for example, at simply making some adjustments to it, or is its fundamental approach in the wrong direction? Should we be looking at a different approach to it?
This will help us assess where we are, at the five-year mark, with this law. Is its fundamental approach right? Is the architecture sound and we just need to look at making some minor adjustments, or are we looking at perhaps a new approach to this?
10:55 a.m.
Vice-Chair, Chair of the Species at Risk Act Working Group, Canadian Hydropower Association
Fundamentally we think it's sound, but there are some major critical gaps—not big wording gaps, but they're critical gaps that are preventing it from being implemented efficiently and leaving it not workable for long-term industrial activity in the country.
10:55 a.m.
Vice-President, Government Relations, Canadian Electricity Association
I would agree with that. The architecture is sound, and we said that in our opening comments. But as Ed points out, a few tweakings are needed. Specifically we talked about section 11. Conservation agreements and permitting times, I think, are the two key issues we would highlight as things that need to be addressed.
10:55 a.m.
Legal Counsel, Imperial Oil Resources, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
We started this process years ago with a command and control model based on the American Endangered Species Act. Through a lot of consultation with the public, we shifted into the stewardship, conservation, cooperative, collaborative approach. Those features were tagged on at the end and were not fully developed.
What we're saying today is that after five years of experience we realize there are certain things that need to be done, and we are asking for small changes to the act to really give effect to those, because they were not fully thought out. What we had in mind was a very clear historic command and control model, and we recognize we need to have that as a part of the act for enforcement purposes, but we really need to work on those other effective sections of the act that will allow us all to participate.
10:55 a.m.
Chairman, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
We believe that the architecture is workable, but as one of the members suggested earlier, we need to work on the wording in the preamble—the stewardship, the cooperation, that sort of thing—to make it actually work, rather than just give it some wordage and let it lie. We need to make the good parts of the preamble effective.
11 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
The basic framework, if I understand this fairly correctly, is focused on individual species, and this is why I want to get into this question. When I listen to this, what I'm hearing from a lot of you is that while perhaps other broader considerations take us away from necessarily individual species--whether we take an ecosystem approach, whether man's activities are considered fairly enough in the process--I would submit that those issues may rise out of the fundamental architecture of the act, taking an individual species approach.
Am I correct in that assessment? I'm asking again, is the fundamental architecture of the act sound or not?
11 a.m.
Conservative
11 a.m.
Vice-Chair, Chair of the Species at Risk Act Working Group, Canadian Hydropower Association
We suggest that the stewardship or conservation agreements are flexible. They can deal with the ecosystem, they can include socio-economics, they can deal with the short and long terms, and they can deal with multi-species. So they're flexible. They can do all of these things and deal with what the preamble is dealing with, rather than the strict prohibitions under the permitting process.
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
I'm going to cut if off there, because our time for this meeting room has expired.
I want a quick clarification from the CCA. In your brief, you say that just over 21 million hectares of land is in pasture and the percentage is about 31%. Is that 31% all agricultural land?
11 a.m.
Chairman, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
Yes, it's Canadian agricultural land.
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Okay, Canadian agricultural land is 21 million hectares.
I do thank all of the witnesses for coming in today. You gave us a lot of great recommendations in very specific detail to help us with our study on SARA. We appreciate the comments you made about managing species at risk through an ecosystems approach, and we do appreciate the stewardship role all of you play in the interaction between the human race and all wildlife.
Mr. Scarpaleggia wants to raise a point.
11 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Just very quickly—and perhaps Mr. Warawa can help us with this—we invited Dr. Alfonso Rivera, the head of the groundwater mapping program at NRCan, to appear. But I'm told we're having trouble getting a positive response. I should mention that we had also invited someone else from the groundwater unit at NRCan to appear before the committee in Alberta, and our invitation was declined.
I don't know if Mr. Warawa can speak to his counterpart at the Department of Natural Resources, but it's very important that Dr. Rivera appear. In fact, you and I both agreed he should be invited. So if you can push that along, we'd really appreciate it.
11 a.m.
Conservative
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
That sounds good.
With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn from Mr. Trudeau.
The meeting is adjourned.
