Good morning, Mr. Chairman, committee members, fellow presenters, and observers.
First I would like to comment that this is environment week, so in addition to happy birthday, we'll have a happy environment greeting.
Thank you very much for the invitation to present to this committee. It is important to begin comments about changes to the Species at Risk Act with a statement that the Canadian Cattlemen's Association supports the intention of the act to protect and recover wildlife species at risk in Canada. The CCA actively participated in the consultations leading up to the act being passed in 2002. We, as an organization and individual producers, continue to participate in activities that support the protection of species at risk.
This morning I will briefly summarize six issues that we think are most important to consider in effectively implementing the act. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association has elaborated on these points and others in a written brief submitted to this committee.
The preamble to this legislation strongly supports a stewardship approach to protecting and recovering species. We have presented three recommendations that will encourage and reward that stewardship. We encourage the government to do everything possible to implement an act that is truly based on a stewardship approach.
We also recommend that there be more support for good management practice, education, and awareness to landowners for implementation of this act. I think it's important to realize that if land managers, specifically the agricultural producers, have the right information, they will do the right thing. We all depend on the land and the health of our soil for our livelihood, so essentially anything that is good for the environment, for our soils, and for our ecosystems is going to be good for our bottom line as well as any species that rely on the land that we operate.
We also recommend exploring the use of economic instruments such as payments of ecological goods and services to conserve the ecosystem. I would like to turn the psychology of some of the legislation around so that we can make the presence of some of these wildlife species an asset to the land manager rather than a potential liability that might bring restrictions on his mode of operation.
We recommend that the government utilize the sections in the act that allow for conservation agreements as a way of engaging the agriculture community in their recovery of species at risk. The decisions that agriculture producers make can be positively supported to create a landscape that produces a variety of ecosystem services necessary for the long-term sustainability of agriculture and the future health and prosperity of all Canadians. A conservation agreement would allow producers to lay out a management plan according to accepted agronomic practice. It would clarify what the producer would or would not do and it would support any stewardship efforts that would be clearly defined.
A permit system for agriculture would be cumbersome and unwieldy. We have some 327,000 agricultural producers, so I guess it would be very unwieldy to get a permit system that would permit activities for that number of producers.
The definition of “critical habitat” has been a problem in the implementation of the act. As managers on the land, I guess we have a hard time defining what is critical versus what is just habitat. If we're going to use terms in the act like “critical”, then we need a little better definition of how it gets used and implemented. For those of us on the land, habitat is habitat, and we're not quite sure what you would mean as far as critical versus just regular habitat is concerned.
The act does permit the minister to pay fair and reasonable compensation for extraordinary harm. We would like to see regulations and guidelines as to how that would be implemented.
We are very supportive of the government's work to move towards an ecosystem approach. Our whole livelihood depends on a very viable, functional ecosystem rather than on pinpointing specific species within that ecosystem. Rather than management for just one specific species, a very functional, dynamic, highly working ecosystem is going to be better able to withstand any challenges to it and any of the species that rely on it.
For cattle producers and other stakeholders in the protection and recovery of species at risk to do the right thing and make appropriate management decisions, good information is needed. Good information through appropriate channels is a critical component of a stewardship approach. The more we learn about how our ecosystems function, the more we realize there's a lot we don't know. So we're asking that more effort be put into studying and research so we have better information to make better decisions.
Essentially, rigid prescriptions in a very diverse system like agriculture don't work. We would like the legislation and the administrators of the legislation to empower the people on the ground to make decisions. They're the ones who are working with the land managers, and we think they're going to make better decisions than somebody who is here in Ottawa making a prescriptive one.
We would like to look at the system as a coaching system, as you develop the information and knowledge we need to make better decisions. We would like to see you putting coaches in the field rather than regulators. We think a carrot approach is better than a punitive approach. We have a lot of faith in our producers and in people in general. If you provide them with the right information and the right tools to make the proper decisions, they will make the proper decision-making on the land.
We have a little information in our notes about the Canadian cattle industry, but I think you're all aware of the importance of agriculture and its association with the environment and soil. We're all on the same team. Let's just treat ourselves as a team rather than adversaries.
Thank you.