Okay, thank you. Let me jump in.
Some of the improvements in implementation are, we believe, a result of some of the legal challenges brought under SARA. The number of such court cases brought by environmental groups has been small and they were brought as a last resort to address draft policies and decision-making that appeared clearly inconsistent with SARA. For example, two court cases addressed the identification of critical habitat. In both cases, the court found the decision-making to be contrary to law and commented on the inconsistency of draft policies with SARA.
As these cases show, failure to identify critical habitat has in a number of cases been due to draft policies that were inconsistent with SARA rather than due to the lack of science. We provide details on these cases in appendix 23 to our original brief and update.
If you'd like to follow along with me in the slides, I'm now at the slide headed “Recommendations”, with a list of ten recommendations. We do not recommend a change to the fundamental structure of SARA, but we do have what we call the top ten. These we believe are the most important and feasible recommendations at this time. I'll briefly go through each of the ten.
Number one is “listing”. Obviously, great care needs to be taken if a species assessed as at risk by COSEWIC is not to be listed, given that not listing could result in the eventual disappearance of the species from Canada. However, we have seen significant inconsistencies in listing decisions between different types of species, between species located in different provinces, and among the agencies, as detailed in our brief last summer. One of the reasons for such inconsistencies appears to be a lopsided consideration of costs and benefits. Potential short-term economic costs of listing are considered, but the long-term cultural and ecological benefits are often not taken into account. Our recommendation for listing is that all such costs and benefits must be carefully considered before any decision to not list a species.
Moving onto the next slide, recommendation two is “critical habitat”; as you've heard, loss or degradation of habitat is the primary reason for about 84% of Canadian species being at risk. Identifying critical habitat and recovery strategies is a key first step. Only after being identified can it be protected or at least considered in decision-making.
Now, some presenters have proposed to you that socio-economics should be explicitly required at this identification stage. We disagree for two reasons. First, there appear to be some misconceptions as to what happens after critical habitat is identified. Identification of critical habitat does not lead to automatic protection in most cases. Protection of critical habitat is totally discretionary other than for aquatic species or if the critical habitat is on federal land. The second reason is that socio-economics are already taken into account at three other stages under the act: first, at listing; second, if an order to protect critical habitat is passed and if so, a regulatory impact analysis statement is required; and third, socio-economics are again taken into account at the action plan stage. We therefore submit that there has to be at least one step in this sequence that remains scientific, and that should be the identification of critical habitat.
Moving along to number three, “recovery strategies”, there are a few improvements we recommend. First, we recommend they should, to the extent possible, include tolerance thresholds for disturbance. This would help clarify what can and can't go on within a critical habitat if it is to support species survival and recovery. It would also help interpret later steps under the act, such as what would destroy and what would effectively protect the critical habitat. To ensure that the best possible science is included, we recommend that all recovery strategies be drafted by teams that include independent experts from outside of government.
Moving on to number four, “definitions”, as you know, there are a number of key terms that are not defined in SARA. I would refer you to the SARAC definitions text for collaborative recommendations on a number of these terms. Two of the most important ones included in that text are the terms “survival“ and “recovery”. We recommend that survival should be defined as a high probability of long-term persistence, and we recommend that recovery should be defined as a well-distributed population to meet the values of the species as noted in SARA's preamble, such as to perform its natural ecological functions.
Moving on to number five, “action plans”, as you've heard, there's very little experience to date with action plans. Only one has been completed. We therefore simply recommend that a mandatory deadline for action plans be added to SARA, and we also recommend that SARA require both recovery strategies and action plans to be updated when significant new information becomes available.
On number six, “safety net”, as I've already mentioned, for most species across the vast majority of Canada SARA's protections do not apply automatically. In such cases, SARA relies on the provinces to provide primary protection, although of course SARA does allow the federal government to step in and make a safety net order if a province is not effectively protecting. This might be thought of as an equivalency provision.
Unfortunately, this safety net has never been used in the six or seven years under SARA, and it's never been used despite, for example, the environmental community asking for it to be used for the spotted owl. At the time, there were only about 20 or so in the wild, but no safety net order was issued. Today the number of individuals in the wild is down to just seven, and the species is expected to be extirpated from the wild in the near future. We recommend, as an important first step to making the safety net process work better, clarifying the meaning of effective protection. Again, I would refer you to the collaborative SARAC definitions text, which provided the recommended elements of such a definition.
Under item number seven, “permitting”, there are a few obvious gaps that we recommend be filled, such as explicitly requiring that subsection 73(3) preconditions be met before all types of permitting. As you know, these preconditions require that impacts be minimized and that there be no jeopardy to the survival or recovery of the species.
Some presenters before you have suggested that long-term permits be made available. We certainly understand industry's desire for more certainty when they are making investment decisions that cover decades, compared to the kind of certainty that a three- or five-year permit can only give. However, we stress that if long-term permits are to be allowed, there must be sufficient safeguards in the act, and in particular, we recommend three things: first, a requirement for ongoing monitoring and reporting; secondly, regular review and sign-off by the competent minister as to whether the preconditions continue to be met; and thirdly, if those preconditions are not met, the minister must be required to amend or cancel the permit.
With that, I'll hand it back to Rachel to finish this up.