Thank you very much, Chair.
I'd like to start with a question, following up on what Mr. Calkins said on the issue of predator control.
I remember when I was first visiting, as a child, Banff National Park. I saw the great tunnels under the highway that were for the caribou, for the woodland creatures. Someone said, “Oh, yes, they're great; the wolves just park themselves beside them and know that their prey will come along through.”
So there is a concern that our development is making things easier for predators, but I understand as well that the solution can't be simply to eliminate all of the predators, because there's no guarantee that the prey would then come back, if indeed, as Ms. Pinkus says, the protected area doesn't look large to a caribou.
For me this highlights one of the big issues that I've brought up a number of times, the implicit question. Much has been made, and rightfully so, about the expansion of the Nahanni Park by this current government. For me, the question of basing an ecological or an environmental strategy on creating more parks always begs this question: if you're protecting a particular percentage of Canada's territory, what are you implicitly saying about every area that you don't protect? I think that's the issue that SARA is here to address.
I have to say that I'm quite concerned. The testimony we've been hearing from industry, from ENGOs, and even from government has demonstrated that SARA is flailing, is not reaching its goal. There is a breakdown somewhere along the line. COSEWIC seems to work great. The science on identifying the species in peril is fine. It breaks down around habitat, and it breaks down specifically around protecting that habitat, actually implementing the recommendations that science is making.
I understand the desire to not be overtly political in all of this, but I'm wondering if indeed what Mr. Calkins said is true, that no government, given our current economic challenges and our current challenges as a society, would be able to implement SARA properly to protect our species at risk, and perhaps we should all just give up and just try to protect certain areas and hope that a few species end up surviving in there--which is not exactly what Mr. Calkins said, but is certainly one of the projections that one has to have.
I would like each of you to respond to that in the time available.
Rachel.