Environment Committee on April 27th, 2010

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Well, you're talking about the edge effect and all the things that happen along that line, whether you have a “no burn” policy, which creates some of the issues, or secondary succession, or forage--all of these things.

At any rate, I do understand that it's a sensitive issue to get into. In all fairness--although Aldo Leopold would disagree with me--I do think that predator control is actually a critical issue, and I think Parks Canada truly does. I would like to see somebody come forward with the courage to say that maybe we need to get at this.

The reality is that you can control all of these things outside the realm of national parks, but until you actually address them within the context of inside the boundaries of national parks.... I know it's sensitive, and I know it's a difficult issue, but I think it truly is the limiting factor that we have there. We have very few roads and highways through national parks. We have tried, to the best of our ability, to build wildlife corridors and bridges to make sure they're not impacted. We've got fences all the way along down the road, Highway 1 in Banff National Park, yet the population of woodland caribou still managed to disappear. So from that perspective it is frustrating.

I want to talk a little more about this whole concept of national parks, because it's very near and dear to my heart. When I went to university, we basically looked at a plan at the time that said about 12% of each of Canada's bio-zones, each of the ecologically sensitive regions, should be protected or preserved. There were nine when I was there. I don't know what has happened to those; these things change over time, of course. That 12% or 13% of each of these zones will likely come under irreversible alteration, whether building cities or roads or whatever the case might be, and the other 75% was left for sustainable development and sustainable management.

When we take a look at the Species at Risk Act and its implementation in conjunction with national parks, I do like the recommendation that we need to build more parks in areas where we have less than that 12% representation. Extending the Nahanni is a great thing, but we need to bring more protected and preserved areas into that.

Through this plan in species at risk, it doesn't directly address the habitat as well as it should. I think the problem with the implementation is that it's so broad, I actually feel sorry for any bureaucrat or anybody who has to implement SARA. I don't think it would matter if it was a Conservative government, a coalition government, or a Liberal government. I'm not looking to point fingers here; I think this thing is very hard to implement because it's so broad and wide-reaching that it loses some of its effect.

I would actually like to see more effort being put into preserving the ecological integrity of certain percentages of an area and let the natural systems take care of themselves and work within those kinds of parameters.

Do any of you want to comment on that?

[Susan Pinkus]

I would like to comment on that, thank you.

I think a really important thing to remember--I also learned about the 12% model in university--is that, among many things that have changed in our scientific understanding, that's one of them. What scientists are now telling us in light of things like climate change is that 12% is going to be woefully inadequate. So I think as much as we can do to lay out our national parks intelligently, to have more, that's a wonderful tool. But we really need to not focus on that instead of good management of these species, using SARA for that area that is supposed to be sustainably developed. So sustainable development means keeping species in places other than in national parks.

I think it's important to realize that some of our national parks may look big to a human, but the national parks, for instance, from which caribou disappeared didn't look big ecologically to caribou. They were too small. And the damage to the areas outside those parks impacted the animals that we thought the parks were protecting.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Your time has expired.

We're going to start our five-minute rounds.

Mr. Trudeau.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

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.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

There are about two minutes left among all of the witnesses.

[Rachel Plotkin]

I think this highlights one area where the act is right. The protection of most species at risk is not about creating specific small protected areas, nor is it about killing predators. It is about ensuring that there is enough habitat for species to survive and recover.

As, I think, has been referenced numerous times, there's an article about species at risk in Canada that identifies that for 84% of Canadian species at risk, habitat loss or degradation is the primary cause of their decline.

You might recall that in our presentation we talked about the need for recovery strategies to include thresholds of natural disturbance. I do believe that it is possible for governments to protect species such as caribou. I think that most forest managers also want to protect caribou. Most oil and gas operators want to protect caribou. No one wants to be the reason that the species becomes extirpated or is driven to extinction.

Therefore, the more knowledge we can have in recovery strategies about how much disturbance you can have in the range of a caribou, the more tools we will have to sit down with industry colleagues, with first nations, and with provincial and federal governments and say, okay, this is the area where caribou live. This much disturbance is possible before they start to decline. Where can we place the disturbance? How can we ensure that it impacts industry the least? How can we ensure that a first nation that might have an economic aspiration is able to do some industrial development in this range, but that we have the tools that are based in science to do appropriate management to ensure that species at risk persist in Canada?

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

One example is in fact the Boreal Leadership Council, which actually does quite a bit of work in terms of pulling together industry officials and conservation organizations to sit down at the table and ask how we protect this particular area with a land use plan that is actually representative and that gives a good eye to conservation through that lens.

It's possible to do that. Certainly, if industry can sit at that table, there's no reason why a government can't sit at that table and work with us to try to find those solutions. I'm not pessimistic. I think the bones of the Species at Risk Act are in the right place. We just need to find ways to be able to take away the duplication and make it work for all of us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Trudeau, your time has expired. In fairness to the rest of the committee members, I have to keep moving.

Mr. Warawa, you have the floor.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I appreciate your dedication and your passion for the environment.

I would like to focus on socio-economic factors as critical habitat is being identified, and also on how that plays into sustainable development. It is a very important part of sustainable development that you provide for the needs of the present, of this generation, without compromising the needs of future generations.

So it is the environment. It is the economy. It is society. All the factors have to be in play.

What we heard as a committee is that socio-economic considerations are not considered when a species is identified as at risk. They are when it is with the minister and Governor in Council, but again, they are not considered when habitat is being identified. This is what we heard from the department; it may not be what I think I have heard from some of you today.

I've also met with some of you in my office and have met with industry and have heard that there were negotiations ongoing on with industry and ENGOs to find out whether there was a position whereby the two groups could meet and come up with a practical solution.

I am going to ask you, Rachel, because you are one of the people I met with and you mentioned that you were going to be meeting with industry, if the ENGOs and the industry have had a chance to come up with a compromise or a position where it protects the environment but also provides for the needs.

[Rachel Plotkin]

The collaborations for joint recommendations between NGOs and industry are still under way. I think we all hope that we are going to be able to achieve some collaborative recommendations that we can then bring before the committee before it is over.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Okay, thank you. If that comes soon, then please provide that to the committee.

I'm going to start with Mr. Hébert-Daly. Could you tell us why you think conservation agreements are not happening? What I heard from industry is that if they help a species at risk--help it to recover through good environmental practices--it could put the future of their industry at risk of being able to continue. If conservation agreements are not considered, and then...and that industry then would be exempt from SARA.

Could you comment on that?

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

I should probably turn that over to Peter, given that this is an area of his expertise and not mine.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Please.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Sure. Thank you.

I think it's pretty simple, really; it's just a question of the scale that we're talking about. Much as in a recovery strategy for a species that roams across large areas—migration across international borders, or provincial or territorial—they tend to need a lot of space and time annually. And that, by definition, involves lots of people who have tenures, interests, economic and other, in the land. The whole point about a recovery strategy and action plan is that it's to provide a prescriptive list of the things that the species needs to persist. That's the whole purpose of SARA.

Therefore, all you have to work out is what the mechanism is across that range by which that prescription will apply fairly to all the people who have interests in that same habitat. If you presume that the species' needs and the needs of that natural habitat are valued highly by humanity, then we will have a prescription that works. Right now there is no formalized range-wide plan, in most cases—one action plan—and so we have a sort of fragmented approach.

I think it's very interesting that the GEF and the UNDP and the U.S. Forest Service are coming up with reports about ecosystem valuation and development costs needing to internalize the prescriptions and costs that nature and we humans too need at that kind of scale. I think that's a very strong indication of how conservation planning for at-risk species—and preventing more species from becoming at-risk—is going to be addressed in the coming decades.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Do I have any time left for a quick comment?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Barely.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Okay.

Well, I'm amazed that in the short four years we've been government, we have expanded protected areas by 30%. So we're heading in the right direction. Hopefully we keep the review of SARA non-political and we protect our valuable environment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Warawa.

Moving on, let me say bonjour, monsieur Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Good day, Mr. Chair.

I have one or two questions for the witness. Were you consulted when the Species At Risk Act was tabled?

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

When the bill was initially tabled?

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Yes.

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

Yes, we were involved in the process. I believe all of my associates worked on this file.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Two or three years ago, this committee held hearings in western Canada. The chair of the committee, Mr. Bezan, travelled with us. People shared with the committee their impression of Agriculture Canada officials. They maintained that our officials in Ottawa could not tell the difference between a cow and a carrot.

That's why I'm asking you this question. I believe Mr. Watson was also travelling with the committee. I'd like to know if federal workers know what a caribou is. I'm simply asking the question. If federal workers can't tell the difference between a caribou, a deer and a moose, it will be difficult to draft a good piece of legislation. Basically, that's the question I had.

[Éric Hébert-Daly]

Obviously, caribou have not roamed in these parts for at least 200 years, but that's neither here nor there.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

However, people can travel to see the caribou.