Environment Committee on April 13th, 2010

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Grand Chief?

[National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo]

I'll just comment on this question of whether, as I think you put it, it “cuts both ways”.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It was just my way of phrasing it, I suppose.

[National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo]

In some ways, there are a couple of examples, one right at home: the sea otter. We call it k'wak'wak, which means it eats the best of everything. Everything that you would love to eat, the sea otter will outdo you on: urchins, clams, all the shellfish. It's completely thrown out of balance back home where I come from, in Ahousat. It's always a mystery to our people how it is that we come to list species.

Of course, we have a deep and long-standing relationship with the sea otter, where more recently the Okanagan nation is talking about the chinook, the need to protect the chinook.

So it really is both, isn't it, where you get species that are identified and species that are not, even when the first nations are suggesting, based on their interaction, their social, their food, and rights and title. Of course, again I go back to the court case that I just came out of in British Columbia for my own community of Ahousat.

It really does reflect back then on, and speaks to, the earlier question about COSEWIC. There's participation with COSEWIC but not an adequate level in terms of how traditional knowledge is accessed or used. How is it brought to bear? We're suggesting here a shared notion that we need to be much more involved and strengthen that respect or recognition of not only the information, but also the jurisdictional aspects that need to be brought to bear when we're talking about listing.

We have a fundamental, out-of-balance situation back home right now when it comes to sea otter in my territories. I'll be home again hopefully soon, and once again, it's always falling on the local communities—the fishers, our fisheries community—about how we're going to respond to this externally imposed notion about protection of a certain species.

So it's important to examine this as adding value. Somehow we get caught up in this idea that it's going to take away value or that it's disrespectful of other jurisdictions. No, we're looking at a mutual respect and recognition.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Now, when it comes to habitat protection, the federal government has--and remind me of what the act says, I guess--obviously jurisdiction on its lands. But when it comes to habitat that either straddles federal and provincial lands or is completely on provincial land, where do the federal government's powers begin and end?

For example, when it comes to the oil sands, you say there has been a major decline in woodland caribou, and we've heard the same from people like Dr. Schindler who say that even with SAGD technology, it can scare the caribou for hundreds of miles. All this exploration is taking place on provincial leases, yet it's affecting your treaty rights with the federal government.

How do we handle all of this? I think it's frustrating everybody. How do we handle the situation when it's in provincial jurisdiction yet it's affecting Treaty No. 8, which the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility for? How do we make sense of it all?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Scarpaleggia, your time has expired.

Mr. Marcel, could you very briefly reply to his comments on the woodland caribou?

[Pat Marcel]

Thank you.

The problem I'm having is that when you have a species such as the woodland bison, it's a threatened species, yet Alberta will do nothing to protect that herd outside its parks. The federal government has parks. Within those parks, the bison are protected. Anytime it's outside, Alberta will not protect it. It's only a matter of time before the last bison in the wild will be killed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Marcel.

Your time has expired, Mr. Scarpaleggia. Thank you very much.

Mr. Calkins, it's your turn.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our guests for coming here.

I've listened with keen interest. I want to preface my comments by saying that I spent much of my previous life--before I came here--as a conservation officer, as a national park warden, as a fisheries technician, dedicating a lot of my time to the conservation and preservation of our wild lands and spaces and species. So I'm going to ask, with all sincerity, these questions, but I need to understand what it is that's missing.

Subsection 7(1) of SARA--and that's what this is about, it's a review of the particular legislation--sets up the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council, which consists of the ministry of environment, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of National Parks, which in our particular government's case is the same as the Minister of the Environment.

Section 8.1 of the act creates the NACOSAR, which is the National Aboriginal Council on Species at Risk, which consists of six individuals who are strictly from the aboriginal community. They have a twofold role: to advise the minister on the administration of the act and to provide advice and recommendations to the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council, strictly.

Then we have a section of the act, section 14, which strikes up COSEWIC. Subsection 15(2) of SARA addresses issues pertaining to aboriginal people insofar that COSEWIC must carry out its functions on the basis of the best available information, and so on, through the scientific community. Aboriginal traditional knowledge is mentioned there.

Subsection 15(3) states COSEWIC must take into account and apply provisions of treaty and land claims agreements when carrying out its functions. Subsection 16(2) deals with the composition of COSEWIC and specifically states each member must have expertise drawn from disciplines such as conservation biology, yada-yada-yada, and it gets down to aboriginal traditional knowledge of the conservation of wildlife species.

Subsection 18(1) states COSEWIC must establish subcommittees of specialists to assist in the preparation and review of status reports, and it says it strikes a subcommittee specializing in aboriginal traditional knowledge.

Then subsection 18(3) talks about the composition of those particular subcommittees and how they may be appointed by the Minister after consultation with any aboriginal organization he or she considers appropriate.

Those are just the sections of the act that I could find in a few minutes here, just before I had an opportunity to ask questions. So I found a complete section of advice strictly limited to aboriginal people to advise the Endangered Species Conservation Council. I can find at least five sections in the act that refer to aboriginal people and how they must be consulted, and they have to be part of COSEWIC.

Can you please tell me, in spite of all of the things that I've just mentioned, how this is not working for aboriginal people?

[Joshua McNeely]

Let me just try to wrap your head around this. In Canada we have 53 aboriginal languages. We have seven language families. In all of Europe there's one language family.

There's a huge diversity of aboriginal people across the land, just as there's a huge diversity in our ecoregions across the land. Freshwater, saltwater, mountain ranges, plains--any sort of thing you can think of around the world, we have it in Canada.

Aboriginal peoples are, as the French say, the autochtone, of the land. That diversity is very hard to.... You know, you can't just come up and say here is the aboriginal voice or the aboriginal view on this issue. There is no such thing. There are many, many views across the land.

Six members of a national aboriginal committee on species at risk have a very tough time, when they're scattered all across the land, to come together to learn from each of those communities what the issues are. They're not really supported by any sort of secretariat. Environment Canada controls every small little aspect of what that committee does. They're not really given the tools.

The traditional knowledge subcommittee of COSEWIC is the same thing. You have 10 people doing the work, or 12 people doing the work, the same amount of workload that all the other scientists on COSEWIC are doing. Again, they have a secretariat. They have one-and-a-half people versus COSEWIC, which has hundreds and hundreds of scientists and research documents behind them.

It's the tools. As we said, the act is well written. There are spots where we can be involved in the act; it's having those tools to actually be involved in the act.

It's going to be a long road. There's a lot more that needs to be done in order to get there; yes, I agree.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Is my time up, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Yes, it is. It's just expired.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Oh, that's too bad.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Ouellet, s'il vous plaît.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for meeting with us. You can see just how interested everyone is in asking you questions, and with good reason.

Mr. Marcel, you said earlier that traditional law is the most important thing. I am talking about legislation regarding animals. You have had it for a great many years, for that matter.

What do you think your laws could have done? Mr. McNeely said there are numerous first nations groups in Canada. This law could have prevented the disappearance of animals. In other words, your traditional law could have protected animals that were at risk.

[Pat Marcel]

Yes, my comments about our use of the animals for centuries and thousands of years are very real. The laws that guide us are the laws that the animals themselves have. Animals would not ever let themselves be overpopulated to extinction. Nature controls nature. We all know that. There are predators and there are prey. They will survive because of that function.

When we come in and start putting in laws on how to control the populations that I've mentioned, and the very work of men is threatening those herds, then you understand what I'm getting at.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

So why do the three of you not ask, on behalf of Canada's first nations—not just one first nation, but all of them—for the legislation to be totally and completely withdrawn? Why do you not ask that your lands not be subject to it? Tell me why you are not calling for that today.

[Pat Marcel]

I am not really clear on your question.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Why don't you ask to be out of this law and make your own law?

[Pat Marcel]

Well, if we were to apply the laws of the first nations, especially mine, we wouldn't see the devastation that's happening up there now. Everything would be sustainable. They have committees like this that can control that, how much development happens. But if you're here in Ottawa and somebody is destroying that land and we don't do anything about it, then what's the use of this committee?

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Okay.

Mr. McNeely, in response to my colleague's question earlier, you said there were species you would like to see on the list so they are protected and that it would be less important for other species to appear on the list.

Why do you not ask to be totally and completely exempt from this legislation, that the legislation state that first nations lands are not subject to it and that you make your own laws?

[Joshua McNeely]

The Species at Risk Act was pushed very much by the aboriginal peoples of this country, the first few bills and the latest one, Bill C-5. We know that species don't know boundaries. Right across Canada they come and go as they please. We are a part of that cycle.

By pushing a species at risk act, hopefully in Canada we can begin to implement our Convention on Biological Diversity. That's why we are here at this table. That's why we've been recognized internationally under Agenda 21, under the Johannesburg statement on sustainable development, under the Convention on Biological Diversity, as vital to that whole process.

We understand those terms: “precautionary approach”, “sustainable development”; that's in our language. In Mi’kmaq we have a word called netukulimk. In English it quite often gets translated to “harvest”, but it's a lot more than that. It's harvesting for what you need today, leaving for tomorrow, leaving for future generations. It's respect of what you are taking. It's in the definition.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Why then do you not ask for....

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Excuse me, but your time is up.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

My question is brief, and you can give me a brief answer.

Why do you not want to leave the federal government and join the provinces? That would give you a greater sense of territory.