Environment Committee on May 15th, 2012

[Alan Martin]

I think there's a good model in Shuswap Lake, as a planning exercise. It involved all sectors, and everybody came to the conclusion that the values they have, whether they be residential, farming, or whatever, were related to the value and the sustainability of that large ecosystem. Through a collaborative approach, they mapped the lake, provided information, and provided education. And where behaviour didn't change, they used regulations, such as the Fisheries Act, to change the behaviour. But it was collective effort, not an individual effort.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you. I'm getting dirty looks from the chair here. Go on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Never.

Next we have Monsieur Pilon.

You have five minutes.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, my first question is for Ms. Nowlan.

You said in your presentation that Vancouver wanted to be the greenest city by 2020. Do you think the national conservation plan could require or at least encourage other Canadian cities to do the same thing? How could the plan achieve that?

[Linda Nowlan]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, I think if you want the national conservation plan to focus on urban centres, as I've heard committee members say and have read in testimony, challenging Canada's cities to be the greenest city by 2020 would be a good challenge to put out there and work on with them. Giving them part of the gas tax certainly would help them fund activities. Their tax base is not the same as the federal government's.

But why not have the national conservation plan set the goal of having Canada be the greenest country in the world by 2020? Thank you for setting me up to be able to make that remark.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

My next question is for Mr. Martin.

You spoke about wetlands. We know that a lot of them are destroyed by urban development. Do you think the national conservation plan should specifically target wetlands, or should it remain general?

[Alan Martin]

I think the national conservation plan should be general. I think the outcome, or the question it should ask, is what percentage of activities need to be done on those landscapes and wetlands to maintain ecosystem functioning. I think wetlands are a priority, but depending on where in Canada, they're not the only priority.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

My question, which is sort of along the same lines, is for Mr. Ellis and has to do with outfitters.

Do you think the national conservation plan should really target outfitters or remain general? Do you think it would be enough to keep the stocks for outfitting operations?

[Scott Ellis]

Yes, thank you.

Again, from our perspective, we're looking for a holistic, comprehensive plan that doesn't target wetlands or a specific species. We want to look at the landscape holistically and say that this is what's best; this is how we manage this whole area with all the species. It's an entire-ecosystem approach.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Page, we've been told that companies aren't liable when they destroy things. Should we go so far as to impose a fine, or should we simply require that they restore the land back to its original state?

[Devon Page]

That question presumes that they've acted and they've harmed the environment. They should restore the land, to the extent that they can, but one thing that has been demonstrated clearly—and I'm not picking on the tar sands—is that they have yet to prove they can restore centuries-old peat bogs to perform the ecosystem services they did previously.

If they've acted in contravention of the law and we look at remedies that would right society for that, there has to be both the fines so they're punished for their behaviour, as well as an obligation to make whatever restorative steps they can.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Martin, you said that prevention was better than restoring. Can you talk about that a little more? In what way is it better to act in a preventative way than to restore things later?

[Alan Martin]

I think the major issue around prevention is that most of the assessments are done on a site basis and not on a landscape basis. As a result, our resources, our natural capital, are being eroded away through a death by a thousand cuts.

We don't look at the big picture, as Mr. Ellis has pointed out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Okay.

Next, Mr. Lunney, you have five minutes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

Again, thanks to the witnesses for their participation and input to us.

Mr. Ellis, I understand your guide outfitters group raised some $140 million toward conservation efforts. Did you mentioned that in your remarks?

[Scott Ellis]

That's the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. It surcharges dollars to anglers, trappers, and hunters. They pay a surcharge into the HCTF, which is made up of vested stakeholders. It then takes applications and distributes that money for conservation enhancement projects around the province.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay. That's a useful model that might be expanded in some other ways. If you have ideas on other mechanisms.... I know we had discussions about a Pacific salmon stamp and how some of those funds come back to the west coast.

Programs like that might help to provide a larger pocket of money to advance habitat restoration and so on. If you have other ideas of that nature, we'd sure be glad to hear about them.

[Scott Ellis]

We could probably make a submission, but we'd be supportive of any user-pay model where the proceeds go back into the sustainability and wide use of that resource.

There are many examples in this province where those funds go into general revenue. We'd prefer them to be put into the specific use they came from. Whether it's the salmon stamp or a surcharge for a licence, or whatever it might be, you could spend those resources very wisely. I think the people who abuse the resource will be happy to do their part, both supporting it financially as well as in-kind, whether that be volunteering for projects or the like.

We can send you some information on that.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thanks. I touched base earlier on the $225 million that was in the budget a few years or multiple years ago for acquiring sensitive wild lands for organizations like Ducks Unlimited, Nature Trust.

I wonder if anyone at the table can comment on the usefulness of a program like that—how far it went, and any examples you might be aware of in British Columbia that have benefited from that.

[Alan Martin]

There are a large number of examples in terms of the purchase of properties. As Scott has indicated, the surcharge funds from the habitat conservation fund go into a number of different accounts. One of them is habitat enhancement for both fish and wildlife. Another one is stewardship activities. A third is public education.

There is also a funding envelope for land purchase. The habitat conservation fund is a funding agency but works in collaboration with Nature Trust, the Land Conservancy, the Land Trust. They collaborate on an opportunistic basis to purchase these lands and put them under management agreements. I think the most recent purchase in British Columbia, the biggest purchase, was the Darkwoods property on Kootenay Lake.

Those programs are effective. They're effective at getting a range of sizes of properties, and they're terribly oversubscribed.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thanks for that.

[Linda Nowlan]

Can I comment on that?

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Yes.

[Linda Nowlan]

I was involved in a subprogram of that granting program whereby the federal government made a large grant to be administered by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, when the attempt was made to share some of that money with smaller land trusts across the country. So I was on a small committee where we looked at applications from smaller groups across the country to see if they would qualify for some of those funds, using the same very detailed and very credible procedures that the Nature Conservancy had used.

It was very interesting because a few things became apparent. The smaller groups had to come up with matching funds, just as the Nature Conservancy did, in order to access the federal funds. It's one thing for the Nature Conservancy to come up with whatever, $10 million for Darkwoods, and B.C.'s land prices are a bit out of control, but it's very hard for a small land trust in Manitoba, for example, or Newfoundland or Nova Scotia to come up with that 50% matching funding.

So I suggest if you're going to look at expanding or reauthorizing that program, that the matching fund part not be the same for the small land organizations, and that special consideration be given to disparities in real estate prices across the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Time has expired.

You have five minutes, Mr. Choquette.