Thank you very much.
Thank you indeed for the invitation to appear before the committee as part of your deliberations regarding the development of a national conservation plan.
In addition to a 30-year academic career working on fish ecology and evolution, my remarks are informed by responsibilities I exercised as chair of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, or COSEWIC, the national arm's-length-from-government science body responsible for advising the Minister of the Environment under the auspices of the Species at Risk Act.
I am also the chair of a recent national report on ocean conservation prepared in response to a request by the Royal Society of Canada that an independent expert panel be convened to advise on a series of questions related to the conservation of Canada’s marine biodiversity.
Following its deliberations from June 2010 to January 2012, the panel released its report in February. It is entitled Sustaining Canada’s Marine Biodiversity: Responding to the Challenges Posed by Climate Change, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. Pursuant to the current interests of this committee, the Royal Society report attempts to describe trends in Canada's marine biodiversity from an ocean conservation perspective and from a sustainable use perspective, and to provide broad, strategically based recommendations to establish Canada as an international leader in ocean stewardship and marine conservation.
One of the expert panel’s additional responsibilities was to determine whether Canada has fulfilled its national and international obligations to conserve and sustain marine biodiversity. Some progress has been made, but the panel concluded that Canada’s efforts have fallen well short of the progress made by many developed nations to sustain and conserve ocean biodiversity. Countries such as Australia, Norway, and the United States have made greater strides in this regard than Canada.
The panel attributed Canada’s lack of progress in fulfilling its obligations to an unduly slow pace of statutory and policy implementation. The panel also concluded that progress is further impeded by regulatory conflict responsibilities within Fisheries and Oceans Canada to promote industrial and economic activity, on the one hand, while conserving marine life and ocean health on the other; and by the level of discretion afforded to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
Thus, it is both timely and appropriate that the standing committee undertakes a study in support of the development of a national conservation plan, particularly from an aquatic, indeed oceanic, perspective.
Concomitant with your efforts, I note that the Auditor General of Canada has planned for spring 2013 an audit on protecting biodiversity and an audit note on species at risk.
What should the purposes of an NCP be? The purposes might be as follows: one, to provide for the conservation and, where relevant and appropriate, the sustainable use of Canada’s terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity; two, to establish a network of protected areas in the marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments; three, to educate Canadians about the natural wonders of the enormous biological wealth on land and in the sea for which they, through the actions of our parliamentarians from all parties, are primary international stewards; and four, to provide a meaningful, empirical, and evidentiary basis for Canadians and the world to believe that this country, increasingly known as one that does not fulfill its obligations related to conservation, is in fact truly committed to the conservation of species, ecosystems, and the quality of human life that results therefrom.
What should the goals of an NCP be, and what conservation priorities should be included? I'll combine my responses to these two questions. In my view, the primary goals and conservation priorities of an NCP should be to protect and recover degraded habitats and ecosystems; to conserve ecosystems of national and international biodiversity importance; to rebuild depleted populations and species, many of which are currently at increased risk of extinction, 650 in Canada; and to restore the natural resilience of Canada’s terrestrial, freshwater, and ocean ecosystems to allow them to adapt to ongoing and future challenges posed by human and natural activities, such as those resulting from climate change.
What guiding principles should govern an NCP? A credible NCP needs to be underpinned and informed by a full and appropriate consideration of the best available science. This recommendation is entirely consistent with governmental policies.
Consider, for example, the Government of Canada's framework for science and technology advice, which states:
Science advice has an important role to play by contributing to government decisions that serve Canada’s strategic interests and concerns in areas such as public health and safety, food safety, environmental protection, sustainable development...and national security.
DFO states on its website that
...science is the basis for sound decision making...on the consequences of management and policy options, and the likelihood of achieving policy objectives under alternative management strategies and tactics.
The Minister of the Environment relies on the best available scientific information when considering the advice on species at risk provided by COSEWIC. However, despite this clear acknowledgement of the utility and indeed the necessity of science in government planning and decision-making, Canadians have recently witnessed a serious diminution, weakening, and in some areas an abandonment of these long-standing roles of science in government decision-making.
Changes to the Fisheries Act, for example, will remove habitat protection for most of Canada’s freshwater fish, including an estimated 80% of Canada’s freshwater fishes at risk of extinction. And removal of habitat protection provisions for fish deemed to be of no importance to fisheries also removes the habitat protection afforded indirectly to other aquatic life that share Canada’s waters with fish, such as amphibians, reptiles, mussels, and numerous aquatic plants and insects.
The closure of the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario is also of concern, I think, to this panel, insofar as this is a facility that has contributed immeasurably to national and international policies associated with factors affecting human and environmental health, such as acid rain, mercury pollution, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and other aquatic pollutants and toxins.
ELA scientific research has contributed to Canadians' access to healthy, safe, and clean water and access to fish and other aquatic life safe for human consumption.
Closure of the ELA will strip Canada of one its most precious scientific jewels. It will compromise the ability of science to contribute effectively to the health and safety of our fresh waters and the well-being of Canadians. And its closure will hinder rather than help, I think, efforts to establish a scientifically credible NCP.
In closing, I would like to offer the following recommendations that I might suggest be implementation priorities of an NCP:
(1) Strengthen, rather than weaken, our national environmental laws; conservation planning will be jeopardized, otherwise.
(2) Strengthen, rather than weaken or extinguish, the science that underpins Canada’s ability to provide reliable, internationally respected, peer-reviewed scientific advice in support of environmental health, biodiversity conservation, and long-term monitoring of Canada’s Arctic and temperate terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
(3) Strive to achieve a federal-provincial-territorial accord on an NCP analogous to that achieved by the national accord for the protection of species at risk.
(4) Lastly, implement statutory renewal to fulfill national and international commitments to conserve terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, and in so doing provide a meaningful, transparent, accountable, and legislatively effective foundation for a national conservation plan.
Thank you for the opportunity to make these remarks.