Environment Committee on Oct. 17th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Time has expired. Thank you so much.

Next we have Mr. Toet. You have five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I'll probably take a slightly different tack on this. My background is in business, and in my business background, research was incredibly important to us. We did a lot of work on research, but ultimately we had to get results. We had to get things done.

That's the way I tend to look at it. The research has to be done, and I agree with that 100%, but along with that we have to be getting results, have to be driving forward, have to be getting projects actually done and completed.

I tie that in because, Ms. Poter, you noted in your presentation that natural areas such as forests and wetlands provide a service for local communities, such as cleansing water and diverting or absorbing heavy rainfalls, holding those for a period of time, and releasing them in a way that doesn't create a flood situation. That would also help curb costs for local governments, as far as I can see. That only makes sense from a business standpoint. Nature is doing some of the work for you, and that's going to save you costs, obviously.

I just wondered if you could share with us any other examples of where forests, wetlands, or other natural areas, other than in those areas that I talked about, could actually have a strong economic benefit.

[Virginia Poter]

I guess it's a bit tough at times to actually provide a dollar amount against what an ecological service is, but there has been some interesting work done.

Again, I keep picking on the City of Edmonton, but they have generated quite a bit of information.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

They probably don't mind you picking on them.

[Virginia Poter]

They did some work around the question of the value that a tree planted in a city provides. It was quite interesting, because it was in the order of maybe $80 a tree per year. Then they looked at the cost of actually planting the tree, and maintaining the tree and whatnot, and it was in the order of $10 or $20.

There is a real net benefit to having a tree in a city. The benefit it provides is in helping to clean the air, to provide shade, to help manage local climates.

The City of Toronto has put in place a couple of interesting requirements. One is that for all new buildings that are over a certain size—I can't tell you what that is, but it's reasonably large—there's a requirement to use green roofs. It's to help regulate the local temperature, provide some habitat for some species, and so on.

I think the people who are living in those buildings are receiving a clear benefit from it as well, such as lowered cooling costs, for sure, in the summer. As well, quite often you can access these roof gardens. I don't know if you'd call it a recreational benefit or just a well-being benefit for the dwellers who are in an urban environment with perhaps less green space. We know that green space is an environment that oftentimes encourages a feeling of well-being, and this provides access for the people who live in an area that doesn't give them as much ready access to it.

Those are a couple of areas of real cost savings. The more green space you have, the more chance you have for some improvements to air quality. There has been a fair bit of work done around that as well. If you have better air quality, of course you have fewer respiratory diseases and impacts on people, so it reduces health care costs.

I could see real benefits to incorporating the notion of conservation into urban planning. It's not the only thing you have to consider. There are many other things to consider, because running a city is a complex business. However, there is certainly benefit to the dwellers of cities to have conservation built into the city design.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I'm glad you took that angle, because it works out very nicely. A large part of my riding has been given the nickname “Park City”. It's not because there are a lot of parks in it, which there are, but because the whole area was designed to have a park atmosphere with a lot of trees, a lot of open space, a lot of green space. Those things have contributed very much to the well-being of the neighbourhood. I'm glad that I can now go back to my riding and say that we're going down the right path, that we're doing some of the things we should be doing in an exemplary way. That's really good to hear.

I also want to touch on something on which, Mr. Campbell, you've been asked a few questions. It's regarding the youth. That is a very important aspect of this. You talked about some of your programs. Mr. Lunney asked you about the camping experiences and things like that. Mr. Sopuck touched on it as well.

I wonder if you have any programs that bring rural youth and urban youth together. That would have a great impact.

Perhaps you could talk about programs that you have or would envision that would do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

The time has expired, so please make your answer short.

[Andrew Campbell]

Yes, certainly.

We run a number of those programs out of different national parks across the country. Most notable is the one out of the Palisades. We've brought at-risk aboriginal youth together with rural youth and city youth from Vancouver in a number of different fora. We've brought them out of Edmonton. There's lots of that type of experience.

Point Pelee National Park has had a number of initiatives to bring together rural youth from in and around the area south of London, Kitchener, the Cambridge area, and Toronto.

There are some real successes in bringing those groups together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you.

Before we go to the last four minutes, Mr. Lunney, you had a point of order, I believe.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I made a remark a few moments ago related to repeated points of order, which caused some offence to Ms. Liu and her colleagues.

I would like to apologize to Ms. Liu and to her colleagues for that remark.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Rempel, you have the last four minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the youngest member of the government caucus, I want to thank my colleague for his apology as well.

That said, my first question is for Mr. Campbell.

In my role as parliamentary secretary, one of the first events I had the opportunity to take part in was the launch of the learn to camp program. What struck me was the number of new Canadians who were engaged in that program. I think the partnership was with the Catholic immigration Society. This was in Banff National Park.

It had a real impact. One of the things I heard from people was their appreciation for Canada's wilderness. Something all Canadians share is that sense of closeness to nature, the value of our wilderness.

Could you talk about the thought behind the development of the learn to camp program? Specific to our study today, even in the short time it's been up and running, how has it worked towards giving new Canadians and urban Canadians a sense of the importance of conservation?

[Andrew Campbell]

The development of it came from our needing to look at who the main groups are who aren't connected to nature. We came up with three. It's youth in Canada, urban Canadians, and new Canadians. From the groups who are most disconnected to nature, those would be the three largest groups.

We looked at the barriers we needed to overcome. We did a barrier study. One of the major barriers, much to our surprise, was people feeling they didn't have the skills to be out in nature. From that we developed the learn to camp program.

It doesn't just affect the families who go; it affects the school groups. We have kids writing to us, saying that they were able to talk about it at school. It gives them a real sense of pride to pass the message of conservation not only among themselves, but also the people they come in contact with.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

That's great. I find it interesting that you brought up that barrier analysis. I think it's material to what we're looking at.

What were some of the other barriers you identified as part of that work?

[Andrew Campbell]

One of the ones that also surprised us was people's general knowledge around geography. That's why we've partnered a lot with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

In the Jane-Finch corridor in Toronto, about 80% of the kids didn't know their city is on a lake. You start to look at that and how it just leads back.... Some of that, I think, is quite an affront to us as Canadians, so we wondered how we could act on that. That was one.

They felt that the distance to nature was a barrier. Another major barrier was that with the distance, people thought there was a large cost involved.

We've been working to overcome some of those barriers. We now have a bus that takes people from downtown Toronto to the Bruce Peninsula National Park. It sells out within minutes. It's for people who otherwise wouldn't think they could afford to get there. It's a private company that does it, and it's been highly successful, for them and for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Unfortunately, time has expired.

I want to thank our witnesses, Ms. Poter and Mr. Campbell, for being with us today. It was very interesting testimony.

I want to thank my colleagues for their questions, and I would accept a motion to adjourn.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

It is so moved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

The meeting is adjourned.