Evidence of meeting #49 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was areas.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Oliver Kent  President, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Lorrie Minshall  Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority
Rodney Penner  City Naturalist, Naturalist Services, City of Winnipeg

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone, to this 49th meeting of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, as we continue our study on urban conservation practices in Canada.

Go ahead, Ms. Duncan.

October 29th, 2012 / 3:30 p.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

It's not a motion.

I just want to bring to the attention of the committee that our chair and his wife celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary yesterday, and I think we would all want to recognize that.

3:30 p.m.

Some hon. members

Hear, hear!

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

She is an angel and she is here, wearing red.

3:30 p.m.

An hon. member

Hear, hear!

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

This is as good as the dates get now. She had her wedding dress on, too; it was very impressive.

It's good to have you here, sweetheart. I'm not calling anybody else sweetheart; it was to a specific person.

With that in mind, I want to welcome the witnesses as we continue our study on urban conservation. The testimony we've heard so far has been very interesting and very much appreciated.

Each witness group has up to 10 minutes. I will be holding up a one-minute notice as we approach the expiry of your time.

We'll begin with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, represented by Mr. Kent.

3:30 p.m.

Oliver Kent President, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

I have the honour of being the president of CPAWS. I think you have a copy of the prepared remarks. I'm not going to follow them exactly; I'm not that well-behaved. There's some more detail there that may be helpful to you in your considerations.

CPAWS will turn 50 next year. It's just a little bit older than your marriage. It's not a bad age for a conservation organization. I wish I was still 50.

We have 13 chapters from coast to coast to coast in Canada that are involved in campaigns to create national and provincial parks and marine protected areas in all regions of Canada. We also work to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources in the rest of Canada, because just having those parks as islands is not in the end good for our conservation, and to ensure that existing protected areas are managed to protect their ecology.

Historically we focused largely on wilderness conservations on those big landscapes, but like this committee, we've taken an increasing interest in the creation and management of urban and near-urban conservation areas and in connecting people to nature through those areas. I think you probably have a good sense as to why that's important to this country.

One small part of this is that our national board of trustees meets somewhere across the country every May. We've now taken up the practice of getting there a half a day early and going on a bit of a field trip to see some kind of current or potential protected area near where we're meeting.

A couple of years ago when we were meeting in Victoria, we had the opportunity to go out to Gulf Islands National Park. I was just mentioning to Michelle Rempelhow pleased we were to see the announcement that more land is being added to Gulf Islands National Park.

One year ago we met in Sackville and went to the Chignecto wilderness area of Nova Scotia, and I had the opportunity to see that just around the time when the provincial government in Nova Scotia was announcing the creation of two large new protected areas in the Chignecto, which is very important for that province.

Last spring we had the opportunity to meet in the eastern part of Toronto and to go to the proposed Rouge national urban park. We got to hike through some of the areas of the park and had a briefing from Parks Canada staff on the planning and conservation work they are doing around that very important initiative.

In effect, these three experiences we had connect very directly, I think, to your interest in conservation in urban and near-urban areas. It has given us a chance to see first-hand what's being done, as well as some of the challenges, frankly, that arise in some of those locations.

Obviously we don't believe urban conservation should take place at the expense of a continuing interest in the larger wilderness areas of Canada. Those large wilderness areas are going to help us to meet our commitments internationally, under the Convention on Biological Diversity, to protect at least 17% of our lands and 10% of our waters by 2020, but I think we all know in this room that wilderness conservation is not just about putting some numbers up on a board. That's not really what turns anybody on about this.

Wilderness conservation is about healthy ecosystems and the clean air and clean water that come from them. It's about opportunities for outdoor activity that contribute to human health and well-being, and it's about sustainable tourism that helps to support the economies of local communities close to many of these parks.

Urban and near-urban conservation is never going to put up the big numbers in terms of numbers of square kilometres that we conserve as a country, but their value, as I'm sure you recognize, is that these are places that people can reach, places that ordinary people can experience first-hand in terms of the healthy outdoor activity that can take place there or their opportunity to learn about the ecosystems and the conservation challenges they bring. Perhaps that's a beginning of a broader engagement with these areas that goes beyond their immediate neighbourhood.

Urban protected areas and the larger wilderness ones are both important, but we need to recognize they are different. They need to be managed to different standards—high standards in both cases, but it's not appropriate that they be the same.

Canada's national parks benefit from a law that requires they be managed to maintain or restore their ecological integrity as a first priority.

I don't know how many people really have a gut feel for what ecological integrity means, but one way of looking at it is that parks should be managed so that all of their native species are present in healthy populations and so that ecosystem processes like predator-prey relationships or natural fire regimes are working well.

The law sets a high bar for ecosystem-based park management, and it's considered a gold standard around the world. Sometimes achieving that standard just requires protecting what's there now, but often parks are in locations that have been degraded in one way or the other over time, and there's a need to restore them in some sense.

We think about Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, for example, where both bison and black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced in recent years. Doing that helps to restore the landscape as well, because landscape is adapted to being inhabited by bison. Parks Canada has also been using prescribed burns to restore the natural ecosystem in places where fire is normally a part of it.

That gold standard for ecological integrity in national parks is one that we are very committed to preserving. We believe that urban parks should be managed to a high standard as well, but we don't think that the same standard is either feasible or desirable, and frankly we wouldn't want to see the standard for those more traditional national parks eroded in order to have the same one. We think they need to be set deliberately at different levels.

We support the concept that national urban parks or conservation areas should be managed to maximize their ecosystem health rather than to maintain or restore their ecological integrity. We're not expecting that people are going to bring back caribou or wolves to the Rouge national urban park—it might be a little too interesting if they did that—but we think there's a lot that can be done to restore the biological and natural values of an ecosystem like that. We can restore the rivers and streams. We can replant native trees and plants. We can control invasive species. We can engage a broad range of partners, including young people, seniors, and first nations, to help with this work, and one of the things that struck me from visiting the Rouge last year was the volunteer involvement that there has been historically in that area, in both educational programs and in the restoration activities themselves.

To ensure that urban parks like the Rouge are able to protect and restore ecosystem health in the long term, the legislation for these new national urban parks needs to put conservation clearly as the first priority, but it has to be looked at differently from the way it would be in the traditional national parks. Given the enormous pressures that these places will face from urban development and the millions of people who will visit these small, fragile places, it's critically important that the laws governing them include a clear statement that human use will happen within the limits of maintaining and restoring ecosystem health.

Urban conservation areas can't be all things to all people. Too many people are going to want access to them. If they're going to retain their natural values, there has to be a focus on stewardship activities in order for these areas to be resilient.

When creating protected areas, whether in cities or in wilder parts of Canada, there are some other basic principles that need to be thought about. For example, is the area big enough to sustain populations of wildlife or the ecosystems in general? If you have tiny pockets, they're really just not viable from a biological standpoint. Is it connected to other areas so that populations can move back and forth? As with any species, it's important that there be outbreeding and that the populations not be genetically isolated. If the landscape is fragmented—if things like expressways run through the middle—what can we do to deal with that fragmentation?

Urban conservation areas can play a very important part as well in connecting new generations of Canadians to nature. I think that's something we're all aware of as an increasingly important priority, and one that locations like the Rouge can serve ideally with appropriate volunteer involvement as part of that effort. There's a bit more detail on that subject in the written submission, but I'll respect the limit on time and stop now.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

Thank you very much.

Next we'll hear from Ms. Lorrie Minshall, with the Grand River Conservation Authority.

You have 10 minutes.

3:40 p.m.

Lorrie Minshall Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority

Good afternoon.

I'm Lorrie Minshall, the water management plan director with the Grand River Conservation Authority. I'm here on behalf of Joe Farwell, our chief administrative officer, who is currently on vacation.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to provide input on urban conservation in the context of a national conservation plan.

The Grand River Conservation Authority is one of 36 conservation authorities in Ontario that manage water, forests, and other natural resources in the most populated areas of the province. We are, by definition, a partnership of the municipalities in a watershed for the management of water and natural resources across municipal boundaries.

Our watershed is located immediately to the west of the greater Toronto area, and it is the largest watershed in southern Ontario, about the size of Prince Edward Island.

There are 39 municipalities in the watershed, with a population of about one million people, most of whom live in the rapidly growing cities of Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, and Brantford. It's also one of the richest farming regions in Canada, with 70% of the area being actively farmed.

Seventy percent of the population get their water from groundwater wells and 30% of the population get theirs from the river system, making it the largest urban population in Canada that is reliant on groundwater and an inland river system for its water supply. At the same time, 30 municipal waste water treatment plants are discharging into this river system, so you can appreciate why it's so important that we work so hard to protect our water resources.

The Grand River Conservation Authority is the oldest water management agency in Canada. It was created more than 75 years ago, when the industry leaders of the watershed realized that they needed to work together to address the severe environmental issues of flooding, pollution, and inadequate water supplies.

We're now recognized leaders in integrated water management. In 2000, the GRCA received the International Thiess Riverprize for excellence in river management.

As a result, our river has undergone a remarkable recovery, which was highlighted in 1994 when the Grand River was the first river in a working landscape to be designated a Canadian heritage river.

Here are some of our experiences and our lessons learned.

We have assumed that urban conservation in this context means recognizing and valuing the ecological services that are provided by healthy natural systems and landscapes, and their contribution to economic prosperity in Canada; recognizing and valuing the social benefits of connecting Canadians to natural spaces, and their contribution to public health and wellness; and providing explicitly for access by all Canadians, including urban Canadians, to natural spaces.

After decades of turning their backs on the Grand, our cities and towns now see the river system as a community and economic asset to be valued and integrated into their long-range development plans. The river corridors are uniting cities through interurban trail networks that are giving people new ways to enjoy the Grand.

The reason for that success is clear. The GRCA and its many partners—the municipalities, the provincial and federal agencies, and others—have adopted an integrated, watershed-wide approach to managing our environmental assets.

This can be achieved at the Grand River watershed scale, as I have described, and also at the sub-watershed scale in the smaller streams and wetland systems within cities. Sub-watershed planning is a best practice in urban planning for growth and economic development.

Shifting, for the moment, to the topic of protected spaces, a protected space is, from our perspective, an area in public ownership where the primary goal is to maintain the natural ecosystem functions for which it is valued. However, in the working landscapes of southern Ontario, people need access to protected spaces for two reasons: because there is little enough natural space to meet the need and, perhaps more importantly, because that’s how people come to appreciate the resource.

However, providing access to protected spaces is not as simple as it sounds. Along with passive enjoyment can come overuse, safety hazards, and vandalism. In our experience, the biggest barrier to public access in protected spaces is the cost of maintenance required to achieve both goals.

At the same time, most of southern Ontario is in private ownership. The GRCA is a leader in the delivery of private landowners' stewardship programs and environmental education. Our long-standing rural water quality program has resulted in widespread uptake of best management practices among watershed farmers and has built an excellent working relationship among farmers, farm organizations, municipalities, and the conservation authority.

We have learned that the relationship-building at the heart of successful collaboration takes time and continuity. Canada's best value investment in collaborative stewardship should be in long-term programming. In this case, slow and steady wins this race.

In addition to working with landowners, the GRCA operates five nature centres where it provides outdoor recreation in a natural setting to 50,000 schoolchildren and families each year. Connecting kids to nature is critical because of the health benefits, of course, and to reverse the increasing urban disconnection from nature by introducing kids to nature at a young age.

We believe that the federal role in urban conservation is one of leadership. Create the vision and expectations for urban conservation and connecting urban Canadians with natural spaces, recognizing that the what and how will be specific to the varying local situations across the country. Promote the facts about ecological services and the public health and social benefits of natural spaces, especially in and around urban and urbanizing areas where there is the greatest pressure on them.

Pursue the science and transfer the knowledge to and among the local practitioners. We rely on you for science; we are not the scientists, we're the practitioners. The benefits of natural spaces—the ecological goods and services, the public health benefits, and the social benefits—are huge in relation to the cost. They are a best-value solution.

Integrate the goals and the principles of the national conservation strategy plan across other federal and cost-share programs. For example, recognize blue-green infrastructure or innovation in grey infrastructure in the infrastructure funding programs, and look to long-term stewardship and environmental education programming and support.

Thank you.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

Thank you very much.

Finally, we'll hear from Mr. Penner, with the City of Winnipeg.

You have 10 minutes.

3:50 p.m.

Rodney Penner City Naturalist, Naturalist Services, City of Winnipeg

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this study.

The City of Winnipeg, as an organization, recognizes the importance of conserving urban natural areas, takes a very active role in managing these areas, and works closely with the local community to improve them. Natural area management in Winnipeg ranges from significant areas such as Assiniboine Forest and the Living Prairie Museum to small stands of forest, creeks, and riverbank areas.

For us, urban conservation is tied to natural heritage. This would be loosely defined as plant and animal communities historically found in Winnipeg, with intact remnants of these communities being the most valuable. Our goal is not just to protect these areas against destruction but also to ensure they are managed in a way that both protects their biodiversity and makes them accessible for people to enjoy.

We also have a focus on environmental education and we work with local community or stewardship groups to enhance and maintain natural areas. Many natural areas have the ability to be focal points in their communities and a place where people walking the trails will actually greet one another. They can be a place not just of natural values but also of cultural connection. From our experience, we have found that working closely with community groups can be mutually beneficial. We provide ecological expertise and technical assistance, while they provide community desire for a project, volunteer muscle to get the project done, and the ability to raise additional funds.

Working hand in hand with community groups on local area maintenance or habitat restoration projects works well, but there are also challenges. One challenge that I would like to note is the type of funding normally associated with environmental stewardship projects. This is often short-term, project-related funding. While this is an incredibly useful source of funding at times, at times it does little to ensure the long-term success of a project, since most habitat restoration projects take more than one or two years to establish. Longer-term project funding that considers maintenance following the project would greatly benefit success of most restoration-type habitat projects.

As a goal of connecting with nature, I think every community should have access to nature, if not within their own neighbourhood, then at least through school programming. We have worked closely with a program called “bridging the gap” here in Winnipeg, which provides opportunities for inner-city kids to experience a hike in a natural area or do some gardening at their school. When I was growing up as a rural kid, we regularly took school field trips into the city for cultural events; it would be a great start if every urban child at least got a field trip to a local natural area at some point in their schooling. For some inner-city kids we have worked with, just seeing a large urban nature park can be a huge experience.

Another significant story I would like to include is that restoration has increased natural areas in Winnipeg's park spaces by over 100 hectares. Along with numerous funded and compensation projects, most new housing developments in Winnipeg have incorporated naturalized wetlands surrounded by native grasses and prairie restoration areas.

I would like to note that the economic value of natural areas is readily visible in these new development areas. There is generally no requirement that the landscape in these areas be naturalized, but local developers themselves have become proponents of this landscape and readily incorporate it within their marketing information.

In addition, these natural areas form ideal locations for nature trails and active transportation. This benefits both health, environment, and social interaction within the neighbourhood. Naturalized wetlands in these areas also have the ability to uptake nutrients, effectively reducing nutrient loads that eventually head downstream into Lake Winnipeg. The guiding mandate for our work is our city’s official plan document, titled “Our Winnipeg”. More specifically, the City of Winnipeg has an approved strategy, the ecologically significant natural lands strategy and policy.

Protection of land within Winnipeg generally takes two forms: the first is the designation as a city park, which requires two-thirds council majority to be disposed of; the second is the use of conservation easements on parcels of land still privately held, but with mutually agreed upon protection clauses.

Winnipeg's tree removal guideline also provides an avenue of protection by applying a value to trees needing to be removed for various reasons. This value is then used for replanting. As such, this method of natural capital calculation provides an incentive for protection, as well as a no-net-loss concept for reparation damage. Compensation requirements to meet no-net-loss principles have been used numerous times when natural areas have been damaged on City of Winnipeg parkland.

Our experience would suggest that urban conservation does not always mean it can simply be called protected and still maintain its quality as habitat and its biodiversity. Due to their generally small size and disturbance pressures, maintenance, management, and restoration requirements are often associated with ensuring protected areas do not become overwhelmed by other disturbance factors.

From our perspective, the federal government can and does play a valuable role in conservation of urban natural areas. One thing is a provision of youth internship employment funding and EcoAction grants. These are incredibly valuable. Providing support on numerous local issues through agencies like the Canadian Wildlife Service also greatly benefits our operations. Providing a level of habitat protection through acts such as the Fisheries Act and the Environmental Assessment Act is also important.

Some more thoughts for how the federal government can stay engaged and effective: consider opening a version of EcoAction funding to local municipal government and relaxing some of the reporting requirements and deadlines of EcoAction funding for local community groups. Many community groups experience burnout after completing the current EcoAction process.

Consider setting up a community stewardship funding program that is less project-based and more based on annual support for maintenance of conservation areas and general conservation-based activities.

Ensure funding for youth employment in conservation doesn’t get overlooked. Young Canada Works and HRSDC grants are very important. These grant programs are used to get work done and get young people recruited into future positions. Please keep these grants coming.

Don’t take away the big enforcement that a federal act provides. It can be a valuable tool at a local level when federal authorities work together with local authorities to protect habitat. Encourage the use of local level no-net-loss guidelines when it comes to habitat conservation. Support the setting up of local level habitat banking and natural capital protection through means such as Winnipeg's tree removal guidelines. Foster ways to keep staff in federal departments engaged with local conservation-related workers. Finally, mandate that educational opportunity should exist for every child to take a field trip to a conservation area.

Thanks a lot for letting me speak on this.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

Thank you, Mr. Penner.

Before we begin our seven-minute round of questioning, I want to remind the committee, and particularly the witnesses, that there is a seven-question scope. Each of you has received that. You may be tempted to go outside that scope, depending on the questions you're asked, but I encourage your answers to stay within the scope.

The seven questions are these: What is urban conservation? What could the goals be of connecting urban Canadians? What are the best practices? What urban conservation initiatives are currently in use, and what are the best practices and challenges for them? What are the biodiversity and social benefits associated with urban conservation? How do you define protected space? What role should the federal government play in urban conservation?

Keeping that in mind, Mr. Woodworth, you have the first seven minutes.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

Thank you very much.

My thanks to all the witnesses, and in particular to Mr. Penner. You were coming up with so many good ideas so quickly I was having trouble writing them all down. I know I have a written copy of your report, and I thank you for that.

Also, I want to welcome Ms. Minshall from the Grand River Conservation Authority to our committee today. I am very proud of and pleased with the work the GRCA has done in my backyard. I'm a regular user of the trails and have canoed the Grand, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate the work you do.

I'd like to start with that, because among other things I know our current population in this area of the Grand River is about 960,000 people and that we expect it will grow to about 1.4 million people over the next 30 years. I'm going to take a guess that in the last 30 years, it has probably doubled.

Could you give us some insight into what you would say have been the greatest keys to success for the Grand River Conservation Authority in preserving and restoring conservation in such a growing and enlarging urban area? What has enabled you to be so successful, and what do you think is most important in the future? Urban areas are expanding all across Canada, and I think they could learn from your experiences.

4 p.m.

Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority

Lorrie Minshall

I have to admit that setting the flood plains aside from development about 50 years ago after Hurricane Hazel—Hurricane Sandy is on its way—left us with a legacy of a natural river corridor connecting the cities through the watershed, but looking ahead, we are working now on a Grand River watershed water management plan. It's a joint plan among the municipalities in the watershed, the first nations, and the provincial and federal agencies that are connected with water and water quality management. It's a joint plan. We hope to have it finished in 2013.

The Grand has always been managed under a plan that allows the agencies and the municipalities to work together and look ahead at what's going to happen with this explosion of growth, for example, and make sure that our water quality can continue improving and that we can ensure sustainable water supplies in this watershed as well.

I mentioned the sub-watershed planning. All of the municipalities, the cities, since about the mid-eighties have been doing the sub-watershed plans--that's what we call them in Ontario--ahead of development. It's an opportunity to look at an area ahead of the community or secondary plans for development, and look for the opportunities to set these areas aside and connect them while accommodating growth in the area.

I think that has been really positive. Not only do we have the trail networks along the Grand, but we also have the trail networks in natural areas connecting into where people are living as well, connecting people more closely with nature.

All of our cities very aggressively pursue this approach, as the City of Winnipeg has been doing as well, with stormwater management plans to also look to these things in the old developed areas, the city areas that were developed before these things occurred. All of them have goals for 40% canopy cover in the city as well.

Our Grand River Conservation Foundation has also been working very hard with our industry, corporate, and private benefactors and has been pursuing an opportunity to do restoration work all over the watershed, with private assistance.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

If I could comment, all through your remarks you were speaking in terms of collaborations, not only between federal and provincial and local agencies but also across municipal boundaries and with private interests as well. May I take out of what you said that probably a collaborative approach among all stakeholders is one of the key elements to ensuring that we can plan ahead and preserve urban landscapes and near-urban landscapes?

4 p.m.

Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority

Lorrie Minshall

Absolutely. Our municipal partnership and their group partnership with others is very strong in the watershed. It really has been the key to success.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

I wondered if the GRCA actually had any mandated legislative powers to do this, or if it's all done by way of cooperation among various agencies and governments.

4 p.m.

Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority

Lorrie Minshall

The conservation authority exists as an institution. Its funding structure and those sorts of things are all set up under the Conservation Authorities Act in Ontario, so it is a sustained institution, so to speak. However, I would say that we are not doing all the collaborative work because we are under a regulation; it really is a joint proactive voluntary collaboration.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

Could you tell me what collaborations come to mind between GRCA and the federal government that have been working well?

4:05 p.m.

Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority

Lorrie Minshall

We have several.

Right now Environment Canada is working very closely with us on the water management plan, because we're looking not only at improving the water quality in the Grand but also its impact on Lake Erie. That's one of the things, and we've been working on that for many years.

We've been working with Agriculture Canada on the rural water quality program that I was talking about earlier, which promotes the environmental farm plan and builds on that. That has been a very long-standing partnership.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

Do those agencies provide expertise and scientific information for your work?

4:05 p.m.

Director, Water Management Plan, Grand River Conservation Authority

Lorrie Minshall

Yes, they absolutely do.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

Very good.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa

You have 28 seconds.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

I'll cede that then. I don't think I can ask anything in that time. Thank you very much.

Mr. Kent, I wasn't ignoring you; I wish I had more time to get to you.