Environment Committee on Nov. 28th, 2012

[Tovah Barocas]

Old Man on His Back conservation area.

[Peter Kendall]

They went to see the herd they helped to protect. It was a great experience for the child and the family.

Doing a project in an urban area like the Rouge would provide a great opportunity for the kids to actually see the projects they are helping out with.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

That's wonderful. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you.

Ms. Rempel, you have five minutes.

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

I'm going to let Mr. Toet finish his line of questioning.

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

Thank you very much. That's appreciated.

It allows me to get back to the question I had started with Mr. Savard in regard to the community involvement, not only with the completed project but as part of building that project. How important do you feel that part of it was for the community, and also for the upkeep and the care of that project today, that they were involved in actually building it?

[Robert Savard]

Yes, if we carry out a project, it is very important to have people participate, because the project will belong to them afterwards and we will not have any trouble maintaining the locations.

I'll give you an example. Before, children would throw paper all over the schoolyard. Now, with garbage cans, they don't throw anything in the schoolyard because it's their schoolyard. They have taken over the work that was done. The project increased respect for the environment. This year, they asked for recycling. We installed composters.

When we get them to participate, they understand much better. They learn and they respect things. There isn't even any vandalism. Normally, there would be much more of it. Citizens walk in the park in the evening. I've seen parents play basketball and soccer with their children. We didn't see that before. There was nothing. The community took over the park.

I think it's the best thing we can do for the children. There's theory and there's practice. Schoolyards like this one have an environmental vocation. It's their laboratory. They really see and feel the difference when we pay attention to the environment. If we get them interested in the project, they pay attention and respect it much more.

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

Thank you.

I'm also a huge proponent of bottom up rather than top down and the heavy hand saying that this is how we're going to do it. Bottom up is what you say. Now the children are coming forward and saying they want recycling, and they want to enhance it rather than that they're okay with the status quo. That's what happens when they're involved.

Mr. Kendall, I was really intrigued by several comments you made in your presentation. One was that “to drive long-term change, programs need to have very direct outcomes, and we need to do a better job of celebrating success”.

One of the things we quite often seem to think is that the bigger the process and the more the process, the more we're being successful. You really get down to brass tacks in saying that the outcome is what's important, and you ultimately celebrate that outcome. I'd like to expand a little bit on how you see that outcome being so critical and important. It's not so much the process. The process obviously gets us the outcome, but it's the outcome we have to focus on. You made a bit of a comment about the negative messaging and that we actually have so much to be proud of as Canadians.

I'd love you to expand a little bit on that and on why you see it that way.

[Peter Kendall]

In answer to the first question, this came out of the large study we did with kids. At the time, our program was called the Power of One. It was all about small actions aggregating to make a big difference. What the kids told us was that they understood that, but they wanted to help that animal over there and they wanted a very specific outcome for that animal. That's what kind of led us into this new program of getting the kids involved directly in the conservation projects.

Within those projects themselves, because we're dealing with children, it's important for us to take on projects where we can almost guarantee the outcomes. Through the process, we're reporting to the kids on the progress of the project they're getting involved with. We want to celebrate that success. This is a way we look at counteracting a lot of the negative messaging they're getting at school and through the news right now. Our program is really about celebrating how, when we all work together, we can make a difference for animals and for the environment, and how critical it is that we are working together on these things.

In terms of celebrating success and being proud of being a Canadian, there are some of those things I mentioned. One example is the first parks service in the world. There are 12.4 million hectares of protected area in this country. It's fantastic. It's not all back in history. Even within the last five years, the amount of land we have put aside and conserved is world-leading. We've put together partnerships in this country. The current initiative on the boreal forest was in collaboration with NGOs and industry. These are globally significant areas and globally significant partnerships. We're really leading here in Canada, and we should be proud of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Duncan, you have five minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to come back to Mr. Kendall.

Should energy-efficient and nature-friendly modes of transportation be encouraged within urban parks?

[Peter Kendall]

I think it's a good idea. If we're talking about urban conservation as more than just setting aside land, as how we interact with the environment in all aspects of our lives, then it's a great example.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Now I'm going to ask the same thing. Should energy-efficient and nature-friendly modes of transportation be encouraged for travel to urban parks? Encouraged.

[Peter Kendall]

I'm not sure how you'd do that practically, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

I'll ask each of you.

Mr. Kendall, what would be your top three recommendations to this committee?

I'll ask all of you: if you haven't given a recommendation, what is your wish list for this committee? Anyone? Ones you haven't said—and be as specific as you can so that we can get this report right and hopefully honour some of your requests.

[Andréanne Blais]

If I speak, it may help my cough.

I am thinking about one of our first recommendations. If we want to have urban conservation, we need incentives. In Canada, there is a certain amount of public land, but a lot of it is above the 60th parallel. So these areas are not in urban centres. There is a lot of private land in urban centres. So if we want to conserve land without resorting to expropriation, we need to develop conservation incentives.

One of our recommendations has to do with ecological gifts, which is related to your federal program. Our recommendation also focuses on municipal incentives so that conservation does not just depend on what the citizen pays in property tax, but is also based on funds that could come from the government. So there is a recommendation that involves the ecological gifts program, which could take into account more conservation incentives, especially at the municipal level.

I would also like to talk about your EcoAction community funding program. Earlier, we mentioned that there wasn't enough money for project planning. The EcoAction community funding program should be supported.

[Peter Kendall]

In thinking about the question, I would try to think that if you could only do one thing, what would you do? There was some talk earlier of funding for energy efficiency programs. The scale of the problem is so large that any funding program is only going to make a tiny dent. Where you can have the most impact is I think in working with the provinces and the municipalities on setting higher bars for energy efficiency and for conservation within local planning laws and within local building codes. If I could focus on one thing, that's what I would do.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

What would your specific recommendation be to the committee, Mr. Kendall?

[Peter Kendall]

I guess it would be to work with the provinces and municipalities, where appropriate, on raising the bar on energy efficiency standards in transportation, in buildings, and in land planning.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Does Mr. Husk have time to respond?

[John Husk]

If I may—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

You have 10 seconds.

[John Husk]

I gave you an English copy of my document, which indicates in section 1.1, under “Municipal powers”, that the federal government must use its “buying power”. Money speaks. If the government doesn't want to fund infrastructure outside and encourage urban sprawl, then don't do it, and that's what's going to happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much.

We'll begin our third round of questioning.

Because of time restraints, you will have four and a half minutes each.

Mr. Sopuck, for four and a half minutes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Kendall, I'm a fairly new MP; I've been around for a couple of years. I come from a farm, but I'm spending a lot of time in Ottawa now. I'm very impressed with Ottawa as a city in terms of, for want of better words, its conservation planning and programming. Is Ottawa a kind of model, in your view, if you know enough about the city...?