Evidence of meeting #67 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 protected.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Protected Area Establishment and Conservation, Parks Canada
I believe the park you're referring to is not under the jurisdiction of Parks Canada. It's not a national park. That being said, I couldn't answer why those funds have been cut.
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
In fact, I could put the question to Mr. McLean. I think it is actually a wildlife service that is managed by Environment Canada.
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
With our national wildlife areas in the province of Quebec, we definitely have several “friends of” the national wildlife areas. We operate the agreements to which you refer on a cost-recovery basis, so the funding is aligned with the level of activity that's happening within the national wildlife areas.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Your time is up. Thank you, Madame Quach.
We'll move on to Mr. Woodworth for seven minutes.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for attending.
If I may, I'll just try to pick up on that very last point you mentioned, Mr. McLean. Funding is aligned with the level of activity going on. May I take from that that if there happens to be a period of less activity, the funding will be reduced accordingly? Is that what you were getting at?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
Yes, it is.
The additional comment that perhaps I should have made is that we have a different management objective with our protected areas system. Parks Canada is very much focused on the public aspect. We certainly have our national wildlife areas open to the public, but we manage for the conservation outcome. We're not, except in two or three of our national wildlife areas, actively promoting visitation, so the funding is appropriate to the management needs of the protected area.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
If I could put that in my own words once again, may I take it from what you're saying that if a management goal is achieved, then the funding directed toward that would dissipate and you'd go on to other things? Is that the idea?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
Yes.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you.
I was very intrigued by your remarks about the challenge “in collecting and making information about habitat accessible on a scale and in a form that's practical for conservation planning and implementation at the 'working landscape' level”, and that there were “promising developments in new programs and online geospatial tools that will help”.
It reminded me of conversations I had with witnesses in a former study at this committee, particularly from Nova Scotia, about the fact that there are a lot of local partners and groups across the country that have a lot of good information about habitat and critical habitat, but it's all in private hands and there isn't a single place to access it.
I remember one idea that was particularly striking to me that a witness had, that perhaps the government could promote and sponsor a kind of habitat Wikipedia, where you could have people inputting this information, subject to government verification.
Anyway, I'm not sure that's what you're talking about when you refer to online geospatial tools, but I'd be grateful if you could expand a little bit on what it is you are referring to there.
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
I'm alluding to several things. The first step in making information available to people is actually putting into a database information on where the species are and the kind of habitat a species might be using. We need more sophisticated systems, and technology is going to help us achieve that so that people can search the information. I don't think it's one data source; rather, it's a system that's able to mine the data wherever it is in the Internet. Then if you were a farmer, with the right GIS coordinates—geographic information system coordinates—you'd be able to search information that relates to your farm and understand what species you have on that.
The one initiative I would mention federally is the federal geospatial platform initiative. There's also work around earth observation and geomatics as that work continues to progress. Again, I think the technically inclined would refer to them as the appropriate data layers that then can be accessed by people. People are actively working on these systems. Other departments, Natural Resources Canada in particular, would have the lead on that.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
That's the geospatial platform initiative. That would be Natural Resources Canada?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
Yes.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you.
I was also just wanting to get a few more details about some of the players involved in the programs you mentioned. In particular, you mentioned the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas. Is that a federal government sponsored council or a completely private council? Who composes it? Could you tell me a little bit more about it?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
The council is made up of federal, provincial, and territorial agencies responsible for the management of protected areas. It includes both representatives from national parks and provincial parks, but also other systems, such as ecological reserves in the province of British Columbia, our own national wildlife areas. There are about 15 or 16 government agencies, federally and provincially, that participate in that, plus key non-government organizations such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Nature Canada, and a couple of others that I'm not recalling off the top of my head.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
May I assume that group would have a website that would tell me who is chairing it and what their current projects are?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
Yes.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Okay. Thank you.
I also noticed in your remarks reference to local partners regarding the North American waterfowl management plan. I come from southern Ontario. I'd be interested in knowing whether or not that management plan has been active in southern Ontario and who the local partners might be. I don't know if that's something you would have at your fingertips. Is it? If not, where might I find that information?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
The plan is very active in Ontario. There's something we call the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture that covers from Ontario east. Within Ontario there is the North American Waterfowl Management Plan Committee of federal, provincial, and non-government organizations. Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada are active in that forum. There will be other, more local organizations as well. I don't have the full list of conservation organizations that would be involved, but it's active. It's alive and well and accomplishing good things.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you, Mr. Woodworth. We're just at the end of your time. You had about 10 seconds, but we're going to move on to Mr. Regan.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Let me start with Mr. McLean, if I may.
One of the things you talked about in your opening comments was the protection of landscape and the protection of species. You used the phrase “natural areas...within agricultural areas and managed forests”.
What do you define as “natural areas”? I'm thinking that often with forest management and replanting, tree planting and so forth, you have a lot of uniformity in what's planted, although there can be mixes sometimes, obviously. In that sense, what does the department define as a natural area?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
In the forest sector, companies now are planning over long time horizons—100 or 200 years—so they're managing for a diversity of habitat or forest stages. Those will change over time. Those areas might be natural and not cut. There might be other areas that are coming back online, if you will, as habitat areas. So I see it as a more dynamic system within forest ecosystems.
In agricultural landscapes, some land is turned and cropped annually, but there's much other land within agricultural landscapes, from wetlands to some forested areas, such as the Carolinian forests in southern Canada. Those are the natural areas I'm thinking about.
If I move to the Canadian prairies, there's much native prairie, as I mentioned in my remarks, that landowners are actively protecting and conserving and using. They have controlled grazing to maintain the native prairie, but also to maintain the economic activity on their lands.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
How long would an area have to be undisturbed to be considered a “natural area” in this sense? What I'm thinking of again is that if there's been engineering to determine what gets planted and so forth, that's not the same as what I think of as a natural area. Obviously the fact that forestry companies are doing more engineering with different species is positive, but it still isn't the same as natural. So how do you define that?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
For me it would include both. I think about the outcome people want from the habitat. So whether it's natural and untouched or it has been through a process of development, perhaps, with permanent cover put back on the land, what is that land producing? Is it sustaining the species people want to sustain within their area, within their backyard, so to speak? Both undisturbed habitat and habitat that was developed and has been restored can count as a natural area. What is important is what it produces.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
If people want to preserve local species, should I be concerned that those would not include some other species that might be important as well? I guess a better way to put it is, why shouldn't I be concerned?
Executive Director, Wildlife Program Policy, Department of the Environment
Habitat doesn't provide for only one species. For example, if I take the pronghorn antelope, it might be the species one would speak about with a rancher with respect to conservation activity on the land. If that rancher conserves the native prairie, there are many outcomes from the native prairie, from water quality to bird outcomes for the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada and so on.
So there can be multiple outcomes from using a focal species that really give an incentive to people to conserve habitat.