Environment Committee on April 16th, 2013

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

The last question that was put to you was what type of stakeholders are involved in habitat conservation and how does it count for the total efforts in Canada.

More than 30 years ago there was the formation of the Canadian Environmental Network, which, to their credit, past governments had continued to support. That was important because in spite of the incredible work that the national-based organizations do, a huge load of the work has been done by local organizations on the ground, watch-dogging what's going on and doing cleanups, and so forth.

Do you think that the restoration of the federal funding for the Canadian Environmental Network could actually result in more constructive and informed input by local communities into federal decision-making on conservation of wildlife habitat?

[Ian Davidson]

It's interesting because we at Nature Canada are looking at a new strategy for the coming five to ten years, but when we look across the landscape what we don't see is this coming together of the naturalist organizations involved in various aspects of environment and nature conservation. In my humble opinion there is a need for something like the CEN. It did provide a valuable service to Canadians. It was a place where people could talk about those seminal issues in environment and nature conservation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Duncan.

Committee members, in the orders of the day, we've indicated that the next half hour will be for in camera committee business. From what I can see, there's not a lot of committee business to take care of, and given the interest in this topic, I'm suggesting that we move it to 10:30, which will allow for three more questioners. Is there general agreement with that? Okay.

So we're going to move then to Mr. Lunney.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank each of the participants for bringing important information to us today and for your long years of experience in conservation matters.

Mr. Ugarenko, regarding your remarks on behalf of Wildlife Habitat Canada, as Bob mentioned earlier, you gave credit to the fact that the original stakeholders who founded conservation movements and paid for the bulk of the habitat conservation were the anglers and hunters. I do appreciate that being underscored, because I think often it's lost in the debate.

I want to pick up on where Mr. Pilon was at with the question of beaches and migratory birds, but will take it to the west coast context where I am from. We have the great Brant goose migration returning along the coast there. We have shallow beaches on the east coast of Vancouver Island. I think it's been 14 or 15 years now that we've had a Brant goose celebration. With the public engagement in this, we wore out the volunteers for a couple of years, but it's really gone through revitalization. Everybody knows that there are no dogs allowed on the beach during the Brant migration. We don't want to disturb the birds while they're feeding; we know how important that is. They have art shows and carving shows. We have the Vancouver Island University engaged, and BC Nature is there. We're doing herring spawn tours, looking at the birds that are out there feeding on the herring spawn, and then the ones that come 10 or 12 days later to feed on the young herring fry—I mean the newly hatched, if we want to call them that. It's quite an amazing event on the coast, and the public is really engaged at every level.

I wanted to underscore how important it is for all of us to engage people at the grassroots level. I think that was said by Mr. Davidson—and I want to echo Michelle's remarks here, in that we thank you for being here when you going through a significant family issue this morning.

But you mentioned also that you were going to speak to a naturalist group here in the Ottawa Valley. I wanted to say how important this grassroots engagement is, and I want to throw that back to you and ask if it's not important for everybody—for the government and our large organizations—to engage people at the grassroots level, and how can we encourage people at that level to do more?

[Len Ugarenko]

That's an excellent question. Wildlife Habitat Canada has actually been funding the Brant goose festival for a number of years, and we've watched the number of participants increase. Our funding from Environment Canada is restricted under the contribution agreement we get. Of the money we get, 95% has to go to North American waterfowl management projects, and the focus is supposed to be on wetlands and waterfowl.

What we've done since I've arrived at Wildlife Habitat Canada is to put in a grant category of networking. It's a blanket kind of category where small and large groups such as the Brant festival that you have out there in B.C., such as the cows and fish folk in Alberta, and other groups that don't have a lot of cash can apply for a grant.... They don't have to put money in; they put in-kind activities in. It engages the community, and we've been tracking for the past few years the number of people who are involved in these kinds of community projects, and they're increasing. As the word is spreading, these groups are realizing that Wildlife Habitat Canada can assist them with the activities that are going on.

We fund—or did fund, for a time—the important bird areas work that Ian's conservation organization was doing, specifically with community works in important bird areas. We're seeing more and more individuals coming and setting up waterfowl heritage days for young kids. They're teaching them for a week. There's a marsh watch program down in Port Rowan. The kids are out there and they're learning about hunting, fishing, biodiversity, and interactions. It started with about 50 students, and they're close to 500 now. We encourage that. I think that's the way the message is going to spread.

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

Thank you very much.

How much time is left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

About 20 seconds.

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

Oh boy.

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

I had another direction I wanted to take it, but I think I'll let it go.

[Ian Davidson]

To reiterate a point that I made earlier, I think it's really critical to engage the non-traditional people in the business of habitat conservation, or conservation in general. We need to get out there and engage our youth. We also need to be engaging new Canadians, and, obviously, first nations and aboriginal communities, in this. They are the first naturalists after all, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Madame Quach.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to pick up on what Mr. Davidson just said.

You mentioned engaging young people, first nations communities and so forth. In my riding, we have the Réserve nationale de faune du lac Saint-François, a national wildlife area. More money is being sought from the federal government to raise awareness among the residents there, and members of the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, which is nearby. Both of those organizations, including the people of Akwesasne, want to put on more activities involving the public. The goal is to bring in more tourists and to raise more awareness around conservation by establishing non-motorized activities given the proximity to the water.

Mr. Hazell, you talked a lot about tools we no longer have and tools the government should acquire to conserve more habitats and meet the Aichi targets we aren't meeting now.

In your view, what should the government add to its toolbox, as far as standards and partnerships go, to achieve a better habitat conservation rate?

[Stephen Hazell]

I think the best tool the federal government has is to provide a little bit of money. A little bit of money goes an awfully long way when you're talking about the naturalists' communities or the angler and hunter communities. They don't need much money to do an incredible amount of work. In some cases, I think Nature Canada gives $50 or $100 to a naturalist and this motivates a great group to do good conservation work such as monitoring piping plover habitat on beaches so we don't have ATVs zooming back and forth during the breeding season.

So small amounts of money can do an awful lot of good. There are lots of good ways in which the federal government has been involved in a number of programs, and Len has talked about a few of them. I think that's the key because it's hard for the federal government to engage at a local level in a particular conservation issue, or a beach, or whatever it might happen to be. That is one way, and by working through the not-for-profit community, if you're looking for bang for your buck, that is a good way to go.

We've also said that Parks Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Service have got very important roles because they manage huge amounts of land, but I think that working with the local not-for-profit organizations and providing a little bit of funding can go a long way.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Wareham, you mentioned a federal strategy to achieve the targets agreed to under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The environment commissioner's last report shows that measures were not put in place.

What does your strategy include to meet those targets? Is it a matter of more expert consultation, among other things? Or is there another approach?

[Bill Wareham]

No, I think one of the key elements is engaging the broad suite of people who need to be involved in the realization of those conservation goals, including provincial governments, non-governmental organizations of many different stripes and different interests, and in some cases municipal and regional district governments as well. On the convening power and function of the federal government, that's where I agree with Stephen that a little money can go a long way.

A strategy that is hanging off a vision, a publicly stated vision and commitment to meet those targets, can go a long way. Then it's about having the federal government finance and engage their agencies in convening those broad groups of people who will, in the end, be needed to realize it. First nations, provincial governments, and federal governments often have to agree in a trilateral way to protect a certain area. When the dialogue isn't there, when there is no vision and no objective and the dialogue doesn't happen, we're stalled. That's where it is right now. We are stalled in so many places when there's creative energy, good science, good will, and good information on the table about what needs to be done. It's just not moving, so I think the federal government needs to take that leadership role, paint the vision, invest in convening those dialogues, and commit to the broad stakeholder engagement that will realize those lasting outcomes. Without that—and I've been working on the marine environment similarly, or on freshwater conservation issues where we have lost that convening opportunity—it really halts progress.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Wareham and Madame Quach.

Our last questioner will be Mr. Storseth, please.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming forward today.

Mr. Davidson, you mentioned the northern boreal caribou, predominantly affected in northeast Alberta, in my part of the country.

As Mr. Wareham was just saying, having four different levels of government agree to priorities can be somewhat cumbersome. Which level of government would you recommend be the one to engage on this? Would it be the feds, the province, or...?

[Stephen Hazell]

In Alberta, the Alberta government has the primary responsibility for managing woodland caribou. For the provinces, that's their thing. It's complicated by the Species at Risk Act and the fact that the woodland caribou, such as the caribou in northeastern Alberta, is a listed species under SARA. The federal government does get involved to the extent that it develops recovery strategies and that sort of thing.

So there has to be a bit of a dialogue, but the provincial government really is the on-the-ground manager. The Energy Resources Conservation Board regulates oil and gas activity, and that's really what is affecting woodland caribou the most. It's the fragmentation of habitat from the incredible number of survey lines and pipelines.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

That's where I'd like to go next. So then it's the survey lines, it's the traffic, it's the noise: those are some of the concerns you would have with the woodland caribou in northeastern Alberta and the interruption of their breeding grounds. Those are the concerns you have?

[Stephen Hazell]

As I understand it, that's the fundamental concern, because woodland caribou is very sensitive to these linear developments for all sorts of reasons. They're corridors for predators, etc., I think primarily, but also, woodland caribou don't like to cross roads.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

What about the 2,000-pound bombs and the supersonic jets that have been flying over that area for 50-plus years? Is that not having an impact on their breeding grounds?

[Stephen Hazell]

I hadn't heard that. I can't comment on that.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

It is the largest air weapons range in the world, that area.

[Stephen Hazell]

Is this around Cold Lake you're talking about? I'm not familiar with the—

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

It's Primrose Lake and all that area in northeast Alberta.

The other question I would have, then, is in regard to first nations and your no net loss policy. One of the big things that's happening in that part of Alberta is that first nation communities are actually developing a lot of the natural resources with their own companies and businesses.

If we're not going to have any loss of habitat, would you suggest that first nations should not be allowed to do this, or should be responsible to offset any development they have by creating rehabilitating somewhere else?