Environment Committee on April 18th, 2013

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Can you give us examples of incentives that you would like to see? Make your wish list to this committee, please.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Incentives framed within a conservation agreement would be things like money to help somebody who can't otherwise pay for it to change their regime; reduce the headage, the number of cattle per hectare; change the timing.... Because they have a mortgage and a bank account, someone has to help this person out with their annual budget in order to modify their practices. So financial incentives of course are the big one. If you want to be very specific, that's the most powerful one.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I want it as specific as you can. So, financial incentives—do you have any other incentives you want to make to this committee? This is your wish list. The committee wants to hear your recommendations.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

I'll just stay focused.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay.

Can you give the committee your definition of what adaptive management means? I understand that this is one of your recommendations.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

The simple version to me is an agreed plan for the management of human activities, which, collectively, is monitored and reviewed regularly and adjustments are made in light of the information you're gathering. Essentially, you hold hands and sign in blood, and say, okay, that's how we're going to manage things in that area. We're going to adapt when things change. It could climate, it could species distribution, or it could be some new economic resource that wasn't understood at the beginning. That's what adaptive management is about, generally.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

You talked about a two-pronged approach. Being as specific as you can in your recommendation to the committee, can you talk about these networks and cumulative adverse impacts? This is your wish list.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

In the 1990s, Canada was committed to having a representative network of terrestrial and freshwater areas across the country for all the reasons laid out. Canada got about one third of the way there. My wish would be that the network of representative high-conservation-value areas—well planned, with greater certainty for economic development in between—be completed for the other two thirds of the land and freshwater, and for our enormous marine shelf. At this point, the exercise hasn't even started. That is the smart way to go; complete that network on the basis that was set up in the 1990s.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

That is, to actually follow through on the commitments on terrestrial and marine protected areas?

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Excellent.

Thank you.

What about cumulative adverse impacts?

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Because that's a reality, the strategic environmental assessment tool—there's a cabinet directive refreshed in 2010 here. It's used in Europe extensively and there are equivalent things in the U.S.A. That needs to be done to incorporate projected cumulative impacts beyond the present. The strategic part is essentially your multi-values plan for the future. If Canada completed those for all of its biomes, future generations would not be experiencing such great risk.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Is one of your recommendations to look at cumulative impacts?

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Within the frame of strategic environmental assessment, yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Chief Louis, I think you've been clear. You're saying SARA should be implemented. Is that correct? Is it your recommendation that SARA be implemented?

[Chief Byron Louis]

In its entirety?

The Species at Risk Act has mechanisms to deal with that. The thing about that is, at the end of the day, it still requires a political decision to be made on a listing of species, which as long as it's followed through with each stage or step of the Species at Risk Act, should be fairly straightforward in that decision.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Just implement it. I appreciate that.

Mr. Ewins, I have one last question.

In a recent report by Ecojustice, “Failure to Protect: Grading Canada's Species at Risk Laws”, which argues that governments have failed to implement the tools they need to protect endangered species in their habitat, no jurisdiction received a mark higher than a C.

Would you also agree that SARA needs to be implemented?

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Ms. Duncan.

Now we're going to Madam Quach, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming here today to impart your wisdom on the subject of habitat conservation.

My first question is for Mr. McNeely.

You discussed how you define habitat. The notion includes the sustainable use of land resources with consideration for the limits of those resources.

You also discussed the devastating impact of Canada's withdrawal from a number of international agreements. One of those is the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which addresses countries that are severely affected by drought and/or desertification, particularly those in Africa.

On Tuesday, a conference that brought together numerous experts was held. The topics of discussion included climate change, the two-degree-Celsius increase in global temperature and its effects on food security.

In your view, how does Canada's withdrawal from certain international agreements undermine habitat conservation and security in that regard, which affects humans, nature and all aspects of life?

[Joshua McNeely]

We will lose our glorious past. In the 1960s and 1970s, we had people such as Maurice Strong; we had Jim MacNeill and others—Canadian ministers and diplomats and advisers—promoting and indeed starting the international movement on biodiversity and environment.

Pulling out of conventions now, when the talks start to get tough, is sending a very strong signal that Canadians don't care about the environment. That's not true: we do care, very strongly, about the environment. So it damages us as a people, and we become lesser as a result of it. We lose our worth and our merit at the international level.

These conventions and these convention bodies are a lot more than just pieces of paper. They are a discourse and a dialogue, of humankind trying to avert “the scourge of war” and the denial of people and the removing of people's merit and worth. These are in the preambular words to the United Nations charter. That's the reason they are there.

This is a matter of great concern to us as aboriginal peoples, because we are part of the international community as well. Our environment suffers from it also, because our environment in Canada is part of the world environment. We have three oceans. We have massive bays. We have three mountain ranges. We have massive rivers. We have the second largest country in the world. People look to Canada.

How can we expect a little country in Central America or in Africa or in a Pacific island to do something, when they have no resources and we are sitting on top of the richest deposits and forests and waters in the world and are pulling out? We don't think that is right.

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

Thank you.

My second question is for Mr. Ewins.

You talked a lot about the need for a long-range outlook and smart plans, an approach that includes environmental assessments. How do you think Bill C-38 and Bill C-45, two omnibus bills introduced in the House, could change the various pieces of legislation addressing habitat conservation?

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

I don't claim to know all of the details of those two bills, but in general I think they add significant further challenges to what already has been a pretty lacklustre implementation of past commitments. They would make it even harder to achieve what we are after, which is greater certainty.

I'm not saying it's impossible. I think many of the initiatives at the local, regional level, including aboriginal land claim agreement settlement areas, are great examples of people working together with long-term sustainability and conservation in mind, and with significant say, through the co-management process, concerning planning and deciding on long-term things. Just because there's one economic project there right now.... Of course, our industrialized urban society is in a big rush.

Even if you were not to have environmental assessment, I think local people—and certainly my organization and I personally—will continue to push the point that the long-term considerations are absolutely paramount, ideally framed by a vision and a plan at the ecosystem level.

Some things are possible despite such bills as Bill C-38 or Bill C-45, I think. I'm an optimist.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Ewins, Madame Quach.

Mr. Lunney.