Environment Committee on April 18th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

I'd like to call meeting number 69 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to order.

I want to welcome our guests. We have with us this morning, Chief Byron Louis, representative of the Okanagan Indian Band. I checked with him and he said his name is indeed pronounced with an s at the end. I'm glad to clarify that.

We also have William David, senior policy analyst for environmental stewardship. We have, from the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council, Josh McNeely, executive director of Ikanawtiket. Finally, from the World Wildlife Fund Canada, we have Mr. Peter Ewins, senior species conservation specialist.

I want to welcome our witnesses to the table today. We'll begin with the Assembly of First Nations, and we'll open with Chief Byron Louis.

[Chief Byron Louis, Representative, Chief, Okanagan Indian Band, Assembly of First Nations]

Good morning, everyone.

I'm here on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations. One of the questions we were looking at is how the national conservation plan can complement or enhance habitat conservation.

There were previous submissions by the AFN on the national conservation plan, which focused on the relationship between conservation, first nations, traditional knowledge, and customary and sustainable use of biological resources. Specifically, the AFN's main point was for the NCP to be successful, the AFN recommended three points. First, we need involvement at national, regional, and community levels to ensure a coordinated approach—that's a very important point. Second, we need opportunities to apply and share traditional knowledge and practices through our traditional territories. Third, the NCP should encourage a rights-based approach to first nation partnership with industry, NGOs, etc.

Within this context, we would like to address the following topics. The first one has to do with the most effective groups and organizations. The most effective groups and organizations are those that engage a broad variety of interests, that are driven by first nations, and that allow the application of traditional knowledge by first nations. The other one is to provide a space for customary and sustainable use exercises: harvesting rights by first nations, resource users, conservation, and protecting habitat without singling out individual species for special consideration. One of the most important things is the use of the right tools in the right situations so that environmental economic benefits and burdens are distributed fairly to ensure positive environmental and economic outcomes. That came from the report on the national conservation plan.

When we look at defining conserved lands, one of the things is the issue of working landscapes. It's very important to look at this issue, especially in a first nations context. When we're looking at the amount of lands available to first nations—this is using old data—or talking about a working landscape for first nations, there's an average of 1,176 hectares, which is the average size of a reserve in Canada. When we're talking about needs for economic, social, and cultural use, this is a fairly small land base. Conservation has been proven, under the current regime, to affect our ability to effectively use those lands.

The other part is looking at conserved lands versus conserved species. First nations' traditional knowledge-holders have long advocated the importance of habitat protection as a key strategy to preserve and enhance ecological integrity. One of the things that's absolutely critical is that the NCP recognize the difference between conserving habitat and conserving species.

Specific protection initiatives that do not provide for protection of habitat are unlikely to succeed. What we mean by that is that you can't look on a land base and protect one single species; you have to look at it in the context of a whole unit. If you're only protecting fish, you can't avoid the other species. In British Columbia, you look at birds, bears, other mammals, all uses. In this particular instance, you can't specifically look at protecting one single species.

The other part is the question of first nation management versus prescriptive federal action for species recovery—habitat versus species. The government must show a willingness to work with all Canadians, using a proper set of tools and rights and circumstances, in order for conservation efforts to succeed.

Collaboration is not an option but a necessity, and the government must promote and support it. This came under section 30 in the national conservation plan. This is true, especially when you're looking at things like conservation in the context of the Species at Risk Act.

One of the things in the Species at Risk Act is that how it's been used and how it's applied are two different things. When you're looking at application in British Columbia, there are instances where the act is partially applied to the detriment of first nations' economic use. This came up in the instance of the Osoyoos Indian Band. One of the things in there was a failure to use specific pieces of the Species at Risk Act. They protected the area but they didn't provide adequate compensation to that particular first nation when they were developing their lands. It resulted in a loss of nearly 80% of the most productive lands that were available to that community specifically for development.

There's another instance in there, but that's not the only one. When you're looking at the use of these prescriptive measures, you know what they are. You can't just pick and choose which one applies and which one we're not going to apply. It has to be done in a full sweep. SARA does apply a number of useful tools, many of which are more useful if the act is completely implemented. When you're looking at that act, it took a lot of work. A lot of different first nations that actually worked on that through the aboriginal working group. There was a lot of specific...from the start to the finish of the act. It can work but it has to be followed.

Again, you just can't use specific pieces of it to meet whatever objective. If it's conservation, you can't overlook the economic components of land development, especially on reserve lands and especially when you're looking at an average reserve size of 1,174 hectares. That does not give you a lot of room to actually work with. It's more important to look at how the relationship is going to exist, especially in terms of conservation with regional, municipal, provincial and also federal. It has to be a partnership or else it's simply not going to work. You cannot put the conservation burden on a single part of society and expect success, either in the conservation or in the ability of those people to actually succeed economically or socially.

Another one in there is that the recovery strategy for species at risk needs to include direct communication with the first nations that will be impacted most, as it was with the boreal caribou recovery strategies. Many communities were not notified and were unable to participate in the recovery strategy. Again, when you're looking at sustenance and changes to that, you just can't drop it on people and expect them to be able to accept or participate in whatever is being planned.

Improvement on how first nations are involved in the habitat conservation in Canada is required specifically to protect Canada's most endangered ecosystems and biodiversity hot spots.

Funding for the invasive alien species partnership program was terminated in 2012. There's one thing that should be understood. When first nations look at alien invasive species, we take the position that anything that preys, displaces, or competes against an indigenous species is an infringement of our aboriginal rights. The result can be either curtailment of that activity or extinction of a native species. It is very important that invasive alien species programs continue, especially for that reason, because they do actually infringe upon our rights.

Improving habitat conservation.... First nations' role in habitat conservation derives from constitutionally protected, inherent aboriginal rights and title, and that's supported. Again, when you're looking at species conservation, there is an aboriginal rights' component that is attached to that, and more specifically, if this species goes extinct, that's an extinguishment of the right. That's been identified under numerous court cases, with regard to having a very rigid process for the extinguishment of a right. I think that needs to be looked at, especially when you're dealing with conservation, planning, or protection.

Policies and practices need to be in place to ensure ITK and ATK are promoted, integrated, and protected. There are a number of examples of how indigenous traditional knowledge is actually applied.

On the west coast of Vancouver Island, you have raised clam beds that go back 5,000 years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You're actually out of time. If you could begin to wrap up quickly.

[Chief Byron Louis]

I can do that.

With regard to how the national conservation plan will complement or enhance conservation, I think I'll have to end by saying that first nation involvement at national regional community levels is important. Having not only first nations participating but also regional and provincial governments in conjunction with federal initiatives is very important because conservation will not succeed without these. Whether it's from habitat corridors to planning or for economic or social needs, it's very important and that needs to be underlined.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Chief Louis.

I apologize that we're out of time, but maybe you can weave some of the concluding comments into the responses to questions later on in the presentation.

We'll move now to Mr. Joshua McNeely, executive director of Ikanawtiket.

[Joshua McNeely, Ikanawtiket Executive Director, Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council]

Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, committee members, for inviting the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council to speak on the very important matter of complementing and enhancing habitat conservation in Canada through a national conservation plan.

Mr. Chair, please forgive me for forcing you to attempt to say Ikanawtiket. That is a Mi’kmaq word for a leader's path toward environmental respect.

I apologize for not being able to provide my seven-page brief in advance. However, it has been delivered to the clerk for translation. I also have with me two books that have already been distributed, which are a more detailed submission on the subject matter. Those were made to the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity this past October in Hyderabad, India. English and French copies have been delivered to the clerk for distribution.

On our website, www.mapcorg.ca, you can also find several other submissions on very similar topics, such as the implementation of the Species at Risk Act. Unfortunately, I do not have hard copies of those to distribute today.

I'm here representing the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy aboriginal peoples continuing on traditional ancestral homelands throughout the maritime provinces. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to give you a background of our family of organizations, but I do have with me a detailed brochure and audio CD. It is only in English, unfortunately, so I can't distribute it to you, but if you want a copy in English, it's here. The website and the brochure should broach your questions you may have for the study about the "who" and the "what".

Respecting the standing committee's wishes, I'll try to keep my presentation to 10 minutes. I apologize if I go over a minute. I encourage the distinguished committee members to read our full seven-page submission in the red and blue booklets. I respectfully suggest that if committee members do not appreciate our history and plight as a collaterally damaged people, then we are talking to each other in different languages, with no translator.

To start, the term “conservation”, at least in the colloquial western definition of the term, is a foreign concept to aboriginal peoples. Also the term “habitat”, to us, means our home, the home of our ancestors, and the future home of our children’s children. From the aboriginal eco-centric world view, it is impossible to consider the protection of something to be separate from using it and sharing it.

We have been trapped before by the settler’s use of words. Although on its face a national conservation plan seems obvious, terms such as “habitat” and “conservation” can be tricky, sticky, and icky, to our way of understanding. Answering your six questions can quickly become a trap, if we are not first conversing in a common language or understanding. Rather than at this time supporting, or not supporting, the recommendation to develop a national conservation plan, I respectfully suggest that the questions posed lead us away from the reality that conservation and sustainable use are inseparable.

The state authors of the Convention on Biological Diversity clearly went out of their way to ensure that the term “conservation” would not be used on its own. In fact, the term has never been defined under the convention. This is for a very good reason. Throughout the convention the words “conservation” and “sustainable use” are used side by side, intending to express a single term, “conservation and sustainable use”, so that no party to the convention would emphasize the preservation of something over the use of it, or attempt to draw lines on maps or in the law between what is conserved or preserved, and the rest of the world governed by business as usual.

To us, the English term “conservation” is misleading because it suggests that the natural world is something separate from our home and ourselves, and that it needs protection from a foreign being that does not belong. Because of this distinction, I dare say it is extremely difficult today for aboriginal peoples with an eco-centric world view, to talk with non-aboriginal peoples with a homocentric world view about conservation. After many generations of settlers living within our homelands on Turtle Island, we are still not talking the same language.

To that thinking, I must add the pivotal preambular aspect of the convention, which affirms that the conservation of biological diversity is a common concern of humankind. That in itself wipes away any notion that the use of natural resources solely falls within the limits of national jurisdiction without regard to other international conventions, accords and protocols, and indeed, internal state supreme laws—in this case the Constitution Act of 1867 and the Constitution Act of 1982.

My presentation is also derived from the fundamental reality just recently manifested in the international community in September 2007, that there is:

...the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights of indigenous peoples which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources....

That is from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Even with this recent declaration we raise an unfulfilled principle in Canada, which was agreed to 20 years ago in Rio de Janeiro. It reads:

Indigenous people and their communities and other local communities have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.

We note that in some presentations before the standing committee, the common statement was repeated on how important it was for the government to find opportunities to support local initiatives and link those initiatives into a greater whole, thus providing a basis for long-term and robust solutions.

But what opportunities will the Government of Canada demonstrate as support for the full and effective participation of aboriginal peoples in conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, when Bills C-38 and C-45 strip away vital protections and no thought is given to invite or consult with aboriginal peoples; when aboriginal peoples continue to be denied access to lands, water, and resources due to massive clear-cuts, mega-mining, hydroelectric projects, and other large resource exploitation projects; when Canada does not show respect for the inherent rights of aboriginal peoples and continues to posture at international forums that aboriginal peoples do not have rights to the resources or genetic resources found within their traditional ancestral homelands and territories; when in the majority of instances where indigenous knowledge is invited, decision-makers consider it lesser or an afterthought, or a plug to fill in a few remaining information gaps that western science has not yet answered; when in this past decade, informative and inclusive round tables, stakeholder committees, advisory bodies, and other forums have been reduced to updates-only tables, or are cancelled altogether under the guise of austerity budget slashing—can't this Government of Canada negotiate appropriate royalties to at least accrue money to fund basic public forums?—when the Government of Canada has knelt before corporate resources to allow the abuse of the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations by subsidizing mining companies with capital cost savings, by not requiring the construction of multi-million dollar, engineered, metal mining effluent-holding ponds by virtue of orders in council, which designate natural lakes to be added to a schedule and be listed as a company metal mining effluent-holding pond; and when in 2012, the Government of Canada has taken aboriginal artifacts from our territories against our will and shipped them to Ottawa for deep storage?

The promise to support, respect, preserve, and maintain the knowledge and world view of aboriginal peoples was made by the Government of Canada in 1996 with the release of the Canadian biodiversity strategy. Seventeen years later we are still waiting for Canada to begin to fulfill its promises to aboriginal peoples.

Last week I learned, as many other Canadians did, that Canada has withdrawn from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. A spokesman suggested that the convention was costly for Canadians and showed few results, if any, for the environment. May I respectfully suggest that the Right Hon.Prime Minister and his cabinet take an introductory course on the United Nations as a multilateral discussion forum to learn that the United Nations conventions and protocols represent a culmination of the discussion and discourse of the representatives of seven billion people to formulate a common humankind approach to a problem.

In a global environment and global economy, it is ludicrous to think that Canada, responsible for the second largest land mass in the world, can act alone or not respond to a global call for action, a call that reverberates throughout the Canadian public and most definitely has been raised time and again by generations of aboriginal peoples.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Your time is up. Perhaps you could wrap up, Mr. McNeely.

[Joshua McNeely]

I have three recommendations, which I'll read very quickly.

Canada must recognize that conservation and sustainable use is a single term, and that it must be our number one goal and public policy.

Canada must support the reality that Canadians are striving for sustainable development and are looking for strong political leadership.

Canada cannot keep renouncing or minimizing important international work at home.

Mr. Chair, distinguished members, I hope that when you read our submissions you will see why we approach this new national conservation plan with hesitation. We would like to answer your six questions, but to what end?

We want to believe this new plan can harness the power to complement and enhance conservation and sustainable use of resources in Canada. However, until the executive branch of our government shows a commitment to conservation and sustainable use of resources in a meaningful and tangible way, the use of a national conservation plan will yield no new meaningful results to meet the need and call of aboriginal peoples, Canadians, and the international community.

We have much more detail in our reports.

Thank you very much. O'weliaq.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. McNeely. Thank you, as well, for the written submissions that committee members can look at in more detail following our meeting today.

We'll move now to the World Wildlife Fund and Dr. Peter Ewins, senior species conservation specialist.

[Dr. Peter Ewins, Senior Species Conservation Specialist, Arctic Conservation Program, World Wildlife Fund (Canada)]

Good morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to build today on the presentation that my colleague Linda Nowlan, from our Vancouver office, gave to the committee on May 15 of last year on the national conservation plan, and refer you to some of the specifics in there. I'm specifically tailoring my presentation to the six questions that the committee asked us to address.

I will give you a tiny bit of background on me. I joined WWF 17 years ago. Before that, I worked for the U.K. and Canadian governments very much in the field of applied nature conservation and science, often working with local landowners and managers on workable solutions to conserve biodiversity in settled landscapes. So I have pretty much a career of experience in what works and what doesn't work in this regard.

I still serve on the minister's advisory committee on species at risk, SARAC. We'll highlight today some of those recommended solutions that are forged with people of my age and stage—who essentially represent the industry and the stakeholder sectors across the nation—which I believe are those working solutions that we all desperately need, including the conservation and sustainable elements of our society.

The important point overall is that those kinds of plans and solutions will bring much-sought increased certainty and resilience to both wildlife and natural habitats, as well as people who have to make their living off the land.

For those of you who don't know, WWF's global mission is to stop the degradation of the planet's environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. That essentially is why I love working for World Wildlife Fund, because my job is to help create, put in place, and then implement those plans and solutions that provide the balance between what people need and what wildlife need for the long term.

Firstly, the overall frame necessary to achieve that kind of effective balance must be through smart plans set at the right scale—that's both the temporal scale and the spatial scale. Everyone seeks reduced risk for things they value, including valued components of the ecosystem. Most progressive industries and local people welcome long-range plans that prescribe this, bringing greater certainty both for capital investors and for people involved in those projects and in the custody of those areas. This is just what natural ecosystems and biodiversity, including species at risk, require too. But we have to have those progressive, landscape-level, ecosystem-based, well-crafted plans, which is obviously where the national conservation plan and initiatives like that come in.

There is considerable global experience with these planning approaches. This has been done in different countries for 20 or 30 years. Some of the most progressive are strategic environmental assessment, ecosystem-based habitat conservation plans, and of course, multi-zoned regional plans at different scales, right down to municipalities and counties.

On the first question of who must be involved, much as my colleagues have been emphasizing, the engagement of all stakeholders is crucial. Currently there are a few good land stewardship initiatives under way in Canada. Some of the ones you're probably familiar with are Ducks Unlimited, Nature Conservancy, local species at risk projects, and Environment Canada’s habitat stewardship program. But obviously the job at hand requires far more extensive use of these models.

Of course, I agree totally that no government alone can do the job. No individual company can do the job. Clearly what is needed is a series of appropriate tools that foster and sustain much stronger, more effective, and more cost-efficient stewardship of our natural resources, including habitats. I believe that with incentives, monitoring, and appropriate ecosystem-based plans in place, those plans can be implemented through strong working partnerships at all scales. That's just a no-brainer must-have.

For your second and third questions, which I've lumped together as “knowledge and expertise”, there is substantial expertise collectively across Canada regarding habitat conservation measures, but the information is rather scattered, and perhaps understandably so, due to the diversity of Canada's ecosystem types and the huge geographic scale of our nation.

There are also some significant gaps. For example, ready access to easily understood information on the health of aquatic ecosystems is a challenge for groups seeking to monitor, protect, and restore habitats and species, and come up with these plans. To that regard, one of the things WWF is doing is developing the freshwater health assessment for Canada, which will draw together existing data into a science-based, transparent, and understandable assessment index for freshwater ecosystems, beginning with Canada's world-class riverine systems.

Regarding the fourth question—how is conserved land defined?—I'm not going to volunteer a definition, but of course, the concept is all about allowing persistence of values in an area, what society values. Our species has the ability to manage what we do in a given place, armed with knowledge of impacts and risks, to sustain what we value there. For some people, it's access to wildlife for hunting or for growing food. For some people, it's the simple natural processes and biodiversity in an area without any human activities. For others, it is about economic development of renewable or non-renewable resources in that same area.

With over 50 years of experience around the world, it's very clear to the WWF that what's called the two-pronged approach is the best working model. For both marine and aquatic systems, and the terrestrial landscape, a strong representative network of the highest conservation value areas is afforded the highest level of protection. Essentially, this is protection from the cumulative adverse impacts of human activities. It is planned at the regional and ecosystem-based scale with other areas in that region, and managed for sensitive economic development through best-management practices and other tools. All this happens under an adaptive management regime, which is generally regarded as the way to come up with the plan, then monitor and modify it as necessary, informed by that information.

In times of relatively rapid change—social, economic, and climatic conditions—there is little reason to expect the old approaches to be well-suited to the new and future conditions. New ecosystem-level plans rooted in this two-pronged approach will afford the very best chances of maintaining sufficiently resilient ecosystem habitat function, which will allow nature and people to adapt as best they can to those new conditions.

As for recovering species, this includes a basket of stewardship management practices and government measures, beyond the recommendations the species at risk advisory committee and the World Wildlife Fund have made to you over the past two or three years—all of which I fully support as do my industry colleagues. It's very clear now that responsible governments must utilize the tools that are already available for increasing local stakeholder involvement in and implementation of those ecosystem-based plans for survival and recovery of species, and the habitats they need. Species recovery strategies and action plans under SARA, if they are scaled correctly, both spatially and temporally, to the habitat and species needs, will provide the blueprint for species recovery with local people in the equation.

For example, in the marine context, DFO leads an integrated management approach in the large ocean management areas of Canada. These pilot areas in Canada's three oceans are applying innovative management approaches that provide certainty to ocean industries for project development and designated conservation areas, and using ecological thresholds on an ocean-wide scale to manage activities appropriately. At the same time, it enables long-term jobs and economic prosperity for local communities.

In other countries, conservation management agreements and regional strategic environmental assessments are supported widely by industry groups, landowners, and other tenure holders, as credible, powerful tools to elevate this strong land stewardship. These tools, obviously, bring the much-sought increased certainty—reduced chances of nasty and costly surprises to projects, legal actions, project showstoppers, etc.—concerning human access and operations across the landscape or seascape.

Canada, however, has yet to use these tools extensively. I find it quite remarkable, having worked for 20 years in Britain, how those lessons just simply aren't imported.

Overall, how can the Government of Canada improve habitat conservation efforts? There are three main ways, beyond what we've suggested already in our submission last year. Number one is to take a very strong lead and embed the above suggestions into a robust and well-resourced national conservation plan, and proudly celebrate the concrete nature conservation results and economic successes with an increasing number of diverse stakeholders.

Secondly, we need complete strategic environmental assessments at regional and ecosystem scales across all of Canada's terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems, as has been done in some other countries, so as to provide the most resilient frame for planning and decision-making regarding social, economic, and environmental values.

Finally, we should require adequate ecosystem-scale conservation measures, often regarding habitat safeguards, before or at the same time as major new approvals are made for economic development projects.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ewins.

We'll now move to Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Calgary Centre-North, CPC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to all the witnesses this morning for your presentations and for your time.

I'd like to start this morning with Chief Louis.

Some of the points that you brought up we started to hear in the original study on the national conversation plan. I'd like to tease them out a little bit, given that I think you wanted a little bit more time during your presentation.

The first concept that I wanted to talk about was how we as a government can leverage and incorporate indigenous traditional knowledge into habitat recovery and species management. We know that aboriginal peoples were the first conservationists, and still are. I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit about this. After that, I'll turn the floor over to Mr. McNeely to speak about opportunities for leveraging that knowledge and about possible friction points.

[Chief Byron Louis]

One of the examples of the application of traditional knowledge took place within our traditional territories in the Okanagan Basin. The Okanagan is a sub-basin of the Columbia Basin. In the past, there were arguments with DFO, and also the province, about having sockeye or other anadromous species in the Okanagan system. A lot of this, to get over the hurdle of recovery, was to say that these salmon were in the Okanagan system, and the evidence was primarily based on aboriginal traditional knowledge of place, sites, and usage.

What this knowledge did was raise the profile of this species. One year we had something like 600 sockeye return to the Okanagan system, and last year, I think we had over Wells Dam in the United States close to 340,000 salmon. Aboriginal traditional knowledge played a large role in refocusing energies—by the province, the federal government, and the Okanagan nation—to preserve and enhance the number of salmon that were in there.

The beauty of this whole relationship was that a majority of the money for that recovery came from Washington state and not from Canada. Canada had a very small portion. The majority came from PUDs, or public utility departments, and other funding sources in the United States. They had done this to meet their mitigation obligations under U.S. law.

This is an example of the use of aboriginal traditional knowledge. We increased what was probably a zero-sustenance take on these salmon to a take of somewhere around 20,000 last year, or higher. When you look at our diet, especially in the Columbia Basin, it's been proven, through studies in the U.S., that each indigenous person in the Columbia Basin consumes roughly 1.2 pounds of aquatic species per day, which could be salmon or other resident species. So in that context, aboriginal traditional knowledge played a very important role.

[Michelle Rempel]

Sorry to interrupt. So what you did was identify a deficiency in a species of salmon that hadn't been previously identified in other data sets, and then you contributed this to the recovery strategy. Is that kind of what you're saying?

[Chief Byron Louis]

Yes.

Just to end, with the next stage of this reintroduction, once you actually get into Okanagan Lake, there are estimates that there is enough for about 4 million returning salmon. In economic terms, that's quite significant.

[Michelle Rempel]

Absolutely.

Mr. McNeely, I give you the opportunity to answer the same question.

[Joshua McNeely]

It comes back to respect, discourse, and dialogue. I think that's what definitely was happening in the Okanagan Valley. Once you have people speaking to each other, then you learn the traditional knowledge. It's impossible to understand one knowledge system when you're only trained in another knowledge system.

For example, in the east there is the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources, which does a lot of work in training people both in traditional western science and traditional indigenous knowledge, and the integration happens at the personal level. When you have that common understanding, that is when you see results. You can't just take data sets and throw them together. You have to support the institutions that are currently growing, such as the aboriginal aquatic resources program for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and institute other institutions to develop those similar institutions to look at both traditional knowledge and western science together.

[Michelle Rempel]

When you're talking about best facilitating that dialogue with a different data set, what are some of the best practice principles that you would suggest that we look at, as far as specific actions on....

[Joshua McNeely]

Always having an invitation. Always having an open forum. To present a native council or a band council with a document that is done from a science perspective and then say do you agree or disagree with it, totally misses the point. They have to sit across the table or next to each other at the table and share the knowledge and then craft the recovery strategy or the development plan from that.

[Michelle Rempel]

Great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have 30 seconds.

[Michelle Rempel]

I have 30 seconds and I'll go quickly back to Chief Louis. Could you maybe expand a little bit on the whole ecosystem concept that you brought up and why it's so important for us to look at whole ecosystem management, as opposed to just a single species?

[Chief Byron Louis]

When you concentrate on a single species there are some things that may be overlooked. These are things such as economic impacts or not having the ability to look at the ecosystem as a whole because there's a difference between what we would consider recovery, where you concentrate on a single species and protect that, and it could be simply for meeting legal obligations or meeting other obligations internationally.

But from the context of aboriginal people everything in the ecosystem is linked. I have provided the example of salmon, but when you look at salmon, not only is this sustenance for a number of different species but in fact if you look at a salmon from a biological perspective what you have is basically a living sack of fertilizers and different other things that enhance the ecosystem.

When you're looking at that there are a number of things that should be taken into consideration. What's the importance of the species to the overall environment? What's that species in terms of economic terms? What's that species' value for sustenance for health? There's no argument in this room or anywhere that salmon aren't important to a diet, especially when you look at omega 3-6-9 and what has been proven for heart health and things like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Chief Louis and Ms. Rempel.

Mr. Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

Two important points from your comments stood out for me.

First of all, Chief Louis, you mentioned the holistic approach. Our study, however, runs completely counter to a holistic approach, a fact that I have criticized since the beginning. We are dealing only with terrestrial habitat, when we should be adopting a holistic approach. As you mentioned, a bear needs fish to survive, for example. So it's not possible to simply address one aspect of a national conservation plan.

The second thing I took away is a point you made, Mr. McNeely, about how we define certain words, like conservation. That's an important consideration if we are going to apply these concepts properly.

The second question our study is designed to answer, at point b, is whether Canada has publicly available knowledge and expertise on habitat conservation. And yet, there have been tremendous cuts to science in recent years. In your publication, which I have started reading through, you say that “Canada has laid off 1,047 employees at Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada since April 2012”.

With that in mind, I want to ask all of you this question. Do you think the federal government is making adequate efforts to establish sound and appropriate science to meet the challenges of conservation?

I am not sure whether Mr. McNeely would like to go first.