Environment Committee on April 18th, 2013

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of our witnesses.

We're down to five-minute rounds now, so we'll try to move fairly quickly. I want to start with Mr. Ewins, picking up on where Mr. Sopuck was—and Kirsty Duncan, a few moments ago—about conservation involving private land.

I wanted to ask you briefly whether you prefer the incentive approach over a regulatory approach, when you're dealing with private land and are trying to get private landowner cooperation.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Yes, always.

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

Thank you for that clarification. You have experience in the U.K., and it seems to me that you were puzzled about why certain provisions haven't been implemented. Anyway, thank you for that.

Chief Louis, I want to come back to you. You started your remarks and ran out of time when you were making a comment about west coast Vancouver Island clam beds—5,000-year-old raised clam beds. I'd like to give you an opportunity to complete your remarks.

[Chief Byron Louis]

I was just providing examples of how aboriginal traditional knowledge is actually used outside of what you would call “pristine”. In that instance, there were societies on the west coast that needed an increase of foodstuffs, just like any other society that's growing, and they came up with an innovative process of raised clam beds that were literally kilometres long along the west coast of Vancouver. I think I read that they were pretty much five thousand years old.

There are other incentives when you actually look at the use of corn. Corn is a man-made product and it would not survive without human intervention. That was an invention in the western hemisphere, along with other foods and different other things.

Aboriginal traditional knowledge is also used in the propagation of species like salmon, and a lot of people at the turn of the century criticized aboriginal people heavily for having weirs that shut off the entire river. But if they actually looked at those weirs, they would have found an opening in the middle that actually allowed.... In years when it was recognized that there were lower runs of a particular species, aboriginal people would concentrate on harvesting the male species because with the drift and the milt coming down, it could cover a number of little nests for females and also would not, overall, impact the biodiversity.

Aboriginal traditional knowledge is science-based because it's based upon observation. If you're standing beside a stream for ten thousand years, you must have learned something.

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

I want to jump in and just say thank you for that because, of course, observation is the foundation of science. I appreciate your drawing that out.

Because you brought up west coast Vancouver Island—that's, of course, the area that I'm from—national chiefs from that area were talking about the point you just raised, about intervening to enhance natural species for human use, which has been going on for a heck of a long time. In the Nuu-chah-nulth language—the national chief, of course, is Nuu-chah-nulth—they have a word as well. I know our friend Mr. McNeely mentioned a word from the Mi'kmaq, but in the Nuu-chah-nulth language they use the word hishuk ish tsawalk, which literally means “everything is one". We're part of nature and nature is part of us.

Just as an example of management strategy, recently we introduced a species at risk. It was re-introduced on the coast, the sea otter, which has been on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It's very prolific and is actually doing quite well over there. However, the word for this animal in the Nuu-chah-nulth language literally translates, “he only eats the best” and they are devastating clam beds. In cultured clam beds they always eat the biggest ones, the most sexually mature, and the same is happening with the Dungeness crab, which is, of course, an important species economically on the west coast.

So just to talk about SARA, we have to be wise on how we implement some of these things. I don't know if you'd be aware, but in the same area, with the Bamfield Huu-ay-aht, we had an abalone project with a species at risk, where, with the science institute, they developed, through investments with DFO and working painstakingly, a way to actually grow them in an aquaculture setting for a high-value market, but it's costly to do this and they're slow growing. COSEWIC could not get their heads around a way to market these things, even though you could feed them a different coloured kelp. So we actually lost a first nation's economic opportunity with a lot of science invested in it because of the processing, the permitting. They could not allow them, even though you could grow them on a different coloured kelp so the shells could be stained differently, and if you released them into the wild, they could go back into the native kelp.

When we're talking about SARA and implementing it, we also have to implement these things with the sense that we don't cut our nose off to spite our face.

I just wonder if you're aware of that and if you'd care to comment on that.

[Chief Byron Louis]

Yes, I'm very well aware of both instances. Also, if you were to go back and look at photos about a hundred years ago, you would see the hereditary chiefs on the west coast with sea otter. It's like any other species; there's a level of intervention that should be required, especially when they don't have the predators. Probably in the past it was killer whales and other uses that probably kept their levels quite in check.

I think the other one that you mentioned was with the abalone. I'm very familiar with that. One of the things in there is that SARA does provide an opportunity for that, but that was an administrative decision on that regulation. It should have actually looked at it also from an economic perspective, which would have allowed some activity to go ahead, like you just mentioned, because you could manage the species and you could also provide an economic opportunity that would have benefited the local community.

SARA does provide that, but it's how SARA is implemented. I think it has to be with the involvement of local, regional, provincial, federal.... It's a partnership, and that's the only way you're going to actually succeed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Chief Louis.

I can guarantee you that we didn't set you up to always be the one that I'm cutting off. I apologize.

We had our fourth witness here today with Mr. Lunney. Thank you, Mr. Lunney. That was great input.

Monsieur Pilon.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

My first question is for Mr. McNeely and Chief Louis.

There can be no conserved land without measures to protect the environment: biodiversity, forests, wildlife, vegetation, rivers and streams. In the case of first nations, that also includes compliance with treaties by both the Canadian government and aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Do you think the current approach to environmental protection adheres to those treaties? If not, what can the government do to remedy that?

[Chief Byron Louis]

Well, my personal perspective is that I come from an area where we are non-treaty. There is no treaty signed in British Columbia and in particular where we come from in the south Okanagan.

But I think treaties are also in the context of international agreements between two nations, which in this particular instance were the first nations and the European powers that came in. Underneath that, it was looked upon as existence in parallel, that there would be a partnership, and there was agreement because no matter where you go in North America, Europeans, when they first entered into our lands, were welcomed.

In some, they were welcomed with conditions. Today those conditions are not being fully respected or fully implemented in their original context, and I think that is something that needs to be looked at. When you look at the original agreement saying that we work in parallel, parallel also means “in cooperation”, because we were supposed to be going in the same direction, as two peoples.

With the implementation of treaties, the respect of treaties, and the understanding of that, there are a lot of things that can be achieved, including conservation, economic prosperity, and all these other things. But the way it is now, it's basically the conflict between those two that now is limiting both, conservation and economic prosperity. There needs to be a general understanding that those were international agreements that are no different from the ones Canada signs today with France, the EU, or anywhere else.

[Joshua McNeely]

In the east we have 18 pre-Confederation treaties of peace, friendship, and trade, not land claims or land succession treaties.

I understand Mr. Sopuck's concern about private property, but in the east those lands are still Mi'kmaq lands, Maliseet lands, Passamaquoddy lands. There is a discussion that needs to happen about the use of lands, and the rights to those lands, waters, and resources.

Certainly we are very much for conservation and sustainable use of those resources. We want to be a part of that discussion, but it also has to include the discussion and recognition that those lands are still our lands through treaty and have never been ceded. We have people who have come and lived among us that we have welcomed to Ka-na-da, “the place there”.

There is a place here for everybody in Ka-na-da. That's the philosophy that we have taken, and that's the hand that we still extend, which is on the Nova Scotia crest, the hand extended between the settler and the Mi'kmaq.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Do I still have some time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have another minute.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Fine.

My next question is for Mr. Ewins.

Your Web site lists climate change, water and humans as your top priorities. Do you think the government is doing enough to help you with those priorities?

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

Obviously not, not yet.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

That's it.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

I think most of you know, without even visiting our website, what kinds of things need to be done to actually build the future that we can, to look after our great nation.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Chief Louis, first, I would like to know whether you have access to the program—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Just to remind you, I don't want him to be cut off again.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

It's just a little question.

Is the federal government's habitat conservation program accessible to you?

[Chief Byron Louis]

Yes, we do, and for our own reasons we do not access that program. Again, it goes back to the implementation of the Species at Risk Act. That's a real concern for us, because the collection of information has been proven, especially on wildlife assessments and like things, to have been used against us, and through that, have actually impacted us economically. So we keep an eye on it, we look at it, but we do not participate in those programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Toet.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our guests today.

I want to start with Mr. Ewins.

In your introduction, you mentioned something about there having been a few good stewardship programs. You mentioned the Nature Conservancy and a couple of others. I was hoping you could expand on that a little bit and explain why you see them as good, effective programs and how we could actually leverage the knowledge from those particular programs to be able to expand into some of the other areas, and to build on the knowledge that we've derived from those.

[Dr. Peter Ewins]

As Jean Charest said at the end of that session yesterday evening, if there's one thing you want to achieve, it's for people to be motivated to do something. The characteristic of those programs that work is that the people who have the power to make a change in the interest of long-term conservation want to do it.

Ducks Unlimited, I think, would be the best example. They took an ecosystem, before I ever came to Canada, and said, “Oh, we have all these wonderful ducks, which are hunted by aboriginal people, hunters, etc., in the summer on their way and in the winter. Let's plan it according to scale to those ducks' needs.” So, okay, there's the plan—the North American waterfowl management plan—cooperating across political boundaries, putting in what the ducks need.

Then of course they are good at fundraising. Federal dollars are put in there with the mix to actually come up with elevated protection for a network of the habitat that the waterfowl need, and of course, those same areas that are good for snow geese and widgeon are actually very good for many of these frogs and other organisms and plants in those freshwater systems. So it's about looking after the habitat, really, but it's done through the lens of the ducks because the value component is the meat and the duck.

I'm a bird watcher. I love to see flocks of ducks and geese heading north in the spring, but they can only do that because they have the habitat in place. So the people who value the resource are motivated and they need incentives, as we were saying earlier, including some money to help them manage these expensive water regimes to improve the amount of habitat and to restore wetland habitat in some areas where mistakes were made.

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

Basically what you're saying is that we can use that as a model as we go forward with other organizations.