Environment Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Ron Bonnett]

Yes. This whole process started back in the early 1990s in Ontario, when the farmers themselves realized that there was increased pressure to respond to environmental concerns. They decided to get ahead of the wave and start doing some of the work themselves.

The government's role is to provide funding to assist in the development of the workbooks, identify best management practices, maybe do some pilot projects. Then the workshops are organized and co-funded with money from....

The latest Growing Forward program has some of that funding flowing through to the local level to do that environmental farm planning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have about nine seconds left, Ms. Leslie, so I think it would be a little difficult to get both a question and an answer in.

I'll move now to Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses.

This is a complex area. There is a lot of meat and a lot of different perspectives, and it's hard to know particularly where to focus.

My own interest, being from southern Ontario, has to do with a matter that isn't necessarily, and certainly isn't exclusively, within the jurisdiction of the federal government. That is the issue of land use planning.

Ms. Woodley, you touched on that somewhat, and rather well, I thought, so if I may, I'd like to direct some questions to you for specifics.

I'll begin with the question of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which I think you used as an example of a kind of land use planning. Am I correctly perceiving that or not?

[Alison Woodley]

It has planning within it, so it's not a formal land use planning designation, per se.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Right. It's a tool.

[Alison Woodley]

But yes, there's conservation planning that stakeholders are doing together and presenting to governments.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That's one of the things I wondered about, the question of stakeholders and governments.

I'm mildly familiar with the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. I know it involved private sector and also NGO stakeholders. I think in the midst of your testimony I got the message that it was incented by government regulation. I wondered whether there was any direct government involvement at any level in the development of that agreement.

[Alison Woodley]

In the actual agreement itself...the agreement is signed between environmental groups and forest companies who are members of the Forest Products Association of Canada and the Forest Products Association. In the process of developing it, we certainly talked to governments about it and let them know what we were up to, and we kept them in the loop to the degree possible when you're having these kinds of discussions.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

There was feedback from the stakeholders to the government. Was there any support or feedback from any level of government to the stakeholders in the development of that agreement?

[Alison Woodley]

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

The agreement is between the forest industry and the environmental communities, members of a subset of that, to actually come together and see if we can pull together some joint recommendations for land management.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

If I could just sum it up, because we have such little time—

[Alison Woodley]

Sorry, I'm not quite getting—

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

This was not a government-supported initiative. It was entirely private sector and NGO.

[Alison Woodley]

In its negotiations? Yes.

The government has expressed support, and is in fact supporting the agreement.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

How is the government supporting it?

[Alison Woodley]

There is some funding that goes from Natural Resources Canada to the secretariat of the agreement through FPAC.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

And did that occur only after the agreement was finalized?

[Alison Woodley]

Yes.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay.

[Alison Woodley]

It's largely to provide technical support and to enable the agreement.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you know the amount of funding that Natural Resources has provided?

[Alison Woodley]

I don't have the number in my head, no.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

On another different but related subject, I understand that there is a federal-provincial-territorial committee that is currently looking at ways in which to improve land use planning in Canada. Are you familiar with that committee?

[Alison Woodley]

I'm not. No.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

One of your recommendations was about integrating protected areas into the working landscape and to do so supporting regional land use planning. Would you be able to provide any more specifics about the kind of support you would like the Government of Canada to provide? I will preface that question further by saying that so far, at least, the consensus I've heard is that the actual land use planning decisions are best made by those who are close to the land rather than being top-down driven.

So within that context, what can I suggest to the Government of Canada as the best way to support that, which I regard to be fairly critical also?