Evidence of meeting #72 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was support.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
You talked about the Northwest Territories and new areas protected by Parks Canada. However, it is not enough to designate an area; monitoring mechanisms must also be implemented and people have to take care of maintenance.
Can you tell us more about the fact that there needs to be funding and people for conservation to be done, and that it isn't enough to designate land for it to be conserved?
Senior Advisor, Canadian Boreal Initiative
Absolutely. There are some very interesting examples that will be coming on stream, and the Northwest Territories is one prime place for them.
There are a couple of initiatives related to a particular new proposed national park. It's called Thaidene Nene in the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, an area of high recreational and tourism value in the Northwest Territories. They're actually looking at how they can engage community members in an aboriginal rangers' program, which would develop monitoring information that could be useful for the management of the area and also might assist in terms of environmental assessments or industry proposals. In that case, there's also a dialogue happening to look at solutions around stewardship lands that may have both—you may have conservation values you want to protect, and development values—and how you reconcile them. That's a good example of what Mr. Sopuck is raising about stewardship across the broader landscape.
That is one example. But we do need new ways of getting the job done, so we're quite excited about some of the proposals that are coming on stream.
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Thank you.
I would now like to put a question to Mr. Bob Lowe.
You talked a lot about programs that allow farmers to manage their land in a more environmentally friendly way. You also talked about developing ties between Environment Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Can you tell us about current shortcomings and what the government could do to encourage other farmers' initiatives for habitat protection?
Vice-Chair, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
This may not be CCA policy, but being in Ottawa and being in Edmonton a few times, I don't understand how the Department of the Environment can come up with environmental solutions without consulting the departments of agriculture. There doesn't seem to be a cross communication there. When you consider the amount of land base that agriculture covers in Canada, it should be part of all the talks on any environmental policy, in my opinion.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair, and my thanks to our witnesses. It's very interesting again today, as it has proved to be throughout this study.
Mr. Farwell, I wanted to talk briefly about Luther Marsh and follow up a little bit on some of the questions Mr. Sopuck had. From your presentation, it seems this property was acquired in the 1950s. What state was that land in when it was acquired?
Chief Administrative Officer, Grand River Conservation Authority
It was marginal land, as you would call it today. It would have been undrained. It's very flat, pancake land with hydric soils, so very organic soils. It's difficult to drain, and it would have taken quite a drainage scheme to dry it out and turn it into farm land.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
It was in the 1950s that it was acquired. We heard from a previous witness that a wetland area would take hundreds of years to recover. It sounds as if there's been a huge recovery here in a much shorter time. Can you clarify for me what the timeframe was? It was purchased in the 1950s. What time was spent on working through this process?
Chief Administrative Officer, Grand River Conservation Authority
I would say it's a wetland that formed over centuries and centuries. It was wet ground, hydric soils, very damp, undrained. It was one type of wetland. When you put water on top of soils like that it turns it into a standing marsh. It's called Luther Marsh wildlife area. It's still a wetland. It's just a different class of wetland than it would have been. Wetlands form over hundreds of years. You can take hydric soils, flood them, and turn them into a marsh relatively quickly. That's the kind of timeframe we're dealing with for Luther Marsh.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
We have a lot of wetlands that have been drained, especially in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They would have the same conditions in the soils. Nobody's really touched the soil conditions, as such. Would this be something that, in your estimation, would be able to be recovered in a reasonable timeframe?
Chief Administrative Officer, Grand River Conservation Authority
We work very closely with Ducks Unlimited, and I was glad to hear other witnesses speak about other partnerships like that. When you flood an area like that, you can start to attract wildlife and birds very quickly.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Lowe, I was intrigued by one of the statements you made. You said if a species at risk is found on a property, it must be assumed that the landowner is doing something right. I'd like you to expand on that. I think it is important to recognize that a lot of times we find these species on somebody's farmland, and the assumption is that somebody's got to come in and do something to protect it. What you're getting at is that the landowner has done something right, because the species is living and thriving on that property. I want you to expand on that a little bit if you could.
Vice-Chair, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
Can I give that to Fawn?
Manager, Environmental Affairs, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
It is often thought that you need to put a glass bowl around some of these species, but what these ranchers are doing on the land is obviously the right thing. I think what we need to enable within the Species at Risk Act is how to replicate that sort of stewardship in other areas. How can we use the stewardship functions in the act to build upon those experiences, the knowledge they have of the land, and then apply it to other places?
It's not easy to manage for a species at risk. Take a species like a Burrowing Owl. They need ground holes and the land needs to be grazed off very well. Then you have a Sprague's Pipit next to it that needs a totally different environment. I think enabling producers by helping them find the knowledge and the teamwork they need would be a great way to ensure habitat conservation in Canada. I think we'll see much better outcomes if we're able to work in this fashion.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
What you're saying is that the assumption should be that the environment has been protected, and actually we should be using this as a lesson and trying to see if we can replicate this particular lesson in other places, rather than making the assumption that if we don't do something immediately that species will not survive. After all, it has been surviving in that particular landscape and under those particular conditions. Rather than using it as something to stop the farmer, or the cattleman, from continuing the practice he's been doing, we should be learning from those practices.
Is that a fair summary of what you said?
Manager, Environmental Affairs, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
Yes, thank you.
Vice-Chair, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
Also, I think it was Mr. Farwell who brought up managing for an ecosystem rather than a species, and I think that's very important.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Lowe. That's great. Actually, it's exactly where I was going next with Mr. Farwell, to that comment, because I wanted him to speak about it a bit.
It was toward the end of your presentation where you said we should be looking at the protection of a broader concept of the natural environment and ecosystems, rather than individual species. I was hoping you could expand on that, because it is an important consideration as we go forward.
We heard from other witnesses too that through the Species at Risk Act that we have right now, sometimes what we do to protect one species actually ends up destroying another species, so we have to look at a broader picture.
Chief Administrative Officer, Grand River Conservation Authority
I'm not sure I can say it any better than you just did. You really do have to look at a broader picture and look at the incremental impact or the consequential impact of action to protect one versus another. If you protect the ecosystem, the species will have a place to exist.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Great, thank you.
I'll just come back to you for one minute, Mr. Lowe, on the wetlands aspect of it. You talked about the lands of the farmer, the grasslands areas you work on, and the cattle land. The wetlands also make up a part of that, right? Is wetland restoration in some of those grassland areas something that the Cattlemen's Association is open to working on?
Vice-Chair, Environment Committee, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
We'd be open to it, and at least in the native grassland areas, the wetlands are still there. Nothing has really changed.
Conservative
Lawrence Toet Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Yes, but there are a lot of grasslands throughout the provincial areas, throughout the prairie areas, and we've seen a lot of those wetlands drained. Would that be something you would encourage us to look at, to bring back some of those wetlands? It creates a natural environment that is also conducive....
Ms. Jackson.
Manager, Environmental Affairs, Canadian Cattlemen's Association
I understand your question in terms of to how to re-establish wetlands that have been lost on the prairie. The thing that is really unique about ranching land is that wetlands rarely get drained. They're part of the habitat. They're part of the water source on ranching land, so the proportion of land that gets drained is actually quite low.
However, working to improve riparian areas is a focus of our organization. We work with Cows and Fish, an organization out of Alberta that works with ranchers to understand riparian health assessments, how grazing impacts the riparian area next to them, and so on.
So certainly making improvements and perhaps re-establishing, if that is felt as a need in some particular areas, but it's mostly a non-issue on grazing land.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Megan Leslie
Thank you, Mr. Toet.
Thanks to our witnesses.
We're going to keep the conversation going with Ms. Duncan.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
If I could begin with Ms. Granskou, you talked a lot about land use plans and environmental assessments. Could you make very specific recommendations to the committee?
What would be your wish list with regard to land use planning? How could the federal government best support land use planning?