Environment Committee on May 2nd, 2013

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

My next question is for Mr. Scarth.

Climate change is central to discussions about the environment. Do you believe, based on the research conducted at your foundation, that it is important to consider this problem now?

[Jonathan Scarth]

Merci.

I agree. I think there is an opportunity to generate funds for conservation, particularly at the provincial level with the example set in Alberta with the Climate Change and Emissions Management Act. Through the model that I laid out, I think there is a tremendous opportunity to invest in perennial cover and wetlands to sequester carbon.

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

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have a minute.

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

I have a final question for Mr. Scarth.

Do you believe that public consultations and hearings should be one of the priorities in the process of implementing habitat protection?

[Jonathan Scarth]

I think we know a lot, based on our experience. I believe there is enough knowledge both within and outside government to move forward. I think it's time to move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have a little time.

Thank you, Mr. Pilon.

We're going to move to Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thank you very much for your very refreshing testimony before our committee.

We normally get groups, which is fine, and they're always talking about process, so it is very refreshing and productive to hear from your three groups that have generated real, positive environmental outcomes on the ground. You're all to be commended for that.

Mr. Scarth, I am very interested in the Alberta example of your alternate land use services projects there, especially when you noted that, “Some of our ALUS communities are raising funds from local residents...”. I find it absolutely remarkable that local residents are dipping into their wallets to improve habitat conservation outcomes in Alberta.

Can you elaborate on the pilot projects you have in Alberta and expand on their results and outcomes, especially related to how the community feels about them?

[Jonathan Scarth]

Thank you.

We are working with three counties in Alberta now. Counties in Alberta are very large geographically, and they have significant administrative capacity. They have embraced with open arms the concept of delivering and managing the process of conservation incentives. We were taken aback by their desire to not only invest municipal funds in these programs alongside the private dollars and the provincial and federal dollars that we were aggregating for them, but at a local level they have begun to canvas and raise funds from local citizens within their counties for conservation locally, through PayPal accounts.

I'm sure everyone here knows that the municipal level of government provides a very good tax deduction if you donate money to a municipality, and they are leveraging the position they have with the local investment in conservation.

As I said, it's becoming as important to them as the infrastructure funding because it is very much related to their mandate with regard to water management, to know where the wetland should be to hold back water and avoid damage to their roads and water infrastructure.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thank you.

You made a point in your summation that land-use regulations really haven't delivered conservation results on any meaningful scale.

Can you elaborate on that and perhaps give some specific examples?

[Jonathan Scarth]

Well, in our field we've had habitat regulations for decades, both at the federal level under the Migratory Birds Act and in each province, where there have been permitting for and prohibitions against diverting and draining wetlands for decades—really, since the 1940s. They have never been consistently applied. I believe the reason is that they cannot be enforced unless there is a robust incentive program built into the regulations, and such has not been the case.

We need to think about how to lead with incentives and not with regulations. From a land-owner perspective, you immediately create a real liability on their property, if you are contemplating an effort to enforce regulations that basically punish them for having burrowing owl habitat or wetlands on the property. It sends exactly the wrong message. We should hope to help them look at that habitat as an asset and something they should foster.

They know their land better than anybody in this room. They know every nook and cranny—where they can grow crops, where they can leave wetlands, where they can encourage the growth of wildlife. If we can empower that local and private land-owner knowledge on the landscape, we'll have some real effects, I think.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Lounds, I share your frustration with the way that protected land is defined. To me, a much better approach would be to assess the ecological functioning of a piece of land, regardless of whether there is some lawyerly definition of what it is. It's the ecological function that actually counts with these lands.

If we look in Canada at the state of our landscape overall, we have problem areas of course, but if we looked at intact ecological functioning, where would our measurement end up?

[John Lounds]

Obviously, Canada is a big country, and however you designate and define what is protected and conserved, we have a lot more land beyond that amount in a natural state. There's no question about that.

The conservation question becomes, where do you need to focus the efforts of habitat conservation? It's in places in which you've had a lot of loss. So we're talking about wetlands, grasslands, and endangered species habitats, and those sorts of things.

As to a number, I don't know that we could give you an actual sense on that.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

But the point is that it would be considerably higher than what is measured using the IUCN definition, would it not?

[Michael Bradstreet, Vice-President, Conservation, Nature Conservancy of Canada]

Yes, it would be. The challenge, however, is that putting Ellesmere Island into a protected category does little to preserve pronghorn antelope in the southern prairies. We need to be more sophisticated in our way of thinking about what Canada has done in conservation, based on the extent of our geography and the wonder of our ecosystems.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Siekaniec, I was interested that both you and Mr. Lounds talked about wetland mitigation, conservation offsets, biodiversity credits, and so on. It's endlessly frustrating to look at some developments in which the developer is forced to mitigate right next door to where the environmental effect took place, while 200 kilometres away is an absolute jewel of a piece of environment that is under real threat and that would deliver real conservation benefits, if it were conserved.

Would you recommend that the federal government or all governments be much more flexible in terms of mitigation policies?

[Greg Siekaniec]

I would recommend that there be a flexible framework put in place, one that is thought of in an adaptive management perspective, such that if you designed and implemented a conservation strategy or a rule or a regulation to get a desired intent, and you went through time and looked at it and measured whether it was effective, you could take that opportunity to make adjustments to it and then end up delivering on what your goal or conservation strategy was.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Sopuck. We'll hopefully have time for another round later.

Ms. Duncan.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to the witnesses for very interesting testimony. You've brought a lot of recommendations that I hope to follow up on.

I'd like to begin by asking Mr. Lounds what percentage of land and water Canada has committed to protecting and what percentage has actually been protected.

[John Lounds]

Well, it depends, as I said,—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

What has Canada committed to?

[John Lounds]

The old definitions were under the IUCN categories.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I believe those are still the definitions.

[John Lounds]

Well, in the IUCN category the target was 12% for each country, and Canada is at 10% using those. The new Aichi target, though, adds another type of category, which is effective area-based conservation measures. The way that is defined is by the laws that are put in place provincially or municipally to—