Environment Committee on Nov. 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have 25 seconds.

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You don't mind allocating his 25 seconds to me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Is there unanimous consent?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you for coming again.

My first question is directed to Mr. Prosper. You say that you're quite proud of some of the statements the commissioner made. But shortly thereafter he goes on to say: However, the Agency has been slow to implement systems for monitoring and reporting on ecological integrity. It has failed to meet many deadlines and targets, and information for decision making is often incomplete or has not been produced.

He gives examples, etc.

Then the next paragraph talks about your resources being decreased by 15%, that you're 23% down in your staff, and a third down on your scientists.

I'm not quite sure how these statements all live in the same universe, because it seems to me that the government has made it very difficult for you to achieve what you need to achieve.

Finally, the commissioner says at the end:The Agency could fall further behind in its efforts to maintaining or restore ecological integrity....

Your response is that you agree, and then you qualify your agreement.

Am I to assume that your budgetary challenges have led to the difficulties the commissioner has identified?

[Rob Prosper]

Thank you, Chair.

In response to that, I would say, as I've mentioned in answer to questions from one of your colleagues, that we have moved into an implementation phase and we have the organization that's linked directly to those priorities. I indicated that we've actually made very good progress on the implementation of our monitoring program, that we have 102 ecosystems that we are measuring now.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Excuse me, but what does that actually mean? If you've lost 20% of your staff and 30% of your scientists, and you're moving into “implementation stage”, how do you do more with less? Most people do less with less.

[Rob Prosper]

It's easy to get caught up in the actual numbers, and in fact, when I'm talking about having the organization now to undertake that work, it's not just about numbers. For example, historically we had park wardens who had responsibilities across a variety of functions. They were responsible for law enforcement and public safety, and they did resource management work.

In terms of the reorganization, we have created for the first time a group of science technicians that are in the scientific classification that are actually dedicated to work in resource conservation. So although there's the loss in numbers, there's a change in terms of what those positions do and the skill sets they have.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So instead of having scientists, you have science technicians. Instead of having park wardens, you have whatever they used to do.

Essentially you're cutting functions. That's what it boils down to. You can't lose $90 million off your budget and expect to carry on doing whatever it was you were doing.

Is that still a fair statement?

[Rob Prosper]

Probably a fair statement is that in this type of work we set priorities, and we have an organization that's designed to deal with those priorities.

Is that everything? Would we like to do more? Sure, but we are focused on our priorities.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The reality is that you suffered a huge budget cut here. In the science area, you're dropping from a scientists to a science technicians. Fine, but you're certainly not going to be able to carry on the functions that you've carried on before.

Let me direct my second question to Mr. Forbes. The commissioner says that overall trends in Canada's major ecosystems are deteriorating. Our forest varies from healthy to requiring concern and deteriorating. Our lakes and rivers require concern and are deteriorating. Our wetlands require concern and they're deteriorating. Our marine ecosystems are healthy and are improving in some areas, but are impaired and deteriorating in others. Our coastal ecosystems, while healthy in some areas, are impaired in others and deteriorating across the board. It goes on and on.

It paints a pretty unhappy picture. Your budget has been flatlining for six years. You're just under $1 billion. It's not as if the stress on the ecosystems across the board is diminishing; it's increasing by virtue of population, by virtue of greenhouse gas emissions, etc.

Ironically, throughout the report, you agree with virtually every observation that the commissioner makes. Again, something has to give here. Either you get budgetary support to do what you need to do, or we all fold our tents and say the environment is at risk.

[Chris Forbes]

I think the point Mr. Prosper made is that we get the budgets and we try to set priorities and meet our objectives within those budgets. We try to do things more efficiently, if we can find ways to do things more efficiently. We have a series of departmental objectives. We go through our report on plans and look at our planned spending and how we plan to achieve our objectives.

We try to achieve those objectives within the resources that we have. We look at ways of being effective and efficient, and not sacrificing program delivery or program objectives.

I don't know if you want to add anything to that or not, Bob.

[Robert McLean]

Thank you, Chris.

The ecosystem stresses that you described, that the commissioner described, in fact fall to no single department or agency or one level of government to address, if we're going to successfully deal with those as a country.

I think it comes back to how we come to grips with national priorities. That, to me, emphasizes the importance of something like the biodiversity goals and targets. We have four goals with 19 targets. It's up to Canadians—the federal departments, provincial governments, industry, and environmental organizations—to identify activities that can contribute to making progress against those targets. It's a collective responsibility.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. McKay. We'll move on to Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, everyone, for being here. It's a great opportunity to ask questions.

The emergency protection order for sage grouse was raised in your opening comments, Mr. Forbes. I have to say every time the minister talks about it, I think I'm going to have a stroke.

Because you're here, I want to ask a question. You say that the EPO is coming in the next few months. Can you give us an indication of when or how that's happening.

[Robert McLean]

Thank you for your question.

Unfortunately, we aren't in a position to give you a timeline.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Prosper, I want to talk about Sable Island National Park. We are talking about some pretty serious cutbacks in your department.

When Rouge Valley was announced, it was announced along with a sizable chunk of money to help create the park. When Sable Island was announced—we just passed the legislation recently—there was nothing like that. I wonder what the plans are here, especially for the off-island visitor centre.

Can you give us an update on that? Are any funds forthcoming to actually set up this park?

[Rob Prosper]

Unfortunately, I'm not equipped to provide you with that answer. I'll see if I can provide it after the fact. But we do actually have an organization now in place for Sable Island. We've staffed the organization and they're operational.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's a bit of an update. I'd love it if you could follow-up with us. Thank you.

I just have an addendum to that. What can you tell us about the management plan? Where is the management plan at? Probably it's also at the very beginning?

[Rob Prosper]

Again I'll have to get back to you on that.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Don't worry. Again, I'd love it if you could follow-up.

I have a question for Mr. Forbes and your team. When we're looking at the overall recommendation or the overall findings of the commissioner's report about not meeting these targets and deadlines, I asked him—you were here listening—what he thought the hold-up was. Was it that the targets were unachievable? Was it resources? What was it? What's the best answer you can give me in terms of why the audit has come up with these results?

[Robert McLean]

Thank you.

There are several reasons why we're not meeting deadlines associated with the recovery strategies under species at risk, our management plans for our protected areas, or the bird conservation region strategies. I think the most common reason across those three program areas relates to the importance of collaboration and consultation and the cooperation requirements. For example, the Species at Risk Act requires us to cooperate within the federal government, with the other federal departments, with wildlife management boards, with aboriginal communities, and any other affected person. We're required to consult with any affected land owner or other affected person.

For Environment Canada, we have two-thirds of the species that require recovery documents. The bulk of those species for us—and it's a little bit unique compared to the other two—are focused on those non-federal lands. That increases the importance of the engagement, which can actually take a fair bit of time.

I wouldn't mind sharing an example that's exceptional, but I think it can illustrate to the committee why we have a challenge. We completed the boreal caribou recovery strategy and we had two rounds of consultations with aboriginal communities. We reached out to 271 aboriginal communities. We went and received comments from 161 of those communities. That took two years to do.

In the second round of consultation, there were not quite the same numbers: 265 aboriginal communities based on what we'd learned in the first go-round and 87 communities participated. We received 42 aboriginal traditional knowledge summary reports.

We also conducted our own science. We have about 600 pages of scientific assessment to complete that recovery strategy. We have nearly 1,000 pages of aboriginal traditional knowledge. That took $3.5 million and as I say about three and a half years to complete. So we have a legal duty to consult compared to the two-year limit provided in SARA for the completion of a recovery strategy for that species.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's it? Wow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

That is it. We have one more question from Mr. Sopuck and then we'll adjourn after that.

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

Thank you very much.

First of all, Mr. McLean, I just want to say that I found the report that CWS put out, “The State of Canada's Birds 2012”, to be an immensely useful report. It was short on hyperbole and long on objectivity and good analysis. So could you pass on to the staff how helpful that report actually is? It's a great piece of work.

In terms of Environment Canada and Parks Canada, when I hear testimony and see the people that you always consult with, one group that is always left out is the rural communities or the neighbours of national parks. So that's just a little point that I'd like you to consider in other reports.

The term “ecosystem stability” is used all the time. I know it's very difficult to determine what ecosystem stability is, given that it's changing all the time. Ecosystems change on a constant basis. You can talk about it within national parks. How do you determine what your targets are for landscape level processes that you want to see in place?