Environment Committee on March 10th, 2015

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

On the issue of the boreal caribou, I think that what is important for the caribou is the ecosystem processes, of which habitat is of course an important part. What I mean is that what has happened—correct me, if I'm wrong—is that many old-growth forests have been cut over because of commercial forestry, and as we discussed a minute ago, the young forest comes back, the moose and deer increase, and the wolves follow, by and large. One of the major reasons for the decline in caribou is that they are not adapted to predation by wolves. Is that correct?

[Robert McLean]

Boreal caribou and woodland caribou in general have a fundamentally different predator aversion strategy compared to moose and deer.

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

With the abundance of deer and moose in these areas, the wolves have moved in and the poor caribou all of a sudden get surprised by this pack of wolves that wasn't there before. That's one of the big reasons the numbers have gone down. I was very interested to learn that there is that active wolf control program going on in B.C., and Alberta, I think, in the caribou range.

There was a recent study done that showed that the wolf control program primarily done by trappers is having a measurably positive effect on woodland caribou. Is that correct?

[Robert McLean]

Yes, that's correct in the context of one of the local populations that Alberta is actively managing. They were able to demonstrate an increase in the population of caribou through that particular population management technique.

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

So you would agree that the management of species at risk, and indeed all species, really needs to take into account ecosystem processes that are fundamental to that species' existence, and habitat is one part of the ecosystem process, but the rest is food supply, water quality, etc. Is that a fair assessment? Could you expand on that?

[Robert McLean]

Yes, I think that our management tools and techniques need to recognize a broad suite of tools. Habitat will always be fundamentally important where we have populations that have had too much impact on their habitat and their populations are declining. As the boreal caribou recovery strategy acknowledges, other management techniques may be required to sustain the population until the habitat can recover. We need a suite of management tools, habitat and non-habitat, and to keep our eye on the ball of restoring habitat to the levels needed for the different species that might be impacted.

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

My preference in terms of environmental policy is to actually see on-the-ground results as opposed to spending money. There's often a misconception that the more you spend, the more results you get. I think the commissioner said earlier that in her auditing she looks at the results. I don't think she said she looks at the dollars spent. Obviously, results for dollars spent are important. But again, when I look at the natural area conservation plan, something like 800,000 hectares of very valuable and precious southern working landscape has been conserved. Can you expand on that program which to me has been a major success?

[Robert McLean]

The program is designed to acquire what is referred to as a full or partial interest in the land. A full interest is purchase of the land itself, called fee-simple title. In other situations the land remains in private ownership. For example, for a rancher in prairie Canada who has native prairie, there could be a conservation easement. That rancher continues to manage the land, and the conservation easement provides protection to the native prairie. Ranchers in that example are important because grazing mimics the disturbance that plains bison used to provide. That native prairie will not be healthy habitat without that kind of management approach.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Sopuck.

Thank you, witnesses, for appearing today. You've helped us launch into our study on wildlife management and its role in conservation and on economic development.

We're going to move, committee members, not in camera, but for this first section we have the resignation of Mr. Choquette as the vice-chair.

We will now move to nominations for vice-chair to replace Mr. Choquette. I'm open to nominations.

Mr. Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

I nominate Megan Leslie.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Are there any further nominations?

Nominations are closed.

Seeing that, we declare Ms. Leslie as the new vice-chair of the environment and sustainable development committee.

Thank you.

We'll now have a short recess before we reconvene in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]