Environment Committee on March 31st, 2015

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

As you know, Mr. Olson, the becoming an outdoorswoman program takes place in my constituency. I too had the pleasure of being an instructor there last year, teaching fly fishing. I very much share your sentiments about these women hunters and anglers, and their deep enthusiasm for what they're doing in a commitment to conservation.

I think my time is up.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You're right on. That's seven minutes exactly.

We'll move to Ms. Leslie for seven minutes.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks very much for your testimony. I certainly learned a lot. I'm going to respect your time and expertise by actually jumping in with substantive questions and consulting with you about the science you know, the expertise you have, and the on-the-ground experience you have.

Mr. Olson, I read a quote from you in the Calgary Herald that really struck me. I'll read it to you. This was back in 2010, when you said:

We've lost 80 per cent of the wetlands that were here at the time of European settlement and we're still losing what's left. That's bad for us duck folks, but it is also flood water retention and water quality for urban people. Endangered species live in those same areas.

I love that quote because you've effectively pulled in all the things that we need to be talking about. It isn't just about hunting and trapping, as the three of you said. It is about conservation. It is about wetlands. It is about habitat loss and endangered species. I want to turn it over to you to expand on how interconnected this all is and on the idea of habitat loss, the idea that this is where our species at risk are.

I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Olson.

[Rob Olson]

Yes, I think the sorts of divisions we have in our mind sometimes are that we have cities and then we have rural areas. Sometimes we think of them as divided. In fact, they often are. There are divisions there. Also, we'll think about the divisions where we have hunters and then we have environmentalists. We have a certain kind of person who we think of as a hunter and then there are the urban people who aren't hunters.

It's all connected, right? The older you are and the more you're on this earth, you see that. There are connections everywhere. We need to be aware that it's all connected and use that.

On the wetland idea, in my province, arguably the people who probably might need those wetlands the most live in Winnipeg. We're the flood city, aren't we? We get issued rubber boots at birth and we just make them bigger as we grow. It's a flood city. We're in a flood plain. We're dealing with flooding issues all the time, so you could argue that the city folks here in Winnipeg, where I live, probably need those wetlands more than anybody, but you have to connect them to it somehow. How do you do that?

So many Winnipeggers I talk to are so busy. They're busy. They're working hard, they have kids, and they have all those issues that we all deal with as humans, as you know, such as keeping the relationships going and all those things. How do you get them out there, outside the perimeter of Winnipeg, to go and see those wetlands and care enough to write a cheque?

The magic of connecting to farmers is that they need those wetlands too. They know that. They have the expertise. They own the lands, so they're essential to conserving the wetlands, but bringing in the Winnipeggers, marrying them with the farmers, and having that connection is really where the magic happens. To me, this meeting today and this committee are where the magic happens.

Bob Sopuck has been a hunter for his entire life. We got Bob, but we want you. We want to get you to become an outdoorsman. We want to get the people who are in the room today and aren't currently fishing, trying those things, conserving wetlands, or maybe contributing to wetland conservation. To me, it's all about gaining. We have to gain ground, so we need new humans.

We have to engage women more, and we're doing that. For Winnipeg women, how do we get them caring enough about a little slough out by some little town in western Manitoba where Bob lives? How do we do that? To have them become outdoorswomen is a great way, because once they come there and once they get the bug, we have something like a 90% conversion rate. If we can get women to come to our weekend there, about 90% of them continue to participate in the outdoors. They have never said no to us when we've come back to them and asked them to help us with this conservation thing. They always give.

It's about breaking down those barriers. It's about having more connections. It's about pulling in more people and finding unique new ways to do that. That's the fun bit and the opportunity.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I think you'd be surprised by some of the experiences of the folks around the table. I come from a hunting and trapping family. We didn't hunt and trap because it was fun. We did it because we were poor and that's where we got our meat source. People have all kinds of different backgrounds.

Mr. Scarth and Mr. Boyce, in thinking about that quote, especially when Mr. Olson talked about how much of the wetlands we're losing, I'm thinking about habitat loss generally. Can either of you gentlemen comment on habitat loss and the impact it's having on hunting and trapping?

[Prof. Mark Boyce]

Certainly habitat loss is the biggest assault that we're having on wildlife and fish populations throughout North America. I think that every conservation group recognizes that. That's the continuing battle to ensure that we have lands managed for wildlife. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're set aside strictly for wildlife. There are various types of use that are compatible. One of the major focuses of our research program is trying to find ways that energy extraction can be compatible with maintaining wildlife populations on the landscape. There are many things that we can do to use best management practices, to coordinate road construction, and to coordinate energy corridors in ways that protect blocks of habitat for wildlife.

Certainly habitat loss is the biggest threat to the future of fish and wildlife resources in North America and the world.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Scarth.

[Jonathan Scarth]

I would just add to Mark's comments to say that the influence of habitat and predation are kind of two sides of the same coin. You take the case of ducks that nest, for example. Most of those species nest in the upland areas, the grass areas of the prairies. When there are fewer of those undisturbed grass areas for them to nest in, their nest success is reduced. It's easier for a skunk or a racoon or a fox to find those nests, and those predator populations are much larger because we've basically managed the prairie landscape to their advantage, as opposed to the nesting birds'.

In addition to the comments Mark made, I would add the fact that the support for management of that landscape through use and through conservation is the way to go. We are an agricultural community. We're going to be growing grain. We're going to be growing food, fibre. We can also grow ducks and grow big game on that landscape, but it has to be actively managed. One of the things I think that's unique about the hunting, fishing, and trapping perspective is that they understand the need to manage. It's not a matter of setting up little parks; that's impractical. You can't sustain an ecosystem on that basis in most cases. That support for active management is a very important core belief that exists within the sustainable use community.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Mr. Scarth.

We'll move now to Mr. Toet for seven minutes.

Mr. Toet.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our guests here today. It has been very helpful and enlightening.

I want to pick up a little bit on the line of questioning from Ms. Leslie, and that's in regard to the habitat conservation and rehabilitation of habitat. I think the two go hand in hand to a large degree.

I just want to get the perspective of each one of our panellists, a very quick perspective, on who you feel will play a key role in that habitat conservation and habitat rehabilitation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

I'll start with Mr. Scarth.

[Jonathan Scarth]

Mr. Chair, I'm speaking on behalf of a waterfowl organization, and as I mentioned before, there's a disproportionate 80% to 90% of nesting ducks that depend on the privately owned landscape known as the prairie pothole region, which begins in Iowa and stretches up through to Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta—275,000 square miles of habitat that is virtually entirely privately owned. The focus of our organization is to work with the private landowner community within that vast area because they are the fulcrum. They are the people who own the land and manage that land and they are a critical part of the equation, from our perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Olson.

[Rob Olson]

I agree with Mr. Scarth. If you think of where much of the habitat loss is occurring now, it's on agricultural lands. Commodity prices have been relatively high for quite a few years now, so it's the private landowners, the farmers, and the cattle producers we have to connect to, for sure. On one side of the equation, we have to connect to them and engage them in conservation more deeply. We can't just be doing it to them. It's got to be from them, and there's a massive difference. It has to be led by them. That's key, and there's a real long conversation there.

The other side, though, is that we have to find a way to connect the urban majority to what that value is out there on that farmland. That's the challenging bit. As for the farm part, I think we're well on our way thanks to organizations like Delta Waterfowl. I think that's happening, and other organizations as well are doing great work there. The challenge is connecting to the urban folks, which I think is going to be the other half of the conversation. I think there's a lot of work to be done there still.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Boyce.

[Prof. Mark Boyce]

Yes.

I would add to those comments that in addition to agriculture, and especially in Alberta, industrial development is having very substantial consequences for habitat loss.

There are a number of things that can be done. One is a conservation offset program where when land is taken up for mining or for oil sands development, various companies then invest in conservation properties. The Alberta Conservation Association manages a number of those. It has purchased a number of those, for example, for Syncrude and Suncor and other major oil companies, so that those lands are managed and set aside for wildlife to offset the consequences of industrial development.

In addition, industry is expected to reclaim lands that have been disturbed and modified by industrial development. Sometimes that takes many years before it happens, but ultimately lands can be brought back into production and restored to at least their former value in terms of wildlife habitat, if it's done well. So wildlife reclamation is a very important part of the picture.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

It's good to hear from all of you that there seems to be a real sense that there is a directional change happening here, that we are having better engagement from the agricultural community, and having better engagement from the industrial community who are looking at seeing their responsibilities and their needs, and also at their long-term growth in sustainability to be able to be there. So I think we're seeing some good trends in that direction.

I wanted to go back to Mr. Olson. You've made several comments about engaging young urban Canadians. You talked about women, but also about young urban Canadians and new Canadians who are in our urban centres and the engagement of them. We've talked about that quite a bit in our national conservation plan study. We actually did a whole segment on that particular piece.

I'm just wondering if you could speak to some of the work that your organization is doing, the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, and some of your member clubs, to help to reach out especially to our urban youth to get them involved in these programs so they become the conservationists we want them to become over time.

[Rob Olson]

Yes, I would love to speak to that. It's my passion. My passion personally is getting young people in the outdoors. It's a magical thing to do. You get them out there and it changes them. I remember the first youth hunt that we did, a young lad had got his first duck in the morning and it was a big experience for him, a little emotional as well. We came back to our camp—and we had 16 kids in that first hunt—and we cleaned the duck. We showed him how to do it and he did it. His little sister was there too, although she was not old enough to hunt yet. We then cooked the ducks. He cooked the duck and then he served it to his mother. We called it “Duck, it's what's for dinner”. The parents came back and the kids served the duck to their parents, and he was emotional.

I get emotional even when I think about it. It was an amazing moment. He was emotional. His hands were shaking; he was walking out of the kitchen carrying the plate and his hands were shaking. And his mom's emotional. I thought, what's going on here? I didn't see that coming. She said he's never cooked anything in his life, never mind not knowing where his food comes from. He has no idea where his food comes from, no sense of that, no connection. After that, he's connected. It's a growth experience as a human being that too many of us as humans don't get anymore.

That hunt now has grown into 16 hunts across Manitoba. We take kids out hunting waterfowl, deer, and turkeys. We mentor them in. We have a tremendous amount of safety training.

There's huge demand for it, Lawrence, and our volunteers are ideally suited to taking them out and showing them how to do that. As I said, we have inner-city programming now where we're trying to get kids eating goose fajitas and we're going to try to pull them out of the perimeter now.

Our challenge is funding. We applaud the national conservation plan, it's outstanding, and working with farmers is essential to securing habitat and then, as Dr. Boyce talked about, the energy sector as well. We could use some funding to recruit young Canadians into the outdoors. Because if we can recruit them into it, they're going to be there to do the conservation work and to drive the conservation plan work.

We could use some help from all of you in the room today. I'm talking about tiny amounts of money, just a little money to facilitate our being able to get these kids out of the perimeter. We're going to be limited. We can work with the farmers and we can work with the energy sector. We've shown there are opportunities there, but we need to engage these young people and their parents in this stuff, the mothers especially, and we could use a little help in doing that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We'll have to come back to that, possibly in response to another question. Mr. Toet has used up his time.

He's a great conservationist except when it comes to time.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. McKay, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you.

I apologize to each of you for missing the main part of your testimony. I have a wicked combination of jet lag and head cold.

Your conversation about Manitobans being born with boots on because of the regularity of the flooding has made me think about what I guess we're anticipating in the next few weeks, which is yet again another flood in either Saskatchewan or Manitoba. It seems to me that it has a great deal to do with habitat management and the inherent conflict between a farmer who wishes to maximize the use of land for the production of commodities—perfectly understandable in this price scenario—and the inevitable reduction in habitat for ducks and whatever else.

It's not clear to me what can be done, other than goodwill, at the municipal, provincial, or even the federal level to direct the minds of Canadians to the cost of those floods, on an annual basis, to all economies, right across the prairie spectrum but indeed the Canadian economy. Farmers get on their land later and they have to get off it earlier.

But you would know better than I. I'd be interested in your thoughts with respect to that issue. It seems to lack some sort of an overall narrative to reduce what happens to the good folks in Manitoba on an annual basis.

Perhaps I'll start with Professor Olson.

[Rob Olson]

I think it's entirely possible to engage the agricultural producers. I think the key is how. You're competing against grain prices, that's true, but even in that environment there are opportunities on farms. Often with the marginal land on a farm, even with high commodity prices, they'd rather not farm it. I come from a farm myself, and those areas around the wetlands, the areas around the creek, are often not productive and are risky to farm. So even in that environment there's an opportunity to conserve.

The key thing is how you approach the farmers. They're a lot like hunters, probably, in the sense that if you go into a community with a heavy hand and say, “Thou shalt not drain”, you're going to turn that Saskatchewan farmer—that person who will pull over and help you change your tire at two o'clock in the morning, that friendly, lovely person who will give you the shirt off their back—into someone who's fighting for their land and fighting for their personal choice to manage their land. You're attacking their community when you bring pressure down on them with regulations. There does need to be rules and regulations, but you don't start there. If you hit somebody with a stick, now it's contentious. The key is going into those farm communities in a certain way, with a certain approach. If you do that, then you can engage those communities.

It will take money, but it's not just money. I've always felt, with my experience working with farmers in conservation, that money is important but it's not everything. It's more important how you actually work with farmers and how you engage them.

[Jonathan Scarth]

I'll just supplement that before I turn it over to Mark.

That's exactly right. I think the respect that you need to have on that privately owned landscape for the situation that a farmer and a rancher is in drives you towards a program that works through incentives as opposed to regulation or purchase of that land for conservation purposes. There are lots of precedents out there. We're actually one of the few industrialized countries that does not have a conservation program with the scope to have an impact on this kind of scale. The U.S. has for a long time integrated incentives into its agricultural policy. The European Economic Community has what they started calling multi-functionality—different ways of producing both environmental goods and services and food and fibre from privately owned farmland.

So the precedents are there. The direction, as Rob says, is very important, but the models are out there. It's about making conservation mainstream. It's about making it important to counties and to farmers and ranchers, not as an afterthought, not as something that happens after you get the roads and the ditches done, but as something that should be happening around the county table in addition to the other mainstream economic infrastructure issues that they contend with.