Environment Committee on May 26th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mrs. Ambler, your time is up.

I'll give the minister a very short time to respond, please.

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Nunavut, NU]

Since I last appeared before this committee to discuss this particular issue, Parks Canada has committed the long-term stable funding of $143.7 million over 10 years and $7.6 million a year thereafter to manage, protect, and operate the park's largest financial investment in the Rouge's history. That investment will allow Parks Canada to protect the Rouge at a higher level than ever before. The Rouge will now have year-round dedicated enforcement officers, a level of protection that the province does not currently provide.

The bill was developed after consulting with at least...the last count anyway, nearly 15,000 Canadians and 150 groups and organizations. The legislation is crafted to go well beyond the existing provincial laws and policies that govern the patchwork of land that makes up the future park.

The Rouge National Urban Park shows our government's strong commitment to conserve Canada's natural spaces and to connect Canadians to nature in their backyards, as highlighted in our government's national conservation plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mrs. Ambler. Thank you, Minister.

We have one more question round prior to the minister's departure, then we'll proceed with a very short break. After that we'll continue with the list I have in front of me with five-minute rounds. Mr. Toet, you will be first in the next round.

Mr. Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the minister and her officials for being here to testify.

I would like to go back to Ms. Ambler's information about contaminated sites. This is an important matter. Canada has a huge number of contaminated sites. Even if we have started to clean them up, there are still far too many. Reports have been produced recently to show the scope of the work that will have to be done in the coming years. But the budget for cleaning up contaminated sites has been reduced. Do I understand that correctly?

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you.

The government invested $4.23 billion to clean up federal contaminated sites. As of March 2014, $2.1 billion has been spent on remediation at more than 1,500 sites and on assessments at more than 10,200 sites, creating about 11,000 person-years to do the cleanup.

Budget 2015 renews the government's support for federal contaminated site action plans by proposing an additional $99.6 million for four years, starting in 2016-17.

Thank you.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Minister, I am going to go back to climate change. You sent a letter to provincial ministers. The provincial ministers were very shocked, certainly in Quebec, to simply get a letter asking for their targets. They were flabbergasted by your approach, that you called “cooperative”. For them, it was not cooperative in nature at all. The targets do not seem to be coordinated with the efforts made by the provinces. It has been shown on a number of occasions that all the effort is coming from the provinces.

In your main estimates, under the heading of climate change and clean air, there is a cut of 26%. Recently, you established the targets for 2030. How do you anticipate reaching your objectives with cuts of that size?

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Nunavut, NU]

I'm going to respond to the first part of the questions and then pass it on to Carol for the details.

In terms of the approach that we're taking with the provinces and territories, I have been working with the provincial environment ministers, as well as territorial environment ministers, in addressing ways of going forward in how we contribute to the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. I have also stated that they have provincial levers as well. They need to do their part, we need to do our part, and we're committed to doing that. The provinces and territories have their own targets. They establish their own targets and their own initiatives, and that's great because they do need to do their part, and so do we.

The federal initiatives that we have undertaken have been a sector-by-sector approach, and those are our contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other investments in clean energy technology and so forth.

We'll continue to work and engage with the provinces and the territories. I'll be meeting with them in Winnipeg in June. I also met with the Quebec minister, as well as B.C.'s, Alberta's, and Ontario's when we were in Lima in December at the conference getting ready for the actual discussions in Paris next year.

With that, I'm going to pass it on to deal with the issues of contaminated sites—

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Minister, I was mostly referring to the approach taken. You simply sent a letter asking the provincial ministers to hurry up and send you their targets. That is what they did not appreciate.

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Nunavut, NU]

Actually, that is not true at all. It has been joint, face-to-face meetings of provincial and territorial ministers. I've had meetings with them in Canada. I held the first-ever meeting of ministers on conservation here in Ottawa. We've written letters to get their feedback in terms of where they are within their own targets because it's important to factor in their contributions. They have a role to play, and so does the federal government and the municipal levels.

It's a collaborative approach and it's not just a letter-writing exercise. It's actual face-to-face meetings, which I've had with a number of provincial and territorial ministers, and that will be ongoing.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Choquette.

That brings us to the end of the first hour.

Thank you, Minister, for being with us. We look forward to further consultations with the officials.

We'll take a two-minute recess.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

I'd like to call the committee back to order, please.

As we indicated earlier, we will continue with the question list in the same sequence in which I had it prior to the minister leaving us.

In the second hour we have with us from the Department of the Environment, Mr. Michael Martin, deputy minister; Siddika Mithani, associate deputy minister; Carol Najm, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer of the finance branch. From the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, I have Mr. Ron Hallman, president; and Helen Cutts, vice-president of policy development. From Parks Canada, I have Mr. Alan Latourelle, chief executive officer; and from Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, Janet King, president.

There will be no opening statements at this point. We will simply continue with questions from committee members, beginning with Mr. Toet, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is great to have this opportunity to speak to our officials and ask them a few questions.

I want to start with you, Mr. Martin, with regard to the national conservation plan, which this committee did a lot of work on a few years ago. We were very pleased, after great cooperation in the committee across all party lines, to submit our report and also to see that report being very much the strong basis for the national conservation plan.

It's something that I think is near and dear to the hearts of many on this committee. I was hoping you could give us a sense of the status of the implementation of the national conservation plan today.

[Michael Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you may have seen, the initial round of funding for the various NCP funding programs has been approved, and contribution agreements are in place or are currently being negotiated. Most recently we announced 47 new projects, totalling $5 million, under the new national wetland conservation fund. The calls for proposals in this fiscal year have been issued and are now undergoing review.

We have put in place a contribution agreement with Earth Rangers, which supports their work to help connect families to nature. We finalized a funding agreement with the Nature Conservancy, which is leading the implementation of the natural areas conservation program. The government has also announced the 10 national wildlife areas where we will be investing additional resources under the pillar of connecting Canadians, which was the third pillar of that plan.

We're also continuing to promote the NCP and its goals, and to create greater awareness. This, of course, is in the broader context of the full range of ongoing work that we and our partners at Parks Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada are doing to preserve and restore Canada's natural areas.

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

All right. Thank you.

I also want to turn to Mr. Martin on our participation in global efforts to negotiate a new international climate change agreement. I was hoping you could give us some sense of where we are at in that process, how Canada is participating in that process, and also provide us with some additional information regarding our new targets that had been announced in advance of COP 21, as to where we're at, the status of that, and our role within that, in the context of the international community.

[Michael Martin]

Thank you for the question.

The international negotiating process is an ongoing one. As you may recall at Lima, under the Lima plan for action, we laid out the negotiating process that will lead to Paris, which includes a series of negotiating sessions, the first of which post-Lima was held in Geneva in February. At that meeting the draft negotiating text to support the work toward Paris was agreed. Work will continue on that text at three sessions this year: in June, August, and then in October, prior to the negotiations themselves in Paris.

That's important because as you know this is a negotiation process that involves 195 parties. It is an inclusive and transparent process, and achieving consensus is often a challenge. We are making good progress in the substantive negotiations.

A key part of the process was the call issued at Lima for all 195 parties to come forward with their intended nationally determined contributions. To date I think about 39 parties have done so. Many developed countries and one major developing country, Mexico, have come forward. We continue to look to other parties to come forward prior to Paris, well in advance, with their intended nationally determined contributions.

Canada's own INDC was announced on May 15, as the minister mentioned. We provided clarifying information, consistent with that being provided by other countries. It is intended also to help generate momentum in this negotiating process to develop an environmentally effective post-2020 climate change agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Toet.

Ms. Leslie, please.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Latourelle, I have maybe a quick question about Green Cove in Cape Breton, the Never Forgotten memorial. I see on the Parks Canada website that there is an invitation for public comments about this Never Forgotten national memorial project.

I am certainly a friend of Parks Canada, but this project baffles me and I have real concerns about it. It's a privately funded initiative to build this giant monument of Mother Canada, I think, facing out into the ocean right in one of our national parks. I wonder, how the heck did this happen? Was it a private group that approached Parks Canada or did Parks Canada see a need for war monuments? I don't understand how this project is happening.

[Alan Latourelle, Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada]

Mr. Chair, in terms of our land base across Canada, we have close to 320,000 square kilometres that we manage, and we get approached across the system in terms of proposals. This is one that we've accepted subject to the environmental assessment. Currently, why it's posted is that as part of the environmental assessment process there is a public consultation and our duty is to ensure that if, at the end, there is a project approved it doesn't impact the ecological integrity of that park.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I recognize the environmental assessment is important and that will be the final determination on whether or not this project goes forward. What happens in the decision-making with Parks Canada when Parks Canada is approached about a monument like this? I'm really wondering how it is that Parks Canada said yes, we really need this monument.

[Alan Latourelle]

I think we have to look at the Parks Canada Agency Act and the actual mandate of Parks Canada. Parks Canada has four programs that we're responsible for. We have national parks but we also have national historic sites, so the program of commemoration, conservation, and celebration of Canadian history. We do look at the full breadth of our programs when we make those decisions.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That makes sense to me in terms of your mandate. With this project, in particular, what was it about this project that made Parks Canada say yes?

[Alan Latourelle]

I think it's a celebration and a commemoration of young Canadians who have given up their lives for our country.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's it?

[Alan Latourelle]

Yes.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay, thank you.

If I have more time later, I'm going to come back to discuss the management plan for Sable Island. I'd love an update on that.

But right now, Mr. Martin, I'd like to ask you about the CCME, the ministers' meetings that are coming up. We had a discussion here not too long ago on a water study where we talked about the fact that the microbeads issue is on the agenda for this meeting; and then of course right now, obviously, climate change and greenhouse gas reductions with the provinces are on this agenda too.

We had some concerns expressed by a provincial minister that not a lot gets accomplished at these meetings because there are so many things to talk about and it's just one day. He expressed reluctance to say that things would get done at this meeting, so I'm just wondering how many items beyond climate change and microbeads are on the agenda. Do you know that?