Environment Committee on May 3rd, 2016

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

In the 2014 budget there was about $250 million. I've heard you explain about the length of time, and I understand that process. Is there enough money? Mr. Amos asked, is it about the money or is it about the process?

[Kevin McNamee]

I think the funding that you're specifically referring to was not for establishment. It might have been for capital, or—

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Canada's national conservation plan.

[Kevin McNamee]

I guess your question wasn't more about the funding.

It is about both. It is about, as I mentioned, having the necessary funding, but also building the necessary relationships so that we have funding to advance a number of extremely important sites. Thaidene Nëné and Lancaster Sound are probably going to be our next two sites, and both of them are extremely important ecologically. These will be as the result of negotiated agreements with indigenous people. You'll be hearing from one of the communities, Lutsel K'e, tomorrow.

These places are going to offer some very iconic visitor experiences. We have the funding to do those too. We just need to get the agreements.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Could we find out what point the national conservation plan is at now? Is that something we can get?

[Robert McLean]

Yes. In the interest of using our time well, perhaps we can follow up in writing with the different components of the national conservation plan and where things stand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

That would be great.

You have a second left, if Ms. Gelfand wants to add.

[Julie Gelfand]

I just want to indicate that when we looked at the audit of Environment Canada's protected areas and their bird conservation regions, as an example, we found that they've developed these strategies; they haven't actually identified what funds they need in order to protect the birds.

I think things are different in Parks Canada, which has been, I want to say, the rich cousin of Environment Canada's protected area system. I'm not sure. They have a system plan at Parks Canada, but there is no system plan for national wildlife areas. There are different criteria; there is no system plan, the way there is in Parks Canada. They're very different creatures, but generally I'm not sure Environment Canada has....

We noted in our audit that there wasn't enough funding for management plans for national wildlife areas, for example; that they were 20 years old; and that there was not enough funding for bird conservation strategies. I think funding is an issue in certain protected areas.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

We have our last questioner, Mr. Stetski.

I'm giving you five minutes rather than your normal three.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate the work you're all doing on behalf of conservation and protected areas and the environment.

I talked earlier about three things. I'm going to add a fourth, which will become my question.

I think the federal government needs to set a long-term, big picture vision or goal for conservation in general. Whether it's the 50% that we heard about last night at the CPAWS event or some other target, I think the federal government does need to set leadership around this vision for the future.

I talked briefly about federal government leadership and about coordinating and bringing together everybody to deliver on the 10% and the 17%. That is a role I think the federal government needs to take on. Whether it's through a protected areas accord based on the health accord model or in some other way, it will take good coordination to get there.

The third thing is the need for quality areas, not just quantity areas, and the importance of science and of having scientists available to actually help deliver on it.

The fourth one is really around management, monitoring, and reporting moving forward. In fall 2013 the commissioner of the environment issued the report and as part of it noted that as of 2011 Parks Canada had not yet assessed the condition of ecological integrity for 41% of the parks system. The commissioner also noted that of the ecosystems that had been assessed, 34% were found to be in decline.

I raise all of this because government has committed, and rightly so, to restoring ecological integrity as a priority in our national parks system. As we look to significantly increase our protected areas—and this was a challenge in B.C. when we doubled the parks system back in the nineties—how will government ensure that there are sufficient resources for putting monitoring and reporting on ecological integrity in place and for managing these protected areas? You need to be committed long-term to the management and monitoring of these areas as we proceed down this path to increasing the number of areas that are protected.

[Kevin McNamee]

I'll start off by simply pointing out that for the last several decades, through the various budget allocations we have gotten for creating new national parks and national marine conservation areas, part of our budget ask and part of what is funded is to do exactly what you said. Built within the funding framework are funds for doing ecological monitoring and reporting within the specific park that is established. In addition, funding is also provided to work with indigenous communities through impact and benefit agreements, co-operative management boards, and other things, to collaboratively engage in not just scientific monitoring but monitoring of resources that are of importance to indigenous people and communities.

[Nadine Crookes]

I would add that in Parks Canada, as you know, our ecological integrity monitoring program every ten years leads to a “state of park” report for each and every individual park and site, which then informs the actions that our strategies are taking in our management plans.

More recently, what we've been able to do is link that program to our conservation and restoration, the $84-million program that Kevin iterated earlier, in terms of restoration actions to help mitigate or to make improvements in those ecosystems in decline that you're speaking about.

To date, we have managed to complete 120 ecological indicators, which are at the ecosystem level, for our 44 national parks, including 600 measures, nine of which are indigenous knowledge measures. We have some room to grow there but are certainly working towards having good science to inform our decisions and our actions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You were within your one minute.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I'd like to hear briefly from the other organizations. As was mentioned earlier, although Parks Canada is not a very rich cousin, they have had more money than the rest of you agencies have had to look after your protected areas.

Just to get a quick snapshot, are you comfortable and confident that you will have more money in the future to manage the new protected areas?

[Jeff MacDonald]

I'll try to answer the first part of the question, with regard to the management monitoring and reporting, especially on ecological integrity.

As Kevin Stringer explained in his speech, our objectives under the Oceans Act for MPAs, for example, are slightly different. We don't necessarily have the representativeness and visitor experience part as our mandate; for us it's really about biodiversity and the protection of the marine environment.

In that regard, both under the national conservation plan and in budget 2016, the funds that were invested in the program included ongoing monitoring funding, which is A-base funding; it is not just funding that will expire in four years.

Over and above that, as Kevin said earlier, we have invested significantly in our scientific capacity, both in terms of the health of the oceans research, but also our basic oceanography. In the recent budget, there was also a reinvestment in DFO science capacity, which will of course aid us a lot in reporting on ecological integrity, not only of marine protected areas, but of the bioregions in Canada's oceans as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much to all of you for kicking off this new topic for us. We appreciate the expertise you've shared, and the information. There is quite a bit that you've been asked to provide in written form; there will be quite a lot coming to us, I hope. We'll be looking forward to it.

We don't have a lot of time with this study; we have the four sessions. Please, if you could, give us that information as fast as possible. It would be most helpful. Again, thanks very much.

Before the committee leaves the table and we close the meeting, I have one issue that I need to talk to people about.

We've been asked, by the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association to join them on the 17th for a round table on the environment, climate change, and energy panel. The problem is, the only time available is 11:15 until noon. Unfortunately, we are actually doing our report at that time—May 17 is our final report for the sustainable... Oh, I'm sorry; it's the drafting instructions for this one.

I want to give the message that unfortunately none of us will be able to attend, and I didn't want to say that without checking with you. I think everybody is going to want to be here for that day's meeting.

Thank you very much. The meeting is now adjourned.