Environment Committee on May 15th, 2019

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Will that be for operational support or just for the purchase of the land?

[Niall O'Dea]

It'll be for the purchase of the land; that is the predominant focus of our effort. I think that's the reality of the current push that we're in, which is to seek that opportunity for the establishment of protected areas and conserved areas.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

That's certainly something that we need to consider down the road, and it is something that I think in our next mandate we'll try to push forward because the value is there to do it.

Another big thing that has happened recently is the cut of the 50-million tree program in Ontario and the impact of that. Once again, with the flooding that we're seeing happen and the soil erosion that is happening, we don't need to be cutting tree plantings. We need to be increasing tree plantings. The Ford government, once again, doesn't seem to understand the reductions in emissions and the elimination of soil erosion that trees can provide in the conditions of climate change that we're dealing with. Under drier conditions, the retention of moisture in the soil helps our farmlands as well. All of these things are a valuable resource.

Rob Keen, the CEO of Forests Ontario, commented:

We need to realize that to have a healthy economy and a healthy society, we need healthy forests. To have healthy forests for our future, we need to plant more trees.

Here are some numbers from an article in Canada's National Observer:

To date, the 50 Million Tree Program has planted 27 million trees, or 15,000 hectares of new forest. On average, this means that every year the program has planted 2.5 million trees on approximately 4,000 properties.

According [to] the 2019 Environmental Commissioner report, average forest cover in southern Ontario stands [at] 26 per cent, with some areas seeing as low as five per cent of forest cover.

The report identified that 30 per cent of land needs to be planted with trees to restore the forest cover in southern Ontario to optimum levels. That equates to roughly 680,000 hectares.

Can you provide a viewpoint that here we're making significant investments in protected spaces in order to grow our forests and grow the ability to tackle climate change, from both an adaptation standpoint and a mitigation standpoint, through emissions reduction?

[Mark Cauchi]

As Niall mentioned, the focus on the target 1 challenge is really on hectares and land acquisition. There is some space for restoration and stewardship of the landscape inside those projects. It's not just all about land securement.

Environment and Climate Change Canada does have other programs, though, that do support restoration, including some of the species at risk programming that we've discussed, as well as the habitat stewardship program, which does support land reclamation and land restoration. However, provinces do play a very important role here in managing lands and forests. Where we are funding, we try to work as closely as possible with those jurisdictions.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Finally, I want to add that I guess when we talk about what we've accomplished towards meeting our Aichi targets, going from 1% to 8% of marine protected areas in the last three and a half years is incredible. It's remarkable the amount of ground you've been able to accomplish in that short period of time.

The land's increasing by 2%.... You've said yourself, to put things into perspective, that it's the size of Greece. Would you say, given the investments and the attention that this government has made in this area, that we're fully committed to achieving those targets and, as you had mentioned yourself, that we're on target to achieve our Aichi targets?

[Niall O'Dea]

I think that it's fair to say that, with this recent injection of funding, we have a trajectory to reach those targets. I think we have the funding. We have the partnerships, and we have the land-based opportunities based on Canada's geography to make those. This is not to say that it won't be challenging, but we are optimistic that those targets will be achieved, yes.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

[Michael Nadler]

We're not just committed—we're absolutely committed.

Niall and I work on this stuff daily, but we're not alone. This effort has brought together a number of jurisdictions and interests around this objective, so we're all rolling in the same direction. In some ways, the scope of that collaboration is unprecedented.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Would you say the funding is the catalyst?

[Michael Nadler]

It's an important contributor, for sure. Again, I do want to underscore that your report as a committee was an important contributor. There are other contributors as well, but absolutely, the funding has been a contributor.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Mr. Stetski, you have the final round of questions here. Your allotment is three minutes, but I've been fairly generous with the clock, so I'll take that same spirit with you. If you want to push the clock a bit, feel free to do so.

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

Thank you. I'll try to keep it to two questions.

In my past lives, I've worked with national parks, Manitoba Parks, and BC Parks as a public servant under many different governments. I want to talk for a minute about the $1.3 billion; I was happy to work at getting signatures from other MPs in support of it.

We're coming up on an election, and I'm interested to know.... Out of that $1.3 billion, do you have any idea of how much has already been spent? Also, how much of it is “election-proof”? If it's not, I really encourage you to be thinking about ways over the next few months to park that money in such a way that it will survive an election regardless, in order to benefit conservation.

I don't know if you can answer that. How much of the $1.3 billion is gone? How much of it is committed in such a way that, regardless of an election outcome, it will still be there for conservation?

[Niall O'Dea]

I can answer in part and then turn to Michael. The profile of the funding for personnel and other resources is relatively stable over the years of the program. Reasonably speaking, we've spent roughly a fifth of that funding to date, and by the time of the election we'll have spent another half of another fifth.

In terms of the contribution funding, that's where more multi-year investments are taking place. If you think of a $500-million Canada nature fund envelope, we've invested $14.5 million at this stage in the quick start process. We expect to invest up to $175 million more in the upcoming decisions around the target 1 challenge. There has been a series of significant investments also made on a multi-year basis in species at risk conservation.

I wouldn't hazard the precise number that has reached at this stage, but I think a considerable investment—likely a little over half of that existing pot—has been or will be committed in the coming month or so, and the results of those investments we'll see over the next four years.

Michael, do you want to add anything from a parks perspective?

[Michael Nadler]

As I mentioned, some of that funding announced in budget 2018 is coming to Parks Canada. We're investing now and will continue to invest. We're also on a five-year cycle.

The one thing that I guess I would observe is that the Aichi targets are real and present. They'll be there in 2020, and we will all have to continue working to achieve them, but please understand that the convention on biodiversity is also aware of the species challenges facing the planet, and there will be new targets for sure. After 2020, we'll probably be coming back to this committee to talk about those challenges as well and how we can work together.

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

I would just encourage you, going forward, to try to make every dollar election-proof, if you can, out of that $1.3 billion.

Second, just quickly, on the role of the public in terms of the new protected areas, I wasn't 100% clear. Are the committees still there? Or are they no longer there? Are they part of the reviewing? Is there any public review involved with the 148 or 149 proposals? Also, what's the role of the public going forward once those land pieces have been selected?

[Niall O'Dea]

Those pre-existing committees no longer exist in that form. We did receive external advice through a separate process for assessing the challenge fund proposals that came from public organizations and indigenous peoples, to make sure we had a full understanding of those perspectives in supporting the expert-based advice that was coming to us through our own teams, through our work with Parks Canada and work with CIRNAC and other colleagues. Those have all been inputs to that decision-making process to date.

Once successful projects are selected and identified, the way public engagement happens on them will be in the hands of our partners in some manner. In many cases those will be the provinces and territories whose Crown lands many of those programs will be initiated on, so I think we will see a variety. I think there's something close to 50 different pieces of legislation in Canada that provide for the establishment of different forms of protected areas. The requirements of those pieces of legislation will be the primary guidance for how those public consultations and engagements are then done.

Mark, did you want to add anything?

[Mark Cauchi]

Many of the proposals that have come in mention consultation plans. They are required to submit a work plan as part of their proposal so we can see in those proposals whether consultation is planned. In some cases it has already happened, and they are looking for funding moving forward. That's one thing we look for.

As you probably well know, Environment and and Climate Change Canada operates national wildlife areas, migratory bird sanctuaries. The minister has already announced our department's intent to create new ones. She has announced the three NWAs in Montreal and the one in Nova Scotia. We will be doing public consultations and stakeholder consultations on those NWAs so people have an opportunity to share their views.

Obviously, there's a lot of support so far for those NWAs, but people have questions about whether they can still fish or hunt or how they will be impacted, so those are legitimate things we want to look at.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

That's the end of your time, Mr. Stetski. You've gone a little beyond. That's excellent.

I want to thank each of our guests here today, our departmental officials, for joining us and speaking so openly and clearly about some of the investments and initiatives you have under way. Thank you to each of you, your departments and your teams for the work you're doing on something I think our committee sees as being very important.

We've heard reference to the committee report we did that was supported by all parties, and I think it really does demonstrate how we can do some great things in this country and government when we work together. It is exciting to see how we had money flow and support from government as well as the opposition in moving forward on conservation in Canada, both terrestrial and marine.

I wish each of you and your respective teams well in continuing to advance this important work. As was said, we're making great progress, but there's a lot more work to be done. I think it will be important in the next government that the environment and climate change committee continue pushing on this because the work's not done, and we need to keep some attention on it.

With that, we're going to suspend and clear the room except for the members and staff. We will come back in a few minutes. We have some committee business to attend to.

The meeting is suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]