Evidence of meeting #17 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was biodiversity.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you. I'm Wayne Stetski, from the riding of Kootenay—Columbia. I'd like to start by recognizing Teck's contribution to conservation in my riding.
For questions, I'll start with West Coast Environmental Law and the Canadian Wildlife Federation. We've heard fairly consistent messaging from witnesses that we need a national long-term vision for Canada beyond the 10% and 17% targets, so where do we want to be with conservation in the long term in Canada? We've also heard that we'll need federal government leadership and coordination on reaching the 10% and 17% targets, so we need a coordinating model that will get us there. It could be similar to the health accord model we have in place.
The third thing is the challenge in deciding what should be in and out for reaching those targets. Should it be quantity or quality, and how do we decide what should be in and out? We've heard a bit about IUCN classifications. The Canadian Council on Ecological Areas has a classification system.
I'm interested, and I'll start with the environmental law association. Is there a model out there that you've seen that you think we could be applying to decide what should be in and out of the total targets of 10% and 17%?
12:45 p.m.
Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association
Thanks for the question.
I think you've heard from other witnesses that the IUCN currently has a task force looking at these other effective area-based conservation measures, and it should be reporting soon. The Canadian Council on Ecological Areas has provided a lot of input into the IUCN task force. That report will probably provide some good guidance for Canada about what should be counted and what shouldn't be counted.
I did note that the indigenous community conservation areas are one particular type of protected area that could, if their primary goal is to protect biodiversity, qualify as another effective area-based conservation measure.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
To the Canadian Wildlife Federation, I ask the same question.
12:45 p.m.
Acting Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice-President, Canadian Wildlife Federation
I agree that the IUCN recommendations will be helpful. My understanding is that they should be out soon, and that will be helpful.
Your question about what should be included in terms of quantity and quality is a bit of a struggle for many countries. I think it would vary for each ecoregion and ecosystem in terms of the amount of threat and the type of threat. I don't know that there's a general answer. I think it would be specific to a particular area.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
For the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, you mentioned pan-boreal assessment as a tool you've used for deciding what counts. Is that related somewhat to the IUCN or Canadian Council on Ecological Areas system? That's for the Canadian boreal forest group.
12:45 p.m.
Conservation Planning Team Lead, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
I'll respond to that.
The pan-boreal assessment includes quantitative measures for determining the amount of additional area that's required to be protected. That provides science-based numbers rather than the more policy-based numbers we have coming out of IT, for example. There hasn't been any particular alignment with any type of international agreement or suggestions for the amount of area to protect, other than the science-based numbers we're coming up with.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
We should measure those as well as have a quantity measure, then.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I have a quick question for the West Coast Environmental Law Association again. As you know, the government is committed to restoring ecological integrity as a priority in our national parks system, which includes national marine conservation areas, and currently national parks only spends about 7.9% of its budget on conservation.
What is your assessment of where things are currently in terms of ecological integrity in marine protected areas? What are some of the challenges? How do we mitigate them, and are there other models from around the world that we should be looking to?
12:45 p.m.
Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association
The written brief provides a lot of information on this topic. I think we can put conservation objectives directly into law. We can put the ecological overriding goal directly into law for the marine side of the equation. It is there in the Canada National Parks Act, but is not there in the Oceans Act or the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, so there are things we can do to use our law to make sure that ecological integrity is protected, and I urge you to look at the written brief for more examples.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for being here today.
This has been enlightening and enlightening from the standpoint that we struggled with this in the last report we were working on around sustainability and reaching the 17 SDGs and how to establish a legislative framework and then give it teeth to bring about accountability and enforcement. This is a similar type of situation we're dealing with now.
We have targets. We have goals that have been out there for decades that have never been met. I refer to Einstein's comment that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and it doesn't work, you are insane. It's the definition of insanity.
I'd like to throw it out there, first to the West Coast Environmental Law Association.
I like what you're saying around a legislative framework and putting these targets into legislation, but once again, do you define this legislation around targets—10%, 17%—or do you first identify threats, identify areas through an assessment process or whatever the case might be, and then put the protection into the law? Once again, how do you build accountability and enforcement into that?
12:50 p.m.
Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association
I don't know if you actually need to put the numerical targets into the law. I think you need to put their conservation objectives into the law. I think you need to put timelines for completion of things into the law. I think we could do a better job of creating legislated procedures that would get us past this painful, laborious one-by-one site selection that can drag on for 10 or 20 years.
New Zealand, for example, is currently amending its marine protected areas law. They're proposing to use a collaborative approach as one approach, or if that's not going to work, to create a board of inquiry headed by one of their environmental court judges to actually make a ruling about what the scope of the protected area will be.
All the agencies you've heard from are doing a wonderful job of identifying all the places that we need to protect, the priority areas, the EBSAs, the marine bioregions. There's so much scientific knowledge, and in B.C., as I mentioned, we have these MaPPs, these protection management zones, that could be turned into protected areas almost overnight.
They have the huge evidence base already there. It's a long story of why the federal government wasn't involved in that process, which I don't have time for, but I am happy to provide follow-up information on how MaPPs' protection management zones could easily be converted into marine protected areas.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Do you see the same, though, for all protected areas, whether marine or land-based terrestrial ones?
12:50 p.m.
Staff Counsel, West Coast Environmental Law Association
I think there are legislative changes that can speed up our progress. You have heard that the marine side lags far behind the terrestrial side, so I think it's more urgent to address legislative renewal for the marine side of our protected areas equation.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you.
Aran O'Carroll and Rick Bates, because I'm running out of time, could you very quickly also comment on that? You've gone through the assessment process and you've gone through the collaborative process. You've had some success, if not nearly enough success, so do you think that a legislative approach would speed things up and accelerate the process?
Then I'd like to put it to the mining and forestry people whether they feel it would provide more certainty for them moving forward in reaching these targets without creating too onerous a process.
12:50 p.m.
Acting Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice-President, Canadian Wildlife Federation
It's important to look at the Species at Risk Act, for guidance because that is one area where there's been awfully slow development in the listing of species. While there is a law there that compels action around listing, we're way behind the appropriate listing and recovery strategies for species at risk.
That may be a place to look as a way to significantly improve on that process if we do head down the path of law.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
We have the Oceans Act. We have the Fisheries Act. We have the Navigation Protection Act. We have the Species at Risk Act. We have CEPA. There are many different acts and regulatory regimes out there. Do you not feel that we should try to combine some of these regulatory oversight mechanisms into one overarching mechanism that is focused purely on protected areas?
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Sorry. There is never enough time.
Please, go ahead, Rick or Aran.
12:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Secretariat, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
I tend to agree with what Ms. Nowlan is saying.
We need clear objectives and processes that get us towards these commitments we've made. A law is but a tool, and it needs leadership. To Mr. Stetski's point, we do need federal leadership, either to implement a new law that is perhaps more focused on these things or in fact for some of the existing legislative mechanisms we have.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Could I quickly get an answer from Ben or Ms. Lindsay?
