Environment Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[Tim Williams]

If you want to hear from the Inuit, it's really the NTI, the Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, that represents the Inuit on the land claims agreement.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Or the Inuvialuit corporation, etc. Any of these northern organizations would be great.

I think the challenge is that we will always want more, and you would be absolutely right to want more. I think what we could do is reach out to the various Inuit corporations that have been established pursuant to the land claims agreements with the federal government and ask for any written submissions they may have.

The timeline is tight, and I acknowledge that, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the conversation on the issue. It's simply to get what views we can. It's the same as with any first nation across the country. How many have we not spoken with? We've spoken with a very small number, so I think we're necessarily challenged in this respect. I think that has to be part of the conclusion. More consultation needs to be done in order to get a clear view of how to move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay. Go ahead. I'm watching the time.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Well, watching the time or not, this is important, because I think there's an assumption here that we have this deadline we have to work towards. No one has made a compelling case that we actually should have a deadline. I don't know why we cannot allow this study to continue. It doesn't have to continue linearly.

For example, there's a CEPA study that has to be done. I'm prepared to get that done, but why ram this through? It's not only about the Inuit; it's about making sure that we have a representative list of witnesses from across the country to give us a true taste or feel for the uniqueness of each of the regions of Canada when it comes to protected areas and the uniqueness of each protected area itself.

For example, we should be hearing someone from Newfoundland and Labrador and Gros Morne Park. That's going to be unique. We probably should have an Innu voice speaking to us. Lake Superior national park, or whatever the proper name for it is, which we established over the past decade or so, is unique. It was groundbreaking to establish that park. What about Algonquin Park? What about some of the other parks in Quebec?

I don't think we need to rush. Even today, representatives from the WWF and Oceans North opened up a whole new perspective for me. If we want to do justice to a study like this and have a study that will not sit on the shelf, it cannot have holes in it.

I know there will always be a desire to hear more witnesses and I totally get that, but there is some basic amount of information we need to have to do justice to a study like this. I would prefer not to be rushed, because at the end of the day I think our goal is to have a unanimous report emanating from this committee. If we wind this up in the next committee, it is highly unlikely we could do that. We would have to highlight some of the gaps that exist and the fact that this study is incomplete.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I want to make a point before I give the floor to Mr. Stetski.

Every single place in Canada is going to be unique, with its own set of constraints. We heard that today. We've heard that everywhere we've gone. It's unlikely that we're going to be able to.... Our report is not going to delve into the unique solutions for every single one of these parks, but we want to capture the overall frame.

Go ahead, Mr. Stetski.

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

I do think there's some urgency. We've created a set of expectations, given all the witnesses we've met with, that something exciting and meaningful is going to come out of this. Government never moves that quickly; the targets that are set are coming up really quickly in terms of how government moves in general. I'd be fine with a report that sets out the things we've learned that we want government to move on immediately, and if there are still some gaps at the end, we could just identify that it would have been nice to do this, this, or this, or perhaps there should be some follow-up.

I think we need to get a report out that provides some direction back to government so they can get moving on this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I want to have this discussion again next Tuesday. I think everybody wants to say more, and because I gave more time, because these people came and we were having a good discussion, I didn't want to cut them off, even though I know that we need more time.

Recognizing that we need more time to discuss this, I think, before we come to what I hope will be a unanimous decision on how we're going to move forward, I'd like to move that to Tuesday, but I need agreement. We need to ask these witnesses to come. I need the witnesses and we need names and we need to at least identify that we are going to be extending this study to the 18th and 20th.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Do you want to call a vote on that issue? I don't think it's that complicated. I move to call a vote on that proposal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Is that a problem? We'll discuss that on Tuesday. Just cross off the second one and just go with the first one, the report. Is everybody okay with that? Can you make a motion on that?

Number two is gone and we have just number one in the subcommittee report.

Does anybody have a problem? Is there any discussion required?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

You're saying number two is gone, and we're limiting the scope of the study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Two is gone. We're not limiting it; we're just going to go with one.

All in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

That looks unanimous.

What I'm looking for is witnesses by tomorrow at noon.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

You're looking for witnesses. It's going to be a fairly long list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I want to see prioritization of those witnesses. If there are 20 people, I need to know what the priorities are. What do you want to hear from the witnesses? What are we digging for with a particular witness? What element are we trying to get at with those witnesses? We need a bit of help here.

There are two other things. First, this memory stick has the pictures from the trip I took. You can download the pictures if you want.

Finally, if you're interested in reading it, I have some information here from the Mikisew Cree First Nation on the Wood Buffalo National Park.

The meeting is adjourned.