Evidence of meeting #26 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 arctic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Okay, great.
Would you qualify as good or bad the level of coordination between DFO, Environment Canada, and Parks Canada, with regard to northern conservation, park establishment, and protected area establishment?
4:40 p.m.
Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada
Ask me in a year.
I don't mean to be cheeky about it, but in fairness to those agencies, prior to the last year there hadn't been much direction to move this stuff forward. There now appears to be direction to move this stuff forward. It has been just a year. Things need to move, but I don't know yet.
September 29th, 2016 / 4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate the information today.
I'm very familiar with Ducks Unlimited as a conservation organization and with how they work with the people on the land. They have land to deal with. However, you're in a different situation. Land titles are very different in the areas you deal with.
Can you describe to me the process? I'm familiar with Ducks Unlimited, and they often depend on the science and knowledge that the farmers and ranchers have. Science sometimes sits over here, because I understand those guys know a lot more about the land. Could you describe what you deal with?
4:40 p.m.
Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada
I think it's probably best to describe our relationship somewhat with Ducks and a few charitable trusts. Those organizations are the ones that provide funding for us to do the conservation work that we do with the Inuit in the Arctic and the Canadian north. Ducks' interest is waterfowl, and it's not limited to freshwater—
4:40 p.m.
Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada
—because it, of course, spills over into the salt water as well. We work with the Canadian Wildlife Service's migratory bird section in some areas.
To go to the Canadian boreal initiative, the Canadian Boreal Initiative was about protecting trees. You might wonder what that has to do with Ducks. Well, you need trees to manage water and the ecosystems and whatnot, so presumably, from a Canadian Arctic perspective, Ducks Unlimited looks at the ocean as a key habitat for waterfowl, and in some cases marine protection is required.
I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, and I apologize if I'm not.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
You talk about building relationships and you talk about partnerships. You know about it and you've been working at it. How did you go about it?
4:40 p.m.
Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada
We have identified areas that we would like to work in and we identify issues that we would like to work on. We approach Inuit organizations, such as in the case of Pond Inlet, for example, which sits more or less in the proposed Lancaster Sound national marine conservation area. We approach hunters and the hunters and trappers organization in Pond Inlet and say, “We're interested in working here on this issue. Is that something that's of some interest to you?”
lf it's of no interest to them, it's okay—well, we won't work on that, then. If it is of interest to them....
Floe edge monitoring is an example. The floe edge off Pond Inlet is critically important to the hunters for narwhal and seal. It's important to narwhal and seals, so from conservation perspectives and a sustainable use perspective, it's important. There's proposed shipping activity in that area.
We have worked with the people of Pond Inlet, the hunters and trappers organization of Pond Inlet, and set up cameras that do time-lapse photography to capture what's happening with the floe in advance of shipping activity during ice. That's just one example.
That's how we approach it basically everywhere. It can be the other way: they could approach us and say they would like to work on this. If it fits in with what we would like to work on, we'll partner with them. We don't do anything—we haven't done anything to my knowledge—without the Inuit leader of a relevant Inuit body duly constituted, so to speak, under the land claims agreement, signing some piece of paper that says they would like to work with us on this or they are partnering with us on this. To my knowledge, we have not. I could be wrong, but that's how we approach it, generally speaking.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Earlier you talked about the different land claims and the four different major ones out there. One of the things we've heard is, “Just give us the opportunity among ourselves and we'll sort it out.” Do they have the capacity to do that there? You've talked about capacity.
4:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Arctic, World Wildlife Fund-Canada
The four Inuit land claims were settled over 30 years or so. There's quite a bit of different content in the rights secured in the first ones versus in the latest ones, and I think it's important to kind of ratchet up to the best available that we have. In this case, the Nunatsiavut have many more rights in terms of the marine environment than some of the other land claims, which is kind of striking because Inuit are marine-based people, really.
In terms of capacity, there certainly are challenges within a lot of our communities. People do need to be trained up, but they're also willing to be. I always find, particularly when it comes to issues with land and waters, it's what folks know best. The capacity to take on those issues, I would say, is quite strong.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Then the barriers that they would run into go back to a question over here. Is it a funding issue, or are there other barriers between departments and governments that are going to keep that from happening?
4:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Arctic, World Wildlife Fund-Canada
I think there's an issue of the relationship and Ottawa not always knowing best. The best managers of these areas are going to be the ones who know it the best, and they're up north, so it's flipping the relationship that is really important.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much.
Now I think Ken and Terry are going to share their time.
Go ahead. You have six minutes.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Madam Chair, I share a similar fondness for Baffinland—my niece is from there, and it's a great area, and I find this extremely important. Just for clarification, I'm going to have a 30-second question and answer, and then I'm going to share my time with Michael, and then Ken and Michael can talk as Michael—
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Just to be clear, I'm going to do one more round, a short round, and Michael is going to get a chance to have some time. That's if we stick to the time.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
The question will be for all three, instead of one: describe the job opportunities around protecting lands in our north.
I'm from Sault Ste. Marie. We have a provincial park that's protected in that area, and I recognize those jobs. I'm not Inuit, but my wife and kids are Métis.
Also, with the new direction of the nation-to-nation process we're undertaking, what advice would you give this government in approaching that nation-to-nation discussion? It's extremely important.
It's a two-part question: about jobs around protecting areas in the north, and then the nation-to-nation discussion and some advice you can give.
4:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Arctic, World Wildlife Fund-Canada
There are some obvious jobs that come with a protected area. There are the wardens, the guardians, or whatever you want to call them, and that kind of employment. There's the research, and then there's community-based monitoring. These are best monitored. There are all the associated jobs that go with that.
We are hopeful that communities would be able to do their own patrols and have the equipment and the infrastructure—the boat ramps, at the very least, to get out there when needed. That's on the job side of the question.
I would need you to repeat the second part of your question in order to answer it correctly.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Let's go through the comments on jobs and economic development from the two others and then we'll come back to that question.
4:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, World Wildlife Fund-Canada
Mr. Crowley certainly hit the highlights. Those are good jobs that may require some training. In parallel, we worked with the town of Arviet to help them create a protection system against polar bears, which are more often in the town now because of climate change, and that has created employment in the town as well as protected the town, so we've seen models that go beyond just park wardens or guardians.
Without any question, conservation will lead to direct employment potential for local people.
4:50 p.m.
Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada
I think the vast majority of the economic opportunity as it relates to marine protected areas in the north is related to ongoing monitoring and research. There are the typical guardian-type jobs, park warden jobs that would come with this, which, of course, should be filled by Inuit.
I'm not under any illusion that creating vast marine protected areas in the Canadian Arctic is going to result in a flock of southerners coming up there and it being buried in tourists. That's not where the economic opportunity is. If there is any of that, it's incremental; that's gravy.
The real bread and butter of economic development as it relates to this is trying to understand what's going on in the north: to get the information that we don't have, to understand what's going on in the ocean with the ice and in the atmosphere. Inuit would collect the data and work with southern scientists, who will eventually become northern scientists over time. This is about capacity-building in part, and it will take time.
Imagination is required, and it's not just about park wardens and somebody saying there's going to be a pile of tourists and somebody's going to open up a restaurant, and blah, blah, blah. That's BS on one end, and there's probably a pile of it on the other end too.
What we know we need to know is what is happening with the northern environment in the face of climate change, and who better to do this type of work than Inuit who reside in the communities? That's where imagination can create jobs and protected areas can create jobs. You don't need southerners to fly up to do that.