Environment Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

Evidence of meeting #29 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 parks.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Federal Protected Areas and Conservation Objectives

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Patricia Faries Moose Cree First Nation

Chantal Otter Tétreault Protected Areas Coordinator, Cree Nation Government, Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)

Janet Sumner Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

Alain Branchaud Executive Director, Quebec, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

Jack Rickard Director of Lands and Resources, Moose Cree First Nation

Geoffrey Quaile Senior Environment Advisor, Cree Nation Government, Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)

Robin Lessard Field Unit Superintendent, Northern Ontario, Parks Canada Agency

Silvia D'Amelio Chief Executive Officer, Trout Unlimited Canada

Kevin McNamee Director, Protected Areas Establishment Branch, Parks Canada Agency

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Yes.

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

I'm going to give it to Will.

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Mr. McNamee, we visited Banff and Jasper and heard from a number of advocacy organizations. We spoke with the superintendents in both parks about the bike path that was funded in the recent budget. From the superintendents' perspective, it wasn't an infrastructure investment that they had pushed forward, according to them.

I'm curious to know how a project like that, which was not assessed, got into the mix in the budget.

6:15 p.m.

Director, Protected Areas Establishment Branch, Parks Canada Agency

Kevin McNamee

The budget that comes down is a government budget, Mr. Amos, and as a civil servant, I can't speak to it any more than that. That's what was announced in the budget.

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

That's it.

Thank you.

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Okay. I feel really bad about having this tension of the time. We started late and had two panels, which means that I pushed everybody to half an hour later, and we have 15 minutes of work that we still have to do within the committee.

I want to thank the three of you for being here and for answering our questions. Again, there were some questions for some further information. We would love to have that sooner rather than later, because we are going to start drafting instructions at the very beginning of November. We would like to have that in our hands before we do that, and I know that sometimes there's translation. If you could get that to us, that would be fantastic.

Again, thank you.

Mr. Eglinski.

6:15 p.m.

Conservative