Environment Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

[The Chair (Mrs. Deborah Schulte (King—Vaughan, Lib.)), Liberal, Deb Schulte]

If we can come to order, that would be awesome. Thank you very much.

We were waiting for a few more to join us, but we know that some people have deadlines. We're going to get started and hope the others will join us soon.

We are working today on protected spaces. I know that we sometimes jump around between CEPA and protected spaces, so I want to make sure everyone is clear about what we're working on today: protected spaces.

We have the pleasure of three groups in front of us today.

One is the Moose Cree First Nation, with Patricia Faries, who is the the chief, and Jack Rickard, the director of lands and resources.

Thanks very much to both of you for being here.

We also have with us the Grand Council of the Crees, Eeyou Istchee, with Chantal Otter Tétreault, who is the protected areas coordinator for the Cree Nation government. With her is Geoffrey Quaile. He's the senior environment adviser from the Cree Nation government.

Thank you very much to both of you for being here with us today.

We have also the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, with Janet Sumner, executive director for the Wildlands League, and we have Alain Branchaud, executive director from Quebec.

Thanks to both of you for being here with us.

We're going to start off with the Moose Cree First Nation.

We will turn the time over to you. You have 10 minutes. It's all yours. Thank you very much.

[Chief Patricia Faries, Moose Cree First Nation]

Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity to share with the committee our perspective on protected areas and conservation objectives. At this time, I would like to acknowledge the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.

It is an honour to be here before you today as we share our thoughts as indigenous people. As the chair indicated, my name is Patricia Faries. I am the chief of Moose Cree First Nation. Jack Rickard is our director of lands and resources.

We are from the Moose Cree First Nation, and we recently reaffirmed our “Homelands Declaration” in September of this year. Our home community is located in Moose Factory, on the Moose River delta in the Moose River system. Our Moose Cree homeland extends from Hearst, Ontario, in the west, to just beyond the Quebec border in the east, and from south of Highway 11 to points north toward the Albany River. Our Homelands are the areas determined by the Moose Cree citizens, our Eh-lilu-wuk, which is inclusive generally of the historical occupancy and use of lands and watersheds in northeastern Ontario.

The Moose Cree homelands are comprised of static boundaries and covers approximately 60,000 square kilometres. As the Moose Cree have determined, the homelands area includes surface and subsurface lands, air, and water. The homelands area has been derived by using Moose Cree knowledge from our elders and is based on our continued presence of hunting, trapping, and harvesting in these grounds, prior to the Ontario government trapline system, and indeed, prior to the signing of our James Bay treaty, Treaty No. 9.

This is the land our ancestors called home, where our forefathers were born, where food was gathered, where families were raised and buried, and where the Moose Cree life and culture continue to thrive. We consider ourselves the Water People. We believe that everything on this earth is alive—Nipi-ma-tis-i-win, meaning “water is life”—and water is one element that can be influenced by its environment, as was proven by western science.

We, the Moose Cree people, are the original peoples of this land. The Creator has given us this land as our home. The Creator gave us our spiritual beliefs, our languages, our culture, and this place on earth, which provides for all our needs. Our ancestors have lived on this land since time immemorial, drawing on the animals, fish, and plants for their sustenance. We are charged by the Creator with the duty of preserving and protecting the land for our future generations.

We come before you today to speak of a matter of great importance to us, to provide you information on the initiatives we are conducting within our homelands to ensure the protection and conservation of our way of life. We believe our initiatives run parallel with this study on federal protected areas and conservation objectives.

For the last 80 years, the people of Moose Cree have observed the impacts that have occurred on our lands, our water, and our wildlife. There is a broad range of resource development activities occurring in the southern portion of our homeland, including significant mineral exploration and extraction, hydroelectric development, and forestry.

We seek to work collaboratively with proponents where possible. In fact, Moose Cree is possibly the only first nation in Ontario to become a partner in a major energy infrastructure project with Ontario Power Generation. Within our homeland, we own 25% of the Lower Mattagami River project. We know, however, that economic development must be sustainable and must be pursued in a manner that protects our cultural integrity and is consistent with our cultural pursuits and the protection of our treaty and inherent rights.

The lands and resources secretariat has been mandated by the chief and council to provide for the management, protection, conservation, and preservation of the Moose Cree First Nation homeland on behalf of its citizens. One important initiative is the protection of the North French River watershed. This is shown shaded on the map you have before you. The pink area is the North French River watershed. This region is considered of great cultural significance to our first nation. We are deeply committed to preserving it and strongly oppose any resource development in this area.

The North French watershed is 6,660 square kilometres in size. As you can see on the map, the North French lies within the heart of the Moose Cree homelands. It is an area that remains free of any negative impacts from any resource development and is one of the last pristine freshwater sources. To this day, we can still draw water from the river and drink it directly. It is an area that has great cultural and environmental significance to the Moose Cree First Nation and is an area that must be protected for our future generations.

From discussions with our esteemed elders and other knowledge holders, it is clear that the preservation of the watershed is paramount. It is a source of clean water. It provides healthy habitat for the threatened boreal caribou and for fisheries. It is also a part of the carbon storehouse within the area. Most of all, it's a place for our people to exercise our heritage activities. That is fundamental to the continued well-being of our first nation.

While Moose Cree now considers this area to be removed from potential development, we are conscious that the issue of formal long-term protection should be addressed co-operatively. We request the federal government's support and co-operation in ensuring the removal of this area from potential development and that its protection be fully formalized and communicated with proponents, the public, and all governments.

We have asked Ontario, as an initial step, to withdraw these lands from any mineral prospecting, staking, sale, or lease. They have yet to act on this and, as such, are still encouraging mining, which is deeply troublesome to us. We are concerned that Ontario intends to introduce online staking in 2017, which may bring new threats to our territory.

We understand that both Canada and Ontario have signed on to ambitious targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 17% of lands and inland waters by 2020. We strongly encourage the committee and all governments to work with indigenous peoples to reflect and respect their protected areas in these plans.

We also look for your support to encourage Ontario to stop resource development in this watershed and to respect our indigenous-led protected area here. Right now, there is a gap, in that the provincial government has yet to respect our indigenous protected area and stop development from occurring here. This is critical to working toward reconciliation with our people. Ontario has no formal mechanism in its laws to respect our protected area. Ontario also has no formal mechanism in law to respect our ongoing management of any protected area. This needs to be fixed.

We recommend that you formally recognize our protected area and that you work with us to ensure these areas are permanently protected, as our people have said. The North French is one of several watersheds in our territory that require permanent protection. We will have more to say about other watersheds in the territory as our community members discuss them.

Indigenous peoples are leading the management and protection of their homelands in Canada. It is important that governments recognize this and work with us. Together, not only can we meet these international targets, but we can show leadership to the world.

Moose Cree have always been proactive in taking care of their homeland and their people. We have begun a land protection planning exercise, with an emphasis on protection of our resources. Over the years, we have carried out indigenous knowledge studies of the waters, the caribou, and the fish within our river systems. We have important bird areas in our homeland and have been surveying them for many years now.

We would like to say a final word about climate change and protected areas. We are deeply concerned about climate change, and our people are calling on us to take action. We see the indigenous protected areas in our territory that overlap the carbon-rich boreal forests and Hudson Bay lowlands as incredibly important tools in ensuring the resilience of ecosystems in the face of a warming climate.

We invite you to partner with us to build indigenous protected areas to meet international targets on biodiversity, to meet our ambitious climate change objectives, and to achieve reconciliation with indigenous peoples in Canada. We invite you to work with us.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our recommendations. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much. We appreciate that. We're going to hear from all the witnesses, and then we'll get into the questions.

Next up is the Grand Council of the Crees.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Chantal Otter Tétreault. I am a Cree from the community of Waswanipi, in Eeyou lstchee, northern Quebec. I am the protected areas coordinator for the Cree Nation Government. I am also interim chair for the Eeyou Marine Region Planning Commission, but today I am speaking on behalf of the Cree Nation Government. I am here with Geoff Quaile, who is the senior environment adviser for the Cree Nation Government.

First of all, thank you for the invitation to speak today. The Cree Nation Government, through its Department of Environment and Remedial Works, has taken on the task of researching, consulting on, and planning protected areas in Eeyou lstchee. The Crees have taken on this responsibility as a necessity in order to further protect and enhance our rights under section 22, on the environment, and section 24, on hunting, fishing and trapping, of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

In our territory, the Government of Quebec is primarily responsible for creating protected areas. Despite this, we have been proactive in ensuring that the candidate sites chosen for protection in our part of Quebec are in line with the Cree aspirations. We are now involved in the creation and management of protected areas in Eeyou lstchee. Examples here would be the Assinica Cree heritage park, the Albanel-Témiscamie-Otish national park, and the Muskuuchii biodiversity reserve.

In 2014, the Cree Nation Government, CNG, made its terms for selection of sites clear. Our vision is to “maintain strong ties to the Cree cultural heritage and way of life, and sustain biodiversity by creating a large, interconnected network of conservation areas in Eeyou lstchee.” This strategy was born in part from the necessity for the Cree Nation to react to Quebec's “Plan Nord”, which promised to develop 50% of Quebec's north while protecting the remaining 50%.

The Cree regional conservation strategy is a reminder to the future architects of the Plan Nord that the Crees possess constitutionally protected rights that mandate consideration beyond a typical profit/loss and risk/reward framework. It bears mentioning that these rights also align with those listed in various international agreements that Canada supports, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as article 8(j) of the the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity.

Some of the goals highlighted in the Cree Nation conservation strategy are: one, to create an interconnected network of conservation areas of cultural and ecological importance for the safeguarding of biodiversity; two, to conserve wildlife populations and enhance food security for present and future generations; three, to ensure full Cree participation in conservation planning and management; four, to ensure Cree knowledge, culture, and land management systems play a central role in conservation initiatives; five, to build Cree capacity for conservation planning and management; six, to ensure Cree youth are engaged in all stages of the strategy; seven, to integrate conservation science principles and build in resilience to climate change; and eight, to ensure the strategy is adaptive and based on the best available knowledge.

As indicated, our vision for the conservation of Eeyou lstchee is not solely dependent upon protected areas, which often only lead to the creation of islands of protection. Rather, we see our strategy as a more comprehensive approach, using many different tools. An example here is the CNG's recent efforts to safeguard Eeyou lstchee from uranium mining and, more specifically, the Otish Mountains, which were under threat from a proposed mining development even though the area was already part of a park co-managed with Quebec. The Crees deemed the risk of uranium mining to be too much of a burden for Crees to carry and thus put their full political weight behind a territorial moratorium.

Similarly, the Broadback River stands as one of the last wild rivers not diverted by Hydro-Québec in Eeyou lstchee. Also, the area is increasingly under threat from the northward expansion of logging operations. Given that parts of the watershed remain as some of the last examples of intact mature spruce forests in the Quebec commercial forest zone, the Cree communities have requested that portions of the valley be spared from logging, primarily to save the habitat of woodland caribou in this area.

It is for these parallel reasons that the CNG has persistently asked the Quebec government to take action in implementing an effective woodland caribou plan that would put the conservation of the Broadback basin at its core. In this area, we have three known herds—the Nottaway, Assinica, and Temiscamie herds—occupying a range of approximately 100,000 square kilometres. Much of the area has been disturbed by forestry activities and the subsequent development. In fact, the disturbance level for each of these herds already meets or exceeds the limits of the 35% maximum threshold of disturbed habitat recommended by the federal woodland caribou recovery strategy. Unlike many of the dwelling herds in Canada, these herds have a chance of recovery if we can only recognize the urgent need of investing in the protection of their habitat.

Unlike Canada and Quebec, which employ a mapping system of ecoregions to identify the high value of representative ecosystem features as potential candidate sites for protection, the Cree regional conservation strategy includes our system of family hunting territories.

Eeyou lstchee is divided into about 300 family hunting territories covering approximately 450,000 square kilometres. Let me put that more in perspective. My family hunting territory, known as “Traplines”, is about the size of Montreal and is considered very small compared to other hunting territories.

Each family has a person who serves as a land manager of these areas. An active “tallyman” has an intimate knowledge of their territory, which has been built up over generations. They know the best areas and the seasons to fish and to hunt game. Tradition has it that prospective land users must consult with the tallyman for permission and instructions on where, when, and how to access resources on the hunting territories. Aside from this important role, tallymen also act as auxiliary wildlife officers, meaning they have a duty to report any wrongdoing to authorities. These guardians of the land take on this responsibility to protect the land for everyone.

In terms of the Cree regional conservation strategy, our orientation for determining what areas are important to conserve is based on this family hunting territory system.

With respect to CNG's collaboration with the federal government on conservation, our focus has been mainly on marine and coast areas. The CNG worked with the previous Conservative government on the establishment of a national marine conservation area within the Eeyou Marine Region Land Claims Agreement area. Regrettably, there was little return in these efforts, and no action was taken.

The Cree Nation Government was delighted to read the mandate letter of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, which instructs the minister to increase the portion of Canada's marine and coastal areas to the international target. Great exchanges have already been made between the Cree Nation Government and Parks Canada, and we are currently drafting a memorandum of understanding to solidify a true working relationship for the development of a marine protected area.

If it were possible, we would like to protect all of our territory; however, we need to think of the needs of the future generations. A robust and diverse economy will offer the widest possible choice for our people, as long as it is situated in a healthy and protected environment.

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement protects our traditional way of life, and it ensures participation in development. To support our growing population, we must embrace development that works best for us. By using the land use planning provisions of the governance agreement with Quebec, by employing a special management regime on forestry that is set up in the Cree-Quebec Paix des Braves agreement, and by using the various environmental assessment processes set out in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, we fight to strike a balance between conservation and development.

These efforts have many moving parts, so it's important for us not to lose sight of what our elders remind us of concerning the importance of our culture, language, and way of life, and the importance of active participation in development.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much. We really appreciate all of you taking the time to come and share these requests with us. I'm looking forward to questions.

Next up is the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, with Janet Sumner and Alain Branchaud.

Over to you, Ms. Sumner.

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

Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak today.

My name is Janet Sumner. I'm the executive director of the Wildlands League, a chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

The CPAWS Wildlands League is a not-for-profit charity that has been working in the public interest to protect public lands and resources in Ontario since 1968. At the Wildlands League, we have extensive knowledge of land use in Ontario and a history of working with provincial, federal, indigenous, and municipal governments, scientists, the public, and resource industries on progressive conservation initiatives. We've published on issues such as forestry and terrestrial carbon, assessments on transmission corridor impacts on a caribou range, monitoring and reporting failures from a diamond mine in a world-class wetland, and much more.

You may have seen our Paddle the Rouge event last June, where we had 200 paddlers out for a Sunday paddle with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Madam Grégoire Trudeau in the Rouge national park.

What is probably lesser known is our work with KI, where the community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib lnninuwug created a watershed declaration making their lands largely off-limits to industrial development. We asked the province to respect this declaration and recognize and reflect it in provincial law. The province finally agreed and withdrew 2.6 million hectares from mining tenure.

If Canada is to meet the 2020 biodiversity goals and targets adopted in 2015, the Province of Ontario and, for that matter, Manitoba and Quebec, will have to consider the Hudson Bay-James Bay lowlands wetland complex as a place where a significant contribution to the networks of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures is made.

In an age where we are already experiencing significant warming from climate change, unprecedented declines in species, and a carbon cycle that frankly is drastically off-kilter, protected areas and the protection targets must also be about addressing the overlap on climate, carbon, caribou, and biodiversity. We can do this by inserting protection objectives into our climate plan. Conservation areas can be identified when we do caribou range plans, and caribou outcomes can be achieved in our protected areas planning. These mandates overlap, and opportunities that are synergistic and achieve multiple benefits will be more efficient. For example, the federal recovery strategy for woodland caribou released by Environment Canada says that range plans must have more than 65% intactness.

I have worked with progressive companies across ranges all across Canada to develop technical inputs and range approaches that, if implemented by governments, could achieve that outcome. These range plans designate areas open for industrial use, but also areas that are off limits. It would be wise to see conservation areas, therefore, as contributions from these off-limit areas.

This isn't all about caribou either. In terms of carbon, in Ontario alone there are more than 28 million hectares of bogs and fens rich in carbon. Advancing protection here will protect millions of tonnes of carbon and the breeding grounds for the hemisphere's several billion migratory birds.

As you can see, there are multiple benefits in looking for contributions to the Aichi targets from Ontario's boreal. Partnering with indigenous communities in the boreal, though, is the key to achieving conservation outcomes. Supporting and embracing these efforts in a way that respects indigenous rights and interests is a huge opportunity to advance both conservation and reconciliation. Indigenous protected areas are recognized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and you have heard today about the Moose Cree, who are also working to achieve conservation outcomes that we are supportive of.

In the communities of the north, indigenous watershed declarations are being written right now. Ontario and Canada must find ways to honour and respect these conservation areas. We ask the federal government to encourage the provinces and territories to stop handing out permits for industrial activities in areas that have been proposed for permanent protection by indigenous peoples.

Part of the role for parks in the southern portions of Ontario is to also focus on maintaining and restoring ecological integrity as the management priority by law. That's why we were very pleased, therefore, to see this reflected in the amendments tabled by Minister McKenna for the Rouge National Urban Park. Meeting this objective, though, means reinvesting in conservation science capacity in Parks Canada. There is a need to refocus on our collective responsibility to pass along these special places unimpaired for future generations. We are committed to helping in any way we can.

In summary, if we are to achieve the commitments we have on conservation, then we need strong federal leadership, like the leadership we currently have on climate change, to bring provincial governments together in a concerted effort to meet and then exceed the 17% protection. We also need federal leadership that seeks to achieve these outcomes through synergy and opportunity in the overlap of mandates where climate and caribou outcomes dovetail with conservation objectives and are positively reinforced through EA reform.

Thank you.

Alain.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for inviting us to appear before this important committee.

SNAP Québec is the equivalent of CPAWS Ontario. The situation of protected areas in Quebec is similar to the situation in Canada. The network of protected areas in Quebec covers approximately 1% of the marine environment and a little less than 10% of the land environment.

Mining rights, oil permits and the forestry potential—in other words, the rights over the territory acquired by private interests—are the major obstacles to the fulfilment of Quebec’s and Canada’s international commitments to protect their territory. There are no effective legislative tools available to settle these impasses, to give real weight to the democratic will of the people and to advance the network of protected areas.

In Quebec, there are four active projects involving marine protected areas. The establishment of a protected area in the Magdalen Islands—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Hang on a moment. You are moving really fast, and we have a translator who is unable to keep up with you.

[Chief Patricia Faries]

I'd like to hear him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're going to start again, if you don't mind, because we want to hear what you have to say.

[Chief Patricia Faries]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have five minutes. Thanks, but slow down.

[Alain Branchaud]

Okay, Madam Chair.

The situation of protected areas in Quebec is similar to the situation in Canada. The network of protected areas in Quebec covers approximately 1% of the marine environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Hold on—

[Alain Branchaud]

Should I speak English?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Let's take it one more time from the top, please. Thank you.

Go ahead.

[Alain Branchaud]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will start again.

The situation of protected areas in Quebec is similar to the situation in Canada. The network of protected areas in Quebec covers approximately 1% of the marine environment and a little less than 10% of the land environment.

Mining rights, oil permits and the forestry potential—in other words, the rights over the territory acquired by private interests—are the major obstacles to the fulfilment of Quebec’s and Canada’s international commitments to protect their territory. There are no effective legislative tools available to settle these impasses, to give real weight to the democratic will of the people and to advance the network of protected areas.

Four active projects involving marine protected areas are under way in Quebec. For us, the priority is the establishment of a protected area in the Magdalen Islands; it alone would achieve Quebec’s interim marine environment goal of 10% by 2020. This is also an area in which the federal government could play a key role.

On land, several dozen projects are dormant on shelves. These are projects that have wide consensus among local communities and that would add about 34,000 square kilometres to the protected areas in Quebec and would quickly bring the province to almost 12%. A number of projects on the table provide major economic development possibilities, such as the Lake Walker national park project on the north shore, or the protection, once and for all, of the Dumoine River watershed, not far from here in the Pontiac. The Government of Quebec’s Plan Nord project aims to protect 50% of the land north of the 49th parallel. There is also a great opportunity to advance the network of protected areas in Quebec and in Canada, bearing in mind that the network should be representative of the ecosystems, both in the north and the south.

A number of solutions exist. The work of federal and provincial departments responsible for establishing protected areas is marked by a lack of transparency. Things are generally done behind closed doors. The doors and the windows must be opened. There must be room for NGO representatives in order to facilitate discussions with the local communities and to do away with what often seem like unproductive little turf wars between departments and levels of government.

Since 2015, Quebec no longer has a strategic position on the establishment of protected areas. We feel that holding an extraordinary summit on biodiversity would allow the road to success to be defined together. Indigenous leadership in establishing protected areas across Canada must be promoted, encouraged and maintained.

There must also be openness and originality as the next protected areas are established. For example, creating a network of institutions for traditional teaching, with campuses made up of protected areas of more than 10,000 square kilometres, would, in one stroke, allow traditional knowledge to flourish and be protected. They could eventually become places of interaction and reconciliation between the nations of the country.

As one final idea for a solution, we invite you all to take the 150.ca challenge that we will be launching next January. As a part of the celebrations for Canada’s 150th birthday, it will give governments, the public and business the opportunity to give Canadians a present for the future in the form of protected areas. You are welcome to participate.

Here is a specific example to show how the challenge could work.

The Government of Canada has unused land adjacent to Quebec’s Parc national des Îles-de-Boucherville. That unused federal land could be made available to expand the park. We also challenge the Government of Quebec to make available land of an equivalent area to expand Gatineau Park in the Outaouais. We need new ideas and a dynamic approach if together we are going to meet the huge challenge of attaining the interim objective of 17% in 2020.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much. That was excellent.

We have an order of questions here. We'll start with John Aldag.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thanks.

Thank you, witnesses, and welcome to our committee today. It is always a real pleasure to hear what our indigenous communities are doing across the country.

Let me go back for just a second. I've been on a national tour with another committee. We've been to all ends of the country, including spending eight hours in Iqaluit yesterday. I left there this morning in snow. As we travelled, we met with many indigenous groups across the country. It's always great hearing about the connections to land and the stewardship of land from the beginning of time.

To the witnesses who spoke this afternoon, you continue to reinforce that willingness and desire to work with other levels of government for the protection of these lands.

CPAWS, it's always a pleasure to hear about the work you're doing. Hopefully I'll get to you with my line of questioning, but I'm going to start with the other panellists.

Because I've been away with my other committee, I'm just getting up to speed on what we've been covering over the last three weeks in protected area discussions. In the work you're doing in Ontario and Quebec, I'm curious about the types of mechanisms that have been looked at and if you're into the mechanics of protected areas and what's going to work in your specific situations.

With this group, we're looking at a number of tools and mechanisms, so it could be things such as Environment Canada and wildlife refuges. Also, under Parks Canada there are national parks with various levels of co-management that are possible. There are marine conservation areas. There are perhaps other mechanisms to provide protections, such as this idea of indigenous protected areas, and we're really trying to figure out what that could look like.

I'd like to turn it over to you, perhaps, to our four panellists from the Moose Cree First Nation and the Grand Council of the Crees, for your about thoughts on what the ideal would be, or on where you're at in discussions about protecting your traditional lands, your homelands, and what we should be looking at in terms of tools and instruments to collaborate with you to achieve these objectives for long-term conservation. I hope that's clear.

Ms. Tétreault, would you like to start?

[Chantal Otter Tétreault]

Yes, I'll answer that.

At the Cree Nation Government, we work very closely with Quebec. We have a very good relationship with Quebec because they also see the need to incorporate indigenous involvement in creating protected areas in the north. We have been using a bit of both traditional knowledge and western science. I've travelled up north—I'm from the north, so it's nice to go up there and see family—but I work from Montreal. I've been going up there and really trying to get into areas that are used. Not surprisingly, when I come back with my map everything is marked: where their camps are, where they hunt, and where their migratory patterns are in terms of caribou.

In using the science part of that, we're basing a lot of our work on watersheds, so we're using catchment areas and trying to get at areas that have no impacts right now and trying to use those areas of Quebec and safeguard these areas from future development, or maybe even mining claims at this moment. We just try to ask, can you not claim these areas, because they show an interest of certain communities? That's the approach we're taking.

In terms of what kinds of protected areas, in Quebec we mainly go toward the biodiversity reserves. That protects everything we want in terms of the wildlife, and it also doesn't.... With regard to national parks, Quebec has their own type of national parks. They are different from Canada's. They like to increase tourism, which is great for us, as it's more economic development. But that's a bit of a long shot, as they already have quite a few national parks in Quebec right now, so we're doing more work with Quebec on biodiversity reserves and aquatic reserves.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I have a question on the idea of the biodiversity reserves. Is there a model you're looking at in terms of land title or stewardship or management? Are there other models that you're basing this on that we could look at as examples? Or is it something you would see created for your needs?

[Chantal Otter Tétreault]

Well, biodiversity reserves are already an existing—

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

The international kind of—

[Chantal Otter Tétreault]

On the IUCN level, I'm not sure, maybe it's two or three. It's wildlife protected. There's no mining. There's no development.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay.