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.
6 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you.
I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Amos. I believe I have two more minutes.
6 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
6 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I appreciate the interventions of Mr. McNamee. I want to seize the opportunity to ask about the nature of intergovernmental collaboration, in particular in Quebec, with Parks Canada.
It's my understanding that because of the politics of sovereignty there have been challenges between the federal government, in particular the national parks administration, and the Government of Quebec since the 1970s, when La Mauricie and Forillon were established. We have that success in the Saguenay-St. Lawrence, of course, which I think is a recent standout, but it's in the marine area.
Can you speak to the future of terrestrial collaboration with Quebec, particularly in areas where there's potential for aboriginal collaboration?
6 p.m.
Director, Protected Areas Establishment Branch, Parks Canada Agency
Thanks for the question, Mr. Amos.
We have three national parks in Quebec. We acquired one by outright purchase from an oil company. The second one is on a 99-year lease, and the third one was the result of land exchange.
Saguenay-St. Lawrence exists because there is both federal and provincial jurisdiction. Parks Canada protects the federal jurisdiction in the waters and Quebec has terrestrial parks adjacent. The Government of Quebec has had a policy, which I believe it enshrined in legislation, that it will not transfer land to the Government of Canada for a range of purposes, and that includes national parks.
Under the Canada National Parks Act, in order to establish a national park in a provincial jurisdiction, we require the transfer of the surface and the subsurface. In terms of making any meaningful progress—and there have been a number of attempts to move forward but they did not come to fruition—we focused elsewhere, where we have had some good federal-provincial co-operation in terms of establishing new national parks, for example in Newfoundland and Labrador, where there was tremendous co-operation, and more recently with the Government of the Northwest Territories.
To go to collaboration, what is interesting is to look at the national parks of Quebec that have been created by the Government of Quebec. What they have done is that they've used our studies, focused on the areas that we identified as of national significance, and established them as national parks, in some places co-operatively managed with indigenous organizations.
You can look at it and say that, well, from a really tight federal perspective, we didn't make any gains, or you could take a more sort of national perspective and say they focused on the areas that we identified as of national importance and protected them. That's why we have continued for now to focus on the other areas where we have collaboration and to make progress there, and maybe through the indigenous model there might be something we can do in Quebec, but I think that's to be determined.
6 p.m.
Liberal
6 p.m.
Voices
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6 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Thanks so much, Kevin. It's good to have you back at the table.
Robin and Silvia, thank you for your contributions.
I did want to follow up on a question that Mr. Gerretsen asked. Again, it has to do with the tension between our national parks and our protected areas serving Canadians and yet being left for future generations unimpaired. I'm sure there are different ways of interpreting what “unimpaired” means.
We've certainly heard from Alan Latourelle that over the last 15 years we've made unprecedented efforts to set aside natural spaces parkland. He was focusing on the fact that Canada can be proud of its record in moving forward with protecting natural spaces.
On the other hand, CPAWS made it very clear that they feel that there's been a dramatic decline in our national parks. In fact, I want to quote something out of a press release that they and a number of other NGOs released recently. They say:
Yet, since 2012, Parks Canada's conservation capacity has been cut by almost one third, public consultations have been dramatically curtailed, and development proposals have been allowed to go ahead within parks, even though they contravene policies specifically designed to limit development....
They go on to say:
As leaders of Canada's environmental movement, we are deeply concerned that the Government of Canada's management of our national parks has shifted dramatically in the wrong direction, putting our most treasured protected places at risk.
Their assessment is not what I'm hearing from Parks Canada and from others who are actually lauding what the governments—past as well as present—are doing on the conservation front. Can you help me reconcile these different messages we're hearing?
October 18th, 2016 / 6:05 p.m.
Director, Protected Areas Establishment Branch, Parks Canada Agency
First of all, I think it's important to acknowledge at this moment that part of the reason the country has achieved so much in terms of conservation is because of the leadership of a gentleman we just lost, Mr. Jim Prentice. He brought to his portfolio tremendous leadership, which resulted in things like the sixfold expansion of Nahanni and the protection of Gwaii Haanas in the marine environment. In fact, Madam Chair, he exhibited a focus on exactly what this committee is looking at, and that is the involvement of indigenous people, and he accomplished much because of that. Our condolences to all parliamentarians on his passing.
I will not pretend to speak for CPAWS, but I think what you're hearing in part is a focus on a number of developments in the mountain parks. The mountain parks, throughout the history of national parks, have been a focus for a range of controversies, but I think you need to stand back and look at the entire system. I think we're quite proud of what we have accomplished in terms of what we've done with indigenous people, be it in the Torngat Mountains, the Mealy Mountains, and across the country. The number of advisory boards and management boards is growing tremendously.
In terms of our programs, when we looked at them, we had ramped up in the early 2000s. In 2012, it was time to move from a development phase on species at risk and ecological integrity into an implementation phase. The number of natural science professionals did drop by 30%. However, to compare it to now, as a result of a number of targeted investments and initiatives where we have hired staff to deal with a number of things, such as impact assessment of infrastructure projects, ecological restoration of ecosystems, climate change science, and management of human-wildlife conflicts, which you've heard about in the media, our staff in the natural sciences portfolio has grown by approximately 20% since 2013.
I think that if you look at a number of our publications, which we can share with you, you can see that there is a range of successes that we have brought to bear in terms of dealing with visitors, in terms of our ecosystems, in terms of working with indigenous people across our mandate, and in terms of securing new marine and terrestrial areas.
I apologize for the length of my response, but I think you raise an important point that we would want to speak to.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
CPAWS has essentially suggested that there should be no more development within our national parks except to refurbish infrastructure. In other words, that means no expansion within the parks to accommodate additional visitors and just taking old infrastructure and replacing it with new. Is that something that Parks Canada is considering? Or would you respond with a challenge to that assertion?
6:10 p.m.
Director, Protected Areas Establishment Branch, Parks Canada Agency
I would respond simply in terms of the mandate letter, as you quoted, the mandate that has been given to the minister.
The second thing is that with respect to specific parks, in part it depends on the management plan. We have a management planning process that we work on with indigenous people to put in place and that we consult the public on. Those plans will determine that.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much. It is a good question. I'm sorry to have to cut that off.
We have a bit more time for one more questioner.
Mr. Fisher.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks, folks. I'll try to be quick on this. I know that we're running out of time.
I'd like to give Kevin a bit more time to talk about something that Mr. Fast went with. Earlier, in the first panel, Mr. Fast brought up a press release from some of the leading environmentalists that spoke to conservation capacity being reduced by 30%. You just touched on it again.
I was intrigued by that press release, and I looked it up and read it. I'm wondering about what has suffered since 2012 with the reduction in conservation capacity in our parks. Is it as easy as just ramping up those people? You spoke to an area where staff has increased since 2013. Can you elaborate a little?
First of all, I guess, my question would be, what has suffered since 2012 with that reduction in capacity for conservation? Second, is it just as easy as ramping up, going out, hiring those people, and getting the money in the budget?
6:10 p.m.
Director, Protected Areas Establishment Branch, Parks Canada Agency
To go back to 2012, when the reductions were made, we did have within every field unit across Canada the professional capacity to assist each one of our parks and sites with the science they required for management planning and things like as that. We still had a national office, and in the key disciplines, the necessary staff.
Since 2012, there have been places where we have received through budgets reinvestments in areas in terms of ecological restoration and that. As I mentioned, we have hired staff or enhanced our capacity by 20% for 2015, compared to 2013, to deal with things like growing challenges, such as the impact assessment of infrastructure projects. We've received funding to deal with that.
We have a whole range of ecological restoration projects. Maybe Robin can speak to some that are going on, just to illustrate from a field unit perspective what we've been doing.
6:10 p.m.
Field Unit Superintendent, Northern Ontario, Parks Canada Agency
Actually, I was going to answer by mentioning the following.
Kevin, please don't hesitate to prompt me.
We are currently working in the parks with the resources available to us. We have some people on site, we have a certain annual budget, and we are making it all work.
As I mentioned previously, in Pukaskwa, for instance, we established the ecological integrity monitoring program in 2008. Currently, according to the three indicators, which are the aquatic ecosystem, the coastal ecosystem and the forest ecosystem, we consider the health to be good, with “good” being the best possible rating. We are able to do this with the resources we have. That is the answer I wanted to give you about this.
If I may, I would have also liked to add something about a previous question on—
6:15 p.m.
Field Unit Superintendent, Northern Ontario, Parks Canada Agency
I was just going to say that on investing in our infrastructure, if I understood you correctly, you're asking what we should be doing about it. What I understand from the critics is that we should be only investing in the current infrastructure we have.
To follow on what Kevin was saying, yes, it's important to make sure that the infrastructure we get is adequate in answer to the visitors and the Canadians who visit our places, but we need also to think about what's going to drive these Canadians to our places. As I was saying earlier, we need to win their hearts and minds, and sometimes we need to innovate and we need to bring new projects into a park to stay relevant to Canadians.