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.
4:35 p.m.
Protected Areas Coordinator, Cree Nation Government, Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)
What we're trying to do is create some sort of tourism in that area, but obviously to contain the environment as is. We're trying not to add too much disturbance to the area.
Those are mostly the areas that we try to protect. They're areas that are used for cultural reasons and cultural significance, and obviously that means there is some wildlife habitat in the area too.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Perhaps Chief Faries and Mr. Rickard could speak to what's happening.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
It goes really fast. Somebody can pick that up for you, hopefully, and carry on.
I apologize for having to cut people off. We have only so much time for each person, and we have to be fair.
Mr. Fast.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I have a question for Janet Sumner.
You mentioned wetlands and the capacity that wetlands have to act as a carbon sink. I think that's what you were referring to. Has CPAWS done any work on determining (a) what Canada's current capacity to absorb CO2 might be and (b) whether we have the ability to improve that capacity over time through the protection and expansion of parkland, wetlands, and boreal forests, and through forest management practices?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
We haven't done any work on looking at them as sinks to capture carbon, but rather are looking at these areas as vast storehouses of carbon that we don't want to see released. If you almost reverse that.... I had to cut sections of my remarks, but some of those sections talked about how 15 years ago when we looked at carbon reserves we thought they were maybe one to two metres deep. They're now looking at those estimates and saying that they could be upwards of 10 metres deep in the boreal.
When it was at one or two metres deep, it was 1,300 tonnes per hectare. You can imagine, now that we're revising those estimates, that there are literally billions of tonnes of carbon in the wetland complex that goes from Manitoba to Quebec. It would be ill-advised to be making incursions into those areas even through such things that are seen as minimally invasive, like exploration, which does in fact in that landscape does start to change the hydrology and release carbon.
The reason for that is that we actually need to be counting it. If you're going to do a mining project, for example, we need to be figuring out what the carbon exchange is. Right now, we don't really know. Also, there are many who look at this boreal carbon, but we won't know whether or not we'll get more releases or less releases from it. I think the most precautionary approach would be to look at ways in which we can protect and maintain as much of it as possible.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Would it be correct to say that those wetlands you've referred to can also act to sequester carbon?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
They can under the right circumstances. They can also act as a source under the wrong circumstances.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
That I understand fully. I'm assuming you don't have a whole lot of additional information as to how we improve the capacity of the wetlands to increase their absorption of CO2.
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
I do know that there are things you can avoid that would prevent them from going in the other direction, yes.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Okay.
In my second question, I want to refer you to a press release that you and 11 other environmental NGOs released recently. It's entitled “CEOs of Canada's largest environmental groups issue statement on national park management”. There's a statement in there that should give all of us concern, but I want to get clarity on it so I don't misinterpret it.
It says in I think the sixth paragraph that “since 2012, Parks Canada's conservation capacity has been cut by almost one third”. What do you mean by conservation capacity being cut by one third? Are you talking about the science, investments, funding, and resources that are available? Or is it conservation writ large? For me, that was a little confusing.
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
My understanding is that when they wrote this—Alison Woodley, and Alison is right over there—it was very specifically about the conservation staff at Parks Canada, that the investments in that had reduced the capacity of Parks Canada to do conservation work.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Okay. That's a little different than what it implies. It raised alarm bells when I saw it.
When you say that “conservation capacity” within Parks Canada has been reduced, are you talking about the staffing element of it?
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Yes, but that means there's less money for the science and less money for achieving goals on ecological integrity. It basically means that there's an imbalance between the tourism objectives and the science objectives in making sure that we maintain ecological integrity in parks.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I'm glad you mentioned the tourism objectives. I won't read out the specific provisions of the minister's mandate letter. You'll notice a number of headings that mandate the minister to expand Canadians' access to our national parks, and yet there's also a heading that talks about “limiting development”—not prohibiting but limiting—within our national parks.
That's a sort of creative tension that exists within that mandate letter. We want to get more Canadians seeing our natural spaces, but in order to do that, it's going to require some development, and I know that your organization has been quite outspoken about the existing efforts to develop some of our national parks.
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Right, and there's also the overriding legislation, which says that we need to pass these parks down unimpaired to future generations. While there is a mandate letter that says we need to increase visitors and have this creative tension, it still is superseded by the legislation, which is about ecological integrity.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
4:40 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!