Environment Committee on Feb. 18th, 2016

[Jane Pearse]

Yes. Thanks very much.

I appreciate that, because a lot of exciting things are happening at Parks Canada. We did some research and some analysis within parks and highlighted youth and new Canadians as a population group that we needed to be more active with and with which we needed to be doing more outreach. I'm pleased to say that we have put in a number of different initiatives to reach out. We have urban outreach in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. It varies a bit, but it has been in place over the last 10 years, and it is reaching up to and over one million urban participants in the course of each year.

Since 2009 we have had the My Parks Pass, which came out of the minister's round table. It's targeted at grade 8 students. It gives them a pass and encourages them and their families to visit the parks. We have an earth rangers program, which is directed at school-age children. We also have Canada's Coolest School Trip, a contest for kids in schools to put forward a video with their class. The video gets juried, and one school group gets the chance to go on a trip to a park. The park this year is Jasper. We also input into a number of different magazines that target children.

In terms of new Canadians, we have a program called the cultural access pass, in collaboration with the Institute for Canadian Citizenship—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have 30 seconds.

[Jane Pearse]

It gives complimentary admission.

Thank you very much for your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Sorry, I'm only doing that because I don't think people have a sense of how much time is left. When I say it, it doesn't mean stop talking. It means you have a bit of time, but it's really short, so get the thought out.

Okay, we did have Mr. Cullen in the schedule, but he seems to have gone. With the committee's permission, I wanted to ask a question.

Dr. Dodds, you talked about the reduction in Ontario and you attributed it to the improvements in cars and the emissions reductions in cars, but you didn't talk about Ontario's very significant direction to close the coal-fired power plants. I was surprised, because I was thinking that was probably the biggest issue in Toronto. You were talking specifically about Toronto, but you didn't mention it. Did you have some information that says that wasn't the case? What was the reason you didn't mention it?

[Dr. Karen Dodds]

That's simply a timing issue. We have the information on the timing of shutting down the coal-fired plants, and certainly all of the science that we have since the closing shows that there has been had a very significant improvement in air quality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much. I definitely want to understand that.

We have had a lot of really good questions and discussion around the table. I really appreciate all of you taking the time to come and share your knowledge with us. Many of us are brand new, and I think we're starting to get a better sense of where your departments are, where the issues are, and where we may want to focus as a committee. Some of the questions have raised some of those potentials as well.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Bossio.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I would like to ask one thing.

Ms. Métivier, would it be possible to get a report on some of the sustainability issues on the consumption side? I'm looking for things around stewardship and producer responsibility.

[Louise Métivier]

We'll see what we can get.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Great.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Hearing that, I think the committee made three requests, two for Ms. Pearse and one for Ms. Métivier. I think the clerk has agreed she's going to follow up.

I want to let everybody know that on Tuesday we have the commissioner coming back to us, along with the relevant departments. They are going to speak to the fall 2015 report, so we'll all be ready for that.

Thank you very much for a wonderful meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.