Environment Committee on Oct. 25th, 2016

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I appreciate the comments, particularly around the need to resource conservation initiatives in light of climate change, and I think that our government is committed to that. I'd like to ask a follow-up question in that regard.

The submissions made by NTI are fairly clear. Past financial offerings, in terms of IIBAs, have been, in many circumstances, deemed wholly inadequate, a joke. Can you give us some sense of scale here? What are we looking at in order to achieve the 10% objectives we've set out? What kind of ballpark financing is necessary in order to achieve these IIBAs and allow for monitoring and for the traditional knowledge to be given its full value?

[Bruce Uviluq]

That's a good question. I think that to look forward is to look at what we have now in the migratory bird sanctuaries and national wildlife areas, in which we have an umbrella IIBA. For those 15 protected areas, we negotiated an agreement of $8.3 million over seven years, from 2007 to 2014. The land claim agreement requires the IIBAs to be renegotiated every seven years. It was recently negotiated from 2014 to 2021 to the tune of $9.2 million. I must stress that Nunavut is the only land claim agreement that has these comprehensive benefits, and we expect those to continue.

For the heritage rivers IIBA, which was undergoing conciliation, we were requesting a smaller amount because it's four heritage rivers. We requested $4.5 million to $5.5 million, but the government said no, because our mandate is less than half of that. So we could not establish those protected areas that went against what's constitutionally protected in our agreement. I would say that future agreements should look to what has been negotiated in the past.

We're negotiating with DFO right now for two to three marine protected areas to be in place before 2020. We haven't begun discussions on what the dollar amount is. With the letter of September 13 and the MOU we have with Canada, DFO is committed to working with us, involving Inuit, and having an adequate financial mandate. We're looking forward to working with DFO on that, but we're still looking at settling our breaches with the existing agreements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

Mr. Stetski, you're up, and you're the last one.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Pittman, when I left the north, we moved to a small farming town in southern Saskatchewan, and I certainly agree that a well-managed farm or ranch contributes a lot to conservation. I want to talk a little bit about community pastures. I want to know if you're aware of what's been happening with the federal government's divesting itself of very important grasslands in the province of Saskatchewan, which then turned around and sold them privately. Some of the lands that are still part of community pastures are extremely important for conservation. I'd be interested in your perspective on the whole initiative and how perhaps changing direction could help us reach our target of 10% protected land.

[Jeremy Pittman]

Yes, it's unfortunate that those lands were divested. There have been some interesting groups pop up to manage them, grazing co-ops and things like that. One thing that will be important moving forward is just making sure that they stay in native grass areas and permanent cover. I guess that would be my opinion on it.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Smith, you mentioned in your presentation that you're now seeing a lot of pink salmon up your way. Generally, invasive species are considered bad. Are these pink salmon considered good or bad when they arrive up north?

[Duane Smith]

This is the first time it's been seen. We have had chum salmon in the past, but only sporadically. Now, though, almost every community in my region, and outside of it into Nunavut, has been harvesting these pink salmon. I don't think people will turn them away, but I they are taking over the traditional species habitat within these areas. It's something that's just emerging this fall. It's not the only invasive species we've seen in the marine ecosystem. There are others that have moved into the region as well.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Going back to Nunavut, you talked earlier about wanting to see fishing regulations that are different from the ones DFO currently has in place. Could you describe how yours would be different from what is currently in place with DFO?

[Cathy Towtongie]

I met with the previous department of fisheries minister, Gail Shea, and with the NTI. We hired our own legal drafters on how we would see Nunavut fisheries regulations that would ensure lakes... Like Duane said, we're getting salmon in Arctic Bay, which is high High Arctic, and also along marine areas. Those regulations would be beneficial to both Canada and Nunavut. Where the differences lie, I don't have it on hand. But if we could work with the department of fisheries and if you could recommend those regulations to them—our drafters worked hard on them—we believe they are beneficial because we're dealing with invasive species and it has to be done. The sooner the better.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry. Some of our members have another committee that starts at 5:30 p.m., which is why I was quite strict in trying to get us to be able to have a full round, with everyone getting a second go but ending at 5:30 p.m.

Thank you very much for taking significant time to come down and share with us your experience. If you have anything that you think you can add to the discussion we've had here, please feel free to send it along. We'd love to have it. We are going to start drafting instructions on the report next week, so if there's anything that you think could help us, please send it through before next week. That would be very helpful.

Do realize that these are recommendations we're going to make to the government based on all of the great witness statements we've heard here, as well as the work we did when we went out west. It doesn't mean that this is the end. I almost see this as the beginning. This is the beginning of a framework that the government then needs to take forward. Please don't think that we're stopping. I see it as sort of the beginning of moving forward on how to get more protected spaces in a faster way, and in a more co-operative way with first nations.

Thanks again to all of you for being here.

The meeting is adjourned.