Environment Committee on Dec. 8th, 2016

[Jim Robb]

Thank you.

With the amendment, this is a different type of park. This is a new partnership, and if you're not going to be high-handed.... Parks Canada has amazing expertise, but there is 26 years of work. I can tell you that I've been to hundreds of meetings with tens of thousands of people. Those people want to see the federal government not fly in from Ottawa to say, “Ottawa knows best”, but to say, “We're going to take the kernel of what's already been done, and we're going to help it to flourish”.

It's really important, and if you don't do it, you will slide back in your time scale. It will cost you more money, and you will probably be reinventing the wheel. That is what people promised to do.

Mr. Kent talked about the original agreement. The original agreement said, “meet or exceed existing policies and plans”. If they'd look carefully, then they'd see that the greenbelt plan talks about ecological integrity and biodiversity, and it gives priority to Rouge Park plans or the greenbelt plan, whichever is greater.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

[Jim Robb]

Let's carry forward. The legislation is good, but it will be much better with that amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of our guests today for their excellent depositions and for answering the questions. There were a lot of good questions.

We're going to take a very quick pause, because we have to move to clause by clause. I'm going to invite some of the staff to be with us, so we're going to change over from witnesses to staff.

We'll have Pam Veinotte, field unit superintendent, and Rachel Grasham, director of policy, legislative and cabinet affairs, for Park Canada; and Jim Rossiter, counsel, Parks Canada legal services.

I'll take a quick pause, and we'll make the change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I am going to reconvene the meeting.

We have agreed that we will do clause-by-clause. I know a lot of people have to get flights and what have you, so at 5:30 we're going to end it and then we'll pick it up again on Tuesday and carry on with the clause-by-clause.

I'm just going to go slowly. We have done one clause-by-clause before, which was Darren's bill. This is the second one we will be doing on this committee, and some of us are still quite new, so I would just like to walk through it slowly.

(On clause 1)

I don't have anything submitted on clause 1.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

On clause 1, I do have one. It is that Bill C-18, in clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 7 through 13 with the following.... It's the definition of ecological integrity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It's taking all of the ecological integrity....

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes.

[A voice]

It's line 12.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Okay, make it line 12.Yes, that's good.

Now, for the substance of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Are we all on the same page, guys? We're in clause 1, section 2, and it's the ecological integrity. That's exactly where he's at.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

What's the amendment?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

It's coming. I'll read that back.

The amendment is that Bill C-18, in clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 7 to 12 with the following, “Conservation or restoration must be the first priority of the Minister when considering all aspects of the management of the Park.” That comes straight from Mr. Latourelle's testimony.

[A voice]

It would be nice to have that in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We have it in his testimony. He gave it in his testimony and asked us to make some changes.

It's in English only; it's a problem.

There's a question here about the exact section in which his change is to go and what you're trying to do.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

My apologies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I think you're putting it in the wrong place.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Absolutely. Let me read it again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's my oversight.

Let me go back. It is that Bill C-18, in clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 7 through 12 with the following—

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

I'm sorry, Ed; where does the wording start, just so that we can...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It starts at line 7.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's the line that says “ecological integrity”?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Yes, that's the beginning.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

The actual substance of it would be “the protection, care, management and maintenance of ecosystems, habitats, wildlife species and populations, within and outside of their natural environment, in order to safeguard the natural conditions for their long-term permanence.”