Evidence of meeting #71 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 places.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
September 19th, 2017 / 9:45 a.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Many thanks to the witnesses. Their presentations are much appreciated.
I would like to ask Ms. Montminy my first question.
In the context of possible recommendations on federal legislation, what are the potential conflict areas or aspects that might be controversial? Are there any areas that we should look at before we discuss them in our—
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Sorry, I have no translation.
Can we try again?
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I would like to thank the witnesses.
Ms. Montminy, I would like to ask you a question about the limitations of a federal act. I agree that it would be useful to provide a framework for the protection of our natural heritage through legislation.
What elements of debate or controversial areas do we need to look at before giving our best advice to the government?
Vice-President, Indigenous Affairs and Cultural Heritage Directorate, Parks Canada Agency
Thank you for your question.
Obviously, this depends on the scope of the proposed legislation. First of all, we might think of legislation that would preserve national historic sites protected by and belonging to the federal government. As Mr. Alway said, the property rights make it impossible to legislate beyond that.
For sites under federal jurisdiction, we might imagine that these sites would have to undergo a series of assessments of possible interventions. For example, if the Department of National Defence owned a site, an assessment of the potential impacts would be required before making any changes to the use of the premises or buildings. After that, advice should be sought on how to make the necessary restorations.
Possible challenges are obviously the costs associated with maintaining historic sites in a state that meets the standards and guidelines we would like to see implemented. Clearly, if it were in the act, it would still have to be determined whether federal departments have the resources to meet the requirements of the act.
Right now we have to go through a policy and give advice of that nature. Subsequently, departments may choose to follow the guidelines or not, as this has not been included in the legislation. If you were to include these standards and practices in legislation, then it would be necessary to follow the standard. So that's the issue with historical sites.
With respect to all buildings that could be designated or classified by the federal government as having heritage value, there are a very large number of buildings that are owned by the federal government. If the legislation were to affect all heritage places and historic buildings, the same thing would be true, but at an even higher level. In theory, the question is how to meet the requirements of the bill that are related to conservation.
If departments were to dispose of a building or a site protected by legislation, the requirements would be very high. This is a rare occurrence, but if that were to happen, we would require that the building be considered for other uses, so that it would not be disposed of. If this were done, the new owner would have to meet the conservation standards. It could really create a more rigid framework, but that would obviously help to maintain the heritage value of those places.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you.
I'd like to follow that up with a question to our other witnesses around what I thought was a very helpful point by Mr. Fast. It was around the issue of resource allocation, which will really be the challenge. I think therein lies for me the point that when you talk about the breadth of the legislation, one cannot ignore the question of where resources will be allocated.
I appreciate Mr. Alway's point around the ecclesiastical historic site and heritage building investments, particularly made in Quebec. It's felt all across a rural riding like Pontiac, and to the betterment of all of our region. Covered bridges are also significant investments. Those are really important. What I'm most interested in hearing—if we can't get it orally today, then certainly follow-up would be great—is how can the federal government best leverage provincial investments that are already significant? How can we incent more?
I'll give you a quick example from my riding. Old Fort William is a wonderful old historic site on the Ottawa River. It's a famous trading location that had Hudson's Bay involvement. The owner of the Old Fort William hotel right now hasn't sufficient capital to fix this building. He's told that he can't do anything unless he does it to a certain standard. Somewhere along the line the system isn't working when you have landowners who are incapacitated, if you will, financially, but there's no system in place to encourage that investment.
I wonder if you could comment on that, Mr. Alway and Ms. Bull.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I will have to cut that off, because you've run out of time.
We can pick that up in the next round, if you guys are okay with that.
We'll now move to Mr. Sopuck.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thank you.
I'd like to follow up on Mr. Amos' comments regarding rural preservation. I think he was on to something very important.
I represent a large rural riding, and the intensity of the interest in heritage preservation is truly remarkable. Even though I've lived there 40 years, it still astonishes me to see what volunteer efforts people go to in my area in order to preserve the Ukrainian churches and so on.
Ms. Bull, given that you represent the National Trust, what can your organization do to help these small but very heroic local efforts that do not get a lot of recognition across the country but are intensely appreciated by local communities? What can you do to help?
Executive Director, National Trust for Canada
Thank you very much for the question. That really is exactly what the National Trust is all about. We're really a grassroots organization. Our focus over the last few years has really been on providing tools and resources to small local organizations.
You may have heard of our program, “This Place Matters”, which has a combined crowdfunding and competition format. We raise money from private corporate partners, and then, using this web-based platform, engage local groups in posting their projects and using their social networks to compete for votes. Over the last three years, we've been able to flow $1.4 million to a number of projects across the country.
We're working in creative ways to become a source of funding for local projects. Through our publications and our conference, we're able to bring profile to the local groups and to the projects that they're making happen.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I'm very interested in that. Perhaps we could talk off-line. I'd really like some more details about that.
In terms of rural versus urban—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Actually, can I jump in? I think we'd all love to hear the exploration of that. If you wouldn't mind sharing that with all of us, I think that would be of interest to everyone.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Good.
I got so excited about that I lost my train of thought.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Mr. Alway, perhaps I'll ask you this question regarding rural versus urban.
After Confederation, Canada was initially, largely, a rural country. It gradually urbanized and now it is urbanizing at a rapid rate. Do you think there's enough emphasis on historic site preservation in rural areas versus urban areas? When I look at the pictures here of historic places, in the urban areas they're fairly easy to define. There's a building there, and you can look and see it, whereas the rural heritage aspects are more dispersed and smaller. What's the emphasis, in your view?
Chair, Heritage Designations and Programs, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada
I think you've described something that is natural, given the development of the country, and the important thing is to try always to find out whether there are areas that are under-represented in programs or under-represented in terms of emphasis of attention by the government or by parts of the government that could be helpful.
I'm not qualified, really, to comment on that except to say that in terms of the recognition that we recommend for designation, there are a number of nominations that come forward from small towns or from individuals in rural areas and we've tried to make sure that these nominations will receive very full consideration. All a nomination really requires is a simple letter of maybe a paragraph saying, “I would like to have considered for national designation X” and maybe put in a sentence about why you think X might be a decent candidate. Then the staff at Parks Canada that we have at our disposal—it makes it sound as if it's extensive; it isn't—in looking at everything that comes in, will do a preliminary investigation and if they believe there is some real merit, they go ahead and do all the research and all the effort themselves. In terms of getting recognition, it's a relatively simple thing within the system.
I think the system responds pretty effectively from that point of view, to anything that comes from an individual who has an idea that they feel is very important but don't have the resources or the background or whatever to develop the thing. Parks Canada will do that.
As an Individual
To speak from experience, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Parks Canada occasionally reviews the status of the national designations. For example, they've seen over time that there are certain historic themes that are under-represented. A few years ago they looked at indigenous history, women's history, and ethnocultural history, as perhaps requiring a little more input from the public to raise the percentage of those types that are represented.
We sent out calls to both rural and urban areas to get recommendations from the communities as to what they might recommend. I would say there was tremendous interest. There was no difference either, rural or urban, in going to the Japanese community in southern Alberta or to the black community in central Alberta, and so on. It was greatly—
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
If I could quickly make one more comment, before my time is up.
Your comment about what was good real estate back then and good real estate now, the Forks in Winnipeg is a perfect example, and that's why we appreciated your comment.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I had the honour, committee, this year to be on the Canada C3 icebreaker trip when we stopped in Torngat Mountains National Park and I got to walk on the Ramah chert site, which you're all familiar with—
