Environment Committee on Sept. 21st, 2017

[Gordon Bennett]

There are various forms of protection, protection against public activities, for example, in a national park or a national historic site, where the public access is controlled. There is some legal framework to deal with that.

In the case of cultural heritage properties, where in fact the biggest threat is really lack of maintenance and lack of good conservation practice, there is no legal requirement on Parks Canada. It's a heritage steward, and that's its purpose in being set up, but there's nothing in an act that says Parks Canada must maintain these places up to a certain standard.

For example, there's nothing that exists that is similar to the Canada National Parks Act, which makes ecological integrity the first priority. It puts an obligation on the minister, and on the managers of those places. There is no such obligation on any Parks Canada-administered national historic site.

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

That's a great example. This committee looked at Rouge Park and the discussion on ecological integrity, so we are familiar with that kind of concept. Hearing that it's not in existence anywhere in relation to historic sites is really helpful.

Gordon and Christina, both of you were involved in drafting or guiding the creation of the earlier legislation from the early 2000s, as you said. Has anything changed, to your knowledge, in the heritage world in Canada, in terms of designations, legislation, or policies that would make that kind of legislation either outdated or unnecessary? Or is there still a need today for the kind of work that was done in the early 2000s?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Ms. Cameron.

[Prof. Christina Cameron]

Not much has changed. My colleagues have explained that the concept of what is heritage has changed, and there's a sustainability emphasis, a broader cultural landscape approach, and an approach by districts as opposed to individual designations. Those kinds of things have changed in terms of the concept of heritage, but the fundamentals have not changed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I'm the national parks critic for our party. I live right next to Riding Mountain National Park, and I'm fairly familiar with how parks operate, at least my own park. I'm very possessive of that park.

Mr. Bennett, what federal actions negatively affect heritage sites on federal lands, especially in national parks? Can you point to any specific examples?

[Gordon Bennett]

Are you talking about in Riding Mountain?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

No, any national park. Can you point to an egregious example of a heritage site that was severely compromised because of Parks Canada actions?

[Gordon Bennett]

I can think of a couple, yes, but my sense is we're talking about things of many years ago. I've not worked for Parks Canada since 2003.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

My impression from what I see in Riding Mountain National Park is that they're doing a really good job of preserving the heritage of that particular park. I would assume that ethos continues throughout the park system.

Mr. Waldron, where do you draw the line between an out-of-date building and a heritage building? For example, in downtown Winnipeg, the old Eaton's department store was demolished and a hockey arena put up in its place. Where do you draw the line between what's an out-of-date building and one that becomes a heritage building?

[Andrew Waldron]

Well, for the last 100 to 150 years the concept has been based on age value. What is the value of a place over time? One answer can be the age of it. In general terms, they say 40 to 50 years of age or so, because in the life cycle of a building that's when you need to start addressing things like replacing a roof or dealing with issues of the building envelope. However, in my world, in the private sector, we essentially treat these buildings from day one. The concept should be that you care for and maintain these buildings from the beginning.

It's called demolition by neglect. Essentially, someone doesn't take care of it for long enough and then it becomes an eyesore, a problem, or a health and safety threat, and therefore we demolish it.

The Eaton centre should have been protected and saved, just like any other property in an urban centre.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Well, 15,000 Jets hockey fans would probably disagree with you, but we'll just leave it—

[Andrew Waldron]

Now, yes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Yes, fair enough.

You're almost implying there should be no demolition of any building anywhere, because it'll ultimately become a heritage building. I don't think you're implying that, are you?

[Andrew Waldron]

No, the way we address it in the 21st century is we manage places with the way places evolve. We do not simply demolish places because they are not economically viable. There are other options, and we've seen that by many entrepreneurs in Canada.

This is the 21st century. If you take into account the greenhouse gases that are emitted because you have the embodied energy of a building.... There's another strategy there.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Great.

My other role on the opposition side is that I'm the official wildlife conservation critic, and part of that role is advocating very strongly for hunting, angling, and trapping.

Recently, I was at the Ontario Fur Managers Federation Rendezvous in Carp, Ontario. You've never seen a group of people who are more protective of the fur trade heritage or their willingness to display it by period clothing and the implements that the fur trade used back in the day. The fur trade has a strong aboriginal component, a strong ecological component, the built environment, the forts that were built across Canada, and so on. I'd like to use the rest of my time to talk about the conservation of the heritage of the fur trade.

Dr. Cameron, I'll ask you first. What is your view? Are we doing an adequate job of protecting the heritage of this absolutely foundational industry of our country, which affected nearly all parts of Canada and how we developed?

[Prof. Christina Cameron]

Well, it's not my area of expertise, but Parks Canada and the Government of Canada have actually acquired quite a number of fur trade posts across the country and have used some of them for really museological purposes. They do indeed try to tell the story of the fur trade. I haven't been to Lower Fort Garry for a while, but I'm sure it's now probably telling a much broader story than at one point it might have done. Probably at the beginning there was a much bigger emphasis on the Hudson's Bay Company part of the equation, and now it's probably speaking more about the trade itself and the indigenous people, the people who were being traded with.

I was actually part of the gifting and removal out of Lower Fort Garry of the major collection that was there, and it's now in the Manitoba museum. I'm very proud of that, because Parks Canada is not really capable of managing such a valuable collection. That was part of that.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

We're very proud of that museum ourselves. In these politically correct times, the fur trade is often given short shrift for very bad reasons, so I'm glad to hear you say these efforts are ongoing.

Would any other panellists like to comment on where we are with the heritage conservation related to the fur trade?

Mr. Bennett.

[Gordon Bennett]

In terms of what is going on today, Parks Canada officials would be in a better position to comment on that than somebody like me. I've been out of the business since 2003. I really can't comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

Before we move to Mr. Stetski, I wanted to welcome Jennifer O'Connell and Peter Schiefke to the table. I'm sorry for not introducing you sooner.

Mr. Stetski.

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

Thank you for very interesting presentations. They were thought provoking for me in a number of ways.

I'd like to start with Mr. Rivet, and the question can be extended to the rest of you. I was clearly interested in your proposal that we should be doing better in the way of education initiatives and working with the construction industry and the national building code. I wanted to give you an opportunity to expand on those two in particular. What should we be doing to better protect heritage?

[Christophe Rivet]

Thank you very much.

The bigger context of that answer is that as a country we've already committed to thinking about how heritage fits into sustainable development aspects. If we were to translate that into policies and tools, we would need to start with the premise that was already highlighted by Mr. Waldron, that generating waste and the destruction of these buildings has a repercussion on other priorities that we've set ourselves.

I was looking at data yesterday about how much waste ends up in the landfills from construction renovation and so on, and it's close to 30%. This is a huge opportunity to think things through about how we look at that waste in terms of its value. There are a lot of very innovative things being discussed in Canada and abroad around how we address the demolition, partial demolition, or renovation of a specific building and reuse these elements that are understood as being original materials. For example, we look at how we can use them locally in another building. As you build a historic district, you have a building stock that will have the same needs for certain types of material and certain types of approaches.

All this is to say that right now we have a multi-billion dollar industry that is generating about 30% of Canada's waste in landfills. How can we look at this to meet both our international obligations and our vision for sustainable communities?

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

I'll move on then to another area of interest, certainly for me.

The committee did a tour where we met with witnesses in a number of parks and areas in western Canada. When we met with the first nations group out of Jasper, one of the chiefs said something that really stayed with me, and I'd be interested in your comments on how you think we're doing. He said, “We don't have any written language, so the Creator wrote our stories on the land.” That really stayed with me. How are we doing in recognizing indigenous heritage values? I'll just open that up to the floor.

[Christophe Rivet]

I will certainly not pretend to speak on behalf of indigenous people. However, I will share some of the echos of what we've heard, and we have indigenous people on our board of directors.

What we see is that Canada is not equipped to deal with protecting things that are important to our indigenous people. It does so through certain legislation, but there are some big challenges. One of them is the protection of cultural landscapes. Another is the protection of archeological sites.

These are significant shortcomings in thinking about how to, for example, implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is something we are noticing, and this is why our committee is looking at it as a priority. We feel ill-equipped to respect, express, and protect the world vision of the many indigenous communities.

[Prof. Christina Cameron]

I would just like to mention that there is one very good model of a site in the Northwest Territories called Sahoyue-Edacho, which to all intents and purposes looks like a national park and has really no built resources in it. It probably has archeological resources. It's designated as a national historic site of Canada for its value to the indigenous peoples and their stories as related to the land. I believe it's now protected. I don't know if it's in the ownership or custodianship of Parks Canada or through some partnership, but it is a protected area. It's essentially a national park, but recognized for its cultural value, which speaks to Christophe's cultural landscape and the interconnection of culture and nature.