Environment Committee on March 1st, 2018

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Is it fair to suggest that at both the CWS level and at Parks Canada, the doors are open for suggestions from subnational governments as to how to move towards this pathway to Aichi?

[Rob Prosper]

I would say that the current explorations into the new types of tools that may be available are going to have every jurisdiction looking at those opportunities.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Great.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Are there any comments from the CWS side on this? Mr. Prosper is obviously speaking on behalf of Parks.

[Sue Milburn-Hopwood]

I assure you that Environment Canada and Canadian Wildlife Services are working hand in hand with Parks Canada on this project. If communities have proposals, I think we're ready to start receiving them and thinking about them.

All the details of these programs aren't all worked out yet, but we are working through some of the new tools and concepts. We would certainly be interested in receiving proposals from communities that have ideas.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I did give you your time back.

We've done our first round. I had only considered a first round so that we could go to what we have to vote on, but I believe we have agreed that we're going to add about 20 minutes to the meeting. I will give two more minutes for each party for questions, and then we'll move to the voting.

We'll start with Mr. Sopuck for two minutes.

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

Thanks.

I just came across an article in Bloomberg that says, “Foreign Direct Investment in Canada Plunges on Oil Exodus”. It's down about 26% this year. Then recently Suncor CEO Steve Williams said in an article, “Suncor to shun major new projects amid Canada's difficult regulatory environment”.

Mr. Kerr, in your comments you talked about strengthening Canada's environmental assessment and regulatory processes. It's clear that the environmental regulatory processes implemented by this government are driving away foreign investment at a significant rate. Do you ever consider the economic impact of the regulatory processes that your department is designing when you are developing these processes? Do you consider the economic impact?

[Alan Kerr]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.

The legislation that was introduced by the minister is the result of consultations with stakeholders across Canada, including industry, and one of the things that was heard loud and clear was that environmental responsibility and economic development go hand in hand. The legislation that is going through the parliamentary process is very respectful of that, and the processes that we're working to put in place, should the legislation be passed, will reflect that.

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

I vehemently disagree with that, and the statement by the Suncor CEO proves that I'm right.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

Are you ready over there, or do I go to Mr. Stetski?

Mr. Stetski, you go next, and then they'll go. We're out of order.

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

Thank you.

I have a couple of quick questions for Parks Canada. I am the critic for Parks Canada, although I prefer "advocate", because that's really what I am.

The $26.7 million is basically to cover last year's costs, I assume.

Is there going to be money in this budget anticipating additional natural disasters like fires, particularly in British Columbia where I'm from? Climate change is not going away.

Second, it was announced that people aged 17 and under will have free entrance to parks. This is perhaps more a budget question, but are there operational dollars to replace lost revenue from the decrease in entrance fees?

The third question is specifically for my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, where there are four national parks, Kootenay, Yoho, Revelstoke, and Glacier. I would love to see additional money going into the highway, particularly through Revelstoke and Glacier parks, where there continues to be an unreasonably high level of fatalities.

[Sylvain Michaud]

In terms of the budget, as my colleagues at ECCC said, we haven't got all the details yet. We have yet to see the details in the budget to be able to answer that question about whether we have any additional funding to deal with climate change and additional fires.

In terms of the second question about the replacement of revenues lost as a result of free entry for youth, we did get that money last year in last year's budget. We got $2.5 million a year on an ongoing basis to basically replace the revenues lost as a result of it.

Do you want to address the third question?

[Rob Prosper]

The third question was....

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

It was about funding the highway through Rev-Glacier parks.

[Sylvain Michaud]

Your question was specific to—?

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

It was about highway improvments, in Revelstoke and Glacier parks in particular. There was almost $90 million in Yoho National Park last year for highway improvements. I'm just wondering whether there will be money this year—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Wayne, I'm sorry, but we're out of time on that question.

Go ahead, Churence.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

This is a question about the green municipal fund. I see there's $125 million to be added to that fund. As a past mayor, and of course sitting on a board of directors for FCM for a number of years, I'm pleased to see this.

I think it's well administered and it does some great work across the country, but what kind of reporting mechanisms are in place so that we see that the money is efficiently used and meets the objectives that the federal government has in place?

[Douglas McConnachie]

Thank you very much for inquiring about the green municipal fund.

As members may be aware, there has been a strong partnership between the Government of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on the administration of the fund for a number of years, and the transfer you're seeing in our current estimates represents a top-up to the already sizable commitments that have been made by previous governments.

From a reporting perspective, as with all grants and contributions, there are accountability provisions in our funding agreement with the FCM that require them, first of all, to produce an annual plan, which is also reported upon in our departmental report on plans and priorities, as well as an annual plan at the end of the year reporting on the outcomes and the usage of the funds, with an audited financial statement. There is, then, full accountability for the funds that are being administered via FCM.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I was thinking more particularly of meeting the objectives of clean energy, wastewater regulations, and all that stuff. At one point we, as a board of directors, questioned the board of directors that runs the green municipal fund, which is a separate body, about certain projects that were approved and whether or not they were most efficiently using the funds to meet those objectives that we wanted to meet and the federal government wants to meet. That's why I asked the question.

[Douglas McConnachie]

Thank you very much for the clarification.

An official from Environment and Climate Change Canada is part of the board of directors and assists in those decisions in which value-for-money propositions are assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you for everybody's questions; they're good questions.

We will now move into the vote on the supplementary estimates (C).

CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AGENCY

Vote 1c—Program expenditures..........$1,000,000

(Vote 1c agreed to on division)

DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Vote 1c—Operating expenditures..........$19,632,704

Vote 10c—Grants and contributions.........$177,500,000

(Vote 1c agreed to)

(Vote 10c agreed to on division)

PARKS CANADA AGENCY

Vote 1c—Program expenditures..........$27,386,302

(Vote 1c agreed to on division)

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Shall I report supplementary estimates (C) 2017-18 to the House?