Evidence of meeting #97 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 board.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Norman Shields  Manager, Heritage Designations, Parks Canada Agency
Karen L. Pearce  Legal Counsel, Parks Canada Agency
Rachel Grasham  Director Policy, Legislative and Cabinet Affairs, Parks Canada Agency
Alan Kerr  Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Sylvain Michaud  Chief Financial Officer, Parks Canada Agency
Douglas McConnachie  Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Financial Management Directorate, Department of the Environment
Sue Milburn-Hopwood  Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Wildlife Service, Department of the Environment
Matt Jones  Assistant Deputy Minister, Pan-Canadian Framework Implementation Office , Department of the Environment
John Moffet  Acting Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
Rob Prosper  Vice-President, Protected Areas Establishment and Conservation, Parks Canada Agency

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

—the main estimates indicate that there are interim estimates that are presented at $321 million so that they can enable operations, specific aspects of the first quarter of expenditures. I think since the issue of first quarter expenditures is raised I can ask questions about how that money is going to be spent. I don't think that's untoward. I'd love to have those 90 seconds back.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

I'll give them back.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Now that there are significant new funds that enable a whole different range of activities that both Parks, the Wildlife Service and those dealing with CERA can move forward, what suggestions would you have for interested provincial governments or municipal governments who want to engage and engage early to foster those kinds of partnership opportunities that the budget presents? I think there's great enthusiasm when they see this opportunity, when people see the positive opportunities for incentivizing those partnerships. What would a government do? In the Pontiac, for example, what would municipal governments do? What could the provincial government do to express interest and a desire to move forward together? That would go with the CWS side as well as the Parks side.

1 p.m.

Vice-President, Protected Areas Establishment and Conservation, Parks Canada Agency

Rob Prosper

Thank you for the question. I can start.

As you obviously know, this committee has given us excellent advice on moving forward with the conservation agenda in protected areas. That advice is being utilized as part of the Pathway to Canada target one, where we are engaging with provinces, territories, and indigenous groups to essentially map out the approach on a national basis of how we're going to reach the Canada target one, which is the Aichi target 11. Through that process every aspect of conserving by diversity from a land basis is being considered. That's private lands, provincial and indigenous lands, and so on.

Ministers are currently engaged in that process with the expectation that they will be providing guidance on that on a national basis. Presumably each of the jurisdictions will be looking at their current plans and the types of flexibilities that are being discussed in terms of new tools for conserved lands and how that forms part of the overall strategy to get to 17%. I think certainly over the course of the next year there will be an enormous amount of work around what those opportunities are and how we would explore all of those opportunities because obviously the landing zone between now and 2020 is very short.

1 p.m.

Liberal

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 AG?

1 p.m.

Vice-President, Protected Areas Establishment and Conservation, Parks Canada Agency

Rob Prosper

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

1 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Thank you. I appreciate that.

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Great.

1 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

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

1 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Wildlife Service, Department of the Environment

Sue Milburn-Hopwood

Just to assure you 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.

1 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Thank you.

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

So, 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.

1 p.m.

Conservative

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, and then recently Suncor CEO Steve Williams said in an article entitled, “Suncor to shun major new projects amid Canada's difficult regulatory environment.”

Mr. Kerr, 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?

1:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency

Alan Kerr

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.

The legislation that was introduced by the minister in fact 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.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

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

Thank you very much.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Thank you very much.

I guess we got talking over there, so I'm going to go...are you guys ready? Are you ready over there or do I go to Mr. Stetski?

Mr. Stetski, you go next, and then they'll go.

The laughs follow at the end. Out of order for sure.

1:05 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Thank you. 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, that's 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, because climate change is not going way?

Secondly, they announced that people aged 17 and under will have free entrance to parks, and so this is perhaps more a budget question, but are there operational dollars to replace lost revenue from the decrease in entrance fees?

Third, specifically for my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, I have four national parks, Kootenay, Yoho, Revelstoke, and Glacier, and I would love to see additional money going into the highway, particularly through Revelstoke and Glacier parks, which continues to have an unreasonably high level of fatalities. Three questions.

1:05 p.m.

Chief Financial Officer, Parks Canada Agency

Sylvain Michaud

In terms of the budget, like my colleagues at ECCC said, we haven't got all the details yet, so we have yet to see the details in the budget to be able to answer that question about whether we've got any additional funding or not to deal with some of these issues like 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?

1:05 p.m.

Vice-President, Protected Areas Establishment and Conservation, Parks Canada Agency

Rob Prosper

The third question was....

1:05 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Funding the highway through Rev-Glacier parks.

March 1st, 2018 / 1:05 p.m.

Chief Financial Officer, Parks Canada Agency

Sylvain Michaud

Your question was specific—

1:05 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC

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

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Wayne, we're out of time. I hate to say it, but maybe you guys can take that up outside. It's specific, and I'll leave.... I'm sorry, we're out of time on that question.

Churence.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

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 one question I have is, 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?

1:05 p.m.

Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Financial Management Directorate, Department of the Environment

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 sizeable 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 audited financial statement. There is, then, full accountability for the funds that are being administered via FCM.