Environment Committee on June 9th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 23 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

For the first half of the meeting, we have the following Parks Canada Agency officials joining us: Andrew Campbell, Catherine Blanchard, Christine Loth‑Bown, Michael Nadler and Darlene Upton.

We will spend the next 60 minutes examining supplementary estimates (A), but first, Mr. Nadler will give his opening statement.

The floor is yours, Mr. Nadler. You have three minutes.

[Michael Nadler, Vice-President, External Relations and Visitor Experience, Parks Canada Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to be with you this evening.

As you know, my name is Michael Nadler, and I am the vice-president of external relations and visitor experience at the Parks Canada Agency. With me are four members of the agency's senior management team.

Next to me is Catherine Blanchard, vice-president of finance and chief financial officer of the Parks Canada Agency.

Joining us by video conference are Andrew Campbell, senior vice-president of operations, Christine Loth‑Bown, vice-president of indigenous affairs and cultural heritage, and Darlene Upton, vice-president of protected areas establishment and conservation.

Once again, thank you for inviting us today to discuss the Parks Canada Agency's supplementary estimates (A) for 2022‑23.

I'd like to take a moment before discussing the supplementary estimates to recognize that we are gathered on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples.

June is Indigenous History Month, and this hearing offers an opportunity to briefly share with the committee Parks Canada's abiding commitment to working in partnership with indigenous peoples. Our agency is dedicated to working with indigenous partners to foster a system of national heritage places that recognizes and honours the contributions of indigenous peoples, both past and present.

Parks Canada works closely and collaboratively with hundreds of indigenous communities across the country in the management of national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas. This work includes sharing the stories, traditions and rich histories and cultures of indigenous peoples with Canadians and with visitors from around the world. It also includes acknowledging the deep relationships that indigenous peoples have with ancestral lands, waters and ice across Canada, and works to restore these connections in the spirit of reconciliation.

Turning to the 2022-23 supplementary estimates (A), in these estimates Parks Canada is seeking to increase its reference levels by $33.6 million, which will bring the agency's total authorities for 2022-23 to over $1 billion. The $33.6 million is composed of $20.7 million in vote 1a, operating expenditures, grants and contributions; $6.1 million in vote 5a, capital expenditures; and $6.8 million in statutory expenditures.

The largest item in these supplementary estimates, colleagues, is $25.5 million to maintain the agency's capacity to manage our capital assets.

Parks Canada is the administrator of one of the largest asset portfolios in the federal government. The agency is responsible for more than 18,500 built assets across the country, with a portfolio that includes heritage buildings, visitor facilities, trails, highways, historic waterways, and even dams and bridges in, or adjacent to, major metropolitan centres.

Between 2015 and 2023, the Government of Canada provided approximately $4.2 billion to address the deterioration of many built assets managed by Parks Canada. This funding has allowed Parks Canada to improve the condition of over 5,000 assets in national parks and national historic sites.

Many of these projects have restored aging visitor infrastructure, such as the investment of $80 million to renew campgrounds at Waterton Lakes, Jasper and Kejimkujik national parks.

Other projects have supported the restoration and improvement of heritage buildings and experiences, such as the $5.6 million spent for a major restoration of the heritage buildings at Manoir Papineau and the $5 million spent on a signature interpretive exhibit at the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site.

Still others have resulted in strengthened dams and waterways infrastructure, as well as improvements to roads and highways, facilitating transportation through protected places and strengthening national and regional transportation systems.

This current $25-million investment provided by budget 2021 is an interim measure while Parks Canada completes its work on long-term asset investment, maintenance and management strategies. Parks Canada's long-term capital investment plan will address its current and future asset requirements and ensure the effective and efficient management and ongoing sustainability of the agency's asset portfolio into the future.

Of note, Parks Canada is also seeking $1 million for the learn-to-camp program. Since 2011, the celebrated learn-to camp program has helped people who dream of going on a camping adventure to take the first step by learning the practical skills needed to safely enjoy activities in the outdoors.

Research suggests that many Canadians face barriers to camping in Canada's outdoors, including a lack of access, equipment and knowledge. The learn-to-camp program aims to help thousands of Canadians by breaking down these barriers and encouraging more people to connect with nature.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's been at least five minutes, so we'll have to end it on that note, camping. We will now begin the first round of questions.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have six minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here. As someone from Alberta, I always enjoy the wonderful parks we have. Last year I spent some time at Waterton, Banff and Jasper. I ended up buying a couple of passes, but that's because I took two different vehicles at times. Nevertheless, it's a great experience and it's something we should be so proud of, as I know that especially people in your department are.

What I want to ask, Mr. Nadler, goes directly to the estimates. In your remarks, you mentioned that Parks Canada's total authorities for 2022-23 will be over $1 billion. You further suggested that Canadians “face barriers to visiting and camping” in our outdoors, which of course there are a lot of different reasons for.

My colleague Mr. Mazier submitted an Order Paper question in which he asked for the breakdown of money spent by each park towards promotion in 2022. One of the areas that you're saying the sector money will go towards is promoting awareness for things like the learn to camp program. Your department signed off on the response to this Order Paper question, saying that they don't track metrics like that.

We hear about the number of visitors or the projections of spending on this program or that program. My question to you is this. If your department tells Parliament that it doesn't track how much money each park spends on promotion, how are we to know that this extra funding is going to be used to adequately promote awareness of programs like learn to camp?

[Michael Nadler]

That's an excellent question. I recall that parliamentary question, so I'm grateful for the query.

In fact, much of our promotional work and advertising is managed centrally and is not delivered necessarily park by park or historic site by historic site across the country. For 2022, in fact, we resumed advertising. Many of you are probably aware that there was a pause in much of the federal advertising during the pandemic period. We were able to resume an advertising campaign that began in February and concludes toward the end of this month.

Those investments in advertising are $4 million over two fiscal years—$1 million in the last fiscal year and $3 million in the current fiscal year—both for placements and for some content development.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I'd like to ask another question. In the metrics, as you're trying to think about how many people are going to come to the parks and enjoy them, many people, especially in our area.... I mean, it's a three- or four-hour drive to get to parks from where I live. If you're taking a motorhome or something of that nature, what used to cost $250 or $300 to fill up your tank is now over $1,000.

These are the types of things that are going to restrict people. If you happen to live close, maybe you're going to deal with this, but what if you're having problems with budgets, as people are? Has anyone looked at that metric to see what we can anticipate in this time of extra-special costs that people are facing?

[Michael Nadler]

For our projections for visitation this year, it's going to be an interesting year for Parks Canada. If it's of any help, we can advise that the year is starting pretty well. The tourism industry broadly across Canada is experiencing below 2019 levels but certainly above last year's expenditures by tourists in Canada. The cost of travel, the cost of inflation and certain uncertainties just on the return of international travel to Canada all present some challenges for us in predicting what will happen over the summer months this year.

You're absolutely right that much of our visitation comes from a two- to four-hour catchment area near a destination. That was certainly the story of last year. So far we're seeing pretty strong domestic local visitation for our places. It's spring, so it's still early in the season, but the signals are fairly positive for visitation.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

There's another thing I'd just like to ask about, because I've read it here and I understand what you're dealing with as far as the learn to camp program is concerned. I grew up camping, so I don't think I need a primer on that, but maybe you could mention to the people who are listening just what that program entails.

[Michael Nadler]

It's one of our favourite initiatives at Parks Canada. We take a lot of joy in introducing people to nature and to the experience of cultural and natural heritage places. The learn to camp program offers a fairly broad range of activities. There are roughly 40 overnight events conducted every year. In fact, this year we will be going back to largely in-person delivery. Then also we offer experiences of varied duration, from a couple of hours to a half a day to a full day. We're delivering the program out of six hubs across the country, so basically in every region of the country. We now, in fact, deliver more in communities. We bring parks to people with that program more than we actually bring people to our places.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Who are the target audiences you have identified?

[Michael Nadler]

It's a mix of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have about 10 seconds.

[Michael Nadler]

Sorry, did you want me to stop?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

If you could name three, that would be good.

[Michael Nadler]

Yes, that's no problem.

It's urban families and new Canadians, people who may be new to Canada and who haven't experienced our national parks and historic sites. We also target low-income families, low-income Canadians, and Canadians who might face accessibility challenges.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

I was remiss earlier in not welcoming Gérard Deltell, who is standing in for Mr. Mazier this evening.

Now over to you, Ms. Taylor Roy.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you also to Parks Canada for being here and participating.

This is a great organization, and I think supplemental requests are not out of line.

I have a couple of questions. One is about the 2020-21 departmental results report. It had an initial aim to have at least 23.7 million people experience Parks Canada during 2021. Of course, we know that COVID limited people's travel and resulted in reduced and modified visitor programming, but there were 17 million visitors in 2020-21. I'm just curious as to how Parks Canada balances the goal of welcoming growing numbers of visitors to the parks and preventing or alleviating damage to natural areas due to high numbers of visitors.

Also, along the same lines, did lower numbers of visitors during the pandemic have any positive impacts on regeneration projects or other Parks Canada initiatives? Did you notice anything or were you able to do anything given that temporary period in which there were lower visitor numbers at the parks?

[Michael Nadler]

It's an excellent question.

You're absolutely right that our visitation in the first year of the pandemic, 2020-21, was 17 million. We reached 21.6 million in the last fiscal year. What's important, actually, about that number for Parks Canada is that we had very low international visitation, of course. That meant our domestic visitation among Canadians actually increased by roughly 20%. That meant that a number of Canadians who had never before visited a setting like this were coming. We absolutely had to adapt and strengthen our outreach, our communication and our social media work just to educate Canadians about how to safely and constructively enjoy these settings.

We also worked very collaboratively with the news media, and you might even have seen some of the proactive news media coverage on how to be safe and how to ensure not to impact the environment or the cultural integrity of our places.

We manage the potential impact of visitation on protected places through a number of means, everything from zoning to fairly elaborate visitor use management strategies, and we are able at very high levels of visitation, including the visitation levels that we experienced in 2017 with free admission, to effectively mitigate the impacts of visitation on ecology.

In the first year of the pandemic, it is true that we did not see high levels of visitation, and absolutely we saw some changes in the patterns of wildlife use of our places, but I don't know that I would say that we saw a significant ecological change or benefit from the decline in visitation.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Very good, and thank you so much for that. I'm glad to hear that you have those visitor use management strategies to ensure the parks are protected, as well as the public education campaigns, obviously.

I have a question about electric vehicle charging stations at national parks as we're moving towards more electric vehicles and trying to promote that and combat some of the fuel cost concerns that were raised.

I just wondered how many have been installed. Are they well used? As well, are there any other accomplishments that Parks Canada has had in sustainability goals?

[Michael Nadler]

Thank you for your question.

I'm going to ask Mr. Campbell to answer that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Campbell.

[Andrew Campbell, Senior Vice-President, Operations, Parks Canada Agency]

To answer the first part of your question, we had and we have a partnership that we have put in place with Tesla to put in charging stations, and passive charging stations, across the country. At present, we have more than 230 charging stations that are universal charging stations, so you can use them on Tesla and non-Tesla vehicles, at 43 different Parks Canada places across the country. We are seeing good visitor use.

On the charging stations, we continue to work with other partners across the country. We have done a couple of projects where we had lot space that we have now given in a business relationship to some private charging types of stations. You can see that in Jasper as a success, and we are seeing visitors giving us excellent feedback on the use of those chargers.

At Parks Canada, we're also aiming to really do a large greenhouse gas reduction in all of our operations, both in facilities and in fleet. By 2030.... We are well on the way to being 40% below our 2005 levels, but we will probably make that 40% below by 2025. That's how far on track we are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have to go Madame Pauzé now, please, for six minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you.

My question has to do with some rather staggering expenditures. Parks Canada's spending hit a high of $1.3 billion in 2019‑20, with infrastructure funding worth approximately $4.2 billion over eight years coming to an end. That funding was intended to “support infrastructure work in Parks Canada places and to ensure safe, high-quality experiences for visitors by improving heritage” and other assets.

That's a lot of money. Can you tell us in more detail what you spent that $4.2 billion on?

[Michael Nadler]

Yes, just one moment, please.

I just want to check my notes.

Do you want to jump in?