Mr. Chairman and honourable committee members, thank you for inviting the Green Budget Coalition to speak to you today.
I am pleased to be joined by Nathan Lemphers from the Pembina Institute. I expect Alison Woodley, the national conservation director for CPAWS, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, to be here later. We can all answer your questions.
The Green Budget Coalition, or GBC, is unique in that we bring together the expertise of 16 of Canada's leading environmental and conservation groups, collectively representing over 600,000 Canadians, including groups such as Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and the Pembina Institute. Our mission is to present an analysis of the most pressing issues regarding environmental sustainability in Canada and to make a consolidated annual set of recommendations to the federal government regarding strategic fiscal and budgetary opportunities.
Please note that my presentation today reflects revisions and more details with respect to the brief online submission that we made at the start of August. All the details were in this preliminary set of recommendations, which was sent to you on September 25 and again last Thursday.
We want to thank the government again for its progress in Budget 2012, including funding for renewing the Species at Risk Act and funding for the Great Lakes, the Rouge National Urban Park, and Lake Winnipeg. These are all important steps forward.
To build on this progress, for Budget 2013 we have identified and developed four feature recommendations as well as seven complementary recommendations. Our feature recommendations address the national conservation plan, subsidy reform in the extractive industries, green infrastructure in first nations communities, and federal environmental law and science capacity.
First, we are recommending that Canada's national conservation plan—a throne speech commitment that was affirmed by the House environment committee's report in June—focus on scaling up efforts to value and conserve nature for the benefit of current and future generations of Canadians and on ensuring that all parties work together in a coordinated way to achieve this goal. We have specific recommendations addressing oceans, national parks, and migratory birds.
Second, to build further on the government's subsidy reform momentum and to increase tax neutrality and support the government's strategy of responsible resource development, the GBC recommends three targeted measures: enabling the Canadian exploration expense only for unsuccessful exploration; removing the accelerated capital cost allowance for the mining sector, as the government has done for the oil sands; and not renewing the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through shares. These were all identified as subsidies for potential reform by the Deputy Minister of Finance in a March 2010 memorandum.
Third, there are major opportunities to further pursue economic health and quality-of-life benefits for first nations communities by integrating green infrastructure thinking into the programs and policies that are needed for planning, building, updating, and repairing first nations infrastructure. While progress has been made in many first nations communities, there are still dire needs around improving drinking water systems and housing stock. Our recommendations address water and waste water systems, deep measures residential and non-residential energy conservation and efficiency programs, and reducing dependence on diesel fuel through increased green energy use.
Fourth, we want to emphasize that the Government of Canada's environmental laws and science capacity are fundamental to its ability to protect Canadians' economic prosperity, health, and quality of life, and the ecosystems and natural resources on which they depend. To support these laws and this science capacity, the GBC recommends establishing a comprehensive web-accessible and continually updated database of all federal environmental enforcement and compliance data, and financially supporting the provinces and territories, where intergovernmental agreements are in place, to effectively deliver environmental laws in their jurisdictions.
We also have further complementary recommendations in our document addressing energy sustainability, climate action, and healthy communities, including Canada's infrastructure future, as my colleague just highlighted. We will send you our final recommendations near the end of November.
To close, I would like to quote the man who will be delivering the budget, I assume, four or five months from now, the Minister of Finance, who emphasized that
...the environment and the economy are inextricably linked, and that by ensuring that Canada has a clean and healthy environment we will be able to build an economy strong enough to maintain the enviable standard of living Canadians have come to expect.
Thank you.