Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, honourable committee members, I would like to thank you all for inviting the Green Budget Coalition to speak to you today.
The Green Budget Coalition has been active since 1999. It is really unique in bringing together the expertise of 20 of Canada's leading environmental organizations, including many groups you would know well, such as Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, CPAWS, and Nature Canada, which collectively represents over 600,000 urban and rural Canadians from coast to coast.
The Green Budget Coalition's 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. We work on a wide range of issues including climate change, energy, nature conservation, first nations health, and freshwater and waste-water issues.
Today, I would like to address two points. I'd like to discuss carbon pricing, of course, and then also talk about some important progress in budget 2018. I'm really echoing messages that were in our recommendations for budget 2018, which we sent to you all last year and discussed with senior representatives of all of your respective parties.
First, I would like to express the Green Budget Coalition's strong appreciation for budget 2018's investment of $1.3 billion over five years to create and manage protected areas and protect species at risk. This unprecedented federal investment has a potential to be a game-changer for nature conservation in Canada and could help move Canada from laggard to leader in terrestrial and marine conservation.
We're also appreciative of other funding measures in budget 2018, particularly the $1 billion for environmental laws, new funding for first nations drinking water and waste-water systems, protecting whale species, implementing and enforcing the federal carbon pricing system, and for science and research.
How this historic $1.3-billion investment is allocated will be critical to determining whether Canada delivers on our commitment to protect at least 17% of our landscape and 10% of our oceans by 2020, to substantially exceed this target in the long term, and to recover species at risk. Consistent with our past recommendations, the coalition encourages the government to allocate most of this funding to partnerships by supporting the involvement of provincial, territorial, and indigenous governments, as well as other partners, including for provincial parks and indigenous protected areas, and to primarily allocate the rest to support federally led expansion and more effective management of federal protected area networks.
The coalition and our members are very interested in continuing the constructive dialogue we have had with you and your colleagues and government officials to ensure that we maximize the impact of this important federal investment.
Second, on carbon pricing, I would like to reiterate the Green Budget Coalition's strong and long-standing support for implementing an effective price on greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change poses a major risk to Canadians, to the nature that Canadians hold dear, and to the nature that successive governments over the years have made major investments into protecting. A price on carbon is an important element to any climate change plan, applying the polluter pays principle, and giving incentives for businesses and individuals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, move towards cleaner energy sources, and contribute to phasing out fossil fuels. We support combining a carbon price with measures that protect financially vulnerable Canadians and with measures to address competitiveness concerns that are targeted, transparent, and temporary.
Along with other strong government measures, research shows that a carbon price that continues to ramp up every year to 2030 is needed for Canada to reach its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions target. The sooner that we take substantive and effective action on climate change, the more effective it will be and the less it will cost Canadians. Supporting the implementation of an effective price on carbon now is an important step forward that, years from now, you will all be able to look back on with pride.
To conclude, I would like to thank you all for inviting the Green Budget Coalition to appear before you today. I look forward to your questions.