Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, colleagues.
I want to start off by thanking the chair and the members of this committee for inviting me to speak here today about implementing third party habitat banking in the Canadian context.
This wasn't part of my speaking notes, but I think it's important that I am here not just as a senator who proposed amendments on third party habitat banking and had them accepted in the Senate. I have also appeared at the House fisheries committee before as a subject matter expert, and I have 35 years of experience in the fishery, managing fish processing plants. I was chief of staff at DFO, director of policy at DFO and author of more than 100 technical reports on the fishery. I have direct experience in habitat banking, and I am also a member of Canada's team in the delegation to NAFO.
As I'm sure you are aware, Bill C-68 recently passed in the Senate, with amendments to expand habitat banking to third parties, to introduce an offset payment system and to ensure habitat banking benefits remain local in comparison to a work, undertaking or activity.
I would like to use this opportunity today to urge your committee to recommend the passage of these amendments into law.
While I'm aware that your committee is simply exploring the possibility of implementing third party habitat banking sometime in the future, I want to make it very clear that Bill C-68 may be the only opportunity to get this done right and done within a reasonable period of time.
The Fisheries Act is one of Canada's oldest pieces of legislation, brought into force right after Confederation. When this act is changed, the process is quite lengthy, as we are seeing now with Bill C-68 and as we've seen with all other attempts to pass legislation regarding the Fisheries Act.
I think we all recognize and appreciate the complexities involved in establishing an effective third party habitat banking regime in Canada. Those complexities, though, colleagues, are not legislative; they are regulatory. The amendments to Bill C-68 only come into force upon proclamation of cabinet, and not with royal assent as they typically do. This would provide DFO and the relevant federal agencies the time to get it right so that nothing would be forced onto the Canadian public without it being ready, and I think that's an important point to make.
What the Senate is recommending with the habitat banking amendments is the early work involved in setting the stage for DFO to consult widely and bring in the proper regulations. This could take over a year, two years or five years—however long it takes to bring in a system that's based on international best practices and generates the best possible ecological and economic outcomes.
Third party habitat banking is not new. Other countries, including the United States, already have third party habitat banking systems in place. These systems work, and they work well.
The international debate on this topic is not about whether third party habitat banking should be permitted within a jurisdiction; it's about how regulations should be designed and administered.
The benefits of including third party groups in a habitat banking regime are substantial, and so are the costs of excluding these groups.
Expanding the habitat banking system would create an entirely new habitat banking economy that creates jobs, incentivizes innovation and encourages more and better environmental protection.
Not all proponents—and currently it's in the legislation that it would be just proponents—have the resources or knowledge to build a physical offset. Under a third party habitat banking system, as you have heard from the other witnesses, the proponents would be able to purchase a habitat credit instead of designing and building their own physical offset. The offset must still be created, but under third party habitat banking it could be created by a group with specific conservation expertise. The proponent would essentially be, in these cases, funding the construction of an improved physical offset. This would not replace the mitigation aspects required under the environmental protection aspect of any development.
Third party habitat banking is a win for industry and a win for the environment. Companies won't have to divert attention from the core aspects of their business and the jobs that come with it. All they have to do is buy the credit for the habitat bank established by a third party group and, of course, the mitigation required.
With a new market for the credits, there is an incentive for third parties to join the habitat banking program, thus leading to additional ecological protection.
Who are these third party groups? These third parties include, but aren't limited to, indigenous groups, conservation specialist groups like Ducks Unlimited, wetlands advocates, private sector firms and municipalities. All of those, colleagues, currently do not have the right to be part of the proponent protection. When we say that only a proponent can create a habitat bank, as Bill C-68 did before we amended it in the Senate, we are deliberately excluding groups that have direct experience protecting our environment.
These stakeholders all want to be on the front lines of habitat restoration and enhancement, and they should be. That's why the amendments I proposed at committee to expand habitat banking to third parties, which had broad support across all groups and caucuses in the Senate, also had broad and diverse stakeholder support. Environmental NGOs and industry groups like the Ontario Waterpower Association and the Canadian Ferry Association, for example, as well as first nations, municipalities, conservation authorities and provincial government agencies want to see the expansion of habitat banking to third parties become law. The Senate amendments in Bill C-68 regarding third party habitat banking are cross-partisan amendments, and they're reasonable amendments in terms of implementation, given DFO will have more than enough time to consult widely and bring the system into effect.
I also want to clarify something for the record. As I imagine many of you are aware, I voted against Bill C-68 at third reading in the Senate. I voted this way because there are other aspects of the bill entirely unrelated to habitat banking that I could not support. Bill C-68 is an omnibus fisheries bill, and as I said in my third-reading speech in the Senate, it should have been split into different bills dealing with substantially different elements of the Fisheries Act.
Colleagues, I'm pleased that we have the opportunity here today to discuss the positive changes now in the bill and how they can be implemented in Canada. Third party habitat banking is a perfect example of a private sector solution to environmental challenges. The system is funded by the private sector and executed by specialist groups in the field of environmental and ecological preservation.
I hope your committee, and indeed the entire House of Commons, will use this opportunity to enable the regulatory work to bring third party habitat banking into effect sooner rather than later.
Thank you.