Fisheries Committee on Oct. 24th, 2017

[Rob Prosper]

Perhaps I'll start. Thank you for the question.

I'll turn back—and you'll get copies—to the federal marine protected areas strategy. It helps to clarify the different roles that the different types of marine protection instruments provide.

As I mentioned previously, Parks Canada looks at the 29 marine regions with the intent of representing each of those regions with as good a marine conservation area as possible, one that's really representative of that area and captures the key unique features of those areas. Other marine protected areas—not to speak for the other agencies—may be looking at a specific highly productive area, for example, for the purpose of protecting future fish stocks.

It's driven primarily by purpose. The purposes of Oceans Act marine protected areas are in some ways different from the purpose of national marine conservation areas. NMCAs are about representativity, and they're also about identifying areas where they can contribute to the sustainability of coastal communities and lend themselves, to a degree, to having Canadians have opportunities to visit and experience them.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Who enforces the marine conservation areas? Who looks after enforcement to make sure that nothing is going on there that's not supposed to be? Does it fall under Parks Canada or DFO?

[Rob Prosper]

It falls to Parks Canada. We have just under 100 park wardens. You would probably recognize the uniform of park wardens, with their Stetsons. The wardens have been around a long time. They are our dedicated law enforcement group. They're an armed enforcement group, and they work in all our national parks and national marine conservation areas.

[Kevin McNamee]

I would add that it may not be specifically in the area of enforcement, but an emerging part of our program is working again with indigenous communities in terms of a guardian-like approach that we have on Gwaii Haanas. They would be there to enforce traditional laws and to work with people: visitors, Parks Canada, or whatever.

We'll be exploring that for Lancaster Sound, obviously, which is a tremendously huge area. How are we are going to work with the various communities to monitor and keep an eye on how the area is being used?

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Where are the four national marine conservation areas?

[Kevin McNamee]

We used to call them “national marine parks”. The first one is adjacent to the Bruce Peninsula. We moved to the term “national marine conservation area” because we didn't want people to think that all we were doing was dragging a national park offshore, given that commercial fishing and things such as that can continue under the act.

The second one is the Saguenay—Saint-Laurent Marine Park, which is under separate federal and provincial legislation, given that Canada has jurisdiction for the water column and Quebec has jurisdiction for the seabed. It's a collaboratively managed area.

The third one is the first one that came out under the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act. It is the Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. Again, exemplifying how we do things collaboratively, they declared it to be a Haida heritage site before it was a marine area.

Our fourth one is our largest. It's on Lake Superior. Part of our systems plan acknowledges that there is a connection between these large bodies of water in the Great Lakes and the marine environment, and those count towards the Aichi target of the terrestrial 17%.

Lancaster falls in as our fifth.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm sorry. In my first question, I thought that the Western/Emerald Banks Conservation Area off the coast of Nova Scotia was under Parks Canada, but it's not. It's under DFO.

[Kevin McNamee]

Well, we'll take a look at it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

How long have you been working on the Lancaster Sound project?

[Kevin McNamee]

It depends on who you talk to. Going back to the late 1970s or early 1980s, Lancaster Sound has inspired people to conserve it, with green papers, white papers, and all kinds of proposals.

We got going on a national marine conservation area proposal really aggressively probably in the late 1970s or early 1980s. It was put in abeyance because Inuit wanted to focus on the settlement of their land claim agreement, and then they wanted to focus on the settlement of Inuit impact and benefit agreements for national parks.

Things really kicked off, though, with the signing of an MOU with the Inuit and the Nunavut government in 2009. Our feasibility assessment really got going in late 2010. We tend to look at it and say that the really heavy lifting that got us there took us seven years, from 2010 to 2017.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It took seven years.

[Kevin McNamee]

We never have a short answer when people ask us how long it takes.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

From your perspective, then, depending on what it is you want to protect or the communities that you have to deal with, it could take longer or it could take less time. Is that a fair assessment?

[Rob Prosper]

I think it's a very fair assessment.

The numbers and the diversity of stakeholders often dictate the amount of time that it takes to effectively consult and explain what the intentions are and to respond to the challenges that may be raised along the way. Certainly, in an area where you have one identified indigenous group versus areas where you may have many, or places where there's a limited number of stakeholders versus places where there are many tenures and many stakeholders, the latter is going to take more time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Jordan. I appreciate it.

That brings us to the end of our witness—

Mr. Arnold, go ahead.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Chair, I believe we have only one witness in the next hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Would it be possible to extend the time here for another five-minute round? These are very knowledgeable witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes, I was going to.... I think it's a good point. Is there any dissension amongst the ranks about that? Is everybody okay?

Then I would ask for the indulgence of the committee: if you have a very quick, pointed question, please go ahead.

I'm not going to go to the normal order.

Mr. Arnold, if you have a quick question, go right ahead, please.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for its indulgence in extending the time.

What direction has your department been given in reaching the targets? Were you given a quota of areas to protect? Were you given certain criteria or certain attributes to protect? What direction have you actually been given?

[Rob Prosper]

As Mr. McNamee indicated, it was present in our minister's mandate letter to contribute to reaching the 10% target by 2020 and the 5% target by 2017. Again, I would say that it's driven by opportunity. We work with the other departments that are engaged in contributing to trying to meet that target.

There wasn't a specific delegation of how Parks needs to come up with this amount and DFO has to come up with a certain amount. It was about what opportunities were on the table, what things we could move quickly on, and what things were already in mid-process, and then focusing on those opportunities. Of course, for us, Lancaster was in mid-process and was the one that we put attention on. We literally sped up the process to have that contribute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Go ahead, Mr. McNamee, very quickly.

[Kevin McNamee]

We could provide the committee our systems plan map that divides Canada into 29 marine regions. That's the direction Parliament gave us through the act: to focus on representative areas within those regions. We'll give you a map and a copy of the systems plan. That'll help you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We appreciate that, Mr. McNamee. Thank you, and in both languages, please, if that is available.