Evidence of meeting #35 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was north.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
12:30 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Right. I'm going to continue in English.
South of 60, with Transport Canada there's a regime where the oil-handling facilities in the community are required to develop a response capacity for the cargoes they move in and out. Hopefully that answers the first part. So if there's a vessel bringing any pollutants into the area, they—
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Yvon Lévesque Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
The cargo ships delivering the goods are piloted by experienced people. I'm talking about Cruise North, which is a cruise ship.
12:30 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Okay. First of all, the department that deals with the certification of the mariners, the pilots, would be Transport Canada. We would transfer any information we have as the ship reports through our marine communications centres over to Transport Canada. They're the agency that regulates mariners in Canadian waters.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Yvon Lévesque Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
In terms of the environment, in 2005, I called on the government of the day to do something about the former military bases from the last war used as part of NORAD. All of the waste had stayed where it was. I was told that the Americans had paid their share of the money to clean up the shores.
In 2005, after I did that, $250,000 was paid out to do studies. If I recall correctly, there were four or five studies done before. Today, the problem still exists in places like Kuujjuaq, Ivujivik and even Iqaluit, I think. There are barrels of tar sinking into the ground, and all sorts of military waste is still there.
Is that the responsibility of one of you?
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Environmental Assessment, Department of the Environment
The way contaminated sites remediation works, Environment Canada has a secretariat that provides expert advice on contaminated sites remediation, but the departments that are responsible for or that own those sites are actually ultimately responsible for their cleanup. So they're called the custodial departments. This one, presumably, would be under the Department of National Defence's care and control.
The government, though, has announced—I'll get the number right—$2.5 billion to assess risks and clean up these contaminated sites, and custodial departments can access that to figure out the best way to clean up these sites, develop the right partnerships to clean them up, and ultimately clean them up. That money is being disbursed as we speak and will continue over the next decade or more to be used to clean up the different sites across the country.
I don't have specific information on this DND-contaminated site, but the Department of National Defence would.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Merci.
In your handout, this rather voluminous document that you have, under tab 13 there is an actual map of the federally contaminated sites for your consideration as well.
Merci, Monsieur Lévesque.
Maintenant, monsieur Rickford, pour cinq minutes.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses.
First of all, Mr. Chair, I apologize to you, to the committee, and to our witnesses for being late. I had coverage for the first hour and then was further delayed by another committee obligation.
I feel bad about that, because the groups that are here today are in my wheelhouse, so to speak, on so many levels coming from the great Kenora riding, of course, with some of its challenges around parks and, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, fisheries. But with Industry Canada and Parks Canada, we face challenges that are not too dissimilar to those of the vast regions in the Northwest Territories. Indeed, I had a chance to live up there in my former life as a nurse and can appreciate some of the more obvious challenges.
I've had a chance to do a cursory review of some of the speeches that were made here and of some of the information. I'll try to keep my questions somewhat general.
I am the chair of the all-party tourism caucus, so I also have an interest in what, if anything, we can do as MPs in a government to raise the profile of various regions. Obviously I bring to this a real interest in the bigger regions of Canada. I noted the Vancouver Olympics that we have this spring. One of the things that we were trying to do through the caucus was to get MPs motivated to help us come up with ideas about how to raise the profile of some of the lesser-known bigger regions in Canada.
In the instance of the territories and certainly of the Arctic, the inukshuk, to some extent, is a symbol that's been sort of.... I don't want to say it's been taken, but it's been used for the Vancouver Olympics. I don't always arrive in Vancouver and think of that, but it is nonetheless a gateway to Whitehorse.
I'm wondering if anybody would like to comment on whether there's been a special opportunity to raise the profile of those regions through your departments with respect to the Olympics, with brief answers to that, if you could, and then I'll move forward on some specific challenges and successes moving forward. It may or may not be related to the Olympics.
12:35 p.m.
Director General, Western and Northern Canada, Parks Canada Agency
I'll start, Mr. Chair.
In terms of profiling our national parks and national historic sites, day two of the torch relay was at Fisgard Lighthouse, a national historic site. On the news over the weekend, there were photographs of surfers passing the torch at the Pacific Rim National Park. I believe that today the torch is up in the Yukon and is travelling up to Old Crow, which is the community adjacent to Vuntut National Park. A plane will be passing across the country and visiting over 100 national parks and national historic sites on that journey.
12:40 p.m.
John Connell
I can probably provide a few comments. I did touch on that in my opening remarks, which you unfortunately don't have.
There's a memorandum of understanding between the Canadian Tourism Commission and the three territorial governments on a “Look Up North” campaign that provides a solid basis for activities that are going to be showcasing the north at the Olympics.
As part of that, the CTC received I think $26 million over five years for Olympic promotion strategies. A lot of that funding has gone to particular canned productions that will be given to all of the major international networks covering the Olympics. In the case of the Americans, it's NBC, and there's the BBC and what have you. In that time when they're wanting to profile Canada, and when there's that dead time or whatever, there will be particular vignettes shown of Canada. Certain of those are of Canada's north--
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Do you find that a particularly successful strategy, Mr. Connell? I say that because I recently had an opportunity to make announcements for the Kenora riding featuring some of our tourist camps and outdoor or outback opportunities, if you will. They were going to be on OLN and some of the higher-profile outdoor networks. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that came into my mind as you were talking.
12:40 p.m.
John Connell
I do in the sense that the CTC is a research-based organization. It's marketing research, so it's really tested to see how well that's going to play with an international audience.
In the case of the Olympics, I mean, it's just massive exposure. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Essentially, it's free promotion of Canada. The networks themselves are going to be looking for that kind of material to use in their Olympic programming, so right around the world that kind of research-based image of Canada is going to play out. Yes, I'd say it's highly, highly effective and a super opportunity for our tourism industry.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Thank you very much, Mr. Rickford.
Yes, it goes rather quickly. Now we'll go to Mr. Bevington, followed by Mr. Martin, and then we have a couple of brief comments to catch up with.
Mr. Bevington, you have five minutes.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
I just want to see whether we can get answers on some of these questions. I know, of course, that you're from the Canadian Wildlife Service, so you're probably not likely to be able to answer any questions about sustainable development and some of the dollars coming out of the federal budget this year.
Do you have the expertise in that regard?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Environmental Assessment, Department of the Environment
We're responsible for some of the areas that have been invested in, mainly the contaminated sites, for mediation money. That would be our principal one but not holistically the money that has gone into sustainable development.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
So Environment Canada still has that. Within your department, are there elements of it that have a say in that sustainable development portfolio?
12:40 p.m.
Director General, Canadian Wildlife Service, Department of the Environment
I don't know the answer to that, but we can certainly undertake to find that out and get back to the clerk of the committee.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Okay. I think that would good, because it certainly indicates in some of our notes that you have some responsibility for it. We'll have to find out exactly where we can get that information, because it's certainly part of any response in the north.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Environmental Assessment, Department of the Environment
Sorry, I'm late looking into that. There were some new moneys for that piece of sustainable development legislation. Specifically, we are administrators of that, but we can get back to you on the Federal Sustainable Development Act and the funding indicators that have gone with that.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Do you have anything to do with the environmental assessment process of the Mackenzie gas project?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Environmental Assessment, Department of the Environment
Yes, we do.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Could you outline how that's going to proceed in terms of the joint review panel? What's your role as Environment Canada, and how do you anticipate your role moving ahead with a minister who is also holding the file for the development of the Mackenzie Valley project?
How does that separate in your department when you have a minister in charge of developing the Mackenzie gas project and then you have a responsibility to ensure that the environmental aspects of this project are well understood coming out of the joint review panel? Could you perhaps clarify some of that?
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Environmental Assessment, Department of the Environment
Sure, absolutely. I'll try to be brief, because that is a complex question.
Environment Canada, like all departments, is managed in result areas. So we have a specific result area that encompasses the Mackenzie gas project office. That is the government's focal point for work on the pipeline. We are also, in another result area, responsible for environmental protection and conservation. That's where most of our regulatory response liabilities lie.
So Environment Canada's regulatory and science responsibilities in the Mackenize gas pipeline range from any sediment that would have to be disposed at sea, to conservation of the migratory birds area in the delta, and to any environmental impacts on the pipeline route that affect our mandate areas, such as species at risk, pollution, or contaminants.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Environmental Assessment, Department of the Environment
In the way we have participated and will continue to participate in environmental assessment, we have two real roles. We regulate certain activities, such as the disposal at sea, or activities in the migratory bird sanctuary. We also provide expert advice to whatever body is doing the evaluations. In this case, the most recent was the joint panel review. So we would have provided information from our meteorological service on what we were seeing or were predicting to happen to the permafrost.
We provided expert evidence at the hearings, and now we, as well as other departments, are waiting to see what the joint review panel says, what their conclusions are. We're expecting that around the end of the year. Then we'll have a short period of time to work with the other departments to produce a response.
Our main interest in the response will be those environmental issues that we have mandate over: the migratory bird sanctuary, the species at risk that are present in the area, and disposal at sea permitting.
Is that helpful?