Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2018

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

You used the word “patch” and the word “stand”, and I'm trying to get a sense of how much area we're talking about in each of those differential terms.

[Darlene Upton]

Yes.

Gilles, I don't know if you have anything to add on that.

[Dr. Gilles Seutin, Chief Ecosystem Scientist, Protected Areas Establishment and Conservation Directorate, Parks Canada Agency]

When it comes to prescribed fires, you have to be very careful. You typically do it on a relatively small scale. It goes from anywhere.... In a very small park like the Thousand Islands it can be one hectare, and it goes to a few hundred, typically.

We've been able to limit and avoid uncontrolled escaped fires in 99% of the cases, but it goes to a few hundred.

[Darlene Upton]

I have found my table. Some of our fire interventions are as small as 10 hectares. The largest one, at Talbot Lake—these are planned ones—will be up to 4,000 hectares.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

When those trees are burned, is the plan to let the forest just naturally return to its post-fire state rather than doing tree-planting?

[Darlene Upton]

That's right. Yes.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

You mentioned some protection measures for, I think, the white birch. Is that the name of the tree?

[Darlene Upton]

It's the whitebark pine.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Will you plant some of those in these new growth forests, or is there going to be some mix of managing the regrowth of the forest with allowing it to happen naturally?

[Darlene Upton]

In the case of that species, which is an endangered species, some active treatments are being done to limit the impact of the pine beetle, as well as a restoration program and a planning program specifically for that species. Nursery-grown plants are being grown that can then be planted.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

We've heard that it's difficult to detect the mountain pine beetle as it spreads, because when the trees are dead the moths are gone, and it's only earlier on when they're.... What types of tools do you use to determine this? What tools are they using in other parts of the world that we're not using here and that could be used to detect and track the spread in a more proactive way?

[Dr. Gilles Seutin]

If I may respond, fundamentally, we are land managers. We are not the fine experts on, say, pest control or this or that. We are largely borrowing the techniques that are best practices developed by others. In this case, Canadian Forest Service is obviously a world leader in those things.

What we do is that we adapt those techniques and we look at them in the context of conservation. There are things we can't do the same way in a national park because of the conservation mandate.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Such as—?

[Darlene Upton]

Mechanized removal.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I thought you said you were doing mechanized removal.

[Darlene Upton]

We do it where we have access and it doesn't jeopardize ecological values.

In a case where that's limited, we're going in much more targeted and with fire where possible.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

What about the U.S.?

Is the U.S. park service doing things differently than you are doing to manage the mountain pine beetle?

[Dr. Gilles Seutin]

No. It's highly consistent.

Another example of mechanized removal is for other diseases. We typically don't spray. We typically avoid using neonicotinoids. Well, we are not using them. We are banning the use of neonicotinoids in national parks, which in some cases are used for some diseases elsewhere. We're trying to use other techniques.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Is there a chemical treatment for the fungus that the mountain pine beetle carries?

[Dr. Gilles Seutin]

There isn't one that is being applied. It's really mechanical or burning....

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I can keep going.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You can't, unfortunately. The clock says 10 here.

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thanks.

It's great to see some Parks Canada folks here.

I represent a rural area in central Alberta. I used to represent the riding of Wetaskiwin, which reached out to almost Rocky Mountain House and so on, so I'm fairly familiar with the eastern slopes and the Rocky Mountain national parks. I was a former park warden in Jasper.

I'm very curious to find out some of the places that are being prescribed for burns.

This is not a witch hunt, in any way, shape or form, to place blame. However, if my memory serves me correctly, the original source of the outbreak of the mountain pine beetle, which goes back some 10 or 15 years, was in a provincial park in British Columbia. It might have been Tweedsmuir. Because the decision of the day was to not control but to let processes take their part, the infestation has since spread across British Columbia, in through mountain national parks, and is now wreaking havoc in monoculture stands in the Alberta forests.

Has any significant change been made to Parks Canada's policies that would allow for more proactive, active or earlier intervention in these cases? What happens if the next outbreak happens to be in Riding Mountain National Park? Once it gets done spreading across northern Saskatchewan, the first place in Manitoba might happen to be Riding Mountain National Park. If that's the only place we have to head it off at the pass, is Parks Canada policy going to be strong enough to make sure it doesn't spread to the rest of the forest across northern Manitoba?

[Darlene Upton]

The policy and policy statements we have were established in 1994. They still allow flexibility. I would say what's changed over time is the breadth and quality of the data we have, and the partnerships that have been established around subjects such as this. We have much better information on the table for decision-making that would allow for appropriate interventions as this particular species is spreading.

The policy statements have remained the same, and I did read the three. We can look at them again, but I believe they give us the scope, with the right information, to be making decisions that would ensure the ecological integrity of our places, as well as contribute more broadly to the landscape management of these forest pests.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

The management plan that was developed for the parks, and specifically Jasper, when it comes to the mountain pine beetle, did not change the policy of Parks Canada at all. That was never part of the management plan.