Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 27th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

He started laughing, and so did you guys.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

—for your point of order. That was not a point of order, and thank you for recognizing that it wasn't.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Actions versus words....

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I going to go to you, Minister Wilkinson. We have 15 or 20 seconds left, so you can finish off your answer to that.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

The forestry sector is obviously a very important sector, and there are many communities, certainly many in the province that I come from, British Columbia, that actually have been suffering because of the softwood lumber issue. As I say, the Government of Canada has put in place a number of programs, including value-added forestry work—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

We don't need your blabber. You don't have a deal, and none of your spin jobs here matter.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

—to try to ensure that we are moving forward and engaging the Americans. We will continue to work—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

While Canada faces unprecedented threats of tariffs—

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

—as hard as we possibly can to get a deal with the United States that's a good deal for Canada.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

—from the United States—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Minister Wilkinson—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

—are you still actually going to quadruple the carbon tax on Canadians in April?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

—and thank you, Ms. Stubbs, for your round of questioning.

We will now go to Mr. Jowhari.

Mr. Jowhari, you have three minutes to finish this off.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister.

Let's talk about something that's important, and it is within the estimates.

This committee has undertaken a very comprehensive study on the Trans Mountain expansion. We just finished hearing from witnesses. As I was looking at the supplementary estimates (B), I was quite surprised to hear that the measure that keeps communities safe, especially indigenous communities, along the route of the project, the indigenous advisory and monitoring committee, is actually at risk.

Can you speak to that and indicate what this funding is and what it's estimated for?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

This funding is extremely important. It's about $13 million for the indigenous advisory monitoring committee. That's an important part of the safe operation of both Line 3 and the Trans Mountain pipeline. Indigenous monitors are full participants on the ground in terms of compliance verification, safety management expansions, environmental protection inspections, emergency management exercise audits and verifying that the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act are complied with.

The funding will ensure that the indigenous advisory and monitoring committee is able to continue its operations, conduct training and build capacity further. I have met with this committee on a number of bases. They do enormously good work. To be honest, I think they and many Canadians are shocked about the fact that the Conservative leader's legislative vandalism is blocking their ability to continue their good work.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Thank you, Minister Wilkinson, for joining us today on supplementary estimates. We appreciate your taking the time and answering questions at our committee.

We'll now suspend to be set up for the next hour.

We're suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you. We are resuming our committee meeting for this evening. I want to thank the officials for joining us. Thank you.

We're going to go right into our first round of questioning for the second hour.

Mr. Falk, you have the opportunity to lead us off. You have six minutes.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our officials for joining us here this evening. It's good to have you here to talk about the supplementary estimates.

Your department is committed to planting 2 billion trees. How's that going?

[Michael Vandergrift, Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources]

We're committed to this objective, and we've made a lot of progress in the last year. We've now reached 716 million trees that have been committed to. The planting program is progressing. It's obviously a very ambitious program. We have seven years left in it.

To give the committee the extent of the work to date, we're planting at 2,500 sites across the country, for example, working with partners across the country. We're reliant on provinces and territories, which are responsible for the vast majority of forests in the country, the private sector and others, so we're making progress on it.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

In the supplementary estimates, there are some transfers between the DND and your department, about $1.4 million. Are they planting trees for you, or are you planting trees for them? Who's doing what?

[Glenn Hargrove, Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources]

Yes, one of the streams under the 2 billion trees program is a federal stream, so we're working with federal departments where they want to plant trees on federal lands, and DND is one of those. We're working with them, and they're planting about 14,500 trees for areas where military personnel are living, to increase the tree cover and all the benefits that come along with that.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Are these trees primarily being planted in areas that have been harvested, or is this virgin territory?

[Glenn Hargrove]

There's a range. Generally it's not where trees have been harvested, because usually in Canada, where trees have been harvested, there's a regulatory requirement for those to be replanted. What we're—