Mr. Speaker, Canada has a wealth of wildlife, forests, water and protected areas.
We are known all over the world for the richness of our nature. Canadians see nature as an integral part of their identity and are convinced that it contributes substantially to their quality of life.
Canada is truly blessed in terms of natural wealth. Some 20% of the world's remaining natural areas are located in Canada along with 9% of the world's freshwater and 15% of its forests. About 8% of Canada is part of a protected area. This translates to 80 million hectares.
This network contains some of the most vital habitat sites in all of North America, significant critical habitat for species at risk, and in highly fragmented landscapes. These sites are often among the last remaining areas of natural habitat upon which to base a recovery of the landscape.
I am proud of the work of the many dedicated employees of Environment Canada and of the Canadian Wildlife Service who operate the 143 national wildlife reserves and migratory bird sanctuaries across Canada.
Our national wildlife area and migratory bird sanctuary system is challenged in many ways: in our internal capacity to manage the properties we have, from the stresses and the demands on the landscape surrounding the sites; and in our ability to complete the current sites and add important new areas to the network, particularly marine sites.
We recognize that there are challenges and assets in our protected areas, including the national wildlife areas and migratory bird sanctuaries. We recognize the foundation role that they will need to play for species at risk recovery, sustaining healthy migratory bird populations, and as the building blocks of recovery of ecosystem health in stressed landscapes.
We place a high priority on developing a strategy that takes a logical and well planned approach to managing these areas and developing new ones. We have discussed such a strategy quite fully within the Government of Canada.
It is true that the resources allocated to protected areas have remained static over the last few years. One of the challenges faced by the Canadian Wildlife Service is allocating scarce resources among many competing priorities.
The annual budget for managing the entire network of national wildlife areas and migratory bird sanctuaries across Canada is $1.9 million.
We are aware of the auditor general's concerns on national wildlife areas and migratory bird sanctuaries. These concerns have been echoed by organizations and I share them as well.
In our response to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development we have committed to develop a strategy. The Minister of the Environment intends to present this strategy in the fall.
We must caution that the pace at which a strategy will be implemented will depend on the scope of available resources. The government has already begun the process of revitalizing these very important natural wildlife areas.