Transport committee  Probably the largest one that we're doing right now is in the Peace–Athabasca delta. There was a lot of infrastructure that had been built over a long period of time. We have been working there with the Government of Northwest Territories and the 11 indigenous partners. We also worked on a joint management board to continue to look at water management in the entire Peace–Athabasca delta and downstream and upstream infrastructure that has either been placed there in the past or could go in to help the revitalization and the annual flood process in the Peace–Athabasca delta.

Environment committee  Again, because we don't know...and some of the boundaries do abut private lands, so we don't know whether you're out by a coordinate or two. First of all, it's speculative to say that there would be private lands or there would not, but we would have to administer the act as written, which would mean in all of those areas Parks Canada would have administration and control, even though we would not have ownership.

Environment committee  Thank you. We have not done the study area to look and make sure that there are no encumbered titles within it. At such time as the act would pass, immediately all of the areas within this bounded area would become part of a national park. That would mean that if there are private lands....

Environment committee  Can I just make one slight amendment to what Darlene said? It's “indigenous peoples”. It's not just first nations, but obviously Métis and Inuit as well.

Environment committee  We haven't mentioned it yet, but the one thing that is excellent—and which the partners already out there doing the work today should take a lot of pride in—is the work on the ecology in the area. It has been well documented what a jewel the ecology is in the area. That, in fact, would speed things along in our process.

Environment committee  If I could, on that...?

Environment committee  I think that comes back to a little bit of what MP McLean was asking about. Absolutely, that could be done. Normally the process is that you look and you have a study area. You then look, from a parliamentary perspective, and do all of the—

Environment committee  —title work on that in order to make sure that it actually lives up to the requirements of the act.

Environment committee  A great number of them have.

Environment committee  There is a two-year requirement under the act for the minister to hold their round table and for the CEO to report every two years. Every 10 years, a management plan is required for every park.

Environment committee  There was—sorry—and there is, under—

Environment committee  I think there are a couple of things that would be good to look at. Certainly, when we were doing the negotiations.... I will say that I was responsible for those negotiations of land transfer with the Rouge National Urban Park. One thing we did do at the end of that, between the municipalities, the regional government, and the Province of Ontario, was to say that a certain percentage of the park could in fact be utilized in the future for urban infrastructure.

Environment committee  No—

Environment committee  Thank you very much for the question. Obviously, as public servants we do take our direction from the government. The Speaker has ruled that this in fact does not create the necessity to have a royal recommendation. Therefore, we wouldn't be in a good position to comment on that.

Environment committee  Again, it's a difficult question to answer. Right now we would need to find funding to do this and other parks if there were no appropriation. The only way to do that would be to not do something else. I don't want to say what that “not do something else” would be, but it would be to not do something else or to have every one of our national parks across the country have a reduction in the amount of service and the amount of protection that we would provide.