Environment committee  Fair enough.

Environment committee  One of the concerns that come to me from my constituents is about whether or not we're keeping up with reforestation. I mean, it's hard to see little trees, but what's your sense of how we're doing in Canada with reforestation?

Environment committee  I'll go for three minutes to start with.

Environment committee  Hans, I want to thank you for the work you did in Nelson. It's a lovely town that values its heritage and its heritage buildings. Thank you for your part in it. I very much appreciate that. This is a question for Robert or Kate. One of the suggestions we had when we were doing our study on reaching 10% marine area protection and 17% land protection was that 50% of the boreal forest potentially should or could be set aside for conservation purposes.

Environment committee  We appreciate that recommendation. Just quickly, I get to teach a class at College of the Rockies every year in Cranbrook, one of my two great colleges, the other being Selkirk. The last time I went to the class, the professor said to me, now that you're a member of Parliament, how are you doing with your carbon footprint?

Environment committee  We're looking for recommendations for the government to help reduce the carbon footprint and help the economy.

Environment committee  We welcome written submissions. If you would like to follow up on how we can help you be more successful, that would be great.

Environment committee  I'll move to forestry. We know that shipping raw logs out of Canada ships jobs out of Canada. Have you looked at carbon in relation to raw logs and its overall impact on greenhouse gas in general, in a global sense?

Environment committee  Thank you for the very interesting testimony. This morning I attended the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association breakfast. One of the giveaways they had was a really artistic key chain made from a recycled skateboard. I really admire and appreciate the work that you're doing.

Environment committee  There's funding, but perhaps do the qualifications need to change, in terms of being able to access it?

Environment committee  I also have a quick question around encouraging bioenergy. I was mayor of Cranbrook for a few years. We had a tremendous fire year and had the winds been a little different, we would have been in really serious trouble. We also worked to create a grassland ecosystem around my part of British Columbia.

Environment committee  Yes, just quickly, I do think it's important that the minister come when we're talking about substantial amounts of money. I also know that she's very capable of answering questions. On both of those fronts, it would be good to have her here.

Environment committee  We certainly need more of that going forward.

Environment committee  Would it be primarily around flood-proofing, do you think, or—

Environment committee  If the reports lead to additional funding to improve those highways, that would be very welcomed, as you know, by people who live in my riding and people from across Canada and the world who use them.