Environment committee  Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of Parliament, for the invitation to appear before the committee. I'm here in two capacities, as my written brief indicates. The first is as chair of COSEWIC. The second is in my capacity as professor of biology and Canada

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a consequence of the decision, COSEWIC's capacity to assess the status of amphibians in Canada has been reduced—and as a reminder, amphibians are one of the world's most threatened groups of vertebrates. The minister's decision sets a precedent for dete

Environment committee  As a point of correction, the initial letter identifying nominees for appointment was sent to Minister Baird. The decision was made by Minister Prentice. I don't want to suggest that this is indicative of political interference. The concern, given that it had not previously hap

Environment committee  No. The original letter was sent to Minister Baird, but I did not receive a response from Mr. Baird. The response regarding the appointments came from Minister Prentice.

Environment committee  No.

Environment committee  I did.

Environment committee  I should provide some background. This is one of the reasons for raising this particular amendment in the act. It is not meant to be a crass, politically motivated decision in any respect; it's meant to be a means of strengthening the act in a fairly simple way. No minister of

Environment committee  No, I didn't, not for the meeting. I also requested reasons for the rejection of COSEWIC's advice. I did receive a response to that, but not—

Environment committee  Yes. The reason was that he believed that members should be composed of both returning and new, qualified members. In this instance, I applied that principle, and he felt it was timely to renew the composition of the committee. The individual in question was someone who had been

Environment committee  It was Dr. David Green. He's a professor of biology and director of the Redpath Museum at McGill University. He was the chair of COSEWIC from 1998 to 2002 and he's been a member of COSEWIC since 1995.

Environment committee  I don't know.

Environment committee  All I'm doing is quoting from the letter. I don't wish to impugn the minister's intent. This is simply a communication that I made with him to explain what I thought some of the ramifications of the decision might be.

Environment committee  You are correct that in 2007 the minister, the Honourable John Baird, denied COSEWIC's nominee for a member to the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee. The nominees were individuals whose names were put forward as a consequence of consultation with the five national abo

Environment committee  Yes, this was a process organized by the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC in consultation with NACOSAR, the National Aboriginal Council on Species at Risk. It was a product of a process developed by COSEWIC, the subcommittee, and Environment Canada. It was

Environment committee  In the short term it's a little difficult to determine. It will take us a while. We will have to initiate a new call from membership for this position, which we will probably do within the next month. Hopefully it will attract suitably qualified candidates for this particular pos