Environment committee  Thank you. Good morning Madam Chair and members of the committee. I apologize for making my presentation in English. My French is not sufficiently good that I can be well understood. We're here today to talk about habitat conservation, and I'd like to start with a brief summa

Environment committee  Absolutely, they're very much a part of the regional solutions that we support. For instance, any land use planning process needs to engage the communities that are in their region and in the surrounding region, so I appreciate that.

Environment committee  In our view—and it's borne through experience of the solutions that we've been supporting—the two can travel together. You can make decisions around the most highly valued areas for wildlife, at the same time as you make decisions around what are the most highly valued areas for

Environment committee  I'll just start by mentioning that as governments in Canada struggle to regain our footing in the economy, we recognize that budgets do change. What we're flagging is that when there's an opportunity to reinvest, we would stand behind these programs as being a great investment fo

Environment committee  I'll use an example in the Ontario Ring of Fire region. As all of you know, an environmental assessment is a tool to lay the table for solutions. When you're working in a northern context, one of the fundamentally important steps that needs to be taken is to allow for northern mu

Environment committee  Absolutely. There are some very interesting examples that will be coming on stream, and the Northwest Territories is one prime place for them. There are a couple of initiatives related to a particular new proposed national park. It's called Thaidene Nene in the East Arm of Great

Environment committee  Thank you for that. Actually, in my rush to use my 10 minutes effectively I skipped over the recommendation. There is a program that currently does support land use planning. It's under Aboriginal Affairs. It's focused right now on supporting first nations on reserve lands, whi

Environment committee  There are places where Canada is engaged, such as the Northwest Territories. One of the questions that comes up, and back to an earlier question.... We need to ensure that the implementation capacity is there. For instance, if the federal government or if Canada were a party to

Environment committee  In terms of finances—this is very much a theme with our other colleagues, as well—we're moving to a place of creative partnership. The capacity that any dollar can bring now can be replicated by others. We're in a very interesting time in Canada in terms of being able to advance

Environment committee  Yes, we definitely have. If we compare where we are now to where we were ten years ago, we've now developed a depth of experience in advancing solutions that meet the needs of everyone around the table. That's quite heartening. There's a long history of stewardship agreements in

Environment committee  Thanks for your question. The way it's implemented is that there are meetings twice a year, and we're continually looking at renewing the membership. Each of the members has their own action plan that covers their own area, field of work, whether it's a company, a community, or

Environment committee  Thank you very much. They have advanced significantly. For instance, in the provinces, several provinces have stepped forward to really embrace the vision of advancing, with a stewardship model, the goals to sustainably develop approximately half of the landscape, and to look at

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  Yes, what we're saying there is that we need time. For instance, a number of provinces are in very advanced stages of action planning for different species. There are collaborative tables under way. I'll give an example in Quebec. You know a number of the northern first nation le

Environment committee  Just briefly, I would say that what's vitally important is to ensure that whatever assessments are done with provinces are the right solutions—important now more than ever.