Environment committee  Perhaps I'll start, and then my colleagues can join in. Visitation is a key part of the mandate of parks. Managing that in the broader context of our other priorities, both heritage and the natural environment, is really what we do on a day-to-day basis, so it's fundamental. Whe

Environment committee  Well, in the case of our physical assets, right now we're doing a lot to try to bring things back up to date to make sure we can maximize the use of the things we have, so that they're safe for Canadians to use. That has been a significant issue over the last decade. With recent

Environment committee  It's a great question. Averaging it over the last decade, it's about a 5% increase year over year, so it's steadily going up. In the last year or so, it's moving up to about 7%. This year, the prediction is for anywhere from 5% to 10%. Again, the smallest things, such as weather

Environment committee  Absolutely, and it's really interesting this year because of the giving away of our discovery passes to Canadians, millions and millions of discovery passes. As people would go online and ask for their passes, they would provide information to us about where they're located in th

Environment committee  It's interesting to talk about the spiking numbers. They tend to occur in very specific parts of the country and in particular park areas. Banff National Park is a perfect example. The Bruce Peninsula park is another perfect example. Both are very close to urban centres, and peop

Environment committee  Absolutely, and we're also super-excited because the demographics, as you pointed out, are changing, and more people will come who have perhaps not experienced parks before. Free admission does help.

Environment committee  It's still undergoing its environmental assessment, which is the normal process. Right now, they're doing the environmental assessment in various segments along the way, and any further action has to be subsequent to that assessment being completed. Some of the money that was all

Environment committee  I'll try to answer that. It's not Parks Canada that actually maintains the government's payment in lieu of taxes program. PSPC does that on behalf of the entire federal portfolio. We have a very big portfolio. We also have very unique properties across the country. This particu

Environment committee  What I was saying was that they haven't yet negotiated the going-forward approach. The first step was to deal with the back payments, which went back to 1997.

Environment committee  Going forward?

Environment committee  It might be, but it hasn't been negotiated yet. If you do those kinds of numbers, it will be over $1 million a year—$1.2 million or something of that nature, probably—but it's still to be negotiated.

Environment committee  I'm sorry, I don't know. Again, we don't do those negotiations. We just pay the bill.

Environment committee  It's a reasonable assumption, and we will do our best to budget towards those things.

Environment committee  I don't have it either, because it's not my part of the organization, but we do a lot of that work. If the committee is interested in that information, we can certainly take that back and share it with you.

Environment committee  I can't speak to the money, but there was a recent change, which just got through the Senate and we're awaiting royal assent, under our Bill C-18. It allowed us to change the nature of that account so that we could actually invest in existing parks, additions and expansions. Yo