Environment committee  Thank you very much. Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for your interest in the conservation and preservation of Canada's cultural heritage, a subject that is central to the mandate of the Parks Canada Agency. It is a privilege to be before you today to share

Environment committee  As Dr. Alway was saying, the federal government is no longer looking at acquiring new sites. The last time the government was considering acquiring national historic sites was in the 1990s. We acquired some sites, for instance, the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site. It was part

Environment committee  Yes, the investment of $3.6 billion is over five years. It started in late 2014. It's to support all of our infrastructure work to natural and cultural areas, so not just national historic sites. We estimate that approximately $1.3 billion is being invested to preserve, rehabilit

Environment committee  As we mentioned earlier, with respect to national historic sites, Parks Canada is looking at expanding the system through the designation process, and this comes from proposals from the public in general, which are reviewed by the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board, so t

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  Thank you for your question. Obviously, this depends on the scope of the proposed legislation. First of all, we might think of legislation that would preserve national historic sites protected by and belonging to the federal government. As Mr. Alway said, the property rights mak

Environment committee  No, there is no particular focus on rural versus urban. The applications are all looked at on their merit. There is, though, a new.... As part of the expanded program, we are looking at assistance in order to prepare submissions, so that's something the proponents can request. On

Environment committee  At Parks, as you can appreciate, our sites are spread across the country and often associated with national parks, which tend to be not so much in urban centres, so we do not necessarily look at it through this lens, but we certainly would not do anything that would favour one ov

Environment committee  Parks Canada has a lot of tools that enable it to help the various owners to conserve and preserve their sites. As for funding for owners who are not part of the federal family, the only way we can currently provide them with financial aid is through the Parks Canada national co

Environment committee  The approaches are sometimes very limited as to the marketing of events at our sites. We accept donations, for instance, but this doesn't really fit the Parks Canada mandate.

Environment committee  There may be a couple of nuances. Parks Canada is responsible for the conservation and maintenance of the national historic sites that it owns and administers. Other federal departments also own and administer their sites, so they are responsible for the preservation and maintena

Environment committee  Then it is up to the department that owns that particular site to decide on its own investment in and maintenance of that site. At Parks Canada, we have reporting mechanisms. We have ongoing assessment of our sites, including the assessment of the state of cultural resources in

Environment committee  Briefly, yes, we have started engaging with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, for instance, specifically on call to action 79(iii), the aspects of commemorating the legacy of residential schools. We're looking at how we're going to be implementing that. There's al

Environment committee  Yes. As you know, there is an MOU from 1997, where Britain has agreed that they would be transferring the wrecks and the contents of the wrecks to Canada should they be found. Negotiations are under way in order to honour this MOU.

Environment committee  I would only say that the program has been consistently oversubscribed. I gave you some numbers in my opening remarks....