Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good morning. Yes, there are members of Greenspace Alliance here, and members of Big Trees of Kitchissippi, which is a neighbourhood in the western part of Ottawa. We have Daniel Buckles and Debra Huron. Also here is Robert McAulay, president of the Beaverbrook Community Associa

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members of the standing committee. We're very honoured to be here. I have to say that we never expected to be here, but we're very happy to be here. Thank you for putting this on the agenda for the committee's consideration, and fo

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, the other trees aren't elms.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I believe they're Norway maples, but I'm not a tree identification specialist.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They've already been removed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The only tree that remains right now—that we can see, anyway, from beyond the fencing—is the elm.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That elm?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Elms have the capacity to actually just keep growing. Many trees hit a plateau, but elms can grow beyond their current size for a very long time. As we heard, the life expectancy of an elm such as this can be up to 200 years. There are elms that are twice the size of that, just f

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. If it's dead, then clearly you can't just leave a standing dead elm there. We're here to advocate for green space. The elm is the star of that area, but there is other green space in that whole area. It's planned that there will be green space in the future, with the plantin

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, we wouldn't object to that. We're just more concerned that measures be taken to keep it alive if it's savable.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would like to refer to the comment, the memo that was read out by the chair. In fairness, this person responded on a 24-hour basis to a request from PSPC, provided a very quick response and was not able to produce a report with the full methodology and caveats that would normal

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It certainly can. The only problem is that to get there in 10, 12 or 13 years, everything there, including the elm, has to be cut down. We are hoping that the government would be open to considering alternatives and that instead of building the next part of their visitor centre u

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're very much at a disadvantage, because there's no public information on what the plans are. We just don't know. We're just shooting in the dark here. We can infer from the fact that we're told all those trees are in the middle of an excavation area that the plan is to exten

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. I think there are non-invasive ways in which the tree could be further tested. Even in this memo that the chair read out.... Further testing could be done in a way that would determine whether there's any disease in this elm, and in a non-invasive way.