Environment committee  I hate to sound like a broken record, but this isn't really my area. It reports to a different group. But the Biosphère is continuing to operate. It is continuing to offer the environmental education and outreach activities it has been offering since 1995. I think consideration i

Environment committee  I guess it's a bit tough at times to actually provide a dollar amount against what an ecological service is, but there has been some interesting work done. Again, I keep picking on the City of Edmonton, but they have generated quite a bit of information.

Environment committee  They did some work around the question of the value that a tree planted in a city provides. It was quite interesting, because it was in the order of maybe $80 a tree per year. Then they looked at the cost of actually planting the tree, and maintaining the tree and whatnot, and it

Environment committee  Again, at the Wildlife Service, we are focused on protected areas, migratory birds, and species at risk. I don't have a lot of insight on freshwater other than acknowledging that it's very important to cities. There is a role wetlands can play in providing filtration services for

Environment committee  I might have a personal opinion, but I don't bring that expertise to bear on this question. I'm not in the regulation of waste water or water provision in a city. I don't have the expertise to give you valuable advice on that.

Environment committee  Again, this is not my expertise. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans would be the department that would have insight into the reason for the death of the belugas. There is a fair bit of work done inside Environment Canada on water quality, but that's not my part of the depart

Environment committee  Yes, I believe so, but I'm not sure which ones have not heard yet. I'm a bit concerned that somebody hasn't heard yet.

Environment committee  If I may, we do have one partnership that is the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. We have joint ventures. Quebec is part of the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture. That's a collaboration where there's federal, provincial, and NGO funds, and money coming up from the United Sta

Environment committee  I will be clear. At times we have been slow at getting notification back to our project proponents. We are trying to speed up the process by which we can get the notification out to project proponents.

Environment committee  We do a variety of analyses. One program that I think is most beneficial is funded by the Government of Canada. The natural areas conservation program is with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, NCC, and with Ducks Unlimited. The NCC has done a very good job in what they call devel

Environment committee  Yes, and we certainly provide information to that program.

Environment committee  Maybe I'll come at it from this way. The habitat stewardship program is a national program. It targets not just urban centres, although urban centres may have projects that meet the criteria. The purpose of that program is to support restoration, protection, and identification of

Environment committee  I'm sorry I don't know the answer to the question about when it was established.

Environment committee  I'm not familiar with the working groups, so I apologize for that.

Environment committee  We've been developing a series of targets on a variety of aspects around biodiversity, including protected areas, species at risk, but also the degree to which urban centres in Canada have been able to incorporate biodiversity into their planning and so on. We'll be hearing the r