Environment committee  I can start, but certainly my colleagues should jump in. Critical habitat identification is not easy. It starts, first and foremost, with the COSEWIC assessment. The COSEWIC assessment lays out the biology of the species, the type of habitat it needs, and the threats that are le

Environment committee  I'm not sure we have enough time to address all your questions, so--

Environment committee  I will speak to some of the challenges around critical habitat identification, to start off, and then move on from there. Identifying the habitat that species need sounds straightforward, but in some cases it is not so straightforward. The woodland caribou boreal population is a

Environment committee  No. As we speak, the federal government has a lot of work under way on the woodland boreal caribou. We are doing three types of activities. We have science work under way, we're currently collecting aboriginal traditional knowledge and community knowledge, and we have a lot of co

Environment committee  Yes. We have more recovery strategies now. I believe the number is 119. I'll get the specific number for you in a moment; I know you don't have much time. So it has improved. I would just flag, though, that when the act came into force, there were 233 species already listed. Af

Environment committee  Right now it's about 25%.

Environment committee  However, I would flag that there are many recovery strategies in development. I would also flag that the early days were spent building the processes. For example, when we had species occurring on the land claim settlement area in Nunavut, we had to establish a process whereby we

Environment committee  I can start, and then perhaps my colleague from Fisheries and Oceans would continue. The way the act has been constructed is to look to COSEWIC to provide the scientific perspective on the needs of the species. Based on that, a socio-economic analysis is applied to it and a reco

Environment committee  One of the considerations the GIC would take into account is whether there are other acts of Parliament that can afford protection for the species at risk. This is some of the decision-making that will have taken place when the GIC comes to a decision in relation to listing.

Environment committee  Slide 11 tries to lay out the process for listing, and in the interest of time I skipped over that slide. It tries to lay out in fairly clear terms, we hope, how long it takes from the time the assessment is received until the time when GIC can make a decision. Typically, it take

Environment committee  Perhaps I could explain some of what has to happen once we receive the assessments from COSEWIC. That is the biological need of the species, and as I mentioned earlier, one of the requirements for the GIC to make regulatory decisions is to have a full understanding as laid out in

Environment committee  I can try, but I'm hoping my colleagues can come up with some views also. I would start by saying that our implementation of the Species at Risk Act is founded on the assessment phase, which is conducted by an independent committee, COSEWIC, the Committee on the Status of Endang

Environment committee  Yes, I think so.

Environment committee  I'll give it my best shot, but I think I'll need to have follow-up information. I don't have statistics as they relate to Environment Canada and the proportion of our resources that is expended on climate change; that is not within my remit, if you will, but if the committee desi

Environment committee  It can be. Yes.