Environment committee  Where do I start? I think the national parks have been underfunded for a long time and further cuts aren't going to help. A lot of monitoring programs have been curtailed. Certainly in the past we have had some of the best research and science in our national parks system, and we

Environment committee  I would recommend the review of all federal lands in terms of whether we are doing the best job of managing for biodiversity. I would also recommend stopping the transfer of those PFRA lands until they're evaluated and making sure there are safeguards in place if they're being tr

Environment committee  Right.

Environment committee  It's for ecological goods and services payments. It's to redirect existing subsidies into areas that benefit biodiversity. That would be agricultural support systems, and removing subsidies for the forest and energy industry that work against biodiversity. I think those are the p

Environment committee  It has been some time, as I said, since we looked at the energy subsidies, but I don't think that all of the economics are going into the royalty system and everything. Our view is that there's an indirect subsidy, at least for the oil and gas industry. With stumpage fees for for

Environment committee  Review any of the subsidies....

Environment committee  Exactly.

Environment committee  In my experience, first nations seem to have been left out of the biodiversity train, if you wish. They have a very strong interest in protecting it, but quite often their interests are superseded by external economic interests. We need a way of, again, providing support to those

Environment committee  No, I don't think we've met our targets. Maybe we never will. Certainly I want to change that trajectory towards meeting our targets. In areas like the boreal forest in Alberta, we're going away from that at a very rapid pace. We need moratoria on certain areas until the plans ar

Environment committee  Well, I think the participation of all levels of government is important, but I think the most important thing for long-term success is getting the local community onside. That means putting our baggage at the door and trying to figure out what our end goal is. We often agree o

Environment committee  That's true, yes.

Environment committee  There are two parts to it. One is to respect their views, their traditions, on the land. The other is government providing a box in which to play. If the provincial government hadn't said, “We want to create protected areas in the grasslands. You guys go out and tell us how to

Environment committee  That's right. As we go forward in the neighbouring area on the sage grouse partnership, we are looking at incentives where we think that there's a hardship placed on the landowner because of the way we're trying to manage for species at risk. So it's something he normally wouldn'

Environment committee  I think it's just refocusing some of those same funds. If we're going to have support payments, let's tell the rural people what kinds of products, what goods and services, we want them to provide for us. I think in the polls going back a long time Canadians, rural and urban, say

Environment committee  No. Our organization would just rather there be no subsidies that lead to habitat degradation. I think the first thing is to redo all those subsidies and see whether there are ones that are pushing things negatively on the habitat side. Those should be absolutely removed. If we'r