Environment committee  I would start by saying that the government has set out a fairly ambitious agenda of protecting spaces, and it has made significant progress in doing that. I would say it is well on its way in terms of achieving that. There are probably two groups of activities. It's the signifi

Environment committee  Thank you for that. You have laid out a significant request. There's one part I can respond to right now, and that is, there's a very useful instrument on the context of the overall environment and sustainable development goals that I think helps build the frame and the context

Environment committee  In the back of this report, in section 4, it lists all the Government of Canada's national and international commitments, and targets are actually listed.

Environment committee  The second progress report, which is coming next spring, would actually do that.

Environment committee  I think we can come back in terms of the information requirements, but—

Environment committee  —I don't want to lose the connection to this, because ultimately it does feed into our reporting to you, to Parliament, on the progress that's being made in achieving these goals and targets.

Environment committee  To pick up on the last question of the member, it is a very good point. It's one of these things one has to be very careful. Environment Canada is not the only federal agency involved in this activity. We have been working, and in the early stages it's very boring work. It's not

Environment committee  Sure, we would be happy to do that. I should say one thing about the NRTEE report before we go off it. My memory of it is that as you go through the 20 recommendations, the price tag is quite high. It did have an idea of collaboration and partnership, but it was also proposing

Environment committee  I would say we have had a pretty good response from groups who are interested in coming, because we haven't asked, and they've been coming and volunteering. We did the round table. We're working on assembling an innovation workshop. But people are proactively and prospectively se

Environment committee  Do you want to go one by one? I looked at that report a while ago. I think it's about eight years old or something. I would say one general thing about it. I think it was very valuable in terms of bringing a very important idea to the national conservation plan, which is the val

Environment committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, I wish I'd thought of that list, actually. It's a really good list. As you work through something like this, starting out with the broader idea of purpose and goals is absolutely right, and moving along to principles and then beginning to bring it down to

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will lead off. Mike Wong, the executive director of Parks Canada, will pick up and have additional comments.

Environment committee  Then there's Robert McLean, the executive director of habitat and ecosystem conservation at Environment Canada, and we're going to give him all the hard questions.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for inviting us to speak to you today about the national conservation plan. Since the government committed to developing a national conservation plan in the June 2011 Speech from the Throne, Environment Canada, in conjunction with Parks

Environment committee  I think the refuge of economists is that they're almost never unequivocal, because it depends, again, on the details. I think if energy prices go up, it has a significant impact on industry. It depends a little on whether it's natural gas or oil, etc., because we've seen some div