Environment committee  Yes, sir, you're exactly correct. I'll give you a concrete contemporary example right now. What is known as the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, an international agreement between the United States of America and Canada, is being renegotiated for the first time in more than 2

Environment committee  I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I accept your premise that the more consultation you have the more slowly things go. I think it's extremely important that the appropriate people, the right people, are adequately consulted. We have examples of really good consultation, not for SARA.

Environment committee  I'm certainly not going to point to Ontario's Endangered Species Act. I'm not going to point to that. But I will point to Ontario's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act and the relationship that, for example, organizations like mine have with the staff within the Ontario Ministry o

Environment committee  Sir, the answer to your question about the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters' priorities is yes, it would be fair to say that our members love to go hunting and fishing. They're fishing and hunting naturalists, though, in the sense that they love healthy nature, all the c

Environment committee  Why don't we try it? Let's give it a try.

Environment committee  It's not cute. I'm sorry, it's not cute at all. What we're proposing is an alternative approach to what has unfolded over the last six years. Are we doing the best we can? We think improvements can be made, and we're making suggestions to do so. We've brought nine concrete ones

Environment committee  Sure I do, because the challenges the biological scientists face in identifying critical habitat for any species boil down to the availability of the empirical evidence and the data. And for a lot of these critters--we've got 450 designated so far--that empirical evidence hasn't

Environment committee  Yes, sir. Thank you very much for your comments. I may still be somewhat of an idealist, but from a pragmatic point of view, I agree with you that regardless of the title of a piece of legislation or law, enforcement is required. Enforcement is a good thing. And I agree with you

Environment committee  Sir, I agree with what you've just said, that the protection of the entire ecosystem, the entire food chain, is needed. SARA is part of that, but SARA is the last defence, we say. We say the first defence is before SARA. Make sure the habitats of all those frogs are adequately pr

Environment committee  Yes, sir. Our recommendations do not include throwing it out the window. We have to work with what we have.

Environment committee  Yes. We know from experience that those people who may be most directly affected, whether they be farmers, whether they be our native people, whether they be our commercial fishermen, have a lot of intimate, hard-earned knowledge about the habits, behaviours, and habitats of thos

Environment committee  I don't know. Based on the SARA track record so far, I can't speculate. But I do know that the science is evidence-based, and in many cases what SARA is showing is that it takes a long time to produce that evidence to support designation or not a designation. In some cases, the t

Environment committee  Thank you. The latter point I would agree with. The consequence is one of ineffectiveness and certainly inefficiencies when those kinds of contacts and relationships aren't built. I would say that ultimately our point remains, regardless of the government of the day, that hea

Environment committee  Yes, thank you. A short, concrete example: if you review our nine recommendations, among them you will see that we'd appreciate an invitation.... The species has to be appropriate, geographically and from a knowledge base that we have. We'd appreciate an invitation to participate

Environment committee  Yes, sir, those are among the types of contributions we could make. I prefaced it by saying it's species specific, it's site specific. Quite frankly, it would depend on what the recovery plan that was finalized called for. Yes, we would want to contribute, as examples, in those w