Environment committee  That was a wonderful program. Did it work for our organizations? I would say there were mixed results. The Nature Conservancy, God bless them—we love them—were able to put the funds to work for their priorities and for their projects. I am so happy they are in the Atlantic prov

Environment committee  Part of being a landowner and a good steward is having funds to basically keep your lights on, your fences mended, your neighbours happy, and your trails maintained, if they're there. The major hurdle for land trusts in acquiring land through donation, direct acquisition, or co

Environment committee  Well, I think that—

Environment committee  —each land trust has its own criteria, and those criteria reflect the values of the volunteers who operate the land trust as an incorporated, non-profit, charitable organization.

Environment committee  Would you indulge me and recap the question quickly?

Environment committee  Well, as I said in my talk, I didn't reference the Aichi targets directly, but they are not being met currently in Canada, the target being 17% of the land base and then also a restoration of 15% of the degraded land base by 2020. The current system of parks and wildlife areas

Environment committee  Well, as recently as seven or eight years ago, I could donate the painting hanging behind me to a gallery and get a tax receipt, but if I donated the land that's depicted in the picture, I had to pay capital gains on it. So the federal eco-gifts program is an excellent program th

Environment committee  Our organization is an umbrella organization that does not itself own land. However, our member groups do own land. A conservation easement is a legal instrument. It's an encumbrance upon the title of the land. It's a legal agreement between a landowner and a third party land t

Environment committee  It is a problem. However, in the areas where many land trusts work, the land values are rising anyway. I would like to show you something that I brought today just to spice up my presentation, which is a painting of a coastal area that has about eight pieces of property knitted

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. My name is Margo Sheppard and I'm the volunteer chair of the board of the Canadian Land Trust Alliance. I'm an environmental planner with experience in the public sector, and for the last 14 years I've been the executive director o