Environment committee  Mr. Chair, it is an international convention. There are no international sanctions in that convention, to my knowledge.

Environment committee  It is absolutely important to understand those results. In that particular audit we were quite complimentary of Environment Canada. I don't think it's an either/or. I think the plans and the clarity of targets are equally important. So I don't think it's an either/or. Maybe I c

Environment committee  I'll have to get back to you on that. There are cases of extirpations. Whether there is extinction everywhere on the globe—

Environment committee  I'll have to get back to the committee on that. I hope you don't believe that I am disagreeing with the general point that I hear you making. We have been very careful in this report to talk about the success stories. A brief mention was made before of water fowl. That is an imp

Environment committee  It's difficult to say across the board, obviously. By and large I would say that the targets do make sense. I mean, they are based on science. The targets for the Species at Risk Act are self-imposed. They are in law, but again, when I look at how quickly species at risk are degr

Environment committee  Thank you, Chair. I've been an auditor for 31 years now, so I've looked at this issue in many programs. We were quite pleased to see the extent to which these programs' results were being measured. So by and large this is a good-news story, I think. For each of the five programs

Environment committee  Yes. That's a good way of summarizing it, Chair. As to the $20 million, I don't know much about that. Perhaps the government officials appearing afterward will help. I think that money's going through the natural areas conservation program.

Environment committee  Chair, thank you, that's a good question. There's no single definition of biodiversity that we've found fits all situations. In the background document we provide, we talk about that from different perspectives. Sometimes it's defined in terms of restoring natural cycles. The pr

Environment committee  The timelines, Mr. Chair, are self-imposed in the sense that they are embedded in laws passed by Parliament. They are imposed. It is something that is a hard requirement under the act. Again, I can't comment on how Canada is doing relative to others. I'm struck by the fact that

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, that's an important question. I think there are multiple factors here. I think in some cases resources are a factor. I would say, though, that it's important to remember that these problems really date from some time ago. We talked about many of these probl

Environment committee  Again, I think the collaboration is very important. I will say that when we looked at the recovery strategies and action plans that have been completed, even though we are critical that there are far too few of them, they are extremely well done. I've looked at those myself. I'm

Environment committee  Certainly, Mr. Chair. Consultation is absolutely important here. The federal government has some important places where it can act on species at risk, particularly the federal lands. Those are not inconsiderable: the protected areas of Environment Canada, as I mentioned, are eq

Environment committee  Certainly, Mr. Chair. We do comment. We have a slightly different number. That may simply be due to the fact we finished our work slightly earlier than the numbers you might have. At the time in we did the work, 40% of the recovery strategies were missing critical habitat. Cert

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning. I'm pleased to present my fall of 2013 report that was tabled in the House of Commons last Tuesday. In this report we looked at what the federal government has done to protect nature and to advance sustainable development on behalf of Can

Environment committee  Thank you for that question. That's an auditor's dream question. Yes, those five attributes captured in that acronym, SMART, are ones which the government is using in its strategy, and we know from our discussions in Environment Canada that this is what they're working toward. W