Environment committee  Good morning. I'm Niall O'Dea with the Canadian wildlife service. In response to the question around the natural heritage conservation program, that is actually a successor to the natural areas conservation program, the previous NCC funding. It's a $100-million program over four

Environment committee  Those pre-existing committees no longer exist in that form. We did receive external advice through a separate process for assessing the challenge fund proposals that came from public organizations and indigenous peoples, to make sure we had a full understanding of those perspecti

Environment committee  I think that it's fair to say that, with this recent injection of funding, we have a trajectory to reach those targets. I think we have the funding. We have the partnerships, and we have the land-based opportunities based on Canada's geography to make those. This is not to say th

Environment committee  I can answer in part and then turn to Michael. The profile of the funding for personnel and other resources is relatively stable over the years of the program. Reasonably speaking, we've spent roughly a fifth of that funding to date, and by the time of the election we'll have spe

Environment committee  There's certainly a strong emphasis within the investments that we're making to look to enhance connectivity between existing protected areas where we can. As you note, there are a number of players that have interests in land, including conservation authorities, that can help to

Environment committee  It'll be for the purchase of the land; that is the predominant focus of our effort. I think that's the reality of the current push that we're in, which is to seek that opportunity for the establishment of protected areas and conserved areas.

Environment committee  If we look at the international reporting, I think we are on par, if not better than many, but none of us are doing great. There are close to 600 species on the endangered species list in Canada. That's in part a matter of identification and quantification, but it's also revealin

Environment committee  It's a good question. I think we are in the early days of working on conservation finance. The traditional financing of conservation through government, foundation and other resources is well established. An area that we focused on in the recent nature summit was a discussion o

Environment committee  It's a good question. I'll answer it in part and ask Michael to speak to the Parks Canada contribution. It's a big question. Yes, I think it's giving us a unique opportunity, in two primary senses. One is this work towards the establishment of new protected and conserved areas,

Environment committee  Yes. I think a key example, a concrete example, would be the North American wetlands management program. This is a long-standing collaboration with the U.S. that actually sees a lot of U.S. counterpart funding come to support the conservation and protection of wetlands in Canada.

Environment committee  I don't have that data with me, but we can certainly provide it to you.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  We can certainly get the answer to you.

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. We announced this project at the Nature Champions Summit held on April 24 and 25 in Montreal, Quebec. We are conducting this project in partnership with the Montreal Port Authority and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Responsibility for this series of islands in the

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. There are 27 islands, with a total area of 775 hectares. This region includes Boucherville, Varennes, Verchères and Lake Saint-Pierre.