EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, April 25, 1995

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[Translation]

The Chairman: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you to our forum on the state of wildlife and plants in Canada. The forum is open to the public and televised on the Parliamentary channel.

[English]

As you will recall, in the months preceding this meeting we planned this forum for today, tomorrow, and Thursday because we want to inform the general public and ourselves about trends and the status of wildlife in Canada. We want to increase our understanding of issues related to wildlife and possibly discover ways and approaches for Canadians to participate in the conservation of our great wildlife heritage.

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[Translation]

Our role is very important in Canada. Not so long ago, wildlife was essential to native people, providing them with food, clothing and shelter. Even today, it contributes to their basic needs and it is still at the centre of their spriritual and cultural life.

[English]

We all know about the stimulus, economic and otherwise, that wildlife provided in the early stages of colonization and development of this country. Today wildlife still plays a central role in economic terms because of a substantial contribution to our gross national product that is estimated at about $7 billion a year. More important than that, wildlife is part of the emotional and cultural identification of Canadians with this soil and this land.

Some of you will recall that when we had hearings a year ago on the proposed legislation on migratory birds we discovered some disturbing trends. It was then that some of you urged that we should hold a forum on this subject to investigate further the present situation as it affects our wildlife. Today and for the next two days we shall be implementing some of the suggestions made a year ago.

We all know that there are continuing threats to wildlife in Canada, particularly in certain regions. We are told that nine species of plants and animals were added to the 254 already on the list of species at risk in this country. Our committee, through this forum, intends to make a contribution to the reversal of this disturbing trend.

This morning, tomorrow and Thursday we will hear from experts, representatives of government, scientists, non-governmental organizations and aboriginal people. They will provide us with the most up-to-date information on Canadian wildlife. It is on your behalf that I would like to thank them for having accepted the invitation to participate in this forum and share with us their knowledge, their insights, and - why not? - their passion for wildlife.

I would now invite the first panel to launch our proceedings by way of their presentation. We are very fortunate to have this morning with us Dr. Alan Emery, who is the president and director general of the Canadian Museum of Nature. He will lead off his panel, which consists of Deputy Grand Chief Kenny Blacksmith from the Grand Council of Crees; Ms Julie Gelfand, executive director of the Canadian Nature Federation; and Mr. Jacques Prescott, president of the Canadian committee of the World Conservation Union.

Dr. Emery, à vous la parole.

Dr. Alan Emery (President and Director General, Canadian Museum of Nature): I thank you all very much for inviting me to be a part of this forum. It is one of the kinds of opportunities where we will all learn from each other.

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I would like to say that part of the reason I come as an expert is not just my position as president of the Canadian Museum of Nature but also my past history as a real person in the world of science. With that as a sort of backdrop, one of the things we also have to remember is that there are many different perspectives on what wildlife is all about.

In summarizing all the issues, first I would like to point out that one of the major difficulties here is that we don't really know what the major difficulty is. Not knowing that, we don't know what the solution is or what it can be. I'll explain that a little bit later, but in the meantime one of the main solutions to this is to adopt some kind of a bridging policy where we have an opportunity at least to catch our breath while we find solutions to these problems.

You'll find that one of the major impediments here - and I notice this just about every single day - is that there is a real lack of credible information so that people's attitude and behaviour toward nature can improve steadily.

The most immediate problem is that, for people like yourselves, who are the decision-makers about how we regulate and understand our processes, you don't yet have a clear mandate from the public and you don't really have a clear solution from science as to what to do.

I'd first like to describe what I think is probably one of the major confusing issues here.

Wildlife is really not a fur and feathers problem. It really isn't. One of the difficulties with considering wildlife as it is in the common purview of the public, as just things we can hunt or fish, is that it is truly impossible to manage those kinds of systems in which they live if you think only about the animals we are particularly interested in. Wildlife is best defined literally as all different kinds of life. It has to be managed on the system basis. It can't be managed on an individual species basis.

Words that are also very confusing - some people call them an oxymoron - are the concept of ``sustainable development''. The definition used in the biodiversity strategy, which is being developed by you folks in the next short while, is that we can develop our needs without compromising the needs of future generations.

Another major point that is something we often forget is that ecological debts are forever. They often cannot be reversed at all, particularly when we lose species.

If you would look at your table in front of you, I've given you a pamphlet called Global Biodiversity. It is a bulletin put out by our museum. One of the articles in it talks about ecological services. These are really the services provided by the wildlife of our country to us. They're very important. They literally consist of giving us the things we eat and breathe. They literally make it possible for animals and plants to be integrated and have their appropriate distributions. Animals and plants maintain our soil and climate. They do all these kinds of services for us and it's important that we recognize that these are essentially support services provided by wildlife.

The trends in wildlife today are really bad. There's a significant reduction in their numbers or the loss of species. We now use about 60% of the primary productivity - that is, the production of the original materials animals can use - from terrestrial sources. The roughly 50 million species that remain get only the 40% left over. We've got a problem here.

I'm going to argue, Mr. Chairman, with your estimate of the amount of money that wildlife is worth in Canada. It's about ten times your estimate if you consider wildlife to be all that which is essentially the equivalent of raw biodiversity being delivered to the place where it can first be used. Even with all that, you can't eat or breathe money. If we don't have wildlife, we don't have a way to sustain ourselves. It's more important than money.

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One of the most important aspects of this is that we need to be able to manage wildlife in the entire system. The only way you can do that is by zoning different aspects of the area you want to manage. We need to develop a biodiversity act that encompasses all of the existing legislation so we can do this kind of work on a whole-system basis.

I thought you might be interested in having a brief review of some of the different ways in which people conceptually manage wildlife today. That's important because in many cases the definition that people use of wildlife depends on their objectives. Their objectives will determine the way in which they manage whatever they consider to be wildlife.

In current practices it's managed, as I think the common perception is, on the basis of hunting and fishing, so wildlife essentially is the sum of everything we want to hunt and fish. Currently, it uses a concept called maximum sustainable yield, which is really a way of using only the excess production that biological systems create. The success rate of these, as we can see from many examples throughout the world, including our own, is not very good. In fact, it's often disastrous, with several examples in our own lake systems of species that we have drawn literally to extinction, so they do not exist any more.

A more modern concept is one in which we use biodiversity as the equivalent of wildlife; that is to say, most life in the world with the major exception of humans, and it is based on the concept of having it serve our purposes. This uses in its conceptual base the notion of sustainable development. This is development that meets the present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. The success rate, at least based on small-scale or subsistence use patterns, is pretty good. However, currently no scientifically based predictive model is available on which to manage in this system.

With apologies to the aboriginal people for making a simplistic description of their method of managing, nonetheless, in traditional people's concept, wildlife is all life, including human life. That is to say, traditional wisdom is to consider that all life is part of an integrated whole, that the whole system works together. They adopt the assumption of wise use. Within that there are many ritual observations of the value of different kinds of life. Importantly, the use of the natural world, including all of the animals and plants, is not considered separate from everyday life. It's really an integral part of it.

The difficulty with this one is that currently this integrated lifestyle model has been destroyed by the mixing of our culture and their culture so it's not really possible to maintain that in the present situation.

Another practice that has been developing recently is that of co-management, in which there is a mix of the current concept of hunting and fishing with that of the traditional respect for all life practised by the aboriginal people. This is essentially a pragmatic compromise that is based on single-species management, but it's combined with the intuitive knowledge of the people who are based in the natural world. The conceptual base of this is a combination of traditional wise use and maximum sustainable yield.

It comes down to a kind of seat-of-the-pants management combining the good sense of both the native and scientific experts who really are in touch with nature. This has shown itself to be better than any of the individual approaches. However, it depends for its success on supporting two different conceptual systems and it relies on the good sense of people who are trusted to make in situ decisions, and that can be politically unstable.

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Another concept using the idea that wildlife is all life is what's called a zone land use concept. In this case, the system argues that all life is to be included in the definition of what has to be managed, including ourselves.

The concept is really quite a simple one. You develop a wilderness core to sustain maximum diversity. That is just a core area. There is a seat-of-the-pants estimate that about one-third of the entire area, if it were based on that, should be in a wilderness core. Another third would be in an area of mixed agriculture and suburban use. The last third would be in concentrated urban use.

There is a dictum in ecology, a little relationship, that argues that if you reduce the land area by 90%, you reduce the biodiversity by approximately 50%. So this model would give us about a 70% retention of the current biodiversity of the world. The problem with this is that although it has a very good theoretical base and lots of predictive models associated with it, it's untested.

Part of the reason we anticipate immediate failure is that there is a considerable lack of education about the principles of management on the basis of land zone use. It's also politically and otherwise susceptible to potential profits from wilderness areas if mixed use is allowed everywhere. That would defeat the concept immediately.

In all of this, there are some confusing factors that we really have to be concerned about. The first one is agriculture. The need for agriculture to sustain large numbers of people -

The Chairman: I apologize for interrupting, Dr. Emery, but at this point I must ask you whether you have a French-language series of transparencies that you alternate with so as to provide a balance between the two languages.

Dr. Emery: I'm afraid I was unable to do that in time. I did provide to everybody a short-form version in this format in both languages. I can certainly provide that if you'll give me a week or so to have those translations done.

The Chairman: Please proceed.

Dr. Emery: I was commenting that one of the problems with agriculture is that we have to have it to sustain large numbers of people. Part of the problem with agriculture is that its fundamental basis is to reduce biodiversity so that it can increase productivity. This gives rise to a severe loss of genetic variability in favour of productivity.

Another confusing factor is human population growth. I did a little calculation. I took the age of each of you who are members of this committee and created an average age. You might be interested to know that your average age - not each of you, of course, but your average age - is 52 years. If we go back 52 years in time and ask what was the population of the world at that time, it was 2.2 billion people. Remember that 10,000 years before that there were about as many people in the entire world as currently live on Long Island. In those 10,000 years we increased the population of the world from 2 million or 3 million to 2.2 billion. Since that time, since you people on average have been living through to the present day, we have increased the population of the world by a further 3.5 billion people. In 52 years we have multiplied the population of the world - it took 10,000 years to get to 2.2 billion - by a factor of 157%. That cannot go on. If it does, then management of nature is impossible.

That's a confusing factor. What do we do with it? The carrying capacity of the world is currently estimated at about 8 billion to 12 billion people and that's it. We're very close to the limit right now.

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Lots of world-scale problems are starting right now. They include things like ethnic wars, which are really resource-based wars. They include problems of our biodiversity declining currently at the rate of when the dinosaurs became extinct. That's wildlife disappearing at the same rate as when the dinosaurs became extinct. There are many other climatic changes that are just not within the realm of the animals and plants to be able to contain them. So there are some very important facts that we should remember.

In this system what's really important is that we can't manage what we don't own. Single species management simply does not work for wildlife. You have to manage entire systems. There is a real limit to the growth of human population, and wildlife is absolutely necessary for our existence. Ecosystems are our life support systems; we absolutely have to have them. A zoning system of use will work until we develop a better model. It will at least buy us time.

What do we do? I think the first thing is to adopt a view of wildlife as equivalent to all life in its variations so that we can manage them together. We manage it basically on the premise of ecosystems. We need to develop predictive models so we can understand what's going to happen if we shift things. In order that we can manage at all, we have to declare an ownership for our wildlife. That could be a collective declaration by the federal government and the provincial governments, but it has to happen. We can adopt a zoned land-use policy.

Some of the most important things to do are to immediately embark on a public education campaign so people understand what some of these issues are in a very real sense. The forum you have planned for the next three days is a really important and major first step in that kind of activity. As soon as that happens, that can start to mitigate the heated debate that really confuses rather than informs.

Finally, one of the most important things is to make sure that people are personally in touch with nature. In our present society we spend about 4% of our time out in the natural world. That's not enough.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Emery.

Next will be Chief Blacksmith, please.

Chief Kenny Blacksmith (Deputy Grand Chief, Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec): Thank you.

Wildlife in the environment and the sustainability to develop the environment has been one of the major concerns of our people. This room could have been filled with people from home this morning because they have so much interest in these issues. However, I'm left alone because the goose hunt is on for our people. They are all out on the land. They left me all alone here. The lifestyle of our people encompasses the traditional way of life and they are out there hunting and fishing. The concern they have I will try to voice on their behalf.

I thank the committee on the environment for inviting me to speak about wildlife. To our people, wildlife is symbolic and has a very special social and economic importance. I don't deny that wildlife has an importance to the aboriginal community as well. However, the importance of wildlife to our people is tied up with conscience of self, maturity and adulthood. It is also an important part of our daily community life. Wildlife enters into our lives concerning creation, society and relationships among people and between the animals and people. This is why the Crees have protected the land and preserved the natural heritage left to us by our ancestors. After thousands of years the creation was still intact. It nurtured us and we sustained our families, our culture and our ways of life from its bounty.

For many aboriginal people in Canada today, wildlife has a great economic importance. In my own community, the Crees of eastern James Bay, it is estimated that 10,000 Crees consume approximately 1.7 million pounds of wild food. Approximately 30% of the Cree families are dependent on the bush for their primary source of income. Another large percentage of the Cree families combine seasonal employment with traditional activities on the land.

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Everyone in our nine Cree communities shares in the produce of the hunt. This division of the food that is harvested is done according to standards that exist within our society. The food is butchered in the traditional way and then divided out through the community. Very often those who receive food through this sharing network find a way of returning the gift in kind, or in some other way. However, this obligation to return is far outweighed in importance by the deeply felt value of our society of giving food freely to those who need it.

In my culture, when a young child is born he or she is not allowed to set foot on the ground outside of the home until the age of one, or up to three, when a ``walking out ceremony'' is performed first. This ceremony marks the entrance of the child into the social and educational process of becoming an adult. A teepee is erected and the elders are invited to come and sit around the fire. The children are then brought in dressed in traditional clothing, and after a while they are led out the door by an adult. They walk on the ground outside into what is symbolically the ``bush'' or the ``world'', where they are given some firewood and some food that has been harvested. They then carry this back to the teepee, where the elders receive the firewood and the waterfowl or bear meat, or whatever is given.

From that point on, a child begins to learn the skills necessary to reproduce all of the equipment and materials to pursue a traditional Cree way of life and to harvest the animals. Both the young boys and young girls learn to cook, make snowshoes and hunt. As they grow up, ceremonies are performed to celebrate the children's mastery of different skills. It is this ability to perform certain traditional skills that provides the sense of adulthood and personal esteem in our society. This mastery also has a spiritual side: this is where a person learns to love and respect the land and wildlife.

One of the things a Cree person learns is that the relationship between human beings and animals is dependent on the respect with which humans treat the animals. Those who violate the standards of behaviour put themselves and their families at great risk. A society that would violate such standards similarly puts itself in peril.

In Cree society the responsibility for making sure that our standards are respected lies of course with each individual. In each extended family, however, there is one person known as Nidoohuu Otchimu, the tallyman, who is responsible for the traditional family hunting lands. This person is responsible for determining where hunting will be done and how much will be taken. He is also the one who would care to see that the harvest is processed in the correct manner and the hunting conducted according to Cree tradition.

Under Cree tradition the land is farmed. One year the hunt is conducted in a certain part of the territory, and in the following year another part is hunted, in a second or third year another part is hunted, and perhaps in the fourth year the group returns to the original place. This cycle of hunting allows for the land to grow and for the non-migratory resources to replenish themselves.

It is necessary to understand this background, which is the Cree point of view, in order to understand our concern when in 1972 Hydro-Québec built a paved highway through the middle of our hunting grounds. For the first time ever, people saw what they had considered to be permanent parts of the landscape, as the Creator had made it, bulldozed and blasted away, only to be later flooded. The Cree traditions, which were dependent upon limited access to the land, were undermined by the complete opening of the territory through a network of highways and gravel roads. In addition to this, campsites, gravesites, and sacred places were also flooded.

Families who had been sure of themselves and of their place in the world now found themselves cut off from their heritage. The knowledge of the elders was made irrelevant, and the youth were left to question which way to go. The habitat of the wildlife, the waterways, which had also become the home and pathways of my culture, was gone.

The treaty that was signed by the Crees, Quebec, and Canada in 1975 attempted to deal with these so-called land use problems and guaranteed that the Cree traditional way of life could continue.

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What we were told in 1975 was that there would be controls on new development on the territory so that the impact of any approved new development would have to be lessened to protect the Cree traditional way of life. This is set out in section 22 of the treaty, which deals with the environmental impact assessment. In order to accommodate the particular nature of the Cree traditional way of life section 22 of the treaty calls for the James Bay Advisory Committee on the Environment to recommend regulations to governments and to review proposed regulations and legislation in order to accomplish the purposes of the treaty.

In addition, a Cree-Inuit-federal-provincial hunting, fishing, and trapping coordinating committee was created specifically to manage the wildlife resources.

Finally, the agreement sets out the principle of conservation, whereby when a specific animal species is threatened, sport hunting would be cut back first and foremost, and then to a lesser degree Cree hunting; and if absolutely required to protect a species, Cree hunting of that species would be stopped. The Cree hunters respected this with regard to the Brant goose, for example, where the population is now rebounding.

When looked at all together, one would think that such a regime could protect the wildlife resources and the Cree way of life. The reality has been somewhat different.

The James Bay Advisory Committee has never recommended a regulation to either Canada or Quebec. When either Quebec or Canada want to develop particular regimes concerning wildlife, for example the new Migratory Birds Convention Act, the role of aboriginal peoples has been to participate in consultation processes. But, concerning the details on how to accomplish the task of both protecting the species concerned and protecting aboriginal interests, governments leave the aboriginal people out.

We were grateful when this committee put forth the non-derogation clause with respect to aboriginal treaties in the Migratory Birds Convention Act. However, we feel the non-derogation clause does not accomplish the recognition necessary to implement our treaty and to protect our way of life. I am sure that when the committee reviewed the proposed legislation, our suggestion for particular measures related to our treaty were quickly put aside.

You see, this is the problem we face, both with governments and with their bureaucracies. Specific measures are set out in the treaty that, because they are gradually and consistently bypassed, end up being irrelevant.

A similar process with respect to most treaties in Canada has left the older treaties as curious relics with no apparent and specific relevance to present-day policy and legislation. If governments are to follow through on treaty commitments, then treaties must be continually modernized and incorporated into government legislation and policy.

An even more concrete example can be found in the manner in which forestry development is managed in northern Quebec, and its impact on moose population. In the 1975 treaty forestry development is to be regulated in two ways. The cutting operations are to be regulated according to the management plan, which would be approved by the advisory committee. The access roads and forestry camps required would also be subjected to the environmental impact review process.

Quebec has allowed the forestry companies almost complete exemption from many of these protections. Moreover, Quebec has refused to regulate exploitation on the Cree territory in a manner consistent with the James Bay agreement. The rate of forest exploitation on our lands exceeds the sustainable yield, and the amount of reforestation done is insufficient to make up the difference.

Quebec has provided special exemptions to companies operating on our lands to allow them to do this. As a result, approximately 500 square kilometres of Cree hunting lands are clear-cut every year. As the clear-cutting proceeds the moose population has been severely impacted. Quebec has not used scientific studies to manage the moose population. The forestry access roads have allowed sport hunters to penetrate into areas of moose habitat that previously had been accessible only to the Crees.

Concern for this situation forced the Crees to hire an expert in moose management. His report states that the sport hunting should be completely stopped in the area, and that the Cree harvest should be limited to one moose per family hunting territory per year. At this level of harvest the moose population will most likely come back in a few years.

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When we presented this study to the hunting, fishing, and trapping coordinating committee, Quebec's initial reaction was to deny the result. After some study, however, Quebec realized that the report was correct, but nevertheless refused to respect the principle of conservation. Rather, Quebec promotes the idea that sport hunting and Cree hunting should be stopped completely. This violates the treaty and the principle of conservation contained in it.

I have spoken of only the legal and practical impact of this situation. There are of course many other very similar situations I could describe to you. The attack by the European Parliament on the aboriginal fur economy and Canada's demonstrated incompetence in dealing with this issue further aggravate a situation that on the ground has an enormous impact on our society and our culture.

The lack of effective regulations and involvement of Cree people in the co-management of the wildlife resources in northern Quebec has a cultural impact as well. This situation is not without precedent. After World War I our territories were invaded by colonists and by contract trappers from the south who used poisoned baits to kill as many furs as possible. This led to anarchy on the land. Anthropologist Harvey Feit described it as ``pre-emptive hunting'', where anyone who came upon a particular animal would kill it, knowing that if he did not someone else would be there soon to do so. Within 20 years starvation was rampant in our communities.

We face a similar situation today in northern Quebec. While starvation will not be the result, the arrogant assumption of all of the jurisdiction by the governments of Canada and Quebec, and their exclusion of the Cree people from both the determination of the regimes concerned and the implementation of the measures required, is a major threat to our society. I would say that, in tandem with megaprojects and forestry development, failure of the regulation of the management of wildlife resources is the major threat to our society, driving our culture towards extinction.

One part of the solution to this problem - and I extend this message to all aboriginal people currently negotiating treaties - is for aboriginal peoples to be accorded stronger jurisdictions when it comes to both land use and wildlife management. I suggest that resources could be co-managed but that the regimes to do so must have a much stronger involvement on the part of the aboriginal peoples.

The approaches by Canada and Quebec to wildlife issues are piecemeal and deny the holistic view of the environment taken by the Cree people. The moose are regulated by one department, the forest by another, and the fisheries by another level of government, and none of the scientists sent have a good idea of how it all fits together.

This is where we come in. We start with tradition and intuition and the holistic view of how it all is part of the creation. We must be involved in wildlife management from legislation to activities on the land. If we are not, then your piecemeal approach will tear our culture apart. If we are involved, then we both stand to benefit. A society that violates principles of sound wildlife management runs the risk of serious degradation of its natural and cultural heritage. We hope to avoid any continuation of this.

Thank you very much. We will provide a French version of our presentation as soon as we are able to.

The Chairman: Thank you, Deputy Grand Chief. You made some very strong statements in your presentation this morning. I'm sure that committee members will want to explore them further with you later on.

Now we move to the Canadian Nature Federation. Ms Julie Gelfand, you have the floor.

Ms Julie Gelfand (Executive Director, Canadian Nature Federation): Thank you.

I'll first invite you to open the little brown envelope I passed around. It has some puzzle pieces, and you can start working on your puzzle to give you a bit of a break. The puzzle represents our way of communicating with the Canadian public. The puzzle represents the logo of the Canadian Nature Federation.

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I want to start by telling you a wildlife story of the musk ox and the reason we created the puzzle. These animals, when confronted with danger, stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect their young. Our group represents 15,000 Canadians and 150 nature groups that occur in cities and towns across the country. Basically, we've used the musk ox to say that people who care about nature are prepared to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to help protect our natural world. I hope you will enjoy the puzzle and give it to your friends or your children.

I'd like to start by telling you that I'll be doing my presentation a little bit in French but mostly in English. I've tried to translate as we go.

I'd like to give you some background perspective. I represent a non-government organization, an organization that represents the public. We believe that Canada has some requirements and some obligations with regard to wildlife. We also believe that you do have a clear mandate to act, because, as Fern Filion will probably tell you later, over 80% of the Canadian public believe that protecting wildlife is very important.

Let's talk about some of the international requirements. The big one we see right now is that Canada was the first industrialized country to ratify the international convention to protect biodiversity. Former Prime Minister Mulroney made big fanfare and told the world that Canada was going to be the boy scouts or the girl guides, whichever sex you wish to talk about, about protecting biodiversity. Unfortunately, that hasn't been shown to be the case. We believe there is something you can do to help. First, let's talk about what biodiversity is.

[Translation]

What is biodiversity? It is life. It is all the various lifeforms on this planet. It includes genes and all the species found throughout Canada, all those species and all the different types within those species. It also includes the different ecosystems in Canada. In short, this is what biodiversity is all about.

Why is it important? Biodiversity is important for several reasons. It is what we eat. We can say that we eat biodiversity. It is also where we find the new medication to help cure cancer, leukaemia, et.

Biodiversity helps us to face external changes. If an extreme external change occurs, the variety of human beings and insects will help to ensure that some of those species will survive while others will die.

[English]

Most importantly, our economy is almost entirely dependent on biological or natural resources. We can think of fishing and forestry and agriculture and how important they are to our economy. So in our opinion biodiversity is quite important.

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We've signed this international agreement and we've said we're going to do something on biodiversity. What exactly does the convention obligate Canada to do? The convention obligates Canada to study species.

[Translation]

Canada must study and discover all the species on the planet.

[English]

The convention tells us that we have to save species and spaces. By ``spaces'', I mean the habitat within which they live.

[Translation]

So, we must protect the species and their habitats.

[English]

Finally, we have to use our biodiversity wisely. We have to change or adapt any of our practices that currently diminish biodiversity in order to ensure that they don't do this any more.

So the convention obligates Canada to study our biodiversity, to save it, and to use it wisely.

My talk is supposed to tell you what the issues are from an NGO perspective, because that's the only one I can give you. I'm going to give you the issues under those three categories of study it, save it, and use it wisely.

What are some of the issues under studying our biodiversity? First, we don't know what we have. We have to find out what we have. We're discovering new species as we speak. There's a research station in Carmanah in the old-growth forest that has discovered hundreds of new species of insects in the last ten years. These are species that we didn't even know existed. You may ask who cares, and that's an interesting question. The reality is that we may find the cure for some disease within one of these insects or in something they produce. So the diversity of life is very important just for humans, forgetting about why it's important for the rest of the ecosystem.

We have less and less funding for this kind of science that finds new species. We're losing our systematists. Dr. Emery's organization, the Canadian Museum of Nature, produced a very good study on this whole issue of how we're losing capacity to deal with and understand new species.

We have no national inventory of what species we have. You can't go to one window and ask the question, does this species exist? You have to go all over the place. We also don't know what species we're losing. Since we don't know all the species we have, we don't even know which ones we're losing.

Those are the issues we see under studying it.

Under protecting it, I've divided it into two areas, species. Canada, the federal government in particular, has a lot of jurisdiction in the area of wildlife species. In particular, you have jurisdiction over fisheries, marine mammals, migratory birds and international trade. We have several pieces of legislation on the books right now that affect wildlife. Most notably, you'll think of the National Wildlife Act and the Migratory Birds Act, both of which you worked on. We also have the Wild Animals and Plants Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, which is just an awful name, and we have the Fisheries Act.

We have some great acts. We have an excellent Fisheries Act. We also have some acts for which there are still no regulations, like WAPPRIITA, which is the short form of that awful name I just gave you. Even though we have great laws on the books, one of the biggest problems is we have very little enforcement. There have been very few convictions within the Fisheries Act. We have very little enforcement. You will actually hear a lot more about that from Liz White when she comes to speak to your panel. I'm just trying to give you an overview of some of the issues.

Enforcement is a big problem in this country. In fact, it is such a big problem that Liz White's group has petitioned the United States to invoke trade sanctions against Canada based on the fact that we are not enforcing several of our international agreements.

Another issue related to wildlife species is the increased trade in wildlife parks. I'm sure you've heard of this. This is where you can find dead bears up in northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan. They have cut off the paws and they have taken out the gall bladder and the rest of the bear sits there. This is trade in parts, which is growing. You'll hear more about this as well from Joan Gregorich later on.

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Surprisingly enough, in Canada we have no law to protect our endangered species. Just a couple of weeks ago we uplifted the burrowing owl from ``threatened'' to ``endangered'', yet there's nothing legally that protects that owl from going extinct. This outrages Canadians. In a three-week period we had 70,000 people sign a petition calling on Sheila Copps to enact federal endangered species legislation. That was in three weeks.

Sheila Copps herself was surprised when we asked her if she realized we didn't have any laws to protect endangered species. She personally didn't know that this was the case and was surprised. That's mostly what we get when we talk to Canadians about this issue.

What happens in Canada is analogous to a hospital that registers its patients. We make a big list of endangered species but we don't do anything to treat them. Canada needs an endangered species act. The public wants it. You have a mandate. We're having a little trouble within the bureaucracy, both at the federal and the provincial level. But the public is asking politicians to produce an endangered species act.

Canada has 20% of the world's wilderness outside of Antarctica, yet only 5.2% of it is protected. In the last endangered species report card, issued last week by the World Wildlife Fund and the Canadian Nature Federation, the federal government got dismally poor marks; they got a C- in terrestrial parks, and a D- in marine protection.

Canada is one of the last refuges on the continent for some species. Wolves have been eliminated in all but one of the lower 48 states. We still have some place for them in Canada, despite wolf control programs that are occurring in various provinces and territories. We're one of the last countries to have enough wilderness for bears. We still have some habitat left to ensure the world's songbirds continue to sing.

But while governments are saying the right thing, and parliamentarians in fact several years ago agreed that 12% of Canada's landscape should be protected, we've had relatively little action on the ground. We've had no new national parks in the last 18 months. We've had no new marine parks since 1989. We have no public official plans for a system of national wildlife areas across the country. Again, we have no legal way of protecting the habitat of our endangered species.

Again, on the endangered species example - you can tell this is one of our hot issues right now - the burrowing owl, which has been upgraded from threatened to endangered, lives in a national park called Grasslands National Park, which is only 50% complete. There is no money in this federal budget to complete the Grasslands National Park and therefore to protect the habitat of the burrowing owl.

I want to give you a bit of a perspective on how difficult it is in Canada to protect areas. It takes on average some fifteen years, thousands of pages of background study, lots of lobbying, and usually the Prime Minister or the minister has to get involved in order to establish a national park. Yet in less than one year there have been development permits issued in an important wilderness area called the Slave Geological Province - this is in the Northwest Territories - where they've staked out thousands of hectares of wilderness in a year. There are no protected areas in this area. Grizzly bears are being shot and nobody knows anything about it. Something seems out of whack.

[Translation]

Finally, we should use our biodiversity and our wildlife species wisely. We need to use and manage our renewable resources wisely. If we do not succeed in managing our species efficiently, we can expect other disasters like those we have seen with the northern cod and the Pacific salmon.

We also think that we need to change the way we usually do things in the forest and agricultural industries. More specifically, we must stop using some pesticides, such as carbofuran and fenitrothion in particular.

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[English]

We have to make sure when we're using our wildlife species properly that our hunting laws are properly enforced to ensure we don't have any poaching. We have to think about another issue in terms of using it. That is the whole issue of lead shot and wildlife. Lead shot is a big problem. It has been banned in British Columbia for duck and waterfowl hunting. It has also been banned in certain hot spots across the country. You will hear more about lead shot from Dr. Vernon Thomas later on in your forum.

The Canadian Nature Federation has 15,000 members and 150 nature groups across the country. We try to use a two-pronged approach. We believe the solution is to protect wilderness and to change the way we practise forestry, agriculture, and urbanization in the rest of the landscape.

Specifically, we're working to develop a marine conservation strategy for Canada to protect important songbird areas across the country. We're working quite hard to promote biodiversity and to do a bit of what Dr. Emery spoke about.

A new coalition has been formed. We have done some media work in Vancouver. We're going to Toronto and Montreal to talk about biodiversity. I have a kit. I've given you some information on the Canadian Coalition on Biodiversity. We've also produced 100,000 of these newsletters to try to educate the public about what biodiversity is. They're being circulated across the country.

In terms of getting people involved personally, we've produced a special edition of our magazine on how to open a bed and breakfast in your backyard for wildlife. You have copies of all of these. This is our way of trying to get Canadians personally involved. There are different ways to do it, which are outlined in our magazine.

CNF is working to get endangered species legislation. We're working to complete the national park system, and we're working to ban the use of fenitrothion and carbofuran. That's our contribution to the solutions for wildlife.

In our opinion, you do have a mandate to do something for wildlife. Eighty percent of the public believe it's really important. Yet at the federal level our capacity to deal with wildlife is being diminished. In our opinion, we need to stand together shoulder to shoulder - academics, politicians, bureaucrats, aboriginal peoples, the public, and non-governmental organizations - in order to protect nature.

[Translation]

Thank you very much.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you to the Canadian Nature Federation.

We'll now move on to our next panellist,

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Prescott, president of the Canadian Committee of the World Conservation Union. It is your turn to speak, sir.

Mr. Jacques Prescott (president, Canadian Committee of the World Conservation Union): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting me to this meeting.

[English]

The World Conservation Union is probably the largest environmental NGO in the world. We currently have 800 national NGOs as members of IUCN and 60 or 70 state members. Canada is a state member of IUCN, and I have the privilege to chair the Canadian committee of the IUCN. For your information, IUCN has recently opened an office in Montreal, and the next general assembly of IUCN will be held in Montreal in 1996. You will all be invited to participate in that world conservation congress.

My presentation will be in French.

[Translation]

This morning, we saw that the management of wildlife is closely linked to the economic and cultural events which make up Canada's history. For thousands of years now, the lifestyle of the first people of this country has largely depended on wildlife. We also know that since the 16th century, whale catchers, European fishermen, have been making the most of our incredible fishing resources in north-western Atlantic and the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. Fur trade was also an incentive for European settlers to come here and for the developement of modern Canada. Nowadays, the welfare of Canadians still greatly depends on our wildlife resources.

Later this week, Mr. Filion will talk about the economic significance of wildlife in Canada. It is extremely important.

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For instance, in 1991, hunting and wildlife observation related activities contributed some $7 billion to Canada's gross domestic product and maintained more than 126,440 jobs. If we add the significant economic contribution of the commercial and recreational fisheries, the overall figure exceeds several billion dollars.

However, in many cases, this increased wealth has been generated to the detriment of the resources involved. As a result of hunting, some species such as the Labrador duck and the great auk were completely exterminated as early as the 18th century. Other species, such as walrus have completely disappeared from some areas, including the Atlantic coast. As well, the St. Lawrence beluga and the eastern wolverine have joined the long list of species threatened with extinction.

Cod, salmon and halibut stocks, that we believed to be unlimited, have utterly collapsed, taking with them fishermen's traditional way of life. Development and sustainable harvesting of wildlife resources are closely linked to the conservation of ecosystems that support those resources and the use of harvesting methods that foster long-term wildlife conservation.

As early as 1990, the Canadian Council of Wildlife Ministers formally recognized that fact by adopting Canada's wildlife policy. That policy advocates and recommends, among other things, that wildlife management be an integral part of environmental and economic policies. Canada's wildlife policy suggests and recommends ensuring that the aboriginal people are very much a part of wildlife management. This policy also fosters better conservation of wildlife populations and their habitats, and recommends finding ways to ensure there is greater public input into wildlife management in Canada.

In 1992, at the Rio Summit, the United Nations adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity which Canada eagerly embraced. The purpose of that convention is to ensure biodiversity conservation, the sustainable use of the various components of biodiversity and the fair and equitable division of profits flowing from the use of genetic resources.

In recent months - and this will come as no surprise to you, particularly since Mr. Emery reminded you of this fact - Canada developped a national biodiversity strategy intended to attain these objectives here in Canada. That strategy is the result of a vast cross-Canada consultation undertaken by a multipartite committee under the direction of the Canadian Biodiversity Office, which was created in 1992. This strategy reflects a very broad consensus and rests on the support of the provinces and territories.

Next month, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment should formally adopt this draft Canadian strategy. This strategy should be the basis for future Canadian action with respect to the sustainable use of renewable resources and especially wildlife. This strategy presents a vision for Canada. Indeed, I would like to quote from the document that sets out that vision: «a society which lives and evolves in harmony with nature, which appreciates all forms of life, which only takes from nature that which it can give without depleting its resources and which passes on to future generations a dynamic, nurturing world blessed with a rich biological diversity.»

The strategy soon to be adopted predicates that vision on a series of 11 guiding principles that stress the economic, cultural, ecological and scientific importance of biodiversity, the responsibility of all Canadians to ensure proper conservation and sustainable use of this heritage, the relevance of ecological resource management and cooperative action at all levels, and the sharing of knowledge, costs and benefits linked to conservation and to the use of biodiversity.

We already have a political tool that allows us to act. It is up to us to use it appropriately. In Canada, natural resource management is a provincial responsibility. That constitutional reality is a clear advantage in terms of putting in place harvesting and management practices that reflect regional realities.

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To be really effective, the Canadian biodiversity strategy must be based on regional action plans that call for significant stakeholder input. Various experiments with participatory management are currently underway and have proven themselves a success here in Canada, whether we are talking about the model force program, management of world biosphere reserves or experiments in the co-management of northern wildlife. By encouraging stakeholders to be directly involved, we foster a sense of regional belonging and reaffirm people's responsibility for the resources they use.

To be effective, this public participation should however be supported by the development of a strong regional capacity, based on a concept comparable to the one currently practiced by CIDA in its international aid programs. I repeat, building regional capacity requires that people and local residents be trained to practice integrated management of renewable resources.

Participatory management programs must also reflect territorial agreements and recognize, among other things, that the aboriginal people have every right to preferential access to wildlife. In order for decentralization of wildlife management to be really effective, decision-makers will need to listen to and consult the public and be prepared to pay close attention to their sound advice.

As you know, an animal cannot live outside the natural habitat to which it is accustomed. Even though zoological gardens may manage to recreate conditions that ensure the survival of a number of animal species, it is highly unlikely that all 1,950 vertebrate species found here in Canada could be preserved there. In that connection, I will be using 1992 figures, as I have been unable to incorporate data from the World Wildlife Foundation on protected species. In 1992, 9.8% of Canada represented areas where wildlife species are found and can be protected, while less then 4% of Canada's surface areas benefited from complete protection. Barely half of Canada's natural regions are represented in this network of protected areas. Just what exactly is happening to the other 90%?

Conservationists recommend providing full protection in at least 12% of Canadian territory. Those protected areas are important in more than one way. They represent real breeding grounds for wildlife as well as repositories of the genetic material and information of the utmost importance. They also bear witness to our living heritage, thereby allowing us to have a better understanding of the way ecosystems evolve.

As we approach the next millenium, it is high time we started to think of our children and the need to complete the Canadian national parks network. In order to fulfill their real role, protected areas must become an integral part of broader sustainable development and plans. They must also be fully integrated in local and regional land development planning processes, as well as in government land use processes.

In order to achieve this, the federal government must act as both a catalyst and a facilitator, in close cooperation with the provinces and territories, that could then contribute to the effective implementation of a broader common national vision.

I would now like to quickly review with you a couple of sectoral issues relating particularly to forestry. The forests not only provide us with wood and wood pulp, they also play an important role in soil conservation, water cycle regulation, gas and nutrient exchanges, including carbon dioxide, and appropriate maintenance of biological diversity. Rational forestry management is absolutely essential for biological diversity and for proper wildlife protection and development.

The National Forest Strategy adopted by Canada in 1992 advocates objectives such as sustainable use of forestry resources and biodiversity conservation. Those same objectives were reflected in the Statement of Forest Principles that Canada promoted with success at the Rio Summit. And yet, once again this year, some regions of Canada will be harvesting more than 160% of Canada's annual wood production. In some localities, entire ecosystems are being destroyed, with little concern for the future consequences of that action.

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Wildlife conservation requires adherence to forestry harvesting standards and practices that foster maintenance of forestry yields, respect for the biophysical components of the environment and the gradual elimination of pesticides, as Mrs. Gelphand stressed earlier.

According to the World Conservation Strategy, it is essential to protect natural forest areas, and particularly older forest. It is also essential to maintain and use modified forest in a sustainable manner, to create plantations for intense harvesting purposes and, especially, to ensure that local communities have input into forestry management practices.

In the near future, international markets could well refuse to accept forestry products that do not follow these criteria. It is essential that we take steps now to ensure the ecological sustainability of our forest industry as well as the long-term conservation of our wildlife heritage.

As far as agriculture is concerned, it should be said that as it is currently practiced here in Canada, agriculture has been responsible for significant soil degradation, particularly soil erosion, and significant diffuse pollution that have a direct impact on habitats and the quality of life of wild animals, particularly aquatic species.

Farmers simply must review their agricultural practices. We must put regulations in place to control the use of water for agricultural use and to foster, once again, farmers' input into the decision making process. There is also a need for incentives that will prompt farmers to use harvesting techniques that are not only less costly, but use less energy and increase soil productivity. All these goals must be attained in our quest for sustainable agriculture.

In terms of the water environment, we recently witnessed the dramatic situation that has resulted with Black halibut, a resource that both Canaian and foreign fishermen have grossly over-harvested in recent years.

At a time when Fisheries and Oceans officials are sounding the alarm and putting a stop to fishing in Canadian waters, foreign fishermen are rushing to lower their nets in international waters located just beyond the limits of Canadian jurisdiction in order to take the little that still remains in what was once a horn of plenty.

We believe two lessons can be drawn from the major problem that has arisen with black halibut. The first is that we cannot dissociate the quality of our renewable resource management and that of our economy. The second is that we cannot manage our renewable resources in isolation, without taking into account foreign interests.

Once again, as in the case of the agricultural and forestry sectors, specific measures must be taken now to ensure conservation of aquatic species. We must put an end not only to overfishing but also to acid rain which is inflicting terrible damage on water resources in the lacustral areas, and particularly in fresh water areas, limit domestic, agricultural and industrial pollution, prevent the destruction of spawning grounds and especially foster the participation of fishermen in both the management of the resource and the decision-making process. We are solving nothing if we do not ensure that the people who ultimately manage the resources are not included in the process from start to finish.

Wetlands, as you well know, are important not only for aquatic species such as birds, fur-bearing animals such as muskrat, mink and beaver, but also for amphibians, invertebrates, insects and indeed all species.

We must continue to be part of the North American water fowl management plan, which clearly represents an important international effort to conserve wetlands.

In order to make the right decisions, a manager must have at his disposal the best possible information. All these strategies and action plans stress the importance of enhancing our knowledge of wildlife and ensuring appropriate follow-up of wildlife populations. Would we have been as successful in our negotiations with the Europeans if our knowledge of the state of the black halibut stocks had been inferior to what it now is?

In the face of the financial difficulties we are all aware of, governments will have to avoid making the mistake of unduly decreasing their investments in research and monitoring of animal populations.

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Since 1978, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, COSEWIC, has been assessing the status of currently endangered species here in Canada. Although this committee has done an admirable job, COSEWIC is being asked to review its operations to ensure, firstly, that authors of scientific reports use the more current wildlife species assessment methods and modeling techniques; secondly, that the status of species is determined objectively on the basis of predetermined criteria; and thirdly, that discussions on species designation involve both the public and interest groups, especially users of the resource.

As we have already said, the tremendous inadequacy of both our public and university systems must be recognized. The Federal Biosystematics Research Centre recently pointed out, in a publication funded by the Canadian Museum of Nature, that Canada's ability to identify its plants, animals and microorganisms is declining as government and university experts retire but are not replaced. The precise identification of specimens and species is crucial for proper protection of our natural resources, our health and our environment.

Identification of pests and diseases must also be accurate and appropriate in order to maintain our economy's momentum - an economy that depends on our forests, our fisheries and our farm resources - and to shield our exports from non tarriff barriers. Governments and institutions of higher learning have an obligation to work together to deal with this extremely worrisome situation.

I shall conclude by saying that excessive use of natural resources is largely the result of our current economic system. It would be much easier to adequately protect our natural heritage if economic policies and practices encouraged biodiversity conservation. Many economic tools are available to us: licenses, levies, indirect or direct taxation and tax credits. It is high time we reviewed Canadian tax law as a whole in order to provide financial incentives for actions and improve the environment and at the same time discourage practices that lead to degradation of our natural heritage.

The department of the Environment should make a special effort to work closely with other departments, and particularly the department of Finance, to develop the necessary economic tools - something the American President, Mr. Clinton, was reminded of yesterday by the Senator who inaugurated the first Earth Day 25 years ago in the United States.

Fiscal policy and conservation must go hand in hand. Right now, those two components of our society are completely separate and move in opposite directions.

The main impedements to wildlife conservation are the lack of a comprehensive vision - indeed, our aboriginal friends reminded us of that fact - an inordinately centralized decision making process and the lack of consultation among stakeholders in various economic sectors. It is absolutely essential that federal, provincial and territorial activities be harmonized in order to avoid overlap and duplication of effort. A common vision must guide regional initiatives and those initiatives must in turn require the participation of users in the development, implementation and monitoring of conservation measures that foster sustainable use and long-term conservation of our wildlife heritage.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Prescott, for your opening statement, and for reminding us of the existence of a policy document of such great importance to our consideration of the status of wildlife here in Canada.

[English]

This document is in your binder. It's entitled ``A Wildlife Policy for Canada'', as Mr. Prescott reminded us. I would invite you to look at page 28, implementation, à la page 31, la mise en oeuvre, to examine what it says on that page, and perhaps individually or collectively pursue this five-year mandate and establish for yourself whether you are satisfied that their commitment has been achieved, or at least pursued adequately.

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[Translation]

Mrs. Guay, you have the floor.

Mrs. Guay (Laurentides): I very much appreciated the various comments made. There is indeed much to be done to better protect our wildlife. I have questions for a number of the presentors, particularly Mr. Prescott, regarding duplication of effort and overlap. In the absence of a federal statute on wildlife protection, how can we ever expect to achieve harmonization with the provinces? We all know that natural resource management is an area of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. How do you see that occurring? How can we possibly harmonize everything that is currently being done in various provinces?

Mr. Prescott: When a wildlife policy for Canada was being developped, there were in fact federal-provincial discussions and a national consensus on the issue did emerge, making it possible to provide the men and women of Canada with a comprehensive vision of wildlife conservation.

Similarly, the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy is the result of a federal-provincial consultation process and of consultations involving different stakeholders. There, again, it was possible to reach an agreement in little more than a few months. We are realizing now that on major issues like Canada's renewable resources, on which much of Canada's economy is based, the men and women of Canada are quite willing to close ranks and support a common vision.

We must ensure that a federal statute on issues such as these reflects that common vision and gives the provinces and territories enough leeway to implement regional, provincial or territorial action plans that reflect regional realities, because the situation in each province can vary.

For instance, I mentioned the status of the wolverine, which is an endangered species in Quebec but is not necessarily considered to be endangered in the Northwest Territories. If we have a national policy on wolverine, clearly that policy must be based on regional action plans that will obviously vary from one region to the next.

Given past experiences with the wildlife policy or the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy, we can now say that there has been tremendous progress when it comes to increasing dialogue, and as far as I am concerned, there is nothing preventing us from continuing that progress. I very much believe in the need for a legislation that is flexible enough that provinces and territories can be given full responsibility for implementing action plans.

Mrs. Gelfand: I fully agree with Mr. Prescott, but I would just like to add something. We must remember that wildlife species know no borders. For instance, the grizzly bear is protected in the U.S., but it is not protected in Alberta, which simply makes no sense.

Our political borders, whether they are provincial or international, make no sense either where wildlife is concerned; it is important for all Canadians to understand that. That is why we must protect wildlife irrespective of their habitat. I would say that is a fundamental objective.

Mrs. Guay: But what about the aboriginal people who live off hunting and for whom it is a fundamental part of life? Could you give me your views on that?

[English]

Chief Blacksmith: I guess one of the things I raised earlier was the fact that the treaties are not being respected. In our situation, the Crees of James Bay signed a tripartite treaty that involves Quebec, Canada, and the Cree. There were supposed to have been some guaranteed harvest for our people, but Quebec and Canada don't seem to be working together to try to respect that treaty.

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There has to be an effort to make sure treaties are being respected and there are no legislative overrides when proposed legislation is being tabled. These treaties are respected because they are entrenched in the Constitution. They are fiduciary responsibilities that Canada must act on. In our case, in wildlife and the environment Canada must work with us to ensure that our treaties and our people's rights are protected.

Dr. Emery: Part of the draft Canadian biodiversity strategy refers to legislation particularly, and I think it's directly relevant to the question you asked. It comments that it is proposed that the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, in collaboration with affected and interested groups and individuals, maintain or develop, if necessary, legislation or other mechanisms to support the conservation of species and ecosystems at risk; that they regulate game ranches, aquaculture, and similar facilities so that they do not significantly negatively impact on native biodiversity; promote the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity on private lands to determine if there's a need to develop additional policies and legislation to regulate the manufacture, transport, and export of substances that are known to be harmful to biodiversity; and finally, to pursue harmonization of biodiversity-related legislation to reduce duplication and fill gaps. Current legislative administrative arrangements will be reviewed to determine if changes are required to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

So one of the things that's very clear in the developing strategy that has begun in this committee is a call for legislation to be determined on a group basis with all the governments in Canada, federal and provincial, and also interested groups. I think particularly there is a strategic approach that provides the answer to the question you've asked.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: I certainly agree with you, but I'm just wondering how we could actually make it work. The provinces already have environmental legislation. We are trying to reach harmonization agreements but we never actually succeed in reaching agreement with everyone of the provinces, so that all will be part of the program. How can we expect to do that with wildlife legislation? It seems rather complex.

You say there is currently no federal inventory of endangered species.

Mrs. Gelfand: No, there is no inventory of all our species. I was not only referring to endangered species. We do have a list of such species; there are more than 200 of them on the list. However, we believe that more than 8000 species are in fact threatened, altough we do not have the scientific capability to get the studies done through COSEWIC that Mr. Prescott referred to earlier.

We have an official list of approximately 230 species, but as I say, we believe that more than 8,000 species are actually endangered. What is needed is an inventory of all Canadian species, and not simply those that are endangered.

Mrs. Guay: But who is going to develop such an inventory? Would it be groups such as yours? The government can't really -

Mrs. Gelfand: At the provincial level, I know there are a couple of provinces that have what is called a conservation data centre. These centres were developped by nature conservancy of Canada. I know that a contract was awarded by the Canadian Wildlife service to determine the feasibility of establishing a national data centre. I have already written a letter on this very issue. There have been consultations with the museum, which is currently examining the problem. I think that Allan could probably answer your question.

[English]

Dr. Emery: Inventorying what we have is a really important one. Julie also mentioned earlier that we don't know even the names - let alone how they live - of many species in Canada. It's estimated that about 50% of the species of animals and plants in Canada are unknown to science. We literally don't even know what their names are, let alone how they live.

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So this is a very important aspect of what needs to be done. There are certain areas that are less well known than others. For instance, we already know virtually all the species of birds and mammals and fishes and reptiles and so on that are in Canada. What we don't know are many of the species of micro-organisms, particularly insects, all those types of animals and plants that draw the whole system together and keep it functional. So an inventory is a really important aspect. It's something that is actually called for by the biodiversity convention.

Our museum has prepared a country study - and if we can find another $25,000 we can publish it - in which we look at the inventory of Canada: what we already know, what its economic values are, what we need to do to conserve it. That has been done. What's necessary is a detailed inventory of all the species within each of the basic types of habitats.

So it's an important part of what needs to be done. It doesn't have to be done by PhDs. It can be done if we train people in the science to do it on a technical level. These are often called parataxonomists. It would not be a huge job; it would not be a small job either, but it would be one that Canada could undertake in a very meaningful way that would give our country the capacity to begin to develop the models we need to conserve and to manage our biodiversity in a way that is sensible.

Part of the problem with some of these aspirations is that we have to recognize people exist and we have to realize that if we're going to stay alive as a species we have to have enough diversity around us that it will support the system. Currently nobody knows what that level should be. The estimate of 12%, which is currently being utilized, would take us down to about half, or a little more, of our biodiversity as we currently have it. Whether or not that's sufficient to maintain our life, I'm not sure.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: We could use the information already available in the provinces to develop a data base that could then be supplemented. Do Americans have such a data base? What kind of system do they have? Do you have any idea?

[English]

Dr. Emery: Yes, I do. As Julie mentioned, the Nature Conservancy has been an active force in the United States. Some years ago there was an intention to create a biological diversity act. It has been on the books for a long time but suffered a great deal of to and fro.

There was also a national biological survey that had begun to be set up in the United States; it's currently changed its name to the National Biological Service. It's under direct threat from a lot of the lobby groups that would prefer not to have an inventory made. Part of the reason for that is when you inventory something it takes on a value, which is important.

Comparing Canada and the United States, Canada is actually further ahead in our capacity to understand what is in our natural environment. Our museum and many other museums have huge databases of information on the species that occur in Canada. We often publish popular field guides, but there are many, many technical guides to all the species that occur here. But as Julie and others have mentioned, there is so much that is unknown at the present time that it's very difficult to do other than guess what we should do.

The next series of steps would be quite simple: a fairly regulated approach to developing an inventory, a concerted effort at creating the predictive models that are needed - not a whole lot of work but a couple of million dollars a year for the next five or six years would do it. That's what you need.

Chief Blacksmith: I just want to say briefly that part of the database, when we talk about endangered species.... A lot of our people have been living on the land on a daily basis for thousands of years, and even today. They have a lot of knowledge that they'd like to share, but nobody's accessing it, nobody's tapping into that. There are no accommodations, no resources.

Then when we have treaties that are signed, there are responsibilities. There is an accountability in there that Quebec needs to work with the aboriginal people, but that's not being encouraged right now. As well, there are also very defined responsibilities on the federal government, in areas of wildlife protection and environment. But again, that's not working.

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For the Crees there is a 20-year-old agreement that hasn't been fully implemented. In there, there are some mechanisms put in place to allow provincial governments and the federal government to work side by side with aboriginal people. There is a lot of knowledge there already that somebody needs to listen to.

Dr. Emery: I'd like to support that. I think that's a very important point. We at the museum have what we call our traditional ecological knowledge centre. The chairman is the Hon. James Bourque, who was the deputy minister for the environment in the Northwest Territories. He himself is a native person.

The sentiments that have just been expressed here are real. One of the most important things is to recognize the legitimate value of traditional knowledge and not to consider it a trivial aspect of what we're doing. There is a tremendous amount of information there. It's disappearing quickly. Much of the information is held in the minds of older people in aboriginal society and we desperately need to be able to tap some of that, without giving opportunity for undue exploitation of that knowledge. Intellectual property is very important here.

Mr. Gilmour (Comox - Alberni): Obviously one of the best ways to preserve species is to have some set-asides. A number of you have commented on completing the national parks system. Where are we in terms of completing that system, and where are the gaps?

Ms Gelfand: I don't know the actual numbers. I think we're at 31 national parks. We have 43, from what I understand, terrestrial regions. I have the statistics here. So we aren't complete. Especially in southern Canada, there are certain areas that have no representation at all. I can think of the Manitoba lowlands. There are lots of places in Quebec that haven't been represented, and that's because of the jurisdictional problem between Quebec and the feds. There are some areas in British Columbia that haven't been protected. Then there are several in the north.

Canada has committed to completing the national park system by the year 2000. I think that means we have to establish another ten to fifteen parks in the next six years. So we're a little skeptical, but we're definitely pushing the government to proceed.

There is some really good news, which is that while Parks Canada's budget has been cut over the next three years by about 25%, they have allocated internally to double the amount of money put towards the purchase of new national parks. So the agency that you run, Parks Canada, is quite committed to completing the parks system.

The only other thing to recognize is that to get a national park it usually involves a lot of political will. Prime Minister Chrétien, when he was Minister of the Environment, was responsible himself personally for establishing several new national parks. We usually need either the minister to get involved, in this case Minister Dupuy, or the Prime Minister to get involved.

I could get you the precise numbers if you'd like.

Mr. Gilmour: No, that's fine.

There is an overall strategy, obviously.

Ms Gelfand: Yes, there's an overall park system plan. We're proceeding as we go. We're calling for the establishment of four or five new national parks next year. I did indicate that there have been no new national parks in the last 18 months. The last one was in 1993; I believe it was Vuntut National Park, which is up in the northern Yukon. There have been lots of good words, but we need a lot more action if we're going to get it finished by the year 2000.

Dr. Emery: Could I add to that very briefly? One of the other things we need to consider is what happens inside those parks. If you're going to maintain biodiversity you really do need to have a core of wilderness that is not open for debate. That's something that hasn't really happened in enough of the park system.

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[Translation]

Mr. Prescott: I would also like to remind you that, in 1991, the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, published a document entitled ``A vision of Protected Areas for Canada'' which contains an analysis of the situation in Canada. It shows the importance of developing not only an integrated national parks system but also a series of other protected areas, and integrating all these elements into a comprehensive zoning plan for Canada.

It is very important not to create a park with the idea that we are going to put a fence around a designated area and pay hundreds of milliions of dollars to keep people out of it. We have to find ways to integrate the practices of local populations, to integrate a more balanced use of renewable resources in these spaces, either on the outskirts of fully protected areas or in particular zones within an already designated area. We must develop new space management practices and continue to ensure that we have fully protected areas.

[English]

We need core areas that need complete protection, and surrounding these areas we need to have buffer zones where some sort of use is possible. All these development plans should be established in collaboration with local populations.

Chief Blacksmith: I just want to add that setting aside categories of land has not been a very good experience for the aboriginal people. When the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed there were large parcels of land set aside for the exclusive use of aboriginal people. However, the government seemed to quickly override these protected areas by virtue of just allowing various developments to take place.

Also, in the setting up of national parks we would again voice our interest that our people are taking full account of their way of life, the way they use the land, they way they live and hunt off the land, and their conservation measures, which have worked for thousands of years. These must be taken into account.

Again, if these are plots of land set aside for protection, there have to be controlled measures put in that are going to be effective. Right now there are none as they relate to various tracts of land being set aside for aboriginal people through treaties.

Mr. Gilmour: It's become a reality that with shrinking budgets we're going to be doing more with less. We won't be able to do all of the items, but I'd be most interested in hearing from each of you which areas you would call the highest priority. Where should we be directing our energies? Should it be purchasing national parks? Should it be inventories? Where do you see that we should be going? We aren't going to be able to do it all.

Dr. Emery: I see two major priorities. The first one is that you can't manage this stuff unless you have some way of controlling it. You can't do it on the basis of common property. There's an excellent article called ``The tragedy of the commons: twenty years of policy literature, 1968-1988'', a bibliography of Garrett Hardin. It's really clear you have to set aside land in order to be able to maintain a certain degree of biodiversity. There is a biosphere reserves concept - and that touches on what Jacques was saying - that is really an appropriate approach to how to do that.

So I would put that as the number one priority. You have to set aside zoned land. Mr. Blacksmith is right, you have to honour those commitments that you make when you zone the land. To do that is your number one priority. The second priority is that you have to know what we have, and have predictive models on how to use it. Those are the only two for me.

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[Translation]

Mr. Lincoln: I will have to leave soon to attend a meeting of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee. We will probably be arguing over parentheses and commas for several hours. That is why I think it is essential to have this type of conference as we have here this morning, where we can have practical discussions on potential actions that are very important to us all.

Unfortunately, I have not heard previous presentations and I apologize, but I was happy to hear Julie Gelfand and Jacques Prescott whom I have known for many years.

[English]

I think that many people viewing us would think we are wasting time. They would ask why we are talking about wildlife and not speaking about the budget and the deficit and jobs and the marketplace. Perhaps it's the majority today who would think we're being futile. I think the important job we have to do here today is to show them why this is just as important as talking about deficits and budgets, because if there's no wildlife it means the ecosystems don't exist any more and the habitats are gone. If there's no habitat, there's no ecosystem, there's no wildlife, then there's no budget, no deficit, and all of it is for naught.

Our aboriginal people have been telling us this for years and years, ever since we came over to tell them that we were smarter and we could develop better and we could do better things. As they watched in horror, they saw our concrete buildings go up and they saw this great progress take place. At the same time, they saw that the rivers became toxified, the land was eroding, and wildlife was also eroding and disappearing. They have been telling us that we had better change our ways.

I think what we are about today is trying to sensitize whoever is listening to us, and I hope many listen to you especially. We have a very important mission to try to say, in the words of my friend David Crombie, that everything is connected with everything else, that ecosystems and bioregions and the systems that sustain living species and living are the key to all life and all progress and all so-called development, and without them nothing goes. Call it quality of life, call it the environment, call it sustainable development, or call it what you will in your own words. What we are trying to say is that if we don't make a bigger place for the processes that will sustain what we call progress in the long term, then not only the wildlife will disappear but we also will be there sitting in deserts. It sounds stupid to say this when you live in Canada, surrounded by ice and snow.

At one time people in Africa used to believe this too, that the continent was so rich and lush and full of water and resources that it would always be there. I come from Africa. I was born in Mauritius, a little island off the coast of Africa. It was perhaps a paradise on earth, but sadly, it's famous because of the dodo and people treat the dodo as a joke now. The people of Mauritius would like to get the dodo back. They are very proud that it was there and that it was a unique species. There were 29 other species and they have all disappeared.

I remember as a kid seeing a green bird called the cateau. It was beautiful and it was flying all over the place. Suddenly, just a few years ago, there were only a few pairs left if we could find them anywhere.

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They used to have the kestrel, which is a falcon, and that disappeared until they realized there was only one pair left in the wilds. They had the pink pigeon, which is unique to the world. Again, that was gone. I think there were nine left.

Now Mauritius is typical of all the other places. They take these birds and species from the wilds and put them in zoos, train them to breed in captivity, then release them to protected areas somewhere. This is what's happening in Mauritius. They have the kestrel coming back to life, so to speak, in preserved areas, and the pink pigeon and the cateau to a degree.

Amazingly enough, in India if you want to go and see tigers you have to go to a preserve, where just a few live, and they are remnants of our progress. I was reading last week that in Zimbabwe the elephants are dying by the hundreds again, and the elephants have been thriving there. I've seen lots of them myself recently, but this year they are dying because there is no water. There's no water because we have cut all the trees and the rivers are drying up more than ever.

How can you help us? I think this is a question, because we are powerless without you. You represent the large community out there. I would say that you can help us in many ways, because we believe the same as you believe.

The people of this committee, regardless of political party, believe very strongly in what you believe. Where you can help us is to put a lot of pressure on us to keep commitments we've made. We've made definite commitments in the red book, as Julie mentioned, that we would complete our park system by the year 2000, and 12% of protection of the land. You can call us to task. We now have the Canadian Environment Assessment Act. You can call us to task if we allow development to take place that shouldn't, especially in our national parks.

You can press very hard to make us realize what Jacques Prescott has brought up so intelligently, the use of economic instruments. We started a task force last year. It was a fledgling thing and didn't achieve very much. But at least it was started, so now you can challenge the two ministers, Minister Martin and Minister Copps, to revive it for next year and make it more real. I think that's the solution.

You can also apply pressure in other ways. You referred, Julie, to lead shot and lead sinkers. How many people talk about it? Professor Thomas has been almost like a lone wolf who speaks out. Because there are so few who speak out about it, they are treated as oddballs. But if more from your side said let's stop it, I think it would put much more pressure on the ministries, as we have in this committee, to get going. There's no excuse for having the lead shot and the lead sinkers.

Finally, I'd like to say a word on the endangered species legislation. I happen to agree with Jacques. We are in a federation; we can't just impose things and go willy-nilly. Regionally, we have to work in bioregions. At the same time, I agree with Julie that birds cross boundaries. If we could have some sort of endangered species legislation that was born out of a very effective consensus among all interveners, provinces and federal government, then it would be a very beneficial instrument.

We have started a task force, which will report to the minister by the end of June or thereabouts, or perhaps the end of May. I forget the exact date. There will then be consultations right across Canada undertaken by the federal government and the provinces together. Eventually we will recommend a way in which federal endangered species legislation could take place to fill the gaps that are left after the provincial instruments are in place.

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The minister has committed herself to that. There is an agenda now and it will go forward. It will go forward in respect of all involved and with the participation of all involved. If it takes a bit more time to finish it, then that's time well spent. I hope it happens. We are very committed to seeing it happen. I hope there again you can help us, have your say, and put in your words.

As a final thought, I would like to address a few words to Kenny Blacksmith. It seems to me the aboriginal people in Canada, in regard to wildlife biodiversity, are perhaps the key to our future success because they have political clout and leverage, much more than I ever realized. It seems ironic to say that, but I think it's true. I think they can continue to put a lot of pressure but at the same time advance creative ideas.

I've always believed that if tomorrow we could associate our national parks program with an economic future for the aboriginal people, with a de facto settlement of our lands, ecotourism, just in broad bases - I'm not speaking constitutionally or politically but just ideas - then we would solve a lot of things. We would meet our commitments to the United Nations to preserve 12% of our land, which is a starting point. I agree with you, it's only a starting point, but at least it's a big starting point. We would achieve a feeling that we would set a basis for your giving us examples to follow, because you will know how to preserve that land much better than we have and preserve wildlife species.

I really hope you can play a big part in creative ideas for us. Maybe when we complete that park system we will complete it in a different way, in a more novel and creative way, tying it in with ecotourism, giving you a chance of an economic future, well-being and quality of life that you deserve so much.

I hope these four days are very fruitful. I think we have a wonderful chance to sensitize the Canadian public to the importance of what we are doing.

Mr. Adams (Peterborough): I greatly enjoyed the presentations. I wonder if it would be possible for us - I've received one - to obtain copies of the overheads, because they are very useful for us when we revisit the record. I thought they might be coming around, but I have received one.

I thank you for the presentations. I listened to Mr. Lincoln and I listened carefully to you. I know you went to a great deal of trouble to make positive suggestions, but I have great difficulty not being depressed about this matter. We are dealing here with wildlife in particular, but with the general environmental situation. It has to do with one of Dr. Emery's points.

It seems to me that there are all sorts of things we can do: we can live better, and we can legislate various things. But a large part of the problem is simply the fact that we are here and that we live on the planet. You gave the rate of population increase. I know, for example, that China in some apparently draconian way has its population under control. It increases about 1.25% per year; it increases by one Canada every 18 months. And it has its population under control.

I've heard - and perhaps one of you can confirm this - that each of us represents, in consumption terms, 50 or 60 Chinese. That means that we represent, in consumption terms, more than the whole population of China. It makes us about one and a half billion. I think, Dr. Emery, you gave the figure of a capacity of 8 billion or 10 billion, or whatever the figure was that you mentioned. In consumption terms, if the figure is right, North America already is equivalent to 17 billion Chinese people.

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Again, why it depresses me is that -

Ms Gelfand: It depresses all of us.

Mr. Adams: Our population, which is already in consumption terms more than the Chinese, is increasing at the same rate as theirs, by 1.25% or whatever it is. So our population is actually increasing faster than the population of China in terms of consumption, and I find that very worrying.

I hate to go on with this depressing topic any more, and to all the Chinese people, I simply use China as an example because I know the figure. But if their standard of living doubles - they at the moment are at 1.2 billion people in consumption terms, and their standard of living could double in the next five years - they would become 2.5 billion people.

So my question to you all is how do we deal with that? Here we are in Canada, this so-called empty country, and we're increasing in consumption terms at a rate faster than China. How do we deal with that?

Dr. Emery: I have no panacea, but I can assure you that the situation is severe enough, and it's not just at a distance. For instance, I don't know if I can trust this statistic, but it's claimed that some 40% of Canadian school children go to school hungry. That means that it is not just somebody else's problem.

If you look at the situation around the world, there are indeed resource wars that are now being fought in Africa, the Far East, and Europe. Those are problems that are very real. If you look at the parallels between our reaction to these problems and the normal biological reaction to these problems, they are identical. We have the brains to do something about it, but we're not bloody well using them, and that is a major problem.

The question then becomes when will it get to the stage where for those people who are in the most highly consuming parts of the world, such as Canada, the United States, and some parts of Europe, it hurts so much that they will actually start to do something about it? Then the question becomes, as it does if we maintain our current parallel to biological systems, will we do it in the same way they do; that is, by continued battle and competition and ultimately, in our terms, through wars? I sincerely hope not.

However, it is a significant challenge, and I think it can only be solved by one thing really, and that is that we must alert people in an objective way, in a passionate way, to the notion that there is a real limit to what the world can handle.

Nature is one of the ways of demonstrating that. The kinds of lessons we can learn from people who live close to the land are, I think, very important. They essentially argue that nature is not something that's outside the house, nature is part of us. We are part of nature. Until we understand that we have to manage that not only as a system that includes us but on a global basis, there is no really easy solution other than allowing the biological principle to take place.

To give you a very quick picture of what that is, in any virgin environment where a new species is introduced, as we were 10,000 years ago, the population rises until it overshoots. It goes right past the carrying capacity of the environment. We're just about at the carrying capacity of our environment right now. Everything indicates we're going to shoot right past it. Then it comes down again through disastrous depopulation and gradually oscillates through again over a depopulation until it reaches some sort of harmonious level. But for people who have the brains not to do this, it seems to me unconscionable.

How do you get to that? It can only be through education. It can only be through encouraging our children to understand and take action that makes real sense in how to deal with our natural world, because we are a part of the natural world.

Ms Gelfand: I was just going to add that for those of us who've worked in this area, such asDr. Emery and some of the people who are a little older than I, you can't get too depressed about it or you would just give up. So that's the first thing, that we don't walk around depressed all the time. We would, frankly, just give up.

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It makes me think that the amount of time you and we spend arguing over completely irrelevant matters.... When we are talking about the future of our species, it makes you really question what we're doing in Question Period and what we're doing each and every day. In this country, fighting and arguing over irrelevant matters rather than really crucial ones about the future of our population and your depression and the global depression we're going to live in makes you question what we're all doing with our time.

I can tell you it affects people. It makes people have children a lot later. It makes people question whether they should have children. In Canada people question whether they should have children. I questioned whether I should have a child, and I waited a long time. I debated it for the very reasons you're talking about. Every child of mine - and I only have one little one right now - is going to use the resources of 50 or 60 people from India, and that's just unconscionable.

I'm speaking passionately. I was listening to Parizeau and Finance Minister Martin on the radio this morning, and my God.... The one person who's talking any sense right now is Minister Tobin. He's talking about conservation. He's talking about the future of fish stocks. We should be talking about the future of us and the future of how we as a human species are going to live on the planet.

Anyway, I am a lot more reasonable most of the time, but when you talk passionately about that, I have to respond passionately. We do have to think about how we are going to survive.

I think the wars that Dr. Emery is talking about are going to happen. They're happening now in Israel and Egypt. They're going to continue. We're going to see a lot of environmental refugees coming to our door. They will be there not because somebody is persecuting them but because they can't survive on their land any more. This is going to come to our doorstep pretty quickly, and all the things we're arguing about now in Canada are going to seem very irrelevant.

Chief Blacksmith: I'd like to quickly add that with regard to my people and their experience, the 20 years certainly have been a time of questioning as to what happened to an agreement to protect the way of life of our people and to protect the environment and the animals. Supposedly we had an understanding, and that hasn't worked. Throughout the 20 years while we were trying to get the agreement to be workable there has been continued development on our territory.

There's only one thing I can suggest, and we've said it many times. Let's revisit development. Let's stop megaprojects. Let's look at alternatives. Let's protect the environment or what's left of it now. I think one of the things we need to do is be serious about how we approach development in the north or anywhere.

Mr. Adams: Deputy Grand Chief, I hope and pray that the standards of all the aboriginal people greatly increase. I think you know that pitiful though it was, the only federal ministry whose budget increased this year was in fact Indian and Northern Affairs, by a pitifully small amount. As someone said, this is a time of cutbacks. My understanding is that the reason for that is that the aboriginal population is increasing at about twice the rate of the population in general.

By the way, I hear you about the development and the projects. I wondered, though, in terms of harvesting and nurturing the traditional way of life, which you described so carefully, how you see handling the increase in population of the Cree. I don't want you to step away from the megaprojects, and I realize they cut into it. However, this is not 1,000 years ago, it's not 100 years ago, it's now, and the population is increasing very quickly, isn't it?

Chief Blacksmith: Yes, it is. I just want to get back to the increase in the budget of the Department of Indian Affairs. While there may have been an increase, most of the increase is directed to welfare. It hasn't really done anything to promote -

Mr. Adams: I'm sorry I mentioned the budget.

Chief Blacksmith: In any case, the fact is that aboriginal people are not being supported to have a meaningful role in terms of the protection of the environment and in terms of discussing development issues. While our population may be increasing, our traplines are decreasing and hence the harvest.

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Once again it falls back on the increased level of development. There are no real mechanisms to control and protect the environment. Our people are forced onto smaller and smaller tracts of land to traditionally do their harvest.

So once again, it has to be a policy of the government not so much to fight over jurisdiction as to who has control over the territory but to work to preserve what's left for the future, not only for our enjoyment but for the enjoyment of all the people in Quebec and in Canada.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan (York - Simcoe): I've been listening with a great deal of interest this morning, and you've provided me with a lot of different areas to question you on.

Paul Hawkin has written a book called The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, and he suggests that right now we're using about 40% of the earth's biotic capacity to produce and that in another 40 years the earth's population will double. This isn't even taking into consideration increased use of resources in some countries as they become more developed. So just using the current time line we're on right now, in 40 years we're looking at an 80% usage of the earth's biotic ability to produce. Major ecosystem failure occurs around 60% to 70%. We've already been witnessing those major ecosystem failures, and we've discussed those.

I told this to my 17-year-old daughter, and she had tears in her eyes. This was a tremendous reaction, because we're talking about her grandchild. That means it's over in 40 years. So do we have 10 years to stop the flow?

I just have a few more things I wanted to add here. You've been talking about resource wars. I think we have a resource war in this country right now. It's a resource war with the fiscal resources, the so-called traditional economic resources, our fiscal deficit, the social deficit in this country, and the ecological deficit. I think we're fighting a war right now. We just don't know it.

If you think of the northern part of North America, Canada and the United States, they're only using ``d'' words in the political discourse, such as deficit, deregulation, decentralization, devolution, and downsizing. We've all heard those words. We need an alternative voice. My concern is that alternative voice is going to be far too late to get into the fray. You can use another ``d'' word called dismissed and another one called demarginalized or marginalized.

The unfortunate thing is that the public and the political will are marching in lock-step in all of this right now, so that when we talk about things like issues around pesticides and fast-tracking.... I met with representatives from AGCare and had a discussion about educating the public to accept produce that was less than perfect so we could reduce the amount of pesticide use. I was asked why we would want to do that - they've been okay, they're fine.

R and D is a tremendously major concern of mine, and when certain people in the political arena look at specific titles of research projects and suggest that government funding is being wasted because we're looking at the socialization habits of squirrels, without really understanding what that's leading to, I think we have to rethink that as well. We have to think of the climate for support for R and D.

Protection and enforcement - when we're talking about harmonization with the provinces, downsizing, and devolution, how do we enter into any safety in that area?

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Water - I'm glad that was brought up as one of the key aspects of our habitat. People in Canada do not realize that we have a limited amount of fresh water in this country.

There are other forms of pollution as well. I think fundamentally one of the biggest areas is respect, both intercultural and interspecies respect as well. Biotechnology is another area that gives me a great deal of concern, and I think we'll be able to talk about it over the next four days.

As far as my questions go, you may want to respond to some of the things I've mentioned, because we have to really think clearly about how we get that alternative voice out there. As Julie said, you can't just give up because it's just far too much for any one person to handle.

The analysis is done. We have to quit arguing at the margins and quit arguing about the tiny little points because the big stuff is going to wipe us all out. We have to find a way to take a look at that alternative voice so that it's heard. Second, we have to start working towards solutions. Maybe you could respond to those things.

I also have a question on the low-level flying over Innu territory. I'm wondering if the deputy grand chief has some comments on that, and if Julie and anyone else would like to respond to the concerns around pesticides I'd be happy to hear a response.

Chief Blacksmith: Last week I met with some members of the Innu community. We pretty much had a general discussion, like here, in terms of what are the alternatives and solutions. They're getting very depressed and very dispossessed of their land and their way of life. No one is taking them very seriously.

As I sat down and listened to them I heard stories of women having a lot of problems with pregnancies; old people not being able to quietly paddle downstream to interact with nature, as they had done for many years; so many changes in the animal habitat in terms of migration of caribou, goose hunting, which is very dear to them. There are so many things that affect them.

The low-level flights of the military training in that area are very detrimental, and they have an immense impact on their way of life. All we can do for them right now is try to encourage them and support them where we can.

Obviously, once again both the provincial and federal governments, but perhaps more the federal government, are reluctant to accommodate the interests and provide the necessary support, not only moral support but financial and political support, but also to try to accommodate the aboriginal people within our own backyards in Canada. We seem to be more willing to open the door for other countries to come in and make use of our natural environment and perhaps destroy our natural environment. We're not doing much to protect our own backyards. I think that's very wrong and it's a violation of their basic human right to live their own way of life that they've lived for thousands of years. But nobody is doing anything about it.

I don't have the solutions, other than to say that the government must take that very seriously, and must sit down with the Innu people and find ways to avoid any more damage being done to their social life and also to the environment.

Dr. Emery: If I could make one very brief comment, I think part of the big problem here is that no matter what you say, nobody really believes yet. Very few people honestly believe in their own hearts that we have a problem that is of a scale that will wipe out the human race. Nobody really buys that yet. If they did they'd be doing something about it, because it would really hurt.

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I have two grandchildren, and I'm really worried about that because I think it's very important that they have the capacity to live a full life. What does that mean? It means that somehow we have to convince the people, not with some stupid gloom and doom kind of presentation but with clear direction, to say if we don't do something we will disappear.

Now, what is that something? Primarily it means that we have to recognize that you have to maintain systems. In order to maintain systems you have to zone them and you have to be really rigorous about what you're going to do in each of those areas, really rigorous.

I think Chief Kenny Blacksmith here has designed for us a fairly simple approach to begin with. The biosphere reserves concept is another really simple concept you can work with; the national parks is integrated into that. It seems to me one of the questions that was asked earlier about legislation is also possible, and it is to create some kind of a national act that encompasses and gives context to all of the existing legislation so that it gets that vision, which seems to be missing, into place.

You have to get to the public. This whole forum idea is terrific. You really do have to get to the public so that they honestly believe we have a serious problem. Until they do, it's just not going to happen.

There are some existing models of people starting to move forward. This one is the wildlife strategy for Ontario. It has a lot of the right kinds of sentiments in it.

One of the things that I think could be a problem is that each five years the Department of the Environment produces a report on the status of the environment in Canada. As I understand it, this is the last year that will be produced. What does that tell us? Why would it be that we would stop wanting to know what the status of the environment of Canada is all about? It's just that we don't believe there is a big problem yet, but there is, and it'll start to hit hard.

Ms Gelfand: Could I add something as well? We can depress people, and your daughter at17 years old feels much like a lot of people who are knowledgeable. I must say I'm impressed with the level of knowledge that you all have already.

I would like to throw back the challenge that Clifford Lincoln threw on us, which was how we can help. I think there are a lot of things that you as politicians...you are the people in power right now and have access to people who are in power. Let me just tell you some of the things. I think we need to empower people. I think we need to empower your daughter by doing things like Alan discussed: we need public education; we need to tell people what they individually can do to help. We can do something about it. We do have the brains to try to stop this overshooting of our carrying capacity if we try to act now.

In terms of how you people can help us, I'm sure you sit on other committees. You must be able to bring this voice of reason and urgency to some of the other committees that may be working on things, especially the finance and budgetary areas. I think you should also look very closely at what you are funding now and what you have cut. You have cut the state of the environment reporting, which is very important in terms of providing public information. I understand you are still subsidizing all kinds of industries that produce negative effects on our environment. So I think you guys should look very closely at what we are funding.

I think that as MPs you can talk to the ministers of agriculture about what those people at Agriculture Canada told you. The fact is Canadians could live with apples that aren't perfect, and they would be able to survive, and they're good apples. If that's what you're hearing from Agriculture Canada, this is what we hear from Agriculture Canada as well. We can't stop using pesticides because our apples won't be perfect? People will eat imperfect apples.

We need to talk to the ministers responsible for forestry and agriculture. You can look into funding public education programs; all of that has been cut within Environment Canada. Environment Canada was one of the big departments that got a huge cut recently.

Alan was saying protect and zone land. I think that's one of the biggest things. We have a chance in Canada. We have 20% of the wilderness; only 5% to 9% - depending on whose numbers you use - is protected. You have the opportunity to protect wilderness. You are the people who can say we're going to do this or not. We can help you, and we'll be there to help you. Tell us when. We're pushing all the time. But I think the people in Parliament have that capacity, and you should be doing that.

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Finally, talk to Paul Martin, who used to be the environment critic, especially those of you who are Liberals. He believes in this stuff as well. I think he's getting so wrapped up in his finance stuff that he's not thinking about all the other more important, bigger issues. I think he'd be quite open to hearing the concerns of this committee and talking about them. He could change the Income Tax Act, which would significantly change the way wilderness and nature are protected in Canada.

So I think there are things. I don't think we have to be depressed. I think we can just proceed, work hard and fast, and hopefully we'll make it.

The Chairman: There is one change in the last budget that does recognize environmental land transfers for protection. It's very small. It may be that Mr. Martin hasn't spoken to you lately. Perhaps you may want to renew that friendship and refresh his memory.

Would you like to conclude quickly, Mr. Prescott, because we're running out of time.

[Translation]

Mr. Prescott: Certainly. I would like to add a word concerning pesticides. In Quebec, in 1994, we implemented a forest protection strategy and the aim is to eliminate gradually the use of pesticides in forest areas. This strategy did not come from the forestry department bureaucrats, but from a group of stakeholders who collaborated to come up with a common strategy for protecting forest areas. Measures were implemented in order to eliminate pesticides gradually.

Our national forestry policy reflects - probably not enough - this conservation imperative, but there is no strategy in the area of sustainable agriculture. I believe that Canada is going to need an agricultural strategy that encompasses sustainable development and the aspects of conservation that were mentioned earlier.

These measures should be taken immediately by a committee of all stakeholders. I am confident that the organizations represented here today will be only too pleased to help you formulate this national agriculture strategy.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Prescott.

[English]

It's surprising there is so little being said about the fact that pesticides are GST exempt. I wonder if perhaps there is something in the back of your mind but that you felt you should not raise before this committee because of your delicate sentiments with regard to us or because you feel it should be raised somewhere else. I would certainly encourage you to put forward your thoughts before we conclude today, if you have any to propose.

Mr. DeVillers (Simcoe North): One point I wanted to raise has been raised by Mrs. Kraft Sloan, and that was the low-level flights over Labrador and the effect on wildlife. That one has been dealt with by Chief Blacksmith.

The other one dealt with the whole question of habitat. I know, Mr. Chair, that we're having a session on that theme. However, I wonder where it fits into the total overview of the importance of wildlife in Canada. I know we've touched on it in the question of parks, but I'm just wondering about the private sector and tax exemptions or preferences.

I know the Couchiching Conservancy in my riding of Simcoe North has an initiative to try to allow people who want to grant or will property for the protection and conservation of wetlands to have preference in the tax treatment of those grants, similar to charities. I'm wondering if any of the organizations that the panellists represent have similar initiatives or are aware of any progress in those areas.

Ms Gelfand: I sit on the board of directors of Wildlife Habitat Canada, whose credo on the bottom of their letterhead says that without habitat there's no wildlife. It's that simple. Wildlife Habitat Canada is an organization that works with private landowners across the country. It works with provincial and federal governments to try to protect habitat - purchase it, restore it and work with it to ensure wildlife lives in areas that are not protected areas.

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So there are organizations that exist. There are many initiatives and there have been many letters to Paul Martin to change the Income Tax Act, just as you indicate.

Right now, if you donate land you're subject to indicating on your income tax form that you've received a capital gain. In fact, you've received no money; you've donated land. It's completely negative. Pressure to change the Income Tax Act has been something that many groups are doing. Many of the naturalists groups across the country, Nature Saskatchewan or the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, will be working with local landowners to get easements and covenants and rights transferred so that we can protect habitat. It's a big issue.

We focus primarily on protecting the national parks habitat because we're a national conservation group, but when you go provincially or locally to, say, the Thunderbird Field-Naturalists, they'll be working to protect land. Here in Ottawa we have the Ottawa Field-Naturalists, who are working to produce the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. It's right in the Experimental Farm and it shows how you can do backyard habitat promotion to help promote wildlife. There is lots going on.

Chief Blacksmith: The habitat has always been the underlying concern of the aboriginal community, to try to protect the animal and where it lives. In the traditional harvest way of life those two go hand in hand. You are always protecting the habitat of the animal.

What we see more and more is that when the provincial and federal governments legislate different acts, for example in forestry, they don't take into account to protect the habitat. They just go ahead. These buffer zones are very small. Our people have been suggesting to the federal government that these buffer zones should be increased to ten times what is already in the legislation so that the habitat of the animal is protected.

As for the low-level flight problem, the Innu are there to work and live in their way of life and protect the habitat of the animal, but these low-level flights don't help. As a matter of fact, they destroy the environment more.

If the government was really serious about working and supporting aboriginal communities they shouldn't increase social welfare payments. They should be doing a lot more to provide resources to empower them to do something more constructive with the environment. Perhaps there can be alternatives or creative solutions - have some game wardens to protect the environment. That's what they have been accustomed to for hundreds and thousands of years. There is so much that can be done. Instead of just being wards of the state, we can be meaningful players in protecting the animal habitat.

Mr. Finlay (Oxford): I wanted to thank the witnesses this morning. We've certainly had a lot of excellent information. We have gone from A to Z and I haven't disagreed with almost anything you've said. I recognize, as you said, Julie, we can all get emotional about it. Dr. Emery got passionate, the chief did, and so did Mr. Prescott. I feel that my friend Clifford Lincoln gave us a pretty good overview.

I want to ask Clifford something. He was born on a little island, and I also was born on a little island in the West Indies, but his island is more famous than mine. It had the dodo bird. He indicates that some Mauritians would like to have the dodo bird back. A lot of us would like to see timber wolves continue and grizzly bears and black bears and a lot of other things continue. It's a good lesson.

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I don't detect that a majority of people have grasped the significance of what we're talking about. I think Dr. Emery came closest to it.

You made a statement in your opening comments, Dr. Emery, that wildlife is absolutely essential. Most of us around this table have some understanding of that, but I don't know how we are going to get that understanding out to the general population, which is what you have been talking about.

Julie, you talk about things happening and they are. I was out planting trees on Saturday. We had a seminar in Woodstock on pesticide use and gardens and how to have a lawn and a garden without needing perfect lawns and perfect flowers.

Whenever I watch TV, and it isn't often, I see game shows, and I see these ongoing life situation series. I'm always struck whenever I watch them, for as long as I can - and it's not very long - that nobody works, nobody is hungry, nobody is dirty, and everyone lives in this smashing apartment. They are always either going to dinner, going to lunch, having a nap or going to bed, one or the other. Some of the things about life are never portrayed. I have a feeling that most of us really don't want to acknowledge what Dr. Emery said 10 minutes ago and what the Club of Rome said 24 years ago, I believe. Our former Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, was a member of the Club of Rome and a lot of us read that. We don't seem to be able to get that point across.

We've talked about low-level flying. I share one little experience. I was weeding flowers in an aluminum and plastic greenhouse in Israel in 1988 when the pride of the Israeli air force, I guess, an F-15 or an F-16 or something, came over. I thought the end of the world had come. I thought it was Armageddon. I dropped my tool and I rushed outside and saw the tail end of this thing, about 200 feet up, going out over the Lebanese border. It took him about five minutes to get her turned around; he must have been over Arabia by the time he turned it around. He came back over the greenhouses, and again I involuntarily headed for cover. I never heard anything as.... With six of them I wouldn't have had any ears left.

If we don't think that involves the environment, then we're all a little silly. I don't have to go to Labrador and listen; I've heard it. I know what you're talking about, Chief.

How are we going to educate people that wildlife is absolutely essential? It's very difficult to grasp that, it seems to me, when you need a job and when you are overtaxed, in many people's opinion, etc.

Dr. Emery: I can offer a partial solution. It's one that would happen in time and it involves young people.

One thing that is absolutely clear from behavioural studies of people is that once we get to the age of about twelve or fifteen we have essentially set values that are contained in our hearts and our minds that carry on. It's very important for us to be able to ensure that the kinds of ethical and moral values dealing with the natural world that we can implant in our children are of the type that will enable them to guard their existence and their children's existence forever. It's not an easy task. However, it is the one way we can get it done.

It's really hard to change the behaviour of adults. It's not hard to change their attitudes. I'm sure all of us share a similar attitude to the natural world - that it's very important, that it's critical to our life support systems - but we all, I'll bet you, drove here in a car with one person in it. We all have behavioural patterns that are just not an expression of our attitudes.

One of the things that is really clear about kids, however, is that they teach adults. How many of you have experienced a child telling you not to throw that plastic thing somewhere, not to throw those papers out but to put them in a recycling bin? They're simple, but those are the kinds of value sets we have to implant in our children and encourage in young people.

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At the museum our primary target is the family. The idea very specifically is that if we can portray the correct kinds of attitudes and behaviour toward nature with the young children being accompanied by their parents, we will have hit two generations - the young people essentially teaching the adults, not the other way around. I really think that is what we have to do, make sure our early education stresses the value of continued and sustained importance of the natural world.

Ms Gelfand: I just want to indicate that we have been able to change attitudes and behaviour when it comes to drinking and driving. It was a federal government initiative. It was a large, massive public education, using Luba to sing songs hitting at the right age group. These are techniques that the federal government has in its powers, to redirect funds from certain areas into the most critical areas. If you believe it's public education to tell them that wildlife and biodiversity are important, you can do that. It can be done.

The Chairman: Somebody may want to add ParticipACTION to that list.

Ms Gelfand: Yes, exactly, and there are other examples.

Mr. O'Brien (London - Middlesex): I have two questions. First of all, I second the thanks of my colleagues for the presentations. They are very interesting, and I share Peter's concern, if not depression. But it would be easier to share the depression, I guess.

My first question is around the issue of population control. I would like to be the precautionary note on the committee in posing my question and making a comment. It is simply this. I am wondering how we can really achieve effective population control in a natural and what I would consider a moral way.

It's interesting that I am here today. I just had a meeting recently with some people who alerted me to something that we all know, unfortunately, is going on, and that is attempts at population control in what we tend to call the Third World. It's an important initiative, but I don't think it should include things like forced sterilization, which we read about in Canada.

My question is how do we tackle the very serious problem of population growth in the world, but in a natural way, not by exploiting the people of the Third World? It's ironic to hear us talking about protecting various species and so on, and yet sometimes we can overlook human life itself.

I guess I am sounding a precautionary note so that when we address these real concerns we don't do it in unnatural ways, immoral ways. It would really be ironic if we followed that path in trying to achieve population control. I wonder if I could have a response on how we can achieve population control in a responsible manner.

[Translation]

Mr. Prescott: In developing countries, voluntary birth control happens when women and men are aware of contraceptive methods, on the one hand, and, on the other, when the standard of living improves. Poor people have more children than rich people.

To my mind, the first step is to curb resource consumption and it has to come before population control. It is very easy to control resource consumption through tax measures. When gasoline is expensive, people tend to use less. When pesticides are taxed, they are used with more discrimination. Therefore, the first task is to educate young people as well as adults, all those who are spending money every day and consuming goods. They have to be educated through much more severe tax measures.

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When people refuse to understand, they can be shown the right way a little more aggressively. They can be told more directly and pointedly, through measures that have already been implemented in other countries, including environment taxes. In a country suffering from a lack of job opportunities and run-away unemployment, how can we be taxing jobs and services and not pesticides?

Thank you.

[English]

Mr. O'Brien: I appreciate your response and I thank you for saying that perhaps the first initiative should be in consumption and not in population controls, although obviously that's important. But I think it would be simplistic to do. In fact, it alarms me that I'm hearing stories about countries in the west, including Canada, that are closing their eyes to things like forced sterilization in the Third World. That's akin to some of the stupidity we've foisted on our own aboriginal peoples, and we and they have harvested some bitter results out of that. So I'm pleased to have had your comment there. I think it helps to bring some balance to the discussion.

That leads to my second and final question. In terms of consumption, I think Julie said that people will eat imperfect apples. That's not my experience when I see them picking through the apple bin. I guess we could educate them to that.

In a former life I was an educator. What would be your top priority if we could do one new initiative at the federal level in terms of public education? Who would like to give me the idea that we might try to run with as a committee, or I as an individual member of Parliament?

Ms Gelfand: I would suggest that at the level we operate with our small budgets, we're able to educate our members and a certain amount of the public through the media. You sitting in the federal government have access to a much larger purse. You're the only organization, in my opinion, that can buy the media we would need to buy. So my suggestion would be a public education campaign based on the ParticipACTION or drinking and driving campaigns. Talk to the people at Health Canada who have done those massive public education campaigns. That's where I would start. People are watching television. That's where you're going to hit them.

Dr. Emery: If you were also to take that as the foundation and then build in tax incentives and economic rewards for people who have the right kinds of approaches to this, that would really reinforce the reality of what you're talking about so it's not an empty campaign.

One of the major problems with our economics right now is that the theoretical base for how you design an economy assumes the environment is essentially a free good, and that really has to shift. The only way to make that shift is to start insisting that people either put the environment back the way they found it or get taxed so that we can correct it in some other place.

The Chairman: The members of the committee are invited to be patient for five minutes. As we conclude here, there is a matter the clerk has raised that needs a very brief discussion for three or four minutes after we conclude our hearing with the panel. So please bear with us.

As to the members of the panel, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you very much. You've certainly launched this forum very well this morning and provided the broadest possible base on which a forum of this kind needed to be launched. From every intervention you heard, you must realize that we all appreciate very much what you have done.

Perhaps you would like to make a brief concluding statement of one minute each before we end our hearing with you.

Dr. Emery: I'd be happy to start.

Something that has really come out here that I think is very, very important is the notion that we have to have an overall encompassing view of what the nature of the problem is. Wildlife as viewed from fish, feathers, and fur is not going to work. It has to be system management, and people have to be a part of that system. Part of the reason people can be a part of that system is that we can teach our young people particularly and eventually everybody the value of our natural world. If we don't have it, we don't have us.

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Ms Gelfand: In my last minute I would say do what you can. If we can't solve the world's problems, do what you can to solve them: enact endangered species legislation; finish the National Parks Act; launch a public education campaign; ban the use of certain pesticides; change the Income Tax Act. These are all things you in your power can do and it would be one more incremental step towards the overall solution.

Chief Blacksmith: For the aboriginal community, I would like to have the governments respect the treaty obligations that are entrenched in the Constitution and also allow the aboriginal community to be meaningful and active players in all discussions as they relate to wildlife and the environment. I think these are the two concerns I would like to point out at this time.

[Translation]

Mr. Prescott: We already have the benefit of a common vision; it may be imperfect, but it is already there in the documents adopted by the provincial and federal governments, and in particular the wildlife policy and the biodiversity strategy.

[English]

We will find in these documents a vision, the vision that we need, and we will have to fight together to implement all the single recommendations of these documents.

The Chairman: Once again we thank you all.

We will convene again at 3:30 with another panel. I am sure it will be as exciting and as informative as your presentation has been. Again, many thanks.

The meeting is adjourned.