CHER Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, March 2, 1999

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[Translation]

The Chairman (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)): Good morning. This meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is now open, and we are discussing Bill C-48, an Act Respecting Marine Conservation Areas.

[English]

I declare open the meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which meets to study Bill C-48, an act respecting marine conservation areas.

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Before we hear the witnesses, just briefly I'd like to thank very sincerely all the members who took part in the tour. I want to thank every one of you. I know during the break it's not easy, but I think it was a really worthwhile exercise. So I'd like to thank all the members who took part.

Also, I'll just mention briefly that the minister has suggested that because of all the various concerns and remarks that were expressed by the witnesses, and considering we have witnesses today, he would prefer to have a little time to prepare himself to appear before us instead of appearing tomorrow. He has suggested the date of March 10 for his appearance. So in that case, the meeting tomorrow will not take place.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski—Mitis, BQ): March 10?

The Chairman: March 10. If I may suggest that we take 15 minutes to talk about our incoming schedule at the end of this meeting, because if the minister is displaced.... Mr. Mark has made the suggestion that we look at having a business meeting on Thursday, because the officials were going to appear after the minister to wrap up the session. So Thursday we could instead meet as a committee to discuss the incoming business. Maybe we could just stay for 10 or 15 minutes toward the end, around 12.45 p.m., to discuss this.

I would like to welcome Dr. Jon Lien, the honorary research professor at Memorial University, who I asked to appear before us—we're extremely pleased you're here, Dr. Lien—and Dr. Gordon Nelson, who is a professor of geography and regional planning at the University of Waterloo. It will give us a different perspective on the act from a completely impartial and academic point of view.

So I'll start with you, Dr. Lien.

Dr. Jon Lien (Honorary Research Professor, Memorial University): Thank you very much.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. My background is as an animal behaviourist who has been an academic. I've worked on oceans all my career. I have served on many committees dealing with oceans, fisheries, and the management of oceans. I live in a coastal community on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, and when I'm not working, I go out in a boat and sail and things like this. So my life is totally involved with oceans.

I have served as an adviser to the feasibility study committee for a marine conservation area on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. So I'm familiar with the actual ground testing of this kind of legislation.

At least 25 years ago I wrote my first letter to Parks Canada pointing out that it was a curious kind of oversight, and I believed a serious one, that we did not have protected areas in oceans. I thought their value as a structural conservation approach to oceans was needed, and I believed strongly that Canadians needed to learn about oceans so that we would support the proper management of these areas. I've written many letters to Parks Canada over the years about marine-protected areas, and I finally feel I've gotten the right answer. I really do congratulate Parks Canada on Bill C-48. I believe this is a necessary initiative. It's an urgent need in coastal Newfoundland, I can tell you that. And I think this legislation gives us a way to start.

I think to put this bill in perspective you need to look back at the initial establishment of the national parks system in Canada. When Banff was established, it was a very humble beginning that has turned into the most magnificent series of national parks in the world. I believe what Bill C-48 does is launch us on a similar initiative, this time in oceans. I really believe we're at the frontier of a very exciting adventure.

You can tell from my initial remarks that I believe this bill deserves your support for a wide variety of reasons. I know it has come about from a very careful and prolonged consultation process with a diverse group of Canadians. At times I became very frustrated that we were simply talking and weren't actually getting anything in the water. But it reflects the wisdom that has accumulated over these consultations.

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I believe support for marine conservation areas and conservation of oceans is very strong. The marine protected areas are recognized as the structural core of marine conservation. Internationally there's been wide development of these kinds of initiatives under different kinds of legislation with different kinds of uses and with different kinds of problems. But worldwide there's been a growing series of reserves established in the ocean. There has been growing support by local people in local communities for this kind of initiative.

I call your attention to the study done by the round table on the environment and economy in which coastal people in Newfoundland were consulted about conservation needs for fishery resources that were the key to their community's survival. In that report, protected areas and conservation areas are seen as a very important initiative.

Several years ago I asked 1% of all the fifth and ninth graders in Canada about their attitudes towards oceans and ocean wildlife. I was amazed at how supportive they were of protecting the ocean by a series of sanctuaries. When they were given an area of ocean, their most common response was to set it aside as a sanctuary that would contain and control human development. Stephen Kellert of Yale did a study a number of years ago and found very widespread support among Canadians for the setting aside of ocean areas as conservation areas.

I believe this act makes a very important contribution to a national program of protecting oceans. Protected area initiatives for oceans have recently been established in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and in Environment Canada. The uniqueness of this approach is that in fact it strives to protect ocean biodiversity. It's not directed toward fishery resources. It's not directed toward specific kinds of wildlife groups, but it protects all of the diversity that occurs in the ocean ecosystem.

I believe the bill will facilitate marine ecotourism. Last week I completed a study of whale watching in Canada. You will be interested to know that half of all the people who come to Newfoundland these days go out on boat tours to see whales. In Canada, boat tours are one of the fastest growing tourism industries of all. I believe this bill will provide a basis for that. All of the Atlantic provinces, British Columbia, and, as I was much surprised to find, even Manitoba has a tourist promotion based on ocean ecotourism.

If you're going to have that, what's required as a core for it to be a sustainable activity is protected areas, and this will not be the small protected areas of unique or critical habitat that Fisheries does. It won't be the wildlife reserves that Environment Canada does. It will require these large, national marine conservation areas.

I think these areas will make a substantial contribution to fisheries. I served for four years on the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, which advises the Minister of Fisheries on groundfish resources in the Atlantic. Repeatedly, this council said we have to consider marine protected areas as a major initiative to preserve these groundfish stocks, which are the lifeblood of communities. So there is good support for this kind of approach even in Fisheries.

I believe another benefit of this bill will be the contribution these areas make to Canadians' awareness of oceans and their understanding and support for the proper management and proper care of our ocean environment. I believe these areas will have the potential to drive innovation, and I'll give you a specific example from Newfoundland.

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In anticipation of the no dumping of fish plant offal in protected areas, the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation has established a program of processing this kind of waste. In fact, what they have done is establish a process by which, very successfully, they turn this into a rich compost, which people can buy and use in planting their gardens and their flowers.

I think there is great fear in the aquaculture industry that these areas will restrict their industry, but recently, after an environmental review of aquaculture in B.C., in fact that industry has shown remarkable ability to innovate and establish environmentally friendlier practices. The truth is that Canadians have indicated over and over again that they are willing to pay a higher price for these kinds of products if they have the assurance that they are produced in an environmentally friendly way.

One of the things I'm working on specifically for a group affiliated with the northeast coast feasibility study is the special marketing of products from these carefully managed areas. The World Wide Fund for Nature and Unilever have established a stewardship council, which certifies fisheries as environmentally friendly. What they have also done is lined up a bunch of marketing agencies that ask a premium price for these kinds of ocean products and get it.

So the return to the fishers is greater when they can be certified as environmentally friendly. I think in these marine conservation areas we will have fisheries that are certified, and I would be dumbfounded if the fish produced in those areas were not marketed in that way.

The last point I'll make in arguing support for this is I've looked at different possibilities for managing these areas. It provides for the use of the area but protects the ecosystem on a sustainable basis. The things in this bill seem to me to provide the necessary requirements for at least starting on a program that allows for use and preservation. You take a representative area and you zone it carefully, depending on its sensitivity, and you proceed from there. I think it does meet the basic requirements of many of the groups that have been interested....

I'm going to switch to some criticism. What's gone before is in fact saying that I really do like this bill very much, but I do have some criticisms I'd like to point out.

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Nothing's perfect, of course, and this is a new adventure. Establishing protected conservation areas in cold oceans is quite new in the history of all ocean conservation. I believe strongly that we will be on a very steep learning curve.

My major complaint regarding the act is that it does not provide for a review of the act. In the Oceans Act there is a clause that says the legislation will be reviewed in three years. So there's a mandatory review. I believe this early process of establishing reserves and conservation areas is going to be a very dramatic learning process, and systematically reviewing our efforts and reflecting on successes and failures is a critical activity we want to ensure happens. So one recommendation I have is that this be included.

The discussion of this legislation in Newfoundland that has occurred on our northeast coast has been an interesting thing for me to observe. In Ottawa you can deal with this legislation in a fairly encapsulated way. For local people, talk about a marine conservation area involves the local economy, the local schools, the state of the roads, the future of their kids, and the whole social climate of their communities. So dealing with this is an extremely complicated business out there in the communities.

Learning how to do that best so that we maximize the use of the areas and maximize preservation is going to be a very important learning task. Through the experience we'll gain some insights that will enable us to perhaps take some things out of this bill or put some things in. Right now, I don't think we have the basis in actual experience to change the bill very much.

Part of the legend of Cousteau is that the ocean is an unexploited area of great potential. In fact the ocean is not a wilderness, and the settlement of Canada was based on establishing communities near the rich and highly productive areas. We know from Fisheries that we have now fully exploited or overexploited most of those resources. So you're not establishing this kind of conservation initiative in an empty wilderness area, as we did in Banff. We are establishing it in an area where people are dependent on ocean resources for their livelihoods.

This means we will have to deal in very sensitive ways with the local people. The attitude of fishers toward the ocean is very similar to the attitude of aboriginal peoples toward their land. It is more than a place to earn a living; it defines them as people and a culture, and it provides a way of life that is totally enveloping. So their feelings about ocean areas are very complex, and we will have to learn to deal with them.

In coastal Newfoundland, as in many other coastal areas of Canada, there's a tremendous distrust of government. Government management has led to the collapse of fish stocks, changed UI requirements, taken people off payments, and things like that. Often it's felt in these communities that there is no sensitivity or understanding of local needs, so overcoming that distrust will be a major hurdle.

Andy Mitchell, the Secretary of State for Parks, came down to Newfoundland and talked to the advisory committee. He said “I know you don't trust us. In fact, trust is something we're going to have to earn, step by step.” I think that is very true.

It's going to be a lengthy process to establish these areas. We can't just sort of say this is a marine conservation area and have it. The Chesapeake Bay restoration foundation in the United States recently celebrated 25 years after their establishment. The gist of their report on their workshop was “We're now organized and we're starting to work on our agenda.” I think these areas will take a long time to get established.

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The second point I'd like to make in terms of caution about this bill is that much of what is required to manage oceans better is simply knowledge. Doing research and gaining a scientific understanding of how oceans work is costly and very specialized, and Parks can draw on strengths in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They can establish participatory science programs, as they have, for instance, on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. They can develop sentinel fisheries programs, or something like that, in conjunction with DFO, but they require more knowledge to wisely manage these areas. Right now I think we can make very big mistakes, as we've demonstrated in Fisheries, based on our current knowledge base.

When you talk about interpretation in cold water that's just above freezing, we're going to have to learn to interpret this environment in a different way. You can't walk people through the environment. You can't have everyone jump in and see what's going on. So I think there will have to be a lot of innovation and learning in the way Parks Canada interprets marine conservation areas.

The establishment of these areas will take resources, and I think it would be a cruel act to give them the responsibility of establishing these areas and not make resources available to do it. If Parks suddenly has the responsibility for creating a whole different conservation area system and must still maintain their national historical parks, there will be a natural competition between these divisions for scarce resources. As the new boy on the block, I think the marine conservation initiative will suffer.

Parks Canada has certainly shown they can innovate and do a lot with a minimal amount of resources. For instance, on this northeast coast feasibility study, they have used traditional knowledge and interviewed fishers as a way to define critical habitat for specific species. The result of this mapping process is an absolutely dazzling amount of information about the whole northeast coast area.

I want to conclude by saying I strongly support this area. I believe your action on it is historic. In 100 years we will look back and ask why we didn't do it sooner, but we'll say we're so glad we started. We will learn a lot, and we'll be required to modify our approach as we go along, and perhaps modify this legislation. But I think the legislation as it stands now gives us an adequate basis to start.

I come from a little community where my neighbours have benefited from and been devastated by the health of oceans. From that background, and on behalf of that kind of culture, I really want to urge the adoption of this bill. I think it's very easy here in Ottawa to deal with it as a different kind of legislation—and I don't know how involved you get with this emotionally—but from my point of view and from my neighbours' point of view, this represents an opportunity to get things right in our relationship with the ocean environment. I really urge the adoption of the bill.

Thanks for the opportunity.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Lien.

Dr. Nelson, the floor is yours.

Dr. Gordon Nelson (Professor of Geography and Regional Planning, University of Waterloo): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Lien has made many of the points I was going to make, so I will try to be a little more direct, focus on some of the things that perhaps are a little different, and represent a somewhat different perspective than his.

My background and my interests are different. I live in the Great Lakes region where marine conservation areas are important. I've been involved in various activities connected with the examination of marine conservation areas for different parts of the Great Lakes, particularly Lake Erie, for about eight years.

I'm chair of the Heritage Resources Centre, which works at the interface between public policy and practice, and research and planning. In association with Parks Canada and others, we have held a series of workshops in the Long Point and Point Pelee areas and in other parts of the area that have some interest in or are relevant to marine conservation areas. I've also done some work on ecosystem conservation plans in the Georgian Bay area, which in my view is an ideal place for a marine conservation area. But there are some difficulties, which I'll touch on as we go along.

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I also did some work on the Shetland Islands in the North Sea in the eighties and nineties on the effects of offshore oil and gas on the coastal zone and on some of the environments in northeastern Scotland and the Shetland Islands. At that point I came into contact with marine conservation areas of various kinds.

I'm a board member of CPAWS, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and I'm also a board member of Heritage Canada. I'm interested in both the ecological integrity perspective and the commemorative integrity perspective on this legislation.

I list here some of the strong points of the bill, and I don't think there's any need to repeat those at length. Basically, as Jon has said, this is a benchmark piece of legislation that for the first time lays out some of the directions toward meeting the challenges and needs we have in protecting marine and large freshwater ecosystems, in the same way as was done through national parks in terrestrial or land situations.

There are some improvements that I think would be worth considering, and I've set these forth at greater length. I find the preamble to be really very useful. It sets out the principles in quite a nice way.

There are three ideas here, though, which I think are important, that might be included in the preamble or, perhaps more appropriately, in the purpose statement, subclause 4(1). The first is to actually insert the idea of maintaining ecological integrity. The words “maintaining the structure and form of the ocean systems” are in there. That's basically a definition of ecological integrity. Ecological integrity is found in the National Parks Act, so it would seem appropriate that there be some kind of parallelism between the two, especially in the sense that given the Oceans Act and the Canadian wildlife marine areas, this particular piece of legislation is the one that has the highest preservation thrust.

I think it's worthwhile to put commemorative integrity in the purpose statement. The idea of cultural heritage appears from time to time in the legislation, but not, I think, to the extent it might.

I'm speaking here a little bit from the point of view of the experience in the Great Lakes, where the Fathom Five National Marine Park was established by the province to protect shipwrecks and cultural resources, but it has over time, in the manner Jon described, through the gradual evolution of interest and practice in these areas, become also a very strong area for nature conservation. So the cultural and natural heritage interweave quite nicely here. I think there might be some value in making that commemorative integrity a little clearer.

The other thing I would like to see strengthened in the bill, which I speak a little bit more about later on in the brief, is the research and monitoring function. I think it would be useful to have that stated as an explicit purpose of the bill.

I make some points about prohibitions. I feel that prohibitions of particular activities such as bottom trawling or dredging or dragging should be very carefully considered and put in the bill.

There are some other concerns in some of the other briefs I've looked at about aquaculture and navigation channel dredging. I think these concerns are certainly appropriate. When I did some work in the Shetland Islands of the kind I mentioned earlier, fin fish aquaculture was quite widespread and was causing a lot of difficulties in those areas. In fact, some small areas around the Shetlands were set aside at that time specifically not to allow aquaculture, on the grounds that activity, particularly the production of large amounts of waste, was having some negative effects on environment and on ecological integrity.

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I also touch on the notion of environmental assessment, which seems to be almost absent from the bill. For me it would be a basic part of a precautionary principle or precautionary approach. Again, in the spirit of the adaptive or gradual management or the evolution of more effective management, in the sense Jon Lien described it, environmental assessment can help with that. It can help with the actual implementation of the precautionary principle. I think it should be explicitly placed at some appropriate point in the bill.

I have some concern about the management plan. I think having a management plan is a terrific and essential idea. I think it might be placed in the bill a little more explicitly. I make a suggestion at the end of page 2 to the effect that in subclause 4(3) a phrase could be added to the effect that a management plan for each marine conservation area would zone it for uses commensurate with protection of the local environment, the ecological integrity of the marine conservation area, and the overall health of the ecosystem, which are the three scales I think this bill attempts to address.

At the top of the second last page I return to this business of the essential role of science and monitoring in marine conservation areas. I point out that it could be argued that this is the most important role of the marine conservation areas.

What we lack in Canada is any kind of benchmark against which we can measure changes in the oceanic or large freshwater environments. The effects on the habitat, the seabed, and other aspects of the system have been going on for a long time, as Jon Lien again pointed out, but we don't really know as much about those changes as we would if we had had areas set aside for scientific work and for monitoring, so that we were able to compare changes outside these sanctuaries with changes inside them, and we would be able to know the directions in which our current policies and practices are taking us. I'm of the view that a large part of each marine conservation area needs to be zoned specifically for science and monitoring and subjected to a relatively high degree of protection.

The U.S. has explicitly recognized the essential role of research and monitoring in its marine conservation areas and has set up a specific type of area, known as a national estuarine research reserve, that is primarily intended for such purposes. They're focused on estuaries such as Chesapeake Bay and the bay near San Diego, because these are particularly important marine habitats. They link deep water and shallow water. They are measures of what is happening inland. But they are also using this science and monitoring in other kinds of conservation areas under their coastal zone legislation.

Toward the end I make some comments about title and administration. I think clear title is a very useful idea but probably very difficult to achieve in some areas. Certainly in the area I've worked in in recent years in the Great Lakes, complete clear title would be very difficult to secure. In that regard I suggest that perhaps some kind of long-term agreement of the type set forth in subclause 8(4), which sets a basis for this, might be a way of bringing people to the marine conservation area table and working out over a period of time to what extent clear title might and might not apply.

I also agree, as I note in my point 7, that the way in which subclause 8(1) is set out severely limits the ability of the Department of Canadian Heritage to manage marine conservation areas. I like the suggestion that was made in the World Wildlife Fund Canada submission to the effect that rather than both ministers agreeing before an activity can be prohibited, both ministers should need to agree before the activity can occur.

In the end I return to this final thought about cultural heritage and commemorative integrity. Jon Lien has pointed out the prospects for ecotourism and, for me, heritage tourism in these marine conservation areas. The example in the Great Lakes of the attraction of shipwrecks and of divers and activities of that sort, particularly in Fathom Five, has shown that this is a very valuable activity if properly cared for from a nature conservation point of view. I think somewhere in excess of 40,000 divers go to the Tobermory area every year to visit these shipwrecks.

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Again, I think there are several reasons for perhaps paying a little bit more attention to the cultural heritage and commemorative integrity sides than has been done in the act.

I close by thanking you all for the opportunity to make this presentation and to offer my ideas here. I'm very grateful for that.

I support the legislation, but I have some concerns and I've expressed those in the remarks I've made so far. I would also echo, although I haven't stated it in the brief, my worry about having the resources to do this job. I think it's very important that the resource side of this legislation—the implications for resources—be thought through very carefully. I think the Parks Canada Agency will need additional resources to do this well, as will some of the other partners. That just echos a view that we haven't done enough in investing the proper environmental safeguards, or sustainable development safeguards, in our seas, lakes, and oceans.

What Jon Lien has described is basically a kind of adapted management or movement toward some kind of ideal, and I think he and I are in quite strong agreement with respect to that approach.

Thanks.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Nelson.

I'll open the meeting to questions. Mr. Mark.

Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank both doctors for being here today. Your comments have really been helpful.

I don't believe there are any Canadians who would disagree that protected areas or management areas are a good thing. I think Dr. Lien hit the nail on the head when he said it's really an issue of trying to convince the people who live in the regions that this is a good thing, that it isn't an outright blatant attack on their culture and livelihood.

The remarks about Andy Mitchell stating there's a lack of trust...that's really one of the problems with this piece of legislation. The people who have come before this committee who oppose it really oppose it from that position, from the position of trust, or lack of it, from the position of a process they have no trust in, the whole consultation process, whether it's....

I guess one of the biggest problems is the unknown. As you know, this bill basically sweeps the three coasts in terms of the potential region for designating protected areas. I've said before that they would certainly make it easier if the park officials and the scientists knew exactly what they wanted to protect. It would certainly make the decision easier for people who live along all three coasts of this country.

The other thing I was very glad to hear was that Dr. Lien felt it shouldn't be a process that is fast-tracked just to get it done, so we have all these 29 protected areas. I'm glad to hear that, and as a member of the opposition, I think our role is to make sure the process is the correct one and that people do have input, that people do have a lot of say.

So my question to you—and I guess you both alluded to it as well—is how do we deal with the transition from legislation to reality and make it a comfortable one?

Dr. Jon Lien: I think that's exactly the question that I've been most concerned about. For me, we just don't have enough experience to do much but get started with the idea. I really do believe that as we go along we're going to want to modify this bill in a number of ways.

Part of the problem in initiating these programs is that here the government is coming to the people and saying have we got a deal for you. You know, I'm from Ottawa, I'm going to help you, that kind of thing. The process by which the local people are led to this as something that can help them, that can benefit them, hasn't been there. It is a new initiative. It has all kinds of new ideas and it has grave implications for people's lives. So there's this fear of novelty that would have serious consequences. We need to give people time to explore that.

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So over and over again I've heard the people say we need a dynamic process. The term people like us would use is “adaptive management”. Let's try things, see how they work, and then pull back, try another thing, pull back if we have to, or go ahead.

Part of the scary thing of this legislation for local people is its very permanence. While that is what establishes the core of the conservation value, it is also one of the things we're most worried about.

In terms of this basic distrust of government, it really doesn't matter if it's establishing a marine conservation area, or dealing with UI, or medicare, or something like this. In the coastal communities I come from, the distrust is at an all-time high. I don't know all the things that built it, but I know it's there and it's a reality we have to deal with in these programs.

What we've done in the process on the northeast coast—and I've tried to help the committee in every way I can—is to say what we're going to do here is in and of itself worthwhile. So in the end we might say no to Parks Canada, but the process of exploring our conservation needs, of exploring our options, of identifying segments of the community that have special needs or requirements, of learning to work together cooperatively, and then the education that goes along with it—all of that is inherently worthwhile.

I can tell you that Parks Canada has wisely invested whatever resources they have in our operation. It will have a pay-off in these particular benefits, even if in the end we say go away.

Those would be my comments on your specific concern.

The Chairman: In the interests of time, we have several questioners who are ready with questions, so could we keep our questions and answers concise, please?

Dr. Nelson.

Dr. Gordon Nelson: I think the gradual approach is the way to do this and perhaps to begin in areas where there is some possibility of success, perhaps more than others. The work we've been doing over the last eight years or so in the Great Lakes, particularly in Lake Erie where we did an analysis of the possible areas for marine conservation area establishment, resulted in the identification of some clear differences in view and levels of trust among people in different parts of the area.

The area where the views were most positive was around Point Pelee National Park, where there had been a long history of working with the Parks people and where it was clear there were advantages to going along with new programs, at least from their perspective. The other thing is that in this case there are American examples. The Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve is in Ohio on the U.S. side. That makes this another area that's favourable for this kind of initiative.

The people in the area have even set up their own private marine conservation area for protection of diving and other resources off Leamington near Point Pelee, and there are similar examples on the west coast.

So it is possible to find places where people have some confidence in this kind of process, where it could go ahead, and where there could be lessons learned for other areas that are a little more doubtful.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Ms. Tremblay.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you for your presentation, but neither one of you has convinced me of the merits of this bill.

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We heard too many witnesses who were opposed to the bill, namely witnesses from Newfoundland, who are not opposed to marine conservation, but who certainly don't want an area to be established in Bonavista, where there are 35 aquaculture operations.

Your premise, Dr. Lien, is that

[English]

the act reflects a careful consultation and study process.

[Translation]

You started by saying that. We were told here, in this committee, that the Government of Quebec had been consulted and four departments had replied. The four letters from the departments were tabled before us: one requested a change of address, because it had been misdirected; another said thank you very much, the document has been received and please keep us informed of the situation. There are acknowledgments of receipt, and not replies to consultation.

We have always held that the consultations were inadequate. They have no importance or scientific value. Just because we are given a list of people who received the document, that does not mean that they have been consulted. If they have all replied like the Government of Quebec, that really doesn't mean very much.

You wrote to Parks Canada 25 years ago asking that something be done. Why is it necessary for Parks Canada to do something, when there are already two departments, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, involved in the process? Why should Parks Canada go in there with its heavy guns and upset a lot of people from coast to coast?

[English]

The Chairman: Dr. Lien.

Dr. Jon Lien: First of all, in terms of the appearance of the feasibility study committee from Newfoundland, I have heard of their testimony and I understand what they said. There is a considerable debate about whether we will go ahead with the marine conservation area on the northeast coast. However, I want to tell you that since that group appeared before you, they have gone back to the committee and told them what they said—that when pressed they would probably say no—but the committee voted to proceed with this feasibility study. They find it inherently valuable, and as a committee they cannot tell you how it's going to end. They have not produced the model they want to work with and so on.

I believe the consultation within the feasibility study has been excellent. They've just completed a series of workshops. These were well attended. There were very fine discussions. They are producing a paper that summarizes those and presents their own ideas, the committee's ideas, about what could go ahead, what's practical, what's necessary, and so on.

I think it's important to understand that this represents one type of marine protected area program. The kinds of areas that are envisioned under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are to protect unique or critical habitat. Many of these will be exceptionally small areas. For instance, one of their pilot projects is in the Race Rocks out in B.C., and it's a very small area. Right now they are not envisioning using that particular piece of legislation to broadly protect a whole representative marine ecosystem.

The legislation under Environment Canada is in fact to protect critical wildlife habitat, and that will largely be devoted toward particular productive areas; that is to say, a group of seabirds' needs or something like that. This is really the only possibility for meeting the sort of national biodiversity goals in oceans. So I think it has a very unique role. You could argue that this isn't important or something like that, but I don't think you can say it completely duplicates the activities of these other departments.

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The Chairman: Mr. Nelson, do you want to add something?

Dr. Gordon Nelson: Yes. I was involved in a master's research project that was part of the public consultation planning process for the marine conservation area proposed for Bonavista. The committee, in examining the student and the people who inputted on the thesis, were quite laudatory and impressed by the consultation process that was used. This thesis was supported by Parks Canada, and the student worked with Parks Canada while doing the thesis.

So my own understanding of that situation and the reports I received, and the comments we had from others on it, which took place over about two to three years, was very positive.

On the difference between the different kinds of reserves, I think if you go to the Great Lakes, if you look at Long Point, Long Point has a national wildlife area that is a terrestrial equivalent of the national marine wildlife areas. When we did our work in Erie and in other areas, there were quite positive views towards a national marine wildlife area for Long Point, because that was the tradition they had. It protected migratory birds and waterfowl. It protected their habitat. It did not try to represent large areas in the sense that Jon has just stated it.

So there is a real distinction between the two purposes. The one, the wildlife area, is species-oriented and habitat-oriented with respect to particular species. The other is trying to catch broadly representative areas and, in my own view, should be mainly for science and monitoring, or as much for science and monitoring as anything else, as I indicated in my brief. That's not necessarily the case in some of these wildlife areas.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, NDP): I have a number of questions. I think there was a handout on specific title. I also want to follow up on Mr. Mark's question on the title of marine parks as opposed to conservation areas. I have an issue with that one in terms of DFO's protected areas. As marine protected areas and then marine conservation areas, there seems to be a grey area of responsibility in jurisdiction and first opportunity to declare an area...or a protected area or a conservation area comes into play. Then there are the questions of the whole obligation of resources, the permanency of this act, DFO's intentions, the long-term implications, a consultation process. You deal with responsibilities of certain industries. You may have a preference, as was indicated by the Bonavista group that was here. From what they said, it sounded like they preferred the DFO process, which DFO deems to be an industry proponent as well, not only a regulatory body but also a proponent of the fishing industry.

The issue of the title of the Saguenay Marine Park was not mentioned in this paper. I think that was just passed this past year, and this park certainly serves a purpose.

What I'm trying to address here is that I never realized the international obligations of the 12- to 200-mile zone. Why wouldn't we have a marine park with maybe more of a core area surrounded by a conservation area? Maybe the science and research aspect of it might give rise to that.

The other concern is that when the bill first came out, you will notice that the marine parks are limited to the Great Lakes, but there are two great lakes by name in the Northwest Territories—Great Bear and Great Slave. Also, along there, there is a string of huge lakes called Lake Athabasca and Lake Winnipeg that connect the northern great lakes and the southern great lakes. Why wouldn't we consider marine protection in those lakes as well, even though they're freshwater inland bodies? I do have a concern about that.

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The Chairman: Are you addressing the second question especially to the doctors here or to the officials?

Mr. Rick Laliberte: The doctors have voiced an opinion supporting the bill, but it's limiting the 29 areas to the Great Lakes and the oceans. I'd like to hear their view of the great lakes internally.

But also, specifically, we do have a marine park that was created in the St. Lawrence in the province of Quebec. Why couldn't we design something that could reflect both needs, a conservation area but also a marine park, maybe more specific, more core?

The Chairman: Okay, briefly, Dr. Lien.

Dr. Jon Lien: I think there are things that need to be worked out between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the parks people. I can tell you that one of the major problems we have had in the Newfoundland feasibility study is that DFO has been kind of sitting on the sidelines and watching what will happen. They have the mandated control of fisheries, and fishermen would rather live with a devil known than a devil unknown. They know what has been done in the past, and they don't necessarily like it, but they understand it.

I think what needs to happen is that both departments need to bring their strength to both processes. Parks Canada is the most respected presenter of environmental information in Canada. DFO is world class in research and management of oceans. I think we need to web their special talents together in a truly national program.

As for the idea of zoning where we have a marine-protected area as a core and a conservation area around that, that's a good idea, absolutely.

In the marine conservation area on the northeast coast, that kind of thing is already happening. There are lobster protection areas under fishery variance, where they are closed to fishing. These are being monitored and so on. The fishermen like them, they're very successful, and they will undoubtedly multiply throughout a conservation area.

With fisheries, many of the protected areas will involve a single species of commercial interest or the habitat they require. The conservation area has a broader kind of mandate.

On the last point, as to whether we should include some of the other major lakes, I don't have strong feelings about that, but if it is a helpful piece of legislation for those areas, fine. I think one of the major benefits of marine conservation areas is as Parks Canada begins to interpret these areas and the kinds of activities that go on there for the Canadian public. So in Saguenay, for instance, the teaching about the white whales and so on has been very important.

Parks Canada has led the nation in the control of whale watching. DFO has not done that. The Saguenay whale-watching regulations have been the basic ones that everybody looks at as a way to start. So I think both departments have to bring their expertise to bear on this process of a national network of protected areas.

The Chairman: Have you anything to add, Dr. Nelson, or do you agree?

Dr. Gordon Nelson: Yes, I think it's useful to think about these pieces of legislation and these policies for marine areas and for freshwater lakes in comparison to the arrangements we've made over many years for terrestrial areas. If you look at many parts of the country, you'll find national parks, and they are intended to capture and protect and conserve large areas representative of the natural regions in which they're found. But you'll also find Canada Wildlife areas, for example, Long Point, or other places, sometimes in cooperation with provinces, that are mainly designed to protect particular species of birds or animals, and they complement the national parks in that respect.

You'll also find various kinds of provincial parks and reserves. In fact, in Ontario there are about seven classes of provincial park, all of which are aimed at somewhat different things.

Now we have at the municipal and regional levels areas that are being developed for natural purposes. We have natural areas being built into municipal plans for large areas like Kitchener-Waterloo, or Halton, or part of Toronto. I think what's going to evolve over time in the spirit of this gradual adaptive approach is a set of areas that will protect, conserve, and provide for different uses of the oceans.

• 1210

Again, if you look at Lake Erie, there's a national park with some conservation in the offshore waters. There's a national wildlife area, and on the American side there's a national estuarine research reserve. Through the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources there is a variety of fish sanctuaries, some of which are seasonal, to protect the breeding of certain species. All of these are part of an imaginative and sensitive sustainable development system.

What we're looking at here is the opportunity to begin moving that way, through cooperation among the different departments with their expertise, so the marine wildlife area will focus on species and birds and things that are of concern from a wildlife point of view.

The national marine parks will conserve entire systems. The Oceans Act doesn't even apply to the Great Lakes, so we don't have a comparable fisheries opportunity for the Great Lakes; it applies only to the oceans. So there is a need within the Great Lakes for something that would conform to the Oceans Act in the three oceans.

The Chairman: Mr. Muise.

Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our guests.

Dr. Lien, you mentioned something, and I'd like to just follow up a little if I could. You mentioned we don't have enough experience in establishing MCAs; therefore we'll have to modify as we go. Would this not be risky to do? Once it's established we're locked into that.

You asked whether we here in Ottawa become emotionally involved with this. I'd like to share with you that I do, because where I live in the southwestern part of Nova Scotia, a great deal of our economy works around the ocean and the coastal communities derive most of their living from that. I have great concern that if we do something wrong we'll be locked in and coastal communities will be doomed. I would not like to see that, and I'd like you to touch on that a little.

Dr. Jon Lien: In southwest Nova, there are many initiatives actually underway now to establish some kind of marine protected areas for this or that. There is the Fundy Fixed Gear Council, and so on, with community management and community quotas. They've been doing really quite interesting and exciting things in new ways to manage fisheries and preserve these coastal communities. That is the highest priority.

I agree that one of the major concerns of coastal communities is this irreversibility of an untried, unfamiliar thing. I think the bill would find much greater acceptability if there were some reversibility or trial in the establishment process. If we could pilot actions somehow and try this, and then review it at a set time and see whether we really wanted it, I know it would be a major factor in reducing the anxiety of many people about this bill.

When you make things reversible, the problem is that that is not the way we will achieve conservation over time, because there is this sliding scale—this sort of creeping use and using up of ocean spaces. You need to be aware of that. If there were a reversibility period or trial, I wouldn't disagree with that. I would disagree if everything were always reversible. At some point we have to decide we're going to go with this.

Mr. Mark Muise: Another comment we've heard from various witnesses is that we're creating another level of bureaucracy. We've seen the Saguenay Marine Park established. There was a lot of consultation and it went forward. Considering that we've heard those comments about creating another level of bureaucracy, and considering that the Saguenay worked well, why couldn't we use that system versus the implementation of Bill C-48?

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Dr. Jon Lien: I'm not sure if those are in opposition. I know there is a co-management approach in Saguenay. That is certainly an approach that's been established in the maritime region of fisheries. I guess it is a new level of bureaucracy, where community organizations are actively being partners in the management of their communities and resources, but it is working well and the people like to have that voice.

In Saguenay these guys have been effectively empowered. They have a powerful new partner: the federal government. That partner is listening to them and giving them a platform from which to speak. The same is true in the co-management arrangements in fisheries. I guess it's a new level of bureaucracy, but I see it as a good one.

The Chairman: Mr. Godfrey followed by Mr. McWhinney and Mr. Dumas.

Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): I really have two questions. They're both for each of you. The first question has to do with prohibitions, and I think Dr. Nelson made some explicit reference to expanding the list, and we've heard that from other folks as well. I was interested in the fact that Dr. Lien didn't actually touch on those.

On my first question, if one were to expand the list, what would be the absolute top thing to be added to the list?

My second question has to do with aquaculture. I heard Dr. Lien say current practices aren't great, but there seems to be some sense that the whole industry is improving overall. Certainly witnesses have come before us with particular concerns about finfish aquaculture. The second question simply has to do with the fact that you both stressed, very usefully, the human ecology of this. It has a fundamentally different character than it does with many national parks. One reason to think of this as being appropriately in the Department of Canadian Heritage is precisely because it's the interaction between coastal communities—human history, human activity—and the natural environment, and some artificial attempt to rule that out or push that aside is not only doomed to failure politically, it's also not in a sense respectful of what we've actually gone through over the last couple of hundred years.

So my two questions are about prohibitions and the human interface.

The Chairman: Dr. Lien and Dr. Nelson, please tackle those two questions each briefly.

Dr. Jon Lien: On prohibitions, I think we're so green in this area. Some would like to expand the list greatly and some would like to remove prohibitions. I just don't think at the outset we have enough information on what's necessary, so I would start with the minimum that's in there now.

As far as including humans in the process, you have no choice. You could debate whether they're in or out, but they're in. The settlement of our coasts was based on the richness of the ocean, so in every productive area there is a human community that depends on it. Dealing with the coastal communities reflects the inherent structure of the ocean and everything else. We can't just artificially separate them.

The Chairman: Dr. Nelson?

Dr. Gordon Nelson: I find it very difficult to deal with the prohibitions, and I think most people would. There's a lot of evidence now that trolling causes a lot of damage to the habitat on the bottom and prejudices the vitality of the system in the future. There have been references made to some of that in the Journal of Conservation Biology, which was published recently, and a number of leading experts came to that conclusion.

In other cases I don't think it's so clear, and that's why I like this notion of environmental assessment in a precautionary approach. There may be differences in different areas with respect to some of these things. I think the evidence I've seen in the North Sea, the Shetlands and to some degree in Norway suggests that finfish aquaculture, if not carefully managed, can have a lot of adverse effects over fairly large areas if not carefully managed.

• 1220

Again, it's a gradualist approach. It may be based on careful assessment and on the human heritage and the dispositions in the area. Some prohibition is completely based on what I think is convincing evidence, but some care, assessment, review, and interaction apply to the rest.

On the human ecology idea, the human heritage idea, I think those two are very linked. I think it's possible to develop these in such a way that they would link with the pride that people have in their marine heritage or in their Great Lakes fishing and other lake heritage. You see this in the interest in shipwrecks, and it grows from that to the ways in which the use of an area has changed. It brings people to the realization that in some of the Great Lakes, for example, there are two species providing almost all the biomass for the fishery: small perch, four inches or a little bigger, and alewives, which are an exotic species. All the rest of the system's gone.

People can see that if you take a human heritage or human ecology approach, through a series of decisions over a period of time, they have really caused major changes in that fishery and in that ecosystem. As they interact with it from the human history, they get more interested in restoring it and in linking the human and the natural. I think that's a very promising approach here that probably isn't brought out as much as it could be in the act.

Mr. John Godfrey: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. McWhinney.

Mr. Ted McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): I just have questions following from this interesting note in answer to Mr. Mark's question. Have you seen this?

The Chairman: No, I don't think they have.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: It hasn't been distributed?

The Chairman: Well, it's been distributed to the members because—

Mr. Ted McWhinney: Well, maybe I can simply take it up directly.

There is the dichotomy that may simply be a terminological one established between marine parks and marine conservation areas. It looks very much as though it's based on deference to legal categorizations under international acts. It is a matter of record that the DFO and the foreign ministry have somewhat different legal interpretations of the Law of the Sea Convention. I'm just wondering if there is anything you do in national parks, strictly defined, that you would not feel able to do in a conservation area.

In other words, there is a distinction made between areas to which sovereignty, national entities, and so on apply. They seem to apply when one knows more things there than in areas of conservation. The conservation powers under international law are continually developing. In fact, it's well known that the Minister of Fisheries at the time in a way overrode more conservative advice and extended what might have been called certain sovereign powers over Spain and Portugal or their vessels.

Is there anything in the park concept that you feel you couldn't do in fulfilment of an environmental imperative?

Dr. Jon Lien: Sir, I think we may be trying to settle some semantics here rather than anything—

Mr. Ted McWhinney: I want to get away from the semantics. I'm looking to power, function. What are you doing in terms of parks, strictly defined, that you wouldn't feel you're able to do in conservation? Or is it actually a meaningless distinction in your view?

Dr. Jon Lien: From my background, it's a meaningless distinction. I do not think we have explored the management needs or the possibilities for benefits, however you talk about these areas. If you're looking for a national park model on land, we're not going to be able to take people down and walk them around a beaver pond. It's a totally different educational and awareness situation for the public. It's a completely different management system, so I don't think we know. If you asked me that in a hundred years, I could probably...I wish I could answer that question, but right now I don't think I can. I can't make a distinction between what would go on.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: But in terms of the ministry operating, have you noticed them making a distinction in their operations?

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Dr. Jon Lien: I haven't been aware of that.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: Mr. Nelson, do you have any views on this?

Dr. Gordon Nelson: Yes, but you're asking me for a one-hour lecture.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: I don't need a one-hour lecture, but I'll get a capsule opinion of your evidence.

Dr. Gordon Nelson: Briefly speaking, the terminology and the semantics on this have evolved over a long period of time, in the spirit of people trying to figure out what they want to save and how they want to use these areas. In the 1960s, “marine park” was the terminology used. As the different purposes of these marine areas have evolved in different countries and in different areas, different names have been applied to the focus for each program. As a result, we're now in a situation in which what was a “marine park” will now become a “marine conservation area”. For example, Fathom Five is still a marine park, although it will be changed as the legislation is passed.

The purpose of marine conservation areas is the preservation of large areas or representative regions. That's the way the name is used here. In the United States, a somewhat similar function is performed by national marine sanctuaries, so there's a history to the terminology in each area that is not consistent. In our national context, it's important to recognize that what we're dealing with are three very legitimate types of conservation and uses of oceans. In our country, they happen to have certain names, but those names may not necessarily be the same in some other countries.

So the preservation of representative areas and of ecological integrity over very large regions for science and so on is the national marine conservation area. This focus on species and habitats can link with the others, as the question over here was suggesting. That's the second one. The third one is deep ocean environments, with a skew to or a prejudice to protection of fish and fishing. They're somewhat different in their foci, and legitimately so, but they can be put together in one region or in different places in a region, to achieve different objectives that all sum up to something better for all of us.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: There is a suggestion on the 200-mile EEZ, the exclusive economic zone. Under some views, we don't have sovereignty over that area and we are limited in what we can do. That, in your view, would be an unsound proposition.

Dr. Gordon Nelson: No, I think what we're doing in the exclusive economic zone everywhere in the world is very tenuous and pedantic.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: The practice may vary, but are there limitations that you see flowing from this statement that we don't have sovereignty there? I think Dr. Lien took the opposite viewpoint—and by the way, it's a viewpoint that I would recommend to the committee—so I wanted your own view as an expert.

The Chairman: Maybe we should leave Dr. Lien's—

Mr. Ted McWhinney: I'll leave it as a rhetorical question.

The Chairman: Mr. Dumas.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Dumas (Argenteuil—Papineau, BQ): Good morning, gentlemen.

My question is for Dr. Lien. If the translation was accurate, you said that Bill C-48 should not be amended, but you added that there would probably be gaps and that a mechanism should be added for review of the Act in three years. However, between the imminent adoption of the bill and the end of the three-year period, some people will certainly be hurt.

Obviously, fishers and the Aboriginal people have opposed Bill C-48. Don't you think we should wait? You wrote to Parks Canada 25 years ago. We're not talking about waiting a number of years, but making the bill as perfect as possible. We, in the opposition, will surely propose amendments.

What I am afraid of is that, in the meantime, people will be hurt, because the law is not perfect. When people are hurt, it's difficult. The law is the law.

[English]

Dr. Jon Lien: My father always used to tell me to not let the perfect interfere with the good. I think there probably are wisdoms that could be brought to this measure with greater experience, with greater deliberation, where we pay more attention to everyone's point of view, and so on. But I honestly believe we will do best in improving this act by beginning to understand what will go on, what the potentials of these areas are. We will learn by doing it. We have spent a long time talking about this, and I think now is the time when this learning process should start.

• 1230

As far as protecting people is concerned, I think that's an important sensitivity. I have said some kind of trial management initiatives may be a good way to start doing activities within a marine conservation area, and I do believe that reviewing this after we've gotten a little more experience would be helpful. But I don't think any of those comments should stand in the way of getting started. So I think this is the time when we decide to go ahead with this.

The Chairman: The last question is from Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: I was trying to flip through to the consultation aspect of this. I think that's the key to this whole act—thorough consultation. The officials from the department may want to comment on this, but subclause 5(1) deals with establishing or enlarging marine conservation areas consisting of:

submerged lands and waters within internal waters, territorial sea or exclusive economic zone of Canada and any coastal lands or islands within Canada

Now there's nothing in this act that connects us to the 29 specific areas that officials have pointed us toward. This is a legal instrument and process to create a conservation area, so “internal waters” could very well apply to the lakes I had referred to before. It could refer to Great Slave Lake or Great Bear Lake, because they are internal waters as interpreted by the act.

Then in the next section, when you deal with consultation, you deal with only “affected coastal communities”. Now why would you limit this consultation, under management plans and consultation, to only coastal communities? In a dumping issue, couldn't it be perceived as dumping when you dump a substance into the river that feeds into an ocean conservation area? The permits might affect that, so wouldn't you want to consult non-coastal communities upstream as well?

My other point is about broadening the issue of aboriginal organizations. I think you may want to consider aboriginal communities specifically, because organization could become the legal terminology of national, provincial, or other associations. It could be an aboriginal fisheries association or an aboriginal ecotourism association. These are aboriginal organizations, but then I believe the intention here would be that you want to deal specifically with affected communities to try to streamline the consultation process and not muddy the water.

The Chairman: Mr. Amos.

Mr. Bruce Amos (Director General, National Parks, Department of Canadian Heritage): There are a number of points raised there, Mr. Chairman. It's true the system of 29 marine regions that Parks Canada uses as a basis for planning a future system of marine conservation areas is not specifically referred to in the legislation. There is a reference in the purpose statement, subclause 4(1), that refers to protecting and conserving “representative marine areas”, but that's a generic statement. This is, in a sense, consistent with the approach we've taken in the national parks system in Canada, where we have had, since the early 1970s, a systematic approach based on representing terrestrial regions. But Parliament has never yet enshrined that particular planning approach in legislation. So you're right, the 29 regions and where they are exactly is not embedded in the act. The thinking is that this is seen as a policy tool to implement a purpose statement for representative areas, and a policy tool that might need some adjustment and change over time and perhaps might not be appropriate in the law.

• 1235

That's by way of explanation of what's here. It's true, you have heard parks officials explain the process we use, the 29 marine regions. I believe that has enough of a history and a science base to lend some credibility to the fact that this is how we do intend to proceed, but it is a policy statement.

In terms of several suggestions regarding the list of parties to be consulted, I think those are points well taken.

The Chairman: Could you address the question Mr. Laliberte raised regarding the question of internal waters and the fact that in the consultation it doesn't refer to any of the internal waters but just talks about coastal communities?

Mr. Bruce Amos: We have oceans experts here who perhaps could give you the legal answer, but I think “internal waters” is a technical term referring to waters within certain bays. Maybe Jon Lien can help me with the answer to this.

In regard to the reference in clause 5, the phrase that the member raised, “consisting of submerged lands and waters within”—and there follows a three-fold listing—“internal waters, territorial sea, or exclusive economic zone,” my understanding is that the drafters did that in order to indicate that a marine conservation area could be considered within any of those three areas out to and including waters in the EEZ.

Whether in fact that phrase is limiting in terms of what areas in internal waters could be included, I think not. You may wish to ask Mr. Lien, though, or I would get some legal advice as to exactly what the phrase “internal waters” means in relation to waters in the freshwater lakes. I believe it includes the Great Lakes. Would it, if I may ask the question, include other inland waters as well?

The Chairman: Dr. Lien.

Dr. Jon Lien: I'm not sure I can set policy for Parks Canada here, but the way I understood this was that this phrase refers to the submerged land, the bottom of the ocean. It's important that we protect that, because it does more than hold the water in, but it also refers to that water column above the submerged lands, that whole mass of water. The comparable thing in a national park would be that it refers to the land and the atmosphere above.

The Chairman: If the person concerned wants to answer directly, that's quite okay.

Mr. Bruce Amos: No, I think I'll proceed.

Our understanding is that “internal waters” was included here so that it would specifically include the Great Lakes. When one thinks of marine conservation areas, often one considers the three oceans and not the Great Lakes. It has been our intention, and the desire of the public we have consulted with, that marine conservation areas include representative areas in the Great Lakes, and that phraseology is intended to include those as well.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: It's not the international law, then; its purely for Canadian domestic use. I must say I haven't examined this in detail, but there is an international law connotation, which Dr. Lien came very close to identifying. Maybe it could be cleared up by asking the department what they intended.

The Chairman: Yes. I think the point Mr. Laliberte was making is, what about Lake Athabasca or Lake Winnipeg, one of the large lakes?

Mr. Amos, could you give him some answers on that particular point and whether the notion of coastal communities, as applied in a consultation, would cover, for instance, a group living along the shores of Lake Athabasca? Are they a coastal community?

It seems to me that in the intent of the drafter, not presuming, probably we're talking about a community on the shoreline of Newfoundland or British Columbia. I don't know; I'm just asking the question. I think that's what his query was.

• 1240

Mr. Bruce Amos: If I may, I will clarify from a policy perspective what Parks Canada's interest in terms of the Great Lakes vis-à-vis other large freshwater bodies is. There is an outstanding question in terms of the terminology here in exactly what “internal waters” means. We will follow that up.

From a policy point of view we have a system, as you know, of national parks, which are intended to represent Canada's terrestrial natural regions, and those have always been considered to include the freshwater bodies that lay within those terrestrial natural regions. When it came to looking for a policy approach to represent Canada's marine regions, obviously the three oceans were included. The question was, should the Great Lakes be included, and the sense was, yes, they should because they are essentially a large inland sea and intimately linked with the adjacent ocean.

In terms of the other lakes, it was felt that they don't have the same linkage with the oceans and it was difficult to know where to draw the line. Where does one stop in terms of Canada's large freshwater lakes in terms of a system of marine conservation areas? So the distinction we have made is that the Great Lakes are quite consciously included as areas we would try to represent. For the other large freshwater lakes we would intend to include representation of those freshwater environments in our terrestrial system of national parks. There are a couple of examples where work is underway to do just that. A proposed national park in the Interlake region of Manitoba touches on Lake Winnipeg, and a proposal for the East Arm in Great Slave Lake includes an area adjacent to Great Slave Lake.

So it's a question of making a choice where we want to include conservation areas as part of the marine family or as part of a terrestrial family, and that's the distinction we've made. Neither is left out from a national conservation perspective.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: There's also an international role with the Great Lakes because they're subject to international agreement with the United States. You would have to defend our interest. The internal lakes within the provinces don't raise that extra problem.

The Chairman: I would like to conclude here.

Mr. Amos, if you could give some more precisions to Mr. Laliberte and members of the committee on these points, we would appreciate it. I would like to thank Dr. Lien and Dr. Nelson very sincerely for coming here and giving us your points of view. I think Dr. Nelson made several suggestions regarding specific amendments.

Dr. Lien, in regard to a few of yours, especially the one regarding review, there are certainly review clauses in many acts of the government now. There are some in the environmental acts and the Oceans Act and so forth. I think we certainly will bear this in mind. Thank you very much for coming. We really appreciate it.

I would ask the members to stay for a business meeting.

As I mentioned to you, the minister has suggested that given that there have been a lot of representations at the committee, she would like to address those and come before us on March 10 rather than tomorrow. So tomorrow there won't be a meeting of the committee. I think we need a breather, in any case. On Thursday we were going to start clause-by-clause with the officials, so I suggest that on Thursday we have a business meeting, at which we have a lot of items to deal with, including the request of the four members about the NAC and other matters. So we should get together and clear these up.

On Thursday there will be an in camera meeting at the same time we're going to meet, at 11 a.m., but instead of having a clause-by-clause meeting it will be a meeting to discuss future business. This is at the suggestion of Mr. Mark, and I think it makes a lot of sense. We'll pick up the NAC item and other items that are pending.

Mr. Mark.

Mr. Inky Mark: Mr. Chairman, I hope this committee accords me the privilege of taking some time and dealing with clause-by-clause. As you know, last week we were all on the road, so we really haven't had a chance to look at the bill in depth to deal with the clause-by-clause.

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The Chairman: Mr. Mark, now the minister doesn't appear before the 10th, so the clause-by-clause will not start before, at the earliest, the following Thursday, the 18th.

Yes, we give them one week to prepare the amendments following the minister's address. So it will be the week of the 17th or 18th.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: At what time?

The Chairman: On Thursday it will be at 11 a.m.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We do not meet tomorrow.

The Chairman: There's no meeting tomorrow. The meeting will take place on Thursday.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thursday morning.

The Chairman: The meeting will be strictly on committee business. We will meet in camera.

[English]

For clause-by-clause we'll start on Wednesday the 17th, in two weeks.

[Translation]

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.