EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, April 27, 1995

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[Translation]

The Chairman: I call the meeting to order. Good morning everyone.

[English]

We start this morning with a submission by Sheila Forsyth of the National Agriculture Environment Committee. We welcome you at this early hour. We are anxious to hear your views on what the forum is endeavouring to do, namely to examine the conditions and trends in wildlife in Canada.

Ms Sheila Forsyth (Secretariat, National Agriculture Environment Committee): I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. As Mr. Caccia has mentioned, I am here representing the National Agriculture Environment Committee, but also the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. I'll call us NAEC for lack of saying the long words of National Agriculture Environment Committee. We are a very broad, diverse committee of farm organizations interested in and set up to deal with environmental issues. The CFA, as you are no doubt familiar, is a member of NAEC.

We felt it was of interest and important that you hear a bit from agricultural producers and our views on the status of wildlife this morning. I'm here to give you a brief idea of some of the ideas from the farming community.

Agricultural producers are interested in maintaining a healthy environment and are aware of the importance of wildlife in this regard. As you know, producers must make their livelihood from the land, and they hope that their children and their grandchildren can also do the same. Therefore they try very hard to take care of the land and their environment. As part of this, they are aware of the importance of wildlife on their farms and on the range lands. But like most Canadians, and even the experts who have testified over the last few days, they have lots to learn about wildlife and their environments.

I've heard several impassioned statements over the last few days I've been listening to the hearings. They say something like wildlife is essential for human survival. Agricultural producers would like to remind you that agriculture is more than likely more essential for human survival than wildlife. We all have to eat. Producers take very seriously the essential service that they supply and are dedicated to sustaining a diverse agriculture.

I'd like to draw your attention to three different things. One is the producers' activities in wildlife management. Many species of wildlife are in fact dependent on agriculture for food and for habitat. I'd also like to draw your attention to some of their concerns, which have been triggered - especially lately - by the national approach to endangered species proposal, and also to some longer-standing concerns, as well as some possible actions or ideas that farmers and range people have for their work.

First off, what are producers doing? Like most people, farmers like to see wildlife on their land. They like to listen to the songbirds in their trees. They like to see the flick of the tail of a white-tailed deer. They're more likely to see that than most Canadians are. Most Canadians probably see that just on their television. They like to look up with a sigh of relief in the spring when the geese come flying back, because they know then that they can probably put their crops in the field. They're glad to see the big, fat earthworms in their soil.

Producers are involved in conservation efforts on their lands - voluntarily, on their own initiative, or often in cooperation with national conservation groups. The conservation activities of producers represent a significant portion of the managed landscape that provides places for wildlife in Canada, and the National Agriculture Environment Committee is starting an analysis and collation of these efforts.

Some recent analysis has shown that high percentages of land at risk, landscape, is in what they call ``working landscapes'', which includes agricultural land. Most of this is on private land, which necessitates the inclusion of landowners in conservation efforts in general.

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Producers are also implementing innovative ways to integrate wildlife into their farm and range environments. For example, they are setting up and maintaining shelter belts, hedgerows, wetlands and other habitats. This is a longstanding thing farmers have been doing.

They are also using new technologies to manage their landscape that benefit not only their own livestock, in the case of cattle producers and others, but also wildlife. For example, with the new technologies of solar and wind power they can provide sources of water to their cattle - which also benefits the wildlife - away from the streams. Therefore they're not damaging the stream banks. They can also use remote electric fences to prevent overgrazing of the pastures, which benefits not only the wildlife but also their own cattle. They are also starting to use new techniques to manage the riparian areas of the streams so that they're not causing damage to the stream beds.

Further to this, there is some evidence that if no grazing occurs, especially in the prairie environment, then the grassland actually deteriorates. It becomes unacceptable not only for cattle to eat but also for deer and elk living there with the cattle. Biodiversity declines.

We would like to note that the prairie ecosystem in Canada has always been used, and well-managed systems are better than systems left on their own. The buffalo or prairie fires have always been a managing system for the prairie ecosystem.

The next point is that producers are interested in responding to the biodiversity strategy as a sector, and NAEC is already investigating how to move forward with a response to this particular piece of policy from the government. We're very glad to be able to do that.

Producers are also responsive to the demands of consumers and are interested in innovation. Farmers will grow new crops or different kinds of livestock or change their management practices, as long as they are economically viable and if consumers will support those changes.

On Tuesday there was some discussion about apples, whether consumers wanted a perfect apple or would accept a less than perfect apple. Producers will deliver to consumers what they want, if it is possible and if they can make a living from it. If consumers demanded a new process that producers could do economically that benefits wildlife, you would likely not see too many complaints from the producers. They would accommodate that demand. One farmer has said to me repeatedly, you tell me what the consumers want me to grow and I'll grow it, as long as I can make a living from it.

One of the other ideas is the efforts of agricultural producers to maintain a pleasant and diverse landscape, to support ``ecotourism'', which is a new buzz-word.

This a small example of some of the producers' activities in wildlife. Now I'd like to turn to a few concerns to balance the discussions you've heard to date.

One of the major concerns of agricultural producers is crop damage. Agricultural producers sustain crop damage. Often they are very rarely compensated for the total value of the loss, and sometimes not at all. For years this has been a significant drain on the producers, which they have privately taken on themselves for the public good and for the common good.

A recent report of wildlife damage from Saskatchewan alone was estimated at $4 million per year, but the actual damages were much higher. Wildlife activity in Saskatchewan itself resulted in over $1 billion of revenue - There could have been some way to look for compensation here.

There are several other examples of losses. We're all familiar with farmers' losses from geese and migratory birds to grain and other crops. We could look for solutions for compensation and regional plans. Often farmers who move birds by scare guns are only moving them off to another field, which is causing more damage in the end. If we could provide them with a way to work together and have a regional plan where one field was dedicated to the damage, then that would reduce the damage overall.

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Many fields have trails through them from deer and elk moving from feeding grounds to watering grounds, and they sleep in the fields at night. That part of the field becomes non-productive.

In the broad sense of cropping, if we include sheep in crops, of course farmers will always say that wolves and other predators are taking away some of their profits there.

Elk cause a great deal of damage on stockpiled hay in the prairies. In the winter, when the hay is stockpiled, they will climb up on top of the stockpiles, break all of the bindings on the hay, and then they urinate all over the hay. Cows refuse to eat that hay. That is causing a fair bit of problem for our people.

Crop damage also tends to build a source of resentment for farmers because they see themselves giving to the common good and not getting compensated properly for it. It takes away from their efforts to work with conservation activities.

Another point is highway safety. I have some statistics, again from Saskatchewan. Between 1988 and 1992 there were over 15,000 wildlife-related accidents, with over $27 million in property damage, over 600 personal injuries and 4 fatalities. This is on the increase. There are more and more accidents in rural areas because wildlife numbers are actually increasing in some areas of the prairies.

One particular recent worry is the endangered species national approach. We have some concerns about this. I know you spent yesterday afternoon listening to folks who are very supportive of endangered species legislation. I'd just like you to take a few moments to listen to our concerns about this.

The farmers are uncertain about what the effects of this national framework may be. They would like to have some clarification as to what exactly may be the effects on them as private landowners. Landowners generally like to have a say about what happens on their own land. They are worried about someone invading their privacy. They are worried about maintaining their autonomy and their activities on their own land, especially since the approach, as outlined in the blue book you talked about yesterday afternoon, has no mention of compensation or incentive measures for landowners who may be affected by this approach.

As a further note, I would like to add that if I talked to the constituency that I represent, which is very broad - all the way from the cattlemen's association to organic farmers - there are some who would have no interest at all in legislation and others who would say that legislation can form one of the tools along with voluntary activities. So within the farming community ourselves, we have a range of opinions on whether legislation is a good idea or not.

In any case, they feel the process has been very hurried and the options have not been fully analysed. NAEC has asked, and hasn't received a reply yet, for more time to study the effectiveness of the current voluntary programs on conservation and other activities, and also to look very closely at other countries that have implemented endangered species acts, especially the United States.

What I've heard from our own people are the stories they hear from other producers. When the cattlemen from Canada meet with the cattlemen in the States, they hear a lot of stories. Anecdotal evidence passed from them to the others indicates that the U.S. system has violated landowners' rights over and over again - not just the small points that were given yesterday, but several other smaller points.

I have with me a report from a group in the States that lists 30 stories of landowners' rights being violated by this. These are simple things but they include fines of money that landowners or farmers cannot sustain. It takes away from their livelihood.

One simple story was a lady, a 72-year-old cattle person who wanted to put a new fence line through in Texas. She went to clean up the scrub and put the fence through, and a few weeks later she got a letter in the mail saying that she had destroyed the habitat of a bird she didn't even realize was around her property. She was told that she should have checked with someone to see if she was destroying the habitat. She was putting in a fence and she was fined for that.

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Another story is that three migratory ducks got caught in a stock watering tank and they drowned in the tank. I don't know how ducks drown in a tank, but they drowned in the tank. The person was fined $2,000 for that. It was on his own land, in the middle of his range land, and he wasn't even aware how anybody would have known that the three ducks were in the tank. In any case, those are just some examples.

The public consultation, which I understand was moved from February and March to May, is now at a very poor time for farmers and range people. They won't be able to get to the consultations. They're seeding, they're calving, they're doing all the things they need to do to provide us all with a source of food.

What is some of the work that we see is needed? This is only a very short list of ideas.

We feel that conservation activities need to be encouraged. We would ask that vehicles such as tax incentives, economic rewards, proactive compensation or remuneration, or removal of barriers should be investigated. I heard a suggestion the other day that perhaps the Task Force on Economic Instruments and Disincentives to Sound Environmental Practices should possibly be opened again, but that it should focus on some very specific problems or sectors. Maybe this is one they could look at.

It is imperative that all interested parties work together to determine the economic return of the use of the land and the wildlife on it, the value of nature to the private landowner, and the feasibility of tax methods or other economic instruments to help landowners and managers keep wildlife in their landscapes.

All the people you've heard from over the past few days have indicated that education of private landowners about wildlife work being done by environmental groups would be necessary. But there also needs to be the other side, where we can also educate the environmental people on what farmers are already doing.

Farmers are also concerned that there must be a demonstration that decisions made are sound, scientifically based and employ the principles of sustainable development, taking into account social, economic and environmental aspects. We call that the big picture. We need to assess that all things done, and things that include the endangered species initiative, must ensure that somewhere else, some other part of the environment or social structure or whatever isn't gasping for air.

We use the example of the buffer zones, in cases where the buffer zone becomes too large. Around the shelter belt, a farmer may be tempted to remove the shelter belt so he can actually make a living from the piece of land. In the end, that is not environmentally sustainable for the big picture.

Finally, they want assurance that strategies and policies are planned and implemented with the full involvement of the agricultural producers and landowners. They're interested in being involved in the consultation.

In closing, producers are interested in wildlife and have been living side by side with wildlife for centuries. They're also aware that there is a need to work on ensuring that wildlife does not decline and that the at-risk species often will occur on agricultural land.

Farmers need to make a living. They are feeding Canadians and millions of people outside the borders of this country. The actions need to ensure that producers themselves don't become an endangered species in the end. I often hear it said that we're the next endangered species if we carry on not supporting the farmer.

Those are my comments.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. That was quite a comprehensive overview. There are definitely people who want to explore further some of the points you raised.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay (Laurentides): I've listened to your comments and I've found them to be very interesting. Can we say that the farmers of today feel threatened by the Environmental Act or by a future wildlife legislation, that they are worried?

[English]

Ms Forsyth: They are worried. Their concern is primarily that the general actions on environmental legislation don't counteract or negate each other.

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They're also worried because they like to maintain their privacy. They are interested in ensuring that they make the decisions on what happens on their own land and that they're not dictated to. They will work with people to determine what should happen on their own land, but they don't like to be told they must do such and such. That's essentially their worry.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: Like it or not, we have to protect the environment. Are farmers really environmentally aware? Do they know that Canada does not have any wildlife legislation and that there must be one?

Some provinces already have wildlife legislation and it is effective, but in other provinces, there is no protection. The purpose of this Act is not to penalize them, but rather to protect the environment. What are their views on that?

[English]

Ms Forsyth: Because of the example from the United States, where they do see penalization of private landowners in some sense, that the same thing shouldn't happen in Canada - All of them aren't saying there should not be legislation. Some of them are definitely saying that, and will more than likely lobby against legislation. They're saying that when it's designed, it must be designed carefully to take into account the needs of the farmers, the range people and the cow people, as well as protect the environment.

Farmers are well aware of protecting the environment. If they don't protect the environment, then they can't make a living from the environment. If they pollute their own land, they can't grow crops to feed Canadians and the world. They are well aware of that. In fact, the committee I represent, the National Agriculture Environment Committee, was set up exactly for the purpose of having farmers address environment issues, and it was at their request that this committee was set up. They are very interested and serious about coming to grips with environment issues in Canada and internationally as well.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: I would like to know whether farmers in some provinces are subject to some form of wildlife legislation. It does not exist in all provinces, but some of them do have it. How does it affect them? Can it be compared with the American legislation?

I'm not very familiar with the Act, but I have an idea of what the American legislation is like. I'm familiar with the laws in some provinces. There is a difference between the Canadian and American legislation. How do they enforce theirs? How do farmers feel about existing provincial legislation?

[English]

Ms Forsyth: I also am not very familiar with the provincial activities, mainly because we deal with the national issues. Some of our representatives would be more familiar with provincial activities. I have not heard them complain about what the provincial acts do, but I haven't polled them extensively. I suspect that the provincial acts are not of the same order as those in the United States and not quite as violating of landowners' rights. I don't think they are very strong acts, but I'm not really certain of that.

Mr. Adams (Peterborough): I wonder if we could talk about diversification, or the opposite, monoculture. Half of my riding of Peterborough is lakes and forests, and the other half is farmland. In that half there are 1,100 farms. Approximately 200 and something are in dairy, 500 are in beef, and the rest are everything - you know, orchards and - If you take that as a unit, it's already very diverse. But it seems to me there are large parts of this province and of the country where that's less so.

In my riding, woodlot management is encouraged, and a variety of things you have already mentioned. By the way, wetland management is now being encouraged.

I wonder if you could talk about monoculture and diversification and what your committee's thoughts are on that, and within that context the matter of low-till or no-till farming, which I know is being encouraged across Ontario; I'm not sure about the rest of the country.

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Ms Forsyth: On our committee we have representatives from all of the diverse communities - everyone from the smaller farm organizations in the smaller provinces, which of course have smaller farms, all the way up to the large wheat farmers and the people who control very large areas in range land pastures. So we have a diverse opinion on our own committee as to the relative merits of small farms versus very large farms, monocultures versus very diverse agriculture.

I believe the trend is generally towards more diversity in farming. If that's what the consumers ask for or what the environment demands, then that's the way the farmers will probably move.

There is also a trend in the size of farms, which keep getting larger and larger, mainly because the kids are moving to the city to get jobs. So to make a living, they often go to monoculture because it makes it easier to buy equipment and to do a large piece of land by themselves or with very little help.

As for woodlot management and wetlands management, that is definitely increasing, especially in Ontario where it's now legislated to do something about that, as you know.

Mr. Adams: And the low till?

Ms Forsyth: One of our members is an advocate of reduced tillage. He's from Manitoba, actually. He works on a research committee with the university in Brandon and also south of the border in the United States. It's definitely an increasing activity. There is very much research going on as to how it works.

Mr. Adams: Could you explain it for the record so that people know what we're talking about?

Ms Forsyth: There are several different varieties, but essentially the farmer will not till the land as frequently as you would in a regular farming situation, where you till every spring and several times during the year, probably for weed control. In this case they will leave the derf and the residue on the land and allow the crops to grow through. They will often plant rows of different crops side by side. That way there's often a reduction of the need for irrigation because the water is kept on the land. In some cases there may be an increase in the use of pesticides, however. The weed control is not done by tillage, so they may have to use pesticides, although that is very well controlled because of the situation they're done in.

Mr. Adams: You mentioned that you felt you had not been consulted and been part of this process enough. How long ago was your committee established?

Ms Forsyth: I started working with them last October, so I have been with them a very short time. They have been in operation for about a year.

Mr. Adams: If there's anything we can do to improve relations or whatever, I think the committee would be more than willing to do it. The farming community obviously represents a very considerable piece of our landscape. I don't think activity of this sort - not so much legislation - can go very far if we don't involve the farm community. So I'm sure if there's anything the members, the chair or the committee can do, we would be glad to do it.

Mr. DeVillers (Simcoe North): I'd like to pin down some of the concerns the agricultural community has over the proposed endangered species legislation. Is it the question of expanding habitat? Is that the crux of the concerns?

Ms Forsyth: I think the crux of the concern, as I tried to say to Madam Guay, is that they're worried they will lose control of how they do things on their own properties or land. They're not saying they don't want to protect wildlife. They already do that. They do have voluntary activities. They already do many things to protect wildlife. But they're concerned that with the pace at which this is starting to happen, all of the possibilities for increasing the voluntary programs to help farmers find innovative ways to help wildlife on their land may in fact be hindered if the legislation somehow penalizes them for something that's good. So that's their worry.

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Mr. DeVillers: So it's the use of their land more than encroachments upon or confiscation of land, things of that nature.

Ms Forsyth: If their land was confiscated, they would definitely need to be compensated for it.

The other part of the worry is that from what has been written by Environment Canada, very little thought has been given to compensation incentives if a landowner did give up land or had to change a practice on a land. For example, if they had a crop in a land and seeded that to grass, they would probably make less money from the grass than from the crop, but it may protect an endangered species.

They will do that. They're quite happy to do that. In fact, there was a lot of activity towards that aim for the burrowing owl. Cows and burrowing owls live together quite happily, but plows and burrowing owls live together less happily. So they will seed and then let the burrowing owl live there. But they're losing money because of that, and how they keep making a living if they keep losing money is the concept.

Mr. DeVillers: The impression I had from the previous witnesses in dealing with habitat was that we were dealing more with wetlands and lands of that nature. Are there agricultural uses for these lands that we're missing, that the producers could be using and that could cause a problem for them?

Ms Forsyth: In the wetlands themselves?

Mr. DeVillers: Right.

Ms Forsyth: I think most farmers don't use the wetlands unless they decide to do aquaculture or something associated with that. They don't use the wetlands directly. In most cases buffer zones are set up around them, so they don't do anything quite near them. The piece of land they set up as a buffer zone is also out of production and not making them any money. That's a bit of a concern. They're willing to do it to protect wildlife, but some incentive would be good.

Mr. DeVillers: You've indicated you've been following the hearings. Have I missed something? Has there been an indication of a desire on the part of some of the witnesses to use lands other than the wetlands that are not now being used for agricultural purposes?

Ms Forsyth: I didn't hear much mention of range lands. In the western part of Canada, which is a very large source of large wildlife, deer, elk and what not share the land with the cattle, often quite happily. I mentioned a few of the activities the farmers or range people are doing by fencing away the riparian areas of the stream beds. That also keeps the wildlife off there too, which means the stream beds are not being damaged and the sides are not being eroded.

Providing a source of water with a solar-powered pump and what not helps the wildlife as well. There has been indication that when cattle drink water not from a stream, clean water coming from a well, their weight goes up because there's no bacteria in the water. So clean water helps the cattle; it also more than likely helps the wildlife that shares the source of water with the cattle.

Mr. DeVillers: I have one last point, Mr. Chair. Have you conveyed your concerns about the timing of the public hearings to the Canadian Wildlife Service?

Ms Forsyth: Several times, yes.

Mr. DeVillers: Have you had a response?

Ms Forsyth: Full speed ahead - you'll have to write in, I guess, is the idea, which we will be doing. I think very few farmers will be able to go because they're all out tuning up the plows or calving right now. It's very hard for them to go in May, almost impossible.

Mr. Gilmour (Comox - Alberni): I share your concerns regarding property rights. I feel that in Canada it is a large gap in our legislation that we do not have individual and collective property rights.

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One of the concerns I've heard about the American system is the big brother approach at the expense of the individual property owner, and I certainly share your concerns. But how do we get around it? In your mind, how do we find that balance that serves the wildlife but also protects the individual rights of the property owner?

Ms Forsyth: I think there is opportunity to work together to design programs that the wildlife conservationists and environmental groups are happy with but with which the farmers and range people are also happy. I think there is a happy medium somewhere. I think the biggest concern is not to dictate to them. Consult them, plan it with them, implement it with them, look for some ways that they can find compensation if they lose money - if they change cropping and lose money, if they give land.

I have a short paper here somewhere on possible incentives. There are all sorts of creative ways for farmers to get money from overabundant species, wildlife that is too abundant. There are too many of some geese species. You could harvest them and make money from those.

I heard of a gentleman from the States who wanted to come up and hunt one bighorn sheep for $249,000. He wanted to spend three weeks in the wild backpacking and just enjoying Canadian nature. He said in the end he may not shoot the sheep, but if he did he'd pick a very old one that had passed on its genetics and had essentially done its job and was on its last legs. He would essentially pay a quarter of a million dollars to do this.

That's just an example of something that makes money. That could go back into compensation or into programs to help the other sheep, the younger sheep.

I think there are a lot of creative ways where we could work together with environmental groups, the conservation groups, and the municipal groups that are interested in conservation, and avoid the conflict between private property owners' rights and the protection of wildlife.

Mr. Gilmour: I believe most farmers are close to the land.

My wife and I have an acreage on Vancouver Island, and we have cougar, bear, deer, geese, you name it. We just delight to see them there, as do most farmers.

Your point on timing is well taken. You feel that it's being rushed through.

Ms Forsyth: We wrote two or three months ago when the first discussion paper came out in November. We responded that we felt the timing was too quick, that we would like, as a group of farming organizations, to have the time to investigate what had happened with the law in the States, what has happened in Australia, and also to present to the government what we think may be alternatives to increase the effectiveness of voluntary programs that already exist, both by the farmers themselves and with some of the conservation groups; at least to have the time to investigate the possibilities of those alternatives before the process gets rolling so fast that that gets lost in the shuffle and in the end we all lose. The farmers won't cooperate as well if they feel they're somehow being dictated to.

Mr. Gilmour: That's an important point and we'll certainly look at it.

Mr. Finlay (Oxford): I appreciate your point of view very much, Ms Forsyth, but in many of the things you've said, I have a problem with the long-range, if you like, or the overall view. It seems to me that we are dealing with the environment - and we have been for more than a year on this committee - and we keep coming up against attitude as a problem.

I don't discount any of what you say about consultation, cooperation, incentive, and creative ways, but I am wrestling with some of the statements you made. You said agriculture is more important than wildlife. That may be so, certainly, but we have been told in the last two days that wildlife is essential because it is part of the web of life. We are all part of it and it has to be attended to.

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You mentioned a farmer or an agricultural person who said, show me what consumers want and I will grow it if I can make a living. That's what our fishermen said on the east coast. That's what the Spanish fishermen say: if there are fish there, let me catch them because I can sell them and people will eat them. The trouble with that point of view is if we keep doing that, there won't be any fish for any of us to eat.

I am not convinced at all by anecdotal evidence.

Putting up the new fence line - the Texas cattle person was not fined for putting up the fence; it was for destroying the habitat.

I'd like to remind us all of the historical evidence. I think we must pay tribute to our modern farmers. We haven't had a dust bowl in the west since the 1930s.

We are certainly not winning the battle in northern and mid-Africa with respect to loss of trees, loss of water, loss of sustainable agricultural land because it hasn't got any organic matter in it.

I had a young friend who went to Somalia and wrote a long letter back saying: we're on a downward spiral. These people work very hard to grow their crops. They have no trees because they had to cut them down to cook their food, so they now save the cattle dung in order to cook their food. But what's happening to the land is it's deteriorating more and more and eventually they won't be able to grow anything. We have to keep that in our minds.

None of us likes to be told what we must do, but it seems to me that we do have a basic conflict here. We hear from Chief Kenny Blacksmith and from the other aboriginal people that they consider themselves, and have for centuries, a part of the web of life. I suggest that's something we have to get in our minds.

Property rights are one of the things that immediately conflict with that point of view. If all of us, any of us, farmers and others, are going to insist that that property is ours and we do with it entirely what we wish, then we are ignoring the environmental imperatives. We're ignoring the fact that air moves, water moves, land moves, pollution moves, pesticide moves, animals move, we move. The more we move, the more we damage that very thin layer that we rely upon.

So I certainly hope that we move more in the directions you have suggested with respect to creative.... I certainly agree that if the land a landowner owns should be restricted in its use, then there has to be some compensation. You can't pay the same taxes on range land that you can grow wheat on and range land that you can't do that with because it's a buffer zone or because it's a property right.

In my county I've received some letters about the Drainage Act versus the Fisheries Act.

There's a little creek that runs through my property. I'm told by people much older than I, who have lived there all their lives, that there used to be trout in that creek and they used to go down and fish it on Saturday afternoons. That creek has been designated a municipal drain. Twice since I have owned the property they have come through and dredged it out and dumped the soil on the bank and so on. That has effectively destroyed the habitat for fish or whatever. They haven't done that for about 15 years, and now we have ducks over winter on the creek, there are fish there, and so on.

So I'm a little concerned about what the municipality or what the landowners want when they write to me and say they want the Fisheries Act not to apply to municipal drains. There is an area there we have to have some agreement about.

Do you have any comments?

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Ms Forsyth: We have a similar situation, I think - not as far as farmers are concerned. In the spring, in some cases where manure has been mishandled - and I use the word ``mishandled'' - the fish in the stream also die, not necessarily from what's coming out of the municipal treatment plant, or whatever, if this is the situation.

We know we need to work on the issue of manure handling. There's no doubt about that.

Some farmers have been fined under the Fisheries Act in southern Ontario for killing fish in streams. They don't really like having that happen to them, but it also triggers the point that they have a problem and let's do something about it. They're willing to do that. They're willing to work on the problem.

What I said at the outset was that while people have been saying wildlife is essential, agriculture is also essential. We have to eat. It's something we need to do.

Farmers cannot continue to give food to Canadians if the environment is not good. Farmers have always been aware of the importance of the environment and try very much to ensure that the environment is sustained. They know there is work to be done. They are always looking for new, innovative management practices to try to make sure the environment is not only maintained but that it gets better. We look constantly for new ideas and new ways to do that.

I believe agriculture was probably the first job on this planet. If you read your Bible it was. Adam and Eve were farmers. They tended the garden. That was the first way of life for people on this planet. It is a way of life that we've always had. We have to feed ourselves some way.

While the way we farm in Canada is obviously better than what's going on in Africa...we haven't had dust bowls, as you said. We continue to increase the yields. We continue to supply excellent, cheap food for Canadians and for people around the world. We export a great deal of food to supply other countries, and farmers are very serious about making sure the environment is not damaged. That's part of the reason why they set up the committee for which I work: to do that sort of job.

Does that answer your question?

The Chairman: I hope it does, because it's quite an important conclusion to our round of questions. We have to move on to our next panel.

Mr. DeVillers: Could I just make one point on the issue of property rights?

The Chairman: Very briefly.

Mr. DeVillers: I just want to point out that under our legal system and our real property system we all hold our land by a Crown patent. I think there's a popular misconception people have that we have complete dominion over that land. Our legal system doesn't provide for that.

That's just a point of clarification.

The Chairman: Thank you for that very important clarification.

We want to thank you, Ms Forsyth, for your presence this morning, for the input and the thoughtful observations you have provided us with. Regretfully, we have to move on to the next panel. We found this hour with you very helpful.

Ms Forsyth: I have a brief summary of what I've spoken to, which I'll leave with the clerk.

The Chairman: You are free to do so. Thank you very much.

We bring on stream now two witnesses in the persons of Joan Gregorich, who is the author of the report by the Canadian Wildlife Federation on poaching, entitled Poaching and Illegal Trade in Wildlife and Wildlife Parts in Canada, and with her from Parks Canada, Michael Porter.

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We will listen to these three witnesses and have one round of questions. Following that, we will invite Liz White of the Animal Alliance of Canada and Darrel Rowledge of the Alliance for Public Wildlife to join them for another round. That will then complete our hearings.

We'll start with Joan Gregorich.

Welcome to the committee. We are familiar with your report on poaching. It is in your binder. I am sure you have interesting information for the committee. If you would please confine your comments to ten minutes or so, it would be very helpful.

The next speaker after Ms Gregorich will be Michael Porter, and after Michael Porter, Bob McLean.

Welcome to the committee. Please go ahead.

Ms Joan Gregorich (Individual Presentation): Thank you, and good morning.

I'd like to begin by telling you a few stories about poaching and illegal wildlife trade in Canada. In May of last year, a California man pleaded guilty in a state court to one count of purchasing a black bear gall-bladder. You may legitimately ask what that might have to do with Canada. The answer to that is this: British Columbia was his source. The gall-bladder he was selling came from Canadian black bears.

Last year the Canadian Wildlife Service seized a variety of wildlife items that are controlled under CITES, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. On separate occasions, they apprehended a valuable shipment of ivory articles that were being smuggled into the country, a shipment of turtle meat that originated in Trinidad - the turtle in question being a CITES Appendix I species - and about 5,000 pounds of oriental pharmaceuticals that contained, amongst other wildlife animals, tiger, crocodile, rhinoceros, tortoise, pangolin and other endangered species.

If this seems a little bit exotic to you, then think about this one. Last year in Alberta wildlife enforcement officers visited four Edmonton restaurants where they seized about 25,000 pounds of walleye that had been illegally caught in northern Alberta lakes. One fish seller told an officer who had been working undercover on this project that in about a two-year period he had sold about 10,000 pounds of illegally caught walleye. By the end of the investigation, 26 individuals along with four businesses had been charged with wildlife trafficking. Court hearings are still under way, but one restaurant has already been fined $18,000 and a second $19,000 for their involvement in these illegal fish sales.

These and scores of other incidents underline the fact that Canada does indeed have a poaching problem, indeed has an illegal wildlife trade problem, and although we know this to be true, we don't have a good handle on exactly what volume of trade and poaching is going on.

Profit poachers and wildlife traffickers, like most criminals, are cagey. They are tricky. They are hard to catch. Probably only a very small fraction of those who are involved in these illegal activities actually appear in the courts. Probably many more are out there doing business.

I'd like to begin by telling you exactly what poaching is. Poaching is simply the illegal taking of wildlife. Traditionally, it has referred to the illegal taking of animal wildlife, but as some plants become more rare and more valuable and useful to people, those have also begun to become accepted in the poaching definition.

Poaching takes place wherever there's wildlife, wildlife that's of value to human beings. I'll give you some examples of the kinds of things that we know to be poached here in Canada: big game animals, waterfowl, some migratory birds, fish, snapping turtles, are all poached for their meat; bears and deer are poached for various body parts that are used in the oriental medicine trade; we have things like deer and bighorn sheep that are poached for their trophy heads; eagles are poached for their feathers; walruses are poached for their ivory tusks; bear are poached for their teeth and claws to be used in jewellery; we have birds of prey that are captured live to be used in falconry; reptiles and amphibians are also captured live and they enter into a profitable, exotic pet trade.

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It comes down to the fact that if wildlife is valuable and available, it's going to be poached. We know that is going on in Canada. I can cite many examples of that.

Unfortunately, poaching gives a bad name to hunters and anglers who are doing their activities legally. Hunting and angling, within the limits of wildlife law, are legitimate wildlife management tools. I think most people agree with that. Unfortunately, there are people who break the rules, and those people fall into two main groups.

The first group is the type of poacher who poaches primarily for his own use. He may take a few waterfowl over the limit, fish over the limit, or an extra deer, probably for his own use or to be given away to family members or friends. It is generally thought by wildlife managers that this kind of poaching does not pose a serious threat to our wildlife resources. Encouragement to comply with the regulations must be given to this group, but generally, they're not a serious threat.

The second group of poachers is another story. These are people who are poaching for the thrill, the big prize, and to make big money. They're a threat because there's really no care at all for the wildlife resource; they're in it for their own benefit.

What they poach does not end up in the family cooking pot. It's probably looking down from somebody's oak-panelled den wall, maybe lying mutilated and abandoned out in the forest, or it may be entering into the black market as meat or as a body part. It's this type of poacher who poses the most serious threat to our resources.

Trafficking is the illegal trade in wildlife. Wildlife enters into trade the minute it passes hands for money or for gain. Some commercialization of wildlife is already allowed in Canada in nearly every jurisdiction. For example, the fur trade on which our country thrived in its early days continues to this day. Most jurisdictions permit the sale of hides. Some permit the sale of a limited range of body parts. Game farming is yet another example of wildlife commercialization that's legal here in Canada.

The protection of plants is only beginning to get some attention. Very little legislation protects plants here in Canada. There's much to be done to monitor their collection and trade.

It's very difficult to get a handle on the volume of wildlife trade that's going on in Canada. When I put my report together three years ago, statistics were woefully inadequate, and the situation is not much better today.

For one thing, Canada is a huge country. Much of it is wilderness. It's simply impossible to have enforcement people hiding behind every tree. Limited resources are devoted to getting a handle on both the poaching and the illegal trade problem. There's just not enough to even make a small dent in the problem.

Wildlife is governed at both the federal and provincial levels by scores of pieces of legislation. Some of that legislation is woefully inadequate to respond to major trafficking offences. Furthermore, if people do keep wildlife statistics, they are kept in different ways. In many cases, they are not kept at all.

Surprisingly, in most regions in Canada, the top wildlife trafficking problem is not the sensational things we hear about in the newspapers, but rather the illegal domestic sale of fish and meat.

I'll give you an example. If you were to go to Atlantic Canada, it would be possible for you to buy, in cans, Atlantic salmon or duck. These are items that are illegally caught, put into cans so they are difficult to identify, and then sometimes put in a regular market.

In Ontario, it's possible to go to a commercial fish dealer who takes a legal catch but catches over the limit and mixes the illegally caught fish with the legal catch. That's a significant problem here in this province.

In the prairies, domestic wild-meat rings are the big problem. It's estimated that in Saskatchewan alone this business is in the millions of dollars.

Look at the large urban centres like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, which are really more known for their international trade in illicit wildlife. That's because they are conduits. They have international airports. They are receiving and departure centres. It's surprisingly easy to bring wildlife into and out of Canada. In fact, we're known somewhat in international circles as a country that's easy for trading in illicit wildlife trade.

Wildlife can come into Canada aboard every kind of vehicle, and it also comes through the mail.

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It's difficult to detect these kinds of violations, these kinds of infringements, because packages might be mislabelled or falsely labelled. If they come in commercial shipments, the crates may be buried at the bottom of a container, or at the front end of a semi-van load and buried where people aren't likely to inspect them. It's very easy to bring them in.

Much of our illegal wildlife movement takes place across the Canada-U.S. border. We have good relations with the U.S. We have a good arrangement for collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We have people in our customs offices who are committed to apprehending these kinds of offences, and yet it's simply impossible to deal with the kind of volume and sophistication with which these operators actually do operate.

Customs officers, however, are already burdened with a huge volume of work, and in many cases, they lack the skills and the time necessary to make these kinds of detections. So to some extent, that must fall on federal enforcement officers, who, you are probably aware, are very thinly spread across Canada.

I believe controlling poaching and illegal wildlife trade in Canada has to have two approaches. The first one assumes that most people will voluntarily comply with wildlife law. People want to obey the law if, first of all, they feel that it's fair and secondly, if they know what constitutes an offence.

This approach underlines the need for public education, particularly of people who live in rural areas because they're more likely to witness, or to be aware of, illegal activity, and to be prepared to report it.

The second approach assumes that people who deliberately break the law will stop only when there are effective deterrents in place. I think there are three ingredients to effective deterrents.

The first one is strong penalties for poaching and trafficking. That may bring to mind high fines and jail sentences, but I think it also includes civic responsibilities. Those would be penalties such as restitution and community service, which are being increasingly used in the courts for wildlife offences.

The second ingredient is effective enforcement programs. The only thing that makes an enforcement program effective is a poacher or a trafficker feeling there's a good chance they're going to be caught.

The third ingredient is judges who are sympathetic to the value of wildlife. An enforcement officer can undertake to do a two-year investigation and see it foiled in court because a judge doesn't take a wildlife case seriously. There needs to be a commitment on the part of the judiciary to treat wildlife cases seriously, and to value wildlife.

When I recently asked wildlife enforcement officers across the country what they perceived to be the major obstacles to curtailing poaching and illegal wildlife trade here in Canada, they identified five problems.

The first problem is the sheer volume of trade that's going on in Canada. Their resources are simply not adequate to address this.

Second, budget cut-backs preclude the hiring of additional enforcement personnel and curtail the amount of regular surveillance and special investigations they can conduct.

Third, there is public resistance to some hunting regulations. People simply feel that some hunting regulations are not fair and they're not going to abide by them.

Fourth, there is still a lack of public awareness of the extent and the type of poaching that goes on. Despite the amount of media treatment that some cases get, people still don't realize that Canada is a home for these kinds of illegal activities. Many people have no idea what the requirements of wildlife law are. They could see a poacher in the woods and have no idea an offence taking place.

Finally, there is the sensitivity of dealing with offences that occur on aboriginal lands.

Despite these obstacles, since I wrote my report three years ago there have been many advances to show that poaching and illegal wildlife trade are being addressed. For one thing, over the past years there has been a marked improvement in many pieces of legislation. For example, three years ago British Columbia permitted the sale of bear parts. It no longer does that.

Last year in Manitoba they raised their maximum fine from a mere $3,000 to $50,000, and provided for automatic forfeiture of equipment and vehicles. Since putting that piece of legislation into place, they have determined that their wildlife hunting offences have been decreased by 50%.

New Brunswick recently introduced a stringent penalty system that includes minimum fines of $2,000 to $3,000 and mandatory imprisonment for hunting and possession violations. They, too, attest to the fact that these stringent regulations - just the fact that they're in place - serve as a strong deterrent.

Recent amendments to the Migratory Birds Convention Act have also resulted in much stiffer penalties for migratory bird violations. For example, last year a Quebec resident was caught collecting 150 eider duck eggs, which he intended to incubate and sell to waterfowl collectors around the world. He received a fine of $1,200, and all his equipment was confiscated. That made a dent in his business.

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Once WAPPRIITA regulations are in place, Canada will have an effective tool to control illegal international wildlife trade, and the interprovincial transport of wildlife.

Given the limited resources, enforcement agencies are optimizing their efforts by focusing special investigations on key cases, and by working together with other enforcement groups. The most extensive investigations that have taken place in Canada usually involve all provincial officers, RCMP officers, and federal government officers. Many of the cross-border investigations that take place between Canada and the United States have strong collaboration between our enforcement officers and theirs. For example, last year Manitoba used the services of U.S. undercover agents to infiltrate an illegal operation taking place in their province.

I'm happy to say that public awareness is also beginning to increase as wildlife officers and conservation groups begin to spread the word. Many people use programs such as Crime Stoppers, Turn in Poacher and programs like that, which require people to call in on the telephone if they see an offence. For example, in Saskatchewan, 1,200 to 1,300 calls a year are received on their tip line, and out of that about 250 charges are laid.

Alberta's beginning a new program called Nature Watch, in which they're going to have logging companies and other rural workers watching rural roads and reporting vehicles seen stopped on those roads. Those are effective because it puts the onus on people who are out there in the community and able to observe these things, rather than always putting the onus on the enforcement officer to be there.

Judiciary awareness of the importance of wildlife offences is also growing, and judges are beginning to hand down very stiff sentences for some wildlife crimes. Probably an outstanding example of that is in a recent case in Alberta where 11 individuals charged with dealing in black bear parts were convicted and given a total of $127,000 in fines and 75 days in jail. That's a landmark decision.

Despite these advances, there is still a lot left to be done. Five years ago Canada's Green Plan committed Canada to protecting wildlife from poaching and illegal trade, and to strengthening wildlife law enforcement. Sad to say, there's really very little evidence that this has been done. Government cut-backs and restructuring consistently defeat efforts to fulfil Green Plan obligations. But I still think there is hope and there are many important issues still facing us as we try to curtail poaching and illegal trade in Canada.

I can name what I think are some of the most important issues. I think we need to do more public education, beginning with school-aged children. I think we need to see that the sins of the fathers aren't passed on to the sons. We need to make a break in rural areas where there is a common social acceptance of these activities, beginning with children, to turn people around to seeing the environment as important.

Somehow government wildlife agencies have to be able to do a good job, a better job, with fewer resources. I think the day is over where they're going to be given more and more. We have to be able to do more with less. I think people are beginning to accept that realization. This will probably mean an even higher level of cooperation between agencies, and it will certainly also mean identifying the key cases and focusing on those ones that have a sure chance in court, ones working with judges who are likely to see the value of making a landmark case that will serve as an example to the criminal community.

At the federal level, there is much work to be done to coordinate the efforts of Environment Canada with those of other agencies responsible for wildlife. Those would be: Customs Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and others.

WAPPRIITA must be proclaimed without further delay. It simply must be put on the books so that it can be tried in the field.

Work must be done to reconcile aboriginal hunting and fishing rights with wildlife conservation imperatives, and no doubt this will require sitting down and having serious discussions with native leaders, and exploring the possibility of native self-policing.

Game farms, pet suppliers, plant nurseries and other agencies that may serve as vehicles for laundering illegally obtained wildlife must be monitored carefully.

In closing, I must say that I think there is good cause for hope on this front. At least we still have wildlife in Canada left to be protected. In general, the Canadian public has a high regard for the environment and for wildlife. Certainly, in my experience in interviewing wildlife enforcement officers, I have found them to be an energetic and committed lot, but I think we have spent a lot of time looking at issues, defining the problem, and maybe not enough time actually addressing the problem. I would suggest that we get onto that.

Thanks very much.

.0930

The Chairman: I appreciate your input very much.

I now welcome Mr. McLean from Environment Canada.

Mr. Robert McLean (Acting Chief, Program Analysis and Coordination, Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As Joan just mentioned, there are two fundamental approaches to effective conservation, and these are cooperation and integration.

Control of illicit trade in wildlife is an excellent example of this cooperation broad-based approach to wildlife conservation. Governments must work together, not only nationally but also internationally, to design effective controls and implement those controls. We need to share information and expertise if we're going to be successful.

Non-government organizations are also essential in this partnership in driving the process to informing and involving the public. The private sector is key to effective and responsible implementation as well.

Environment Canada is currently focused on two strategies to counter poaching and illicit trade in wildlife. One of these strategies concerns the modernization of the department's existing wildlife legislation. This work is largely complete and we hope to take the final steps in the coming month or two.

In addition, as you heard yesterday, there are now public consultations about to begin on a national endangered species conservation program, including federal endangered species legislation.

The second strategy we are pursuing concerns the wildlife enforcement program and approach itself. This is being revised in light of federal, provincial and territorial harmonization discussions.

As well, the role individual Canadians can play in ensuring compliance must be recognized within these programs. Individual Canadians must in fact be integrated into the overall compliance and enforcement programs.

First, I would like to briefly review the legislative aspect to the work of the department. Julie Gelfand, executive director of the Canadian Nature Federation, concluded her comments on Tuesday morning by urging members of the committee ``to do what you can''.

I'd like to begin by noting what in fact you have already done. In particular, I'm referring to the work the standing committee did a year ago with respect to the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the Canada Wildlife Act, where the committee was involved with achieving the first amendments to these laws since they were enacted in 1917 and 1973 respectively.

Many of the amendments were in direct response to this issue of poaching and illegal trading, for example, the designation of officers and the possibility of designating officers who are in other agencies. The committee ensured that these officers have all the powers that they need.

Our officers under the Migratory Bird Convention Act and the Canada Wildlife Act have the powers of a peace officer. Both powers were enhanced by including the power of inspection as well the opportunity to search without warrant in exigent circumstances.

As Joan just mentioned, a key change was including significantly higher penalties, a $250,000 maximum penalty for corporations and a $100,000 maximum penalty for individuals. Those can be doubled in the event of a second offence, as well as maximum imprisonment being five years. I think the committee certainly has already thrown down the kind of yardstick that needs to be put into place in legislation so that penalties represent a deterrent.

The committee also addressed the innovative approaches that were just mentioned. The committee included a number of opportunities for court orders to be placed against those convicted of an offence.

Joan, you actually stole one of the examples I was going to use. Were you reading from my notes?

Joan mentioned the example of the individual with 150 eider duck eggs. The fine there was $1,200, and that was a fine under the old Migratory Birds Convention Act. In September 1994, 14 people charged with a total of 115 offences under the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the Manitoba Wildlife Act have been fined to date $80,000, and the value of the hunting equipment and boats and motors seized is in excess of $20,000. There are still outstanding charges in those cases.

Another example is simply three hunters charged with illegally hunting over bait. These people were fined $700 each, and the previous maximum was only $300. So there's another instance where the change in penalties is leading directly to more significant penalties.

.0935

Importantly, the committee also made two significant changes to the Canada Wildlife Act. Again, on the first day, witnesses urged the committee to think of wildlife not just as the traditional species - mammals, birds and so on - but as all species.

As well as taking an ecosystem approach to addressing wildlife management questions, the committee redefined wildlife in the Canada Wildlife Act to include any animal, plant or other wild organism, consistent with the wildlife policy for Canada and biodiversity principles.

The other important amendment established the first federal authority for the designation of protecting marine areas in that zone between 12 and 200 nautical miles offshore. Our department is currently leading an initiative aimed at protecting an area known as ``the gully'', which is off the east coast.

Addressing poaching has to do with the conservation laws, the laws that are put in place to actually manage the species. One of those laws is of course the Migratory Birds Convention Act. That's a management tool, and of course, there's provincial legislation to deal with the management of provincial species. Addressing illegal trade requires special different legislation, addressed not at species management but at trade controls.

The key piece in this picture is the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, which I will now call the wildlife trade act. It was passed by Parliament. It received royal assent in December of 1992. It was passed to protect Canadian and foreign species from poaching and illegal trade and to protect Canadian ecosystems from the introduction of harmful species.

There are two key provisions in the act addressed at illegal trade. The first of these prohibits the import, into Canada, of any wild specimen that has been obtained, transported or sold contrary to foreign law. So wherever there might be a violation of a foreign law and that wildlife is brought to Canada, Canada can't be a country of convenience or a haven for people who are violating laws in other countries. We can use that provision to prosecute people.

The other provision relates to trafficking, the sale of endangered species listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna. The wildlife trade act prohibits the trafficking in these species.

Prior to the act's proclamation and entry into force we must first make a regulation. The regulation is required to designate the species that must be subject to the act and to establish certain exemptions that are required for fair implementation.

The development of the regulation has taken longer than expected. The issues we must address in the regulation are complex. Certain regulatory provisions must first be agreed on by the provinces and territories, and other matters require additional consultation with our stakeholders. Therefore, the regulatory program under the act will be developed in a series of regulations, moving from priority issues, such as species designation, to streamlining and harmonization questions - one permit, one transaction, for example - and then finally, some of the administrative matters, such as designated ports of entry and permit fees.

Before I leave the department's legislation, I would like to provide a brief update on the status of amendments to the Migratory Birds Convention Act. On Tuesday, Deputy Grand Chief Blacksmith of the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec complimented the standing committee for the inclusion in the Migratory Birds Convention Act of the non-derogation clause. He did urge further required action and he also urged fuller consultation with respect to those amendments.

The department provided information a year ago on the consultations we did. That is a matter of record, and I won't deal with that further today. At that time we noted, though, that the key to responding to aboriginal concerns with respect to the Migratory Birds Convention Act lie with the convention itself, not the legislation.

I am pleased to report today that Canada-U.S. negotiations commenced on Monday of this week to deal with the aboriginal peoples' concerns. I'm sorry I don't have a report this morning on how those negotiations are going, but I would like to add that the Canadian negotiating team includes: Mr. James Bourque, a former deputy minister of the Government of the Northwest Territories, representing Métis and non-status Indians; Rosemary Kuptana, president of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, representing the Inuit and Inuvialuit; and finally, Mr. Philip Awashish, from the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec, representing Indian first nations.

So it's not simply consultation that's happening. It's full involvement in the discussions and the negotiations that will lead to the convention amendments.

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Finally, in a change made to the act last year, the committee added a provision that requires a review and a discussion in the House of the nature of those convention amendments. So there will be an opportunity for not only members of the committee, but also members at large, to discuss the nature of whatever might be negotiated this way.

The Minister of the Environment is responsible for the enforcement of the three pieces of legislation we have. The department has always followed a strategy of cooperation with other larger enforcement agencies to maximize enforcement effectiveness while maintaining costs. Environment Canada staff have acted primarily as enforcement coordinators. They provide specialized knowledge to assist partners, such as the RCMP, customs and provincial and territorial agencies.

Cooperation with partner agencies and activities will remain the cornerstone to this program. Under harmonization, we are simply reviewing roles and responsibilities to make sure our activities do not overlap and duplicate. Each level of government will maintain full authority and accountability for the enforcement of its own legislation.

Administrative agreements will be put in place with the provinces and territories to ensure that the roles are clearly understood and also to improve the efficiency of the enforcement programs. Essentially, the federal role will be one of focusing on international borders, international agreements and national approaches.

Compliance with regulations with international dimensions will remain a priority. As well, Environment Canada will focus on national approaches and national issues. For example, the kinds of things we're working on include the production of these kinds of identification guides.

With 40,000 species and our own agency having 35 officers, under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, clearly we're relying on the cooperation of other agencies for effective enforcement of the wildlife trade act.

One of the ways to do that is to provide tools like this. These are designed for people who are not biologists and are not familiar with field guides. It's designed so that a customs officer with a live bird in hand would be able to determine whether or not the species is, in fact, subject to the convention controls.

I think I'll leave my comments at this point and await any questions members of the committee might have. Thank you.

The Chairman: That's fine.

We have now Mr. Michael Porter of Parks Canada. We're also very pleased to have with us a law enforcement specialist with Parks Canada in the person of Duane Martin, who is here to answer specific questions from members of the committee.

Mr. Porter, please proceed.

Mr. Michael Porter (Acting Director General, National Parks, Parks Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll make a very brief presentation, because I don't wish to repeat some of the very fine things the two previous speakers have said. Obviously we share a very common understanding of what the problem is and how to approach it.

At the end of my brief remarks, I would ask Duane to demonstrate somewhat graphically some of the problems we face in the field. This will be through a few of the slides we've brought.

I'll just give a little bit of background. The illegal taking of wildlife from our national parks violates our primary legislated mandate of protecting for future generations all that is found in these representative ecosystems.

Canada is committed to a viable law-enforcement program, which, when combined with a strong ecosystem-based management program, represents our best resource-protection regime. We feel we have to combine the two protectionist parts of the overall system of the things we do.

Poaching is a crime. As a result, it requires the application of the full range of professional law-enforcement techniques for us to successfully combat it. Although national parks can only represent small portions of ecosystems, Parks Canada can and does join private and public partners in the identification, inventory and ultimate protection -

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The Chairman: Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Porter. Do you have a text in French and in English?

Mr. Porter: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Oh, there are copies being distributed. Go ahead, please.

Mr. Porter: An effective, far-reaching public education program outlining the damage caused to the wildlife resources held in trust for the Canadian public creates partnerships that lead to the ultimate protection of those resources. The people of Canada, however, have repeatedly debated law enforcement action to address this problem - and Joan, I think, has demonstrated that quite ably - where education has failed to meet the need.

I'd just like to illustrate with a statistic that follows on from what Joan said. In a 1987 Alberta fish and wildlife study that simulated 600 wildlife crimes, only 1.3% were determined to have been reported to or discovered by the authorities. Two similar studies conducted in New Mexico and Wisconsin came to a very similar conclusion, and our own experience supports that.

Our general rule of thumb is that less than 10% of wildlife offences are reported. Of reported offences, fewer than 35% offer enough evidence to successfully prosecute.

Notwithstanding those statistics, our most successful prosecutions, both national and international, particularly with the United States, did not start with the evidence being found in a particular park. They were initiated based upon intelligence gathered from other agencies and/or upon information derived from confidential informants.

After this I'll ask Duane to give you a couple of examples. The point is an effective deterrent program does rely heavily on intelligence, somewhat like the drug trade.

We have six regions within Parks Canada. Almost all the national parks within those regions lose wildlife through illegal hunting as well as fishing. To illustrate, Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, Riding Mountain in Manitoba and some of the Rocky Mountain parks lose the most animals through illegal meat hunting, with ongoing evidence of the sale and/or barter of some of these species.

Concern over poaching is not restricted to game animals. Other species, such as rare or collectable amphibians, are also at risk. Parks like Point Pelee in southern Ontario illustrate that. Illegal shellfish harvesting occurs in the Pacific Rim in British Columbia, and there is evidence of exotic butterfly harvesting in Banff, which from an ecosystem point of view is a serious depredation.

Antlers and bear parts are taken from parks in the Atlantic region, the prairies and Alberta. Trophy species worth in the tens of thousands of dollars on the economic market have been taken from prairie and Alberta parks as well as from Kluane in the Yukon.

While these losses do not usually threaten the continued existence of any particular species, wildlife agencies in the U.S. and Canada are well aware that parks are a valued source of prime species. This constant and increasing pressure is taking a toll on the long-term viability of wildlife in national parks and in Canada.

What are we doing? In 1988, 58 years after the act was first written in 1930, Parliament agreed to raise the long-standing maximum $500 penalty for all offences under the National Parks Act to a three-tier penalty regime. As the act now stands, there is a maximum $2,000 fine for relatively minor offences, such as illegal camping and the loss of so-called less significant species. The next tier is a $10,000 fine and/or six months in jail for conviction on the taking of species listed in a schedule of the act requiring special protection. The act has a maximum $150,000 fine and/or six months in jail for conviction on the taking of species listed in the National Parks Act as threatened.

Mr. Chairman, you may well recall this because you were a member of the legislative committee that raised those penalties in 1988. Those penalties were raised at that time to match or exceed provincial penalties in some cases. The $150,000 fine at that point was the highest in Canada. Things have changed, and we will soon be asking Parliament to consider elevating those fees to an even higher level, because the provinces have now raised the ante considerably in certain categories.

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The difficulty that puts us in is that pre-1988, the $500 penalty, for example - as you're well aware - was nothing more than a licence for a well-heeled so-called sports hunter to enter a park and take the risk of only a $500 penalty, whereas the adjacent jurisdiction or province might have had something much higher. It's simply necessary to keep the legislation on track with the real need for deterrence.

The Green Plan has been mentioned, and we do have some specific activities arising out of that. Under the Green Plan we've created 54 new law enforcement positions, something we lacked previously. We've placed 45 of those in the parks, where the action actually happens.

Along with the Green Plan and those additional people, our goals were to improve compliance with the legislation; to improve training and inter-agency cooperation, which includes joint patrols, investigations and information and intelligence exchange; and to improve the availability and use of science and technology, which ranges from detection equipment to something I would like to share with the committee.

This is a fairly recent report we did under the Green Plan, in conjunction with the University of Alberta. It relates to genetic forensics. This particular report has been shared widely now with conservation agencies. It is used for a number of purposes, one of which is to provide genetic identification of wildlife for the prosecution of poachers.

In some instances we have a 1 in 7.5 million probability of identifying a trophy head, for example, in the possession of an individual long gone from the park, and matching that to whatever remains may have been found in the park.

It's a very useful tool, and it spreads broader than that in the sense that science is not only a deterrent to poaching, but it also helps us maintain the viability of wildlife populations in the park by giving us the information we need.

I have brought a number of copies for the use of the committee, if it so wishes.

Another part of our Green Plan program was to enable parks to conduct special operations, including the sending of other experts when the task is financially or technically beyond the resources of an individual park. We also have devoted funding to enable parks to standardize our law enforcement program delivery, which responds to a federal law enforcement under review initiative by the Solicitor General.

One of the important aspects of the upgrading of our law enforcement program has been a memorandum of understanding we entered into with the RCMP, which now does our enforcement training at its depot in Regina.

The legislation did a very good job of sensitizing the courts, and we spoke to that. The courts have now realized these are serious crimes that do rate the maximum penalties. I'll ask Duane to give you some specific examples after I conclude.

As to the future trends we're facing, as wildlife disappears from other parts of our country and the world at large, Canada's national parks and all protected areas within Canada will be confronted with increased pressure from poaching. In the case of certain rare or threatened species, the taking of significant numbers may eliminate that population totally.

Poachers do not restrict their activities to one jurisdiction. Shared information on joint operations is vital to identifying and apprehending those involved. Illegal trafficking of trophy animals, both live and as parts, is a big business.

I will skip the rest of my presentation. Joan did it much better than I would do it.

What must we still do? In order for Parks Canada to continue to fulfil its primary mandate of protecting all resources and lands over which it exercises control, including the illegal taking and trafficking of wildlife parts, we must maintain our enhanced law enforcement networks with our partner agencies; we must expand the use of modern law enforcement techniques and equipment, including undercover surveillance and coordinated investigation teams with partners; and, very importantly, we must improve public education programs.

The current recruit training program with the RCMP in Regina will continue, and most importantly Parks Canada will continue to support both the law enforcement and the ecosystem-based management programs in place now in order to fulfil its overall resource protection regimes.

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I have more of this, but I don't wish to repeat it because others have said it better. May I ask Duane to make a short presentation to illustrate some of the things we've all been talking about?

Mr. Duane Martin (Law Enforcement Specialist, Parks Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. I just want to reiterate two points here.

First, the amendments to the National Parks Act in 1988 provided us, as enforcement officers in Parks Canada, with a considerable increase in tools. One of the examples was the maximum penalties and fines.

After a two-year investigation some three years ago, we were able to convict an individual from British Columbia for having shot a bison in Wood Buffalo National Park some five years prior to that date. He was convicted of a poaching offence. That individual was fined by the courts the maximum $10,000 under tier 2 and was also sentenced to six months of imprisonment along with that. That was a key example for us of the value of the increased penalties and the seriousness of the court's view on that.

One other reference was to a partnership. Over the past few years, we have increased our partnershipping with a variety of federal wildlife enforcement agencies, the RCMP, and state and federal law enforcement in the U.S. Without that cooperation, we would not have been successful in some of our investigations to date.

A few years ago, an individual, Mr. Shipsey, who was a Californian businessman, came up and, with a guide from British Columbia, killed a bighorn sheep in Jasper National Park. We were successful only through cooperation with U.S. agencies, B.C. Fish and Wildlife and the RCMP in doing that.

Partnershipping is very important. Personally, from having been involved in law enforcement for a number of years, I would certainly welcome formal task forces being set up across the country with partnerships in terms of the RCMP, environmental protection enforcement officers and provincial agencies.

If I may, I like to just run through a dozen slides we brought along just to quickly illustrate some of the points that were made by both Ms Gregorich and Mr. Porter this morning.

[Slide Presentation]

Mr. Martin: The first one indicates that most of our national parks are in remote, rugged areas of Canada. Our boundary lines, as illustrated on the slide, are often the only physical indication of a differentiation between a totally protected regime in national parks and the provincial and territorial lands adjacent to it, which often have legal hunting seasons for a variety of species. The remoteness makes patrolling difficult and detection of individuals poaching in this type of terrain very difficult.

Poachers are often well-prepared, with access to radio-monitoring equipment, two-way communications and also night-vision equipment of a very low cost that's now available to the general public. As well, there's equipment that also facilitates access into rugged terrain, and river and lake environments, such as all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles and horses, which allow them to get into that country.

A wide variety of poaching methods are utilized. While hunting with a firearm is often considered the norm in terms of poaching, some traditional trapping techniques are also used.

These are illustrative of cases in the parks. This is a foot snare. This large one is a neck snare, which is used to entrap moose as they go through an area.

Often less sophisticated but equally effective deadly means of ensnaring wildlife are used, such as a buried foot snare. This device sitting on the tailgate is buried in the ground. An animal, such as a deer, steps into that. It has flaps on the top of it so that once the animal steps into that, they cannot pull their leg back out. They are trapped until the individual comes back to them.

The second thing is wire and fish-hooks. These are often strung in trees or across trails to ensnare wildlife as they pass through. This is an example of that same type of technique used in a different manner. The wires and hooks are embedded in apples. Deer, particularly, will come along and eat the apples and become ensnared by the fish-hook once they swallow the apple.

All the varied techniques, whether they use firearms, crossbows or some other form of home-made implements, contribute to the same unfortunate result, which is the loss of protected wildlife in national parks and from the people of Canada.

That concludes my presentation. Thank you very much.

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The Chairman: What is this last slide about?

Mr. Martin: The last picture illustrates, once the animals were seized, the remains of approximately three moose that were taken in snares. They had been cut up. When the individuals were apprehended, they were starting to process the meat on the site.

The Chairman: We can start the round of questions, ten minutes each, beginning with Madam Guay.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: I would like to get a bit more information about the Green Plan. You mentioned earlier that the Green Plan had led to the creation of some 54 law enforcement positions. But what type of positions are we talking about here? Are they park warden positions - in other words are these people going to be working in an office to enforce the law or will they actually be in the field?

Mr. Porter: Well, in most cases, incumbents will be working in the parks themselves. Of the 54 new positions, 45 will be assigned directly to the park environment.

Mrs. Guay: Given the kind of cuts that are planned within the Department of the Environment, is there intention to cut positions in this area as well?

Mr. Porter: We are not with the Department of the Environment.

Mrs. Guay: You're completely independent?

Mr. Porter: Well, we certainly will try to maintain those positions. Despite budget cuts, Parks Canada still has an obligation to complete the network of national parks. We will therefore be adding 16 other national parks. Given our budget allocation, it is important to keep the ones we already have, and we certainly hope the Treasury Board will be nice to us.

Mrs. Guay: I hope so too, because this is an important issue.

How do things operate in administrative terms within the Department of the Environment? What kind of administrative arrangements, if any, do you have with provincial departments? One of you was saying earlier that there were regulations in place for both provincial parks and federal parks. How do you actually deliver the various programs or carry out law enforcement?

[English]

Mr. McLean: The primary co-ordination would be through establishing enforcement priorities at the beginning of a season, and through providing appropriate training in terms of what the requirements of the federal laws would be. Of course, that would be cross-training as well, where federal officers would be also receiving information on the requirements of provincial laws so that in fact the officers would be working co-operatively.

Many of the investigations, as Mike Porter indicated, are multi-agency investigations. It's not simply one enforcement agency. With Environment Canada, in addition to the provincial agencies, we need to work very closely with customs and with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when it comes to wildlife trade-related violations.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: Someone was saying earlier that fines can be completely different from one province to the next. Are they different in every province and does the federal government have some way of comparing them? How do you actually manage the whole process? It doesn't sound that easy. Would it not be simpler to provide for consistent, and yet tougher fines all across the country?

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[English]

Mr. McLean: I'm sorry; I don't have information today on the various levels of provincial penalties. I think federally we are reasonably consistent between the Parks legislation and Environment Canada's legislation. Between our three federal laws, the maximum penalties are $250,000, or in the wildlife trade act, $300,000. So those penalties are very consistent. It was indicated that the Parks Act was amended in 1988. So even in those six or seven years between Parks Act amendments and the amendments to Environment Canada's legislation, the maximum penalties moved from the range of $150,000 to $250,000 and $300,000.

Ms Gregorich: I would like to add something about provincial legislation. I think you see a marked range amongst the provinces, and ideally it would be nice to see them equilibrating toward high penal orders. But I think it's simply not going to happen, because everybody has their own priorities.

Some provinces have wildlife research as their priority, placing lesser priority on enforcement, and their fine schedules are usually much lower. On the other hand, provinces such as Alberta place a very high value on enforcement. Their fine system is I think a maximum of $100,000 for wildlife trafficking offences. That would be highest in Canada for offences of that nature. New Brunswick also places a high emphasis on enforcement. Their penalty schedule reflects that as well.

I don't see them coming together. I see them much more similar now than three years ago as the profile of poaching and wildlife trade has increased, and I imagine we'll see the same trend continuing into the future. I don't expect Prince Edward Island, which has minimal poaching problems, will ever address this in the same way the western provinces do.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: Just to conclude, I would like to know in what areas of the country poaching activity is most widespread.

[English]

Ms Gregorich: I would say the areas that have the most valuable wildlife are the ones that are affected. The major urban centres of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are the ones where we see the high volume of illegal wildlife trade, particularly as it relates to the oriental medicine industry and others that feed into the Asian community and Asian countries.

The domestic meat trade is probably at its peak in the prairie provinces and in Ontario and Quebec, although it's also practised to a limited degree in the Atlantic provinces. Different areas have different specialties for the wildlife trade. Where there's the market is where it's going to be the greatest problem, so if they have a way of getting it into urban markets that's where the problem is the greatest.

[Translation]

Ms Guay: Thank you very much.

[English]

Mrs. Kraft Sloan (York - Simcoe): When we consider how vast this country is, trying to deal with the poaching problem is like trying to hold water in your hand or find a grain of sand on the beach. It's very difficult.

We had witnesses speak to us about the endangered species legislation that's coming up, and we certainly had a little bit of conversation around that this morning. I was wondering if the panelists can tell me if there is a way we could help control or diminish the poaching problem. Are there things we could enact within endangered species legislation? I would appreciate it if you could help us with that.

Mr. McLean: Without getting out ahead of where the consultations on federal endangered species legislation might go, and the kinds of things those consultations will recommend should go into the legislation, clearly I think - and this was indicated yesterday by my assistant deputy minister, Mr. Slater - that federal legislation should in fact have a full range of potential prohibitions. These should range from controls on the killing, taking of wildlife from nature through to prohibitions on the sale, through to the possibility of prohibitions relating to the habitat of the wildlife.

I think the full spectrum of prohibitions is needed, and what we'll see in the consultations is a discussion of the ``how to'', and how and when those prohibitions apply. Do they apply at the beginning, as soon as the species is designated, or is the decision to use particular prohibitions part of something that would go into a recovery plan? In other words, the kind of prohibition might vary, depending upon the species itself. In certain situations, you might need a killing offence, whereas in another situation it may be more a habitat problem.

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Mr. Porter: I guess from Parks Canada's point of view, it's not so much with the legislation itself but the consequences of it. I'm speaking in terms of our interagency cooperation and training, both in enforcement and understanding of what that means. It will be important to us subsequent to that, and we were engaged to work on that.

On a technical nature, when we amended the National Parks Act in 1988 and created those different schedules I spoke about, one of the rationales for placing a certain species in our highest schedule of $150,000 was that it would be on the COSEWIC endangered species list. We need to ensure, when the other legislation may go through, that we're consistent. We wouldn't want to be under any other penalty regime - less than; we would want to be equal to, or greater than, because of the significance of wildlife within a national park.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I also wonder about degradation of habitat through human intervention, pollution, and things such as that. How does that measure in relation to poaching as a problem for endangering wildlife? How significant is poaching compared with other forms of habitat degradation, pollution prevention, human interference, development and that type of thing?

Mr. McLean: The committee heard earlier from witnesses who indicated that the main problem is habitat-related. It's land use decisions, and ensuring that the way we in fact use land can respond to different objectives, be it agriculture, forest, and also, of course, wildlife. We need to integrate our activities on a landscape basis.

My sense was that those witnesses felt habitat was the problem. I thought one of the witnesses said that 80% of the species considered by COSEWIC were habitat-related problems, as opposed to poaching and smuggling. I might be incorrect in that recollection.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Are there certain species for which poaching is a more significant problem than habitat degradation, or is habitat degradation still the most important problem for all species?

Mr. McLean: I'm not familiar with all the species on COSEWIC, but there would be species whose main problem is one of trade. Certainly on the international side, that's very much the case. When it comes to the rhinoceros and the elephant, for example, the primary problem is in fact poaching and illegal trade.

Mr. Porter: There are a number of other aspects to the problem, though. We've talked in terms of people intentionally poaching, but there is another range of activities that we might categorize somewhat differently.

We need to have a fairly massive public education program on the go constantly, for example, to deal with the endangered massasauga rattlesnake, where it's found in parks in Georgian Bay. People in years past thought nothing of whacking a rattlesnake, that maybe it was the thing to do. Frankly, people would come in and brag about having just killed a rattlesnake in the campground. They had just killed an endangered species.

It goes a little broader than habitat and poaching for purpose. Public education is really important.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much.

Mr. DeVillers: Ms Gregorich, in your presentation, you made reference to judicial awareness. When this committee did hearings on the Canada Wildlife Act, the question of judicial awareness of the severity and seriousness of poaching was discussed. That's where the whole issue of maximum fines and raising the fines was dealt with.

At that point, it occurred to me that perhaps one option we could consider would be minimum fines that would be imposed and would get us around some of the judiciary not taking the matter seriously. Most of the witnesses, however - the departmental witnesses and the NGOs, and I seeMr. McLean is smiling because I think he was one of those witnesses - thought that was a dangerous prospect, because we'd end up not getting the conviction instead of getting the minimum fine.

The judiciary might react that way. If it was a serious minimum fine, they might not register the conviction. This was an idea I had, and the only support I had was from the enforcement officers I spoke to. I know with Mr. Martin we have one now, so I'd like to perhaps discuss that issue, if the panel could consider it and tell me if they are still of the opinion that minimum fines is not the way to go, given the fact that there seems to be some support for it amongst the enforcement people.

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Ms Gregorich: In the past I have been a strong proponent of minimum fines, and I have watched closely the development of that system in New Brunswick. I think they're on the forefront of that system of looking at the penalties.

I think what you do when you have a minimum fine in place is to deter the activity before it takes place. I think when people realize that once they're caught there's an automatic penalty, they're much more likely not to be involved in that activity in the first place.

I don't have a feel for what it would do to a judge's decision once it's in the court. My guess is that with the proper education they won't see it as satisfactory to leave it at that if there's the possibility of giving higher penalties.

But once again, it's a case of going consistently and with some forethought as to how you want to train the judiciary, where you want to place your emphasis, and how they see individual offences having different kinds of penal results. It may be that perhaps minor offences are the ones for which you need to go for a minimum fine, and leave it open far wider for some of the major ones.

It seems to me they're not even willing to practise with some of those things. People are afraid of it, and I'm not exactly sure why.

Mr. DeVillers: Thank you.

Mr. McLean: I won't bore the committee with the speech I gave a year ago. It was the same speech I gave when the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act was going through, since I was involved in that legislation as well.

The Chairman: Why would you make the assumption that it would bore the committee?

Mr. McLean: You've already heard it, so....

Briefly, I think minimum penalties can lead to bad case law. It would probably come down to how high the minimum penalty should be.

If in fact the minimum penalty was too high, there is the risk, and there are examples already of this in Canadian law, where it leads to poor jurisprudence. If he or she has sympathy for the person who is accused of an offence and the evidence might suggest that the person is in fact guilty, a judge having an eye to a minimum penalty that in his or her view is too high may find a way to find the person not guilty of the offence. So it does lead to bad case law.

The other thing that can happen is that the officer himself or herself may have compassion for the individual's situation and not charge in the first place.

We had suggested a year ago that a way to send a clear signal to the courts was through high penalties, and we've heard some evidence this morning that in fact the high penalties the committee established in law had resulted in higher penalties, very clearly the $80,000-worth of penalties in the Manitoba case I cited. So I think the high penalty is the way to do that.

The other part of the response - and we remain guilty of not being active enough in this area - is that we always focus on getting the conviction. So we have the experts there and the witnesses there to get the conviction. But then when it comes time to sentence the people, we fail, and we continue to fail to provide the experts and the witnesses to show the court that in fact the offence is a serious one. There is an opportunity in the court to bring those witnesses to the justices and have them testify as to the seriousness of the offence. We don't do that, so we're guilty of inaction there.

Mr. DeVillers: My reason for proposing minimum fines comes from my experience in municipal by-law prosecution and the frustration of the by-law enforcement officers when they see all the work they've done, and have obtained the conviction, and then it's a trivial fine. They wonder what the point was, and what use it was.

I wonder, Mr. Martin, if you could comment from the enforcement point of view.

Mr. Martin: Yes, your comments are very well stated in terms of the frustration. I think probably the support you got from enforcement officers across the country for minimum fines comes from just that case in point, of having been involved in investigations for a period of time, some of them stretching two and three years, taking them to court and finding that the court doesn't seem to take them seriously. All that good work seems to go out the window.

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I guess we have to be careful in terms of imposing our own personal feelings and frustrations. The courts in the jurisdictions in which I've worked for a good number of years have given good, strong support to increasing our fines from the $500. They felt very constrained by that.

Since the amendments in 1988, we have had some very good success in court and the support we continue to get again indicates not so much minimum fines, but in some cases, raising our penalties where they still feel constrained, given the nature of the offence brought before them.

We have had a number of decisions from judges who we have brought into headquarters to help us with proposed amendments to the penalties section to increase that, again based on judges' support.

The general feeling we have in talking to a number of judges is that they would feel constrained by a minimum penalty based sometimes on the circumstances, the nature of the individual's personal circumstances, coming into court. What they would like is a broader range of sentencing in terms of maybe probation for community service, having a good mixture of monetary fines plus jail sentencing. That gives them a good range to be able to do that.

One of the areas we've tried to concentrate on, where the judiciary has been acceptable to it, is an educational program for judges and magistrates. In some cases, where they've been amenable to it, we have taken them out into the national parks, shown them the circumstances and the areas in which we work and the problems we face. We've found very good results from that.

Since 1988, and the case in Alberta Ms Gregorich mentioned, the courts in the last four or five years seem to have taken a new and enlightened look at wildlife crime. We're encouraged by that.

Mr. Finlay: I want to thank the witnesses. We've heard a good deal about some of the things I've seen only in magazines and so on, and it's obviously something we have to deal with.

When I came back from China in 1984, I brought with me a little ivory carving. I was surprised to learn - I should have known, but I didn't - that it was illegal to bring it into the country, because it represented the tusk of some poached elephant or walrus or something.

I have two questions. In your opinion, are these prohibitive activities increasing or declining across the country? I appreciate all the approaches you're taking, the education, the enforcement, the maximum fines and so on. Do you have any sense of whether it is getting worse or better?

Ms Gregorich: I've asked that very question of wildlife enforcement officers at all levels of government, and they believe it is increasing. They get more reports through their poacher hotlines, they have more charges being laid generally each year, so there's a strong feeling that it's on the rise. It simply reflects what's happening with criminal activity across society in general. Where there's a market, where there's some place that can be filled, they move in and fill it.

So, yes, I would say it's on the rise.

Mr. Finlay: I want to go on to another point that came up in our material but we haven't dealt with, that is, game farming. I've had some approaches that suggest it is -

The Chairman: I hate to interrupt, but game farming is coming up with the next group of witnesses.

Mr. Finlay: Thank you. I won't ask these people about it.

I do have another question. In these acts we have been dealing with, the Canadian Wildlife Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, and the National Parks Act, there is no reference to game farming. Is there any connection or any responsibility under those acts for meat produced on such farms and how it is harvested?

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Mr. McLean: I think it depends on how we define game farming. Under the Migratory Birds Convention Act aviculture is allowed, and that in a sense is the private keeping and farming of wild species. As I say, aviculture is allowed. It's a closed network; people may move birds back and forth among people who are already registered aviculturists.

On the trade side, I think there's no question that in the future this issue of game farming will be one of the matters that needs to be addressed in a cooperative fashion. The response - whatever it is has to be sorted out - would be a combination of provincial laws concerning possession of wildlife and federal laws with both Environment Canada and Agriculture Canada's Health of Animals Act, from a disease angle, sorting out what that regime should be.

I would emphasize, though, that we do not have a consistent policy approach with respect to game farming across the country. I know this will be dealt with by a subsequent witness, but there is quite a range of policies.

Mr. Gilmour: In my former life I was in charge of a large woodlands operation on Vancouver Island that was made up of about 100,000 hectares. Poaching was a problem, particularly black bears and elk. There was a situation where there was a transplant program to bring some elk into a valley where a series of severe winters had reduced the population. It was a fun operation, going from the kids, to the community, to the fish and wildlife, and it went very well. However, subsequent to that, three elk were poached and the people were caught, went through the courts, and received minimum fines of $500 to $1,000. That's about four years ago now. I tell you, there was an uproar, because the community didn't think the fines were enough.

I'm delighted to hear that some of the penalties are going up. I'm just not convinced that it's working yet. Perhaps you can expand on that. We've talked penalties and we've talked increased fines. Is it going to work? Is the deterrent there, or do we have to go higher? Where do we go?

Ms Gregorich: I think it is working. I've monitored this now for three years, and I think I've seen a remarkable change in the response to legislation to deal with the problem. I think people are waking up to the fact that the problem exists and that we're out of the glory days of wildlife, where we could go out into the woods and find furry things and love them only for that.

I think people now realize that there is crime associated with wildlife and we're realizing that research isn't enough, because at some point there may not be anything left to research if we don't do something.

Canada is sitting in a good position in the sense that we still have abundant wildlife and we're in a position now to put legislation into place before the problem gets really big. Now that these high penalty systems are in place at both levels of government legislation I think we're going to see a strong deterrent there. Many of these things have been on the books for less than a year, some of them only a month, and already we're beginning to see a turnaround in the number of offences being committed.

So I'm very hopeful that over, say, the next three to five years we're going to see a remarkable number of cases dealt with very seriously in the courts, and I'm also hopeful that those will serve as example, landmark cases and will work in exactly the way we hope they will - to alert the criminal element in our society that there's a price to pay, and it's higher than what they're making at the job they're doing.

Mr. McLean: I would simply add to that a comment Joan made earlier. In addition to putting high penalties in legislation, there has to be a reasonable risk of apprehension in the mind of the offender. There has to be the perception that he might get caught if he commits this offence.

Mr. Gilmour: The point is well taken. I have a high regard for the people who do the patrolling. In my case, they are the B.C. Fish and Wildlife officers. Unfortunately, there are relatively few on the ground.

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Joan, I think you brought up the idea of ``woods watch''. Where was that? I'd like to hear more about that.

Ms Gregorich: That was in Alberta, and called Nature Watch.

I think that's the way it's going to have to go. I think as we have fewer government resources available for this kind of surveillance, and for just regular monitoring, we're going to have to go to interest groups. By and large, the public is happy to be involved in that once they know what the expectation is.

I think government has to redirect its efforts towards garnering that kind of support and making certain they have enough bodies out there. I think it's remarkable that wildlife enforcement officers are able to do the job at the level they do, considering there are so few of them. I don't think we're going to see lots more being added, so we're going to have to depend on programs such as that.

Mr. Gilmour: Your point is well taken, because in my experience in the woods most of your operations now are radio controlled. Your average logger is very much in tune with what's going on in the woods. They do report what's going on, and they're good eyes and ears for the officers.

I think that should be encouraged, and perhaps we could network it together, because if people think they're being watched.... As you say, if your vehicle is at the side of the road and there's a logging truck driver going by who's going to note down the licence number, that's a deterrent, and deterrents work.

Ms Gregorich: That raises the point that when we talk about public education, we're not talking about a broad public education. We're talking about focusing on groups that are likely to be able to do the kind of things we need to have done to curtail the problem, such as people who are in rural communities, and people who are in import-export businesses that possibly might deal with the species that are involved, that kind of thing.

Mr. Gilmour: We also have to address the type of mindset where people think, oh, well, catching one more fish is okay, or oh, well, pit-lamping really isn't too bad if you shoot a deer at night rather than in the day.

We have to come down and say that's wrong, you can't do that. So the next step is more education.

Ms Gregorich: You have to be willing to bet that in this committee there are people who would think one more fish would be okay. I have in my jewellery box a pair of earrings made of a CITES appendix 1 species I wasn't aware of. I'm not wearing them today.

So all of us are ignorant at our own level, and it's just a matter, as you say, of addressing that, and educating people.

Mr. Gilmour: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Porter: There is another aspect to this problem for Parks in terms of improving a situation. The indirect element is the risk to our own officers. When we elevated our fines to exceed or match the provinces in 1988, fairly recently, we didn't have a great concern about the risk to our officers. The $500 penalty was not deemed as terribly serious, and usually you didn't get the maximum anyway. When we increased it, we realized - actually, we'd been thinking about it - that the fact is, most poachers are armed. They're out in isolated areas. That's where they're caught.

When the prospect of a $150,000 fine and a jail term was to be imposed, we realized that was putting our people in a pretty invidious situation. That spurred us to spend a fair amount of money and devote a lot of training and effort to increased training. Rather than being reactive - if you're on patrol and you find a poacher, get him - it led to a different mind-set that said we need more investigation, we need more intelligence and we need to work with more partners. We've more or less front-ended it now. We tend to try to head off the actual incidents, or through intelligence-gathering find out what happened after the incident rather than putting our people in a situation that puts them at great risk.

Every agency involved in this, when they elevate their penalties, realize they elevate the risk to the people who have to enforce that.

In fact, when we were doing the 1988 amendments, we did get some information from conservation agencies in North America indicating that the risk of assault on a conservation officer, game warden or ranger is about five times the risk of an average police officer.

Mr. Gilmour: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you. We'll certainly thoroughly inspect our respective jewellery boxes.

Mr. Adams: On this matter of education, I must say, by educating MPs this morning I hope you're educating some of the people who are watching this, or who will read the Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence. I've learned a great deal.

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On our table, which I believe has been on TV from time to time, are specimens the customs officers have confiscated. There's baleen from whales; ivory from elephants and perhaps something else; coral; snakes of various types; alligators of various types; a leopard skin; and another cat I don't recognize. These are just a few. You have a book of bird species that customs officers have to be able to recognize. The scale is extraordinary.

I must say, Ms Gregorich, your report, Poaching and the Illegal Trade in Wildlife and Wildlife Parts in Canada, published by the Canadian Wildlife Federation, is very useful. At the back of the report are appendices that compare the regulations, commonalties and enforcement among the provinces, territories, and the federal government. These are the things we've been discussing; they're already here.

For example, it says that bear gall-bladders cannot be sold in Ontario, but there are other provinces where they can be sold, and things like that. I think people should know those things.

Ms Gregorich, I have here a bear gall-bladder and some of the product from our table. These are not mine; they had been confiscated.

I also put the booklet.... This is a pretty elaborate kit. It explains the qualities - perhaps the so-called qualities - of the product. I just wonder if you could elaborate a bit on this.

This booklet also says they have a way of getting the bile from bears without killing them. Now, I don't think they could get that out of a bear without killing the bear. But it implies that they implant a tube in the bear. I assume the bear is in captivity. I don't know what it is. Do you know anything about that? I'm only asking because it gives an indication of the elaborateness of the system behind the poaching we've been discussing.

Ms Gregorich: I'm not familiar with that particular technique. But related to that, I am aware that parts coming from animals in the wild that are there in their entirety are somehow more valuable than those that are synthetically produced, or those that are harvested while leaving the animal alive.

It has to do with the philosophical system that is the underpinning of oriental medicine. We need to be cautious and not lay any judgment on the cultural side of that practice, but simply say that it's illegal and you can't do it.

In a case like that it's entirely possible that you can get out the bile, but my own familiarity with it suggests that it's not widely practised.

This is the favoured product.

Mr. Adams: Do people actually go and kill a bear just for this, and leave the rest of the bear?

Ms Gregorich: They generally would kill it for that and for their paws. Those are the two items that are the favoured body parts of the black bears.

Mr. Adams: You've all said something that concerns me. I could read out this list of fairly exotic things on our table. You pointed out that the trade in quite ordinary things - meat, fur, hide, and so on - is actually as important within Canada as the sale of exotic things like this. That must drive the poaching industry.

Ms Gregorich: That's exactly it. The fact that it's market-driven is what makes it an insidious thing to get a handle on. As far as the actual impact of this practice on Canadian wildlife, there are far fewer black bear being taken for their parts than taken for their meat and served like moose, deer and elk. But since this has an international profile, it catches the attention of people much more.

Mr. Adams: Mr. Porter, while you're here, and before the chair realizes what I'm saying - because he cut Mr. Finlay off - Kevin McNamee told us yesterday about the review that is required of our national parks system. That review was put into law when our chair was in fact Minister of the Environment.

My understanding was that in some way Parks Canada has to keep a check on what's going on. I understood that late, but better late than never. A report has recently come out on the status of parks and how far we're progressing with the plan to complete the park system by the year 2000. Would you care to comment on that?

Mr. Porter: The report was tabled with the Clerk of the House about two weeks ago and should have been distributed to members. If it has not been circulated, I'd be quite concerned, because that was the plan. I will follow up on that after this meeting.

The report is a legislative requirement. We are in fact late. We have no wonderful excuse other than the fact that there were changes in departments and some difficulties in measuring change in our areas of responsibility over the short period.

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We decided to take a different approach to it. We looked at it on a more scientific basis. So we report on the basis of science rather than check off the box on how many parts....

The report deals with threats to existing national parks. It is part of the legislated requirement for reporting on our progress to date on establishing new parks. In that sense it's all tied into the fact that subject to the legislative requirement, we're given a Green Plan goal - confirmed by the red book - of completing the national park system by the year 2000. As I mentioned earlier, that would require 16 new parks or at least agreements to establish new parks by the year 2000. We're not doing too badly.

Mr. Adams: Mr. McNamee stressed that it wasn't simply a matter of numbers or a percentage of the country - another 12% is the only figure that's been mentioned - but actually covering, I believe he said, 424 different ecosystems or eco-units. One of the concerns is that the emphasis might just be on a percentage of the land area of Canada rather than on trying to get core areas that would be reserves for biodiversity.

Mr. Porter: Kevin was speaking of the national scene. He spoke in terms of the 12%, which is a goal all provincial, territorial and federal governments have bought into, in a program called Endangered Spaces, led by the World Wildlife Fund, which did the report card a week ago.

When he speaks to those regions he's speaking nationally. Our federal national park system has 39 natural regions. Our intention is to have all those regions represented.

In some regions, as we speak, we have 2 or more parks, areas such as the Rocky Mountain region. But there are 16 to go. We have several under active negotiation. Some are going to be harder than others. But we still hope that by the year 2000 we'll have at least agreements in place to establish them. That is the goal.

The difficulty with talking about representation is that there is some difference of opinion as to what that means. We have a systems plan that was developed in the 1970s that enjoys international recognition in terms of how it represents the geographical and biological features of one of these 39 natural regions.

This is what we do: we find a place within that region, which is a very large region, that has the most representative wildlife, physiological, nature features that are representative of the whole region.

Let us take a place like Ellesmere Island. That particular region is fairly homogeneous. We have a very large chunk of it on the Ellesmere Island National Park Reserve. We represent probably 98% of everything that's in that region and it's the best part of that region. That's what we attempt to do with all the regions.

Mr. Adams: I appreciate the answer. I for one would like to see public hearings on the report you've tabled.

The Chairman: I would very much like to accommodate a few more questions, but we are running behind and we have two witnesses who have been patiently waiting all morning.

We will have another round of questions, and I also would like to add myself to the list of those who have to ask a question before we adjourn. So please hang around.

For the sake of moving ahead and so as not to keep people waiting, we have to now expand the panel and bring on board, so to speak, the two witnesses. They are Liz White from the Animal Alliance of Canada and Darrel Rowledge, the Director of Alliance for Public Wildlife.

I would invite you to stay, but just to accommodate these other two witnesses in your midst, we will have another round of five minutes each when these two presentations have been completed. There may still be questions posed to you as a result of what we will hear.

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Ms White, would you like to start? Please go ahead and make it a compressed presentation so that we can have another round of questions before we break up at noon.

Ms Liz White (President, Animal Alliance of Canada): My name is Liz White and I am with an organization called Animal Alliance of Canada. I'm a member of the Endangered Species Task Force and if anybody has any further questions on that, I'd be happy to answer them.

I want to thank the committee today for providing this opportunity. It is a much welcomed opportunity to talk about the status of wildlife in Canada and to try to raise the profile of some of the very important questions we need to answer.

Wildlife is increasingly coming under pressure and this is happening not only from habitat and human population pressures, but from legal trade, poaching, illegal trade and the failure to enact and enforce appropriate protection laws and treaties.

The sad fact is that wildlife smuggling is big business. It's second only to drug smuggling and ahead of arms smuggling in volume. The wildlife trade overall is second only to habitat destruction in causing the greatest rate of endangerment and extinction in all human history. So we're talking about a very serious issue.

Today I want to talk to the committee about some very practical things that I think the committee and the government need to do in order to deal with some of these issues. I want to touch on a number of difficult things for the committee and the government to grapple with, but I think they need to be said. In some way we need to come to terms with them.

The direction the committee and the government have generally been taking in the last little while has been very good. The activities surrounding the amendments to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, the Canada Wildlife Act, the look at biodiversity and other activities have been much welcomed, but I think there is a serious problem within Environment Canada.

The concern I have is that there is a pull, a very great difference in philosophy internally, in Environment Canada between those who want to increase wildlife protection, take a look at poaching, increase enforcement and improve laws, and those who feel that wildlife should pay its way, money should be added to the value of the animal, and if there is no money involved then the animal has less value. That needs to be addressed by people within Environment Canada.

The recommendations I'm going to make today flow directly from that. The very general recommendation we would make to the committee is that there be a comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy developed within Environment Canada. All the legislation and various pieces of policy initiatives would flow from that general conservation wildlife direction.

The second and more specific of the recommendations relates to a number of different areas. I want to talk about these because they need to be dealt with. I have some very specific recommendations regarding the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. From the perspective of the international conservation community, Canada's participation in CITES has not been perceived as very positive.

There is a particular report that is of very great concern to people in the conservation community. This report was presented at CITES, to which Canada has granted $50,000. That report looks at how to improve the effectiveness of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

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Given who's supporting it, our concern is that that report is in fact designed to weaken the convention, as opposed to strengthening it. If anybody has taken a serious look at it, I think they might well agree.

We are recommending that instead of opting out of the report, Canada, through the minister, should request absolute clarification of the intent of the report. They should state that they want to know that this report is being done to strengthen CITES, not to weaken it, and that we need clarification - particularly in written form - on this matter. We need to have confirmation as well that there will be a maximum degree of openness within the process in which this consultation goes on.

It's our understanding that may not be the case. We are greatly concerned that the consultation process take place not only with other governments but with non-governmental organizations and conservation groups.

Secondly we recommend that the committee urge the minister to direct Canada's representative on the standing committee at CITES, who will act in an advisory capacity to that report, to take the government's position forward to that group.

The committee should also urge the minister to replace the full complement of staff in the Canada CITES management authority office. In 1991, money was granted to increase the CITES office by three staff persons. This was not done. The money has gone elsewhere, and in fact they are minus one person in that office compared to what they were a number of years ago. So we're asking that at least the complement be increased.

The United States has virtually tripled the number of people in their management authority office. They deal with 5,000 fewer permits every year than Canada does. So I think there has to be some look at that.

We recommend that the committee urge the minister to direct the federal wildlife law enforcement unit to establish international wildlife contacts within the international enforcement communities, particularly as they relate to CITES.

The second round of recommendations relate to WAPPRIITA, the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act - the shorter version is the wildlife trade act. We need to proclaim this act, and we need to do it quickly. We need to release the draft regulations, which should be out there for discussion, to the NGOs and other appropriate bodies as quickly as possible.

The main thing we want to put on the record with regard to this is some very great concern about the possible personal household effects exemptions that may come through WAPPRIITA. It is our feeling that this is a potentially great loophole in enforcement, regulation and compliance within this piece of legislation. Given the number of people who travel, the extent of the travel, and the extent of international travel, this provides a very difficult loophole to close.

The fourth thing is just to ensure peace officer status within that piece of legislation. I just had a conversation with Bob McLean yesterday and I understand this is covered.

The next recommendation concerns the Migratory Birds Convention Act. The amendments to the act were excellent and we support those, but we urge the government to get on with amending the regulations. The regulations need to be brought into compliance with the act.

In this discussion of harmonization we need to restate that the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the convention are a paramount federal responsibility. They should not be part of the harmonization discussions, only with respect to the fact that there's some degree of cooperation. With the recognition that this is a paramount federal responsibility, the appropriate number of enforcement officers should be applied to ensure compliance with and enforcement of that legislation.

The next recommendation is to ask the committee to support the federal endangered species initiatives as outlined by the minister and to urge the minister to push the act forward as quickly as possible - the federal piece of legislation, not the national framework.

The last two general recommendations are that the committee urge the minister to bring forward all current wildlife law enforcement officers under one branch, the Environment Protection Branch. Currently some of them are under one branch of Environment Canada and some of them are under another.

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From an NGO point of view it is very difficult to understand how the flow of authority takes place, who is responsible and why one department is responsible for one set of enforcement officers who do essentially the same job as another set of enforcement officers.

So the purpose is to clarify that flow for people who continually try to encourage participation in the whole enforcement and legislative network.

The last thing I would like to ask - and I've asked it before - is that the committee investigate the disposition of the $12.3 million that was specifically allocated by Treasury Board in 1991 to staff 3 new positions at the CITES Canada management authority office and to hire 26 new wildlife law enforcement officers to enforce WAPPRIITA when it comes into effect.

We now have 31 wildlife law enforcement officers in Canada. Of these officers, 18 enforce the Migratory Birds Convention Act and 13 are there to bring in WAPPRIITA when it is finally proclaimed. Although the numbers may have changed marginally, they're not greatly changed. It is quite clear that the $12.3 million was not used for the purposes for which it was allocated. Otherwise, we would have double the number of enforcement officers we now have.

It is very important that money that is absolutely earmarked for a specific purpose within Environment Canada be used for that. There should not be the kind of attitude that says we can allocate it here or there depending on what we internally feel should happen. We need to send people a very strong message.

I wanted to pass on to the supporting information, in which there are a number of concerns that have been raised around CITES and a number of other issues. Interestingly, if people think the poaching issue is just in the woods, I want to assure you it is not. I would refer to item 8, an advertisement in a 1993 edition of The Financial Post. It reads:

Canadian businessmen with government and private contacts in Moscow will represent your company in Russia or the Far East. Can supply bear gall. Call Alex -

I would suggest that urban people who don't spend a lot of time - We've asked people to take a very close look at the classified ads in various newspapers across Canada. You will be greatly surprised at the sale and trade that goes on within the classified ads. You can begin to uncover some of the key elements within the international and national community that are participating in this trade.

The Chairman: Thank you for bringing this brief to our attention. Before calling on the next witness, I would like to ask you one general question. There are also a number of specific questions I'm sure my colleagues will address. Have these recommendations been brought to the attention of the minister or the minister's office in another form?

Ms White: I have talked to the minister's staff on several occasions, but I have not talked to the minister directly regarding these recommendations.

The Chairman: Is a copy of this particular document in the hands of the minister's staff?

Ms White: No, but I would be happy to send it to the minister.

The Chairman: This would be our natural or normal process. I just want to know whether this is material that has emerged for the first time.

Ms White: My intent was to get down to some very specific things the committee can do. It's a huge issue, and it's very difficult to deal with. But there are some very specific things the committee and this government can do to make the situation a lot better.

The Chairman: With respect to the regulations on both the convention and the Canada Wildlife Act, are you certain that regulations are not being written?

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Ms White: They may be in the process of being written - I don't know - but as far as I can tell they're certainly not out for circulation and comment.

The Chairman: Thank you. This concludes this portion in general. I'm sure there will be questions.

Mr. Rowledge, would you now like to make your presentation briefly?

Mr. Darrel Rowledge (Director, Alliance for Public Wildlife): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm a director at the Alliance for Public Wildlife. The Alliance for Public Wildlife is a broad-based coalition of wildlife conservation and public interest groups that are concerned with the broad implications of public policy, public policy in general and how it affects wildlife conservation.

I would first like to thank you for the establishment of this forum to examine vitally important things with respect to a resource that every Canadian considers to be precious.

It's important not just because people are discussing vitally important legislation like the Endangered Species Act, but also because we desperately need this legislation.

I would like to take a step back from the brink, from the failures that require us to put into place things like the Endangered Species Act or invoke emergency measures in order to stop something from going ahead and address head on some of the causes of the problems. If we don't understand the causes of the problems, we've really set out on a course that's not going to allow a solution.

There's an old saying that it's a heck of a lot better to have a strong fence at the top of the cliff than to have a great ambulance service to the bottom. That holds here as well.

The single greatest threat to wildlife is markets. There's no doubt about this; it's been documented over and over again all over the planet. This is not a secret. In fact, we have learned all of these lessons once. I hope the committee will recall that the last time Professor Geist and I addressed this committee, we tried to bring some of this to your attention. I will go over it again very briefly.

In North America we essentially lost all our wildlife by the turn of the century. We're not just talking about the bison and the passenger pigeon. Essentially all wildlife had been wiped off the continent by the turn of the century.

Because this was as problematic in the United States as it was in Canada at that time, government on both sides of the border reacted the same way governments do today.

What does the United States do when they are in crisis? Well, they call in the military, and that's what they did. They called in the military to protect the last remnant herds in Yellowstone Park.

Canadians in crisis tend to be a little less romantic; we held royal commissions.

The net result of the whole thing though was that we had very clearly identified that the source of the problem was the market. There was an economic incentive for the destruction of wildlife.

And so, when we were faced with the fact that the last native elk disappeared from Alberta in 1913, we had to react with emergency measures. On both sides of the border we came up with the single greatest environmental success story in the history of the planet. Everybody likes to talk about sustainable development. Well, the greatest example of it anywhere on the planet existed in North America.

We put into place four fundamental principles of conservation.

The first principle was that wildlife was a public resource that belonged to the public. It did not belong to the landowner.

The second was a prohibition on the killing of vulnerable wildlife.

The third was an optimistic thing given the time, but they decided that if we ever got huntable surpluses of wildlife again, allocation of that wildlife would be done by government, not by those who had the most money.

The fourth principle was an outright ban on the frivolous killing of wildlife.

If you ask yourself what difference that made before these rules were enacted, there was an economic incentive for the destruction of wildlife. You could go out there as an individual and when you killed something you just gained a personal asset, because you could sell it. So there was this incentive to kill.

After these rules were put into place, first of all, you could only hunt when, where and how the government told you you could. Secondly, the instant you killed something, you had just walked into a personal liability, not an asset, because now you were prohibited from ever selling it, and there were all these regulations. All of a sudden you had to clean it, you had to take it home, you had to package it, you had to adequately store it and you had to eat it, and if you didn't do all of those things you could be convicted of the frivolous killing of wildlife.

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What did this system of conservation get us? It replenished wildlife across North America. That's what it did. Four fundamental principles.... We're not talking about huge amounts of money being thrown at enforcement and we're not talking about enormous fines.

People have spoken to the fact that the fines were not great. Everyone knew it was illegal to market wildlife, so we got our wildlife back. And in the process of that we stumbled into an economic gold mine. Wildlife in North America generates about $70 billion in first-time spending every year because of the industries that have grown up around it, making and selling a mountain of outdoor equipment, backpacks and tents, binoculars and rifles and everything that people use to enjoy wildlife - $70 billion a year. You could kill every critter on the continent and throw it into the marketplace and you wouldn't get anywhere near that.

We also got something else. When we decided to protect wildlife as a public resource, we were handed an implicit demand to protect the wild places, because without habitat you can't have wildlife.

What are we doing now to this system of conservation that stands as the greatest environmental success story in history? Unfortunately, by the end of the 1980s across the country in Canada, with only two exceptions - Manitoba and Newfoundland - we had torn the heart from the system of conservation. Wildlife is no longer just considered a public resource; now it's going to be privatized. Rather than having bans on the sale of this vulnerable wildlife, it is to be encouraged and even subsidized by governments. Game farms have cropped up across the country.

The first thing we have to ask is what this is and why it's being done. Some people have identified a market for this vulnerable wildlife and they say ``Hey, there's a market here; let's get in on this bonanza''. So they have persuaded some governments to allow them to do it. They changed legislation, they changed rules, they got government money, including federal government money, in order to do this, and they have established game farms in a whole bunch of provinces.

First of all, it's established as a pyramid scheme. They sell breeding stock. The people who get in first make the money. Not surprisingly, in Alberta direct relatives - we're talking brothers and cousins of cabinet ministers - got in on the ground floor of this nonsense before it was even legal. As the pyramid reaches its saturation point, the market has to be defended with actual product in the marketplace. There are two, and neither one of them is venison. Almost no one in the country is selling venison. There are two markets: first for aphrodisiacs and folklore medicines in the form of velvet antler, in the form of aborted fetuses called slinks, and things like that. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to indicate that these things are anything more than placebo. They don't work, or if they do it's because of psychological effects.

When these animals become more valuable as a trophy than they are as a living pharmacy, these same animals are sold to a private game farm, typically in a state like Montana, where some brave white hunter pays $20,000 for what the industry calls a guaranteed kill. They drive someone around in a pick-up truck until he finally kills the animal and he's got a trophy for his wall. Well, that's the mainstay of this industry.

The lobbyists for this industry have bravely changed the name of their organization from the Game Farm Association to the Canadian Venison Council. There's not one single game farm in my province selling venison. Nobody wants it. The public does not want it. The actual name of that organization should probably be the Canadian Aphrodisiac Council.

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What we have to do is to back up a little bit. We have to ask ourselves why we're doing this. Why are we allowing the sale of this vulnerable wildlife? It's vulnerable because it's been demonstrated to be so. Why are we allowing this? Why are we encouraging it? Why are tax dollars going to subsidize the markets, to create markets for this wildlife, for a few individuals?

I have begged governments for 10 years to do assessments. I'm begging this government to do legitimate assessments of this industry. This is a vital public resource.

What I'm told is this is a turf war between federal and provincial governments. That is nonsense. It is not a turf war; it's a matter of political will. I'm told we can't do this assessment because wildlife management is a provincial jurisdiction. Fine. This is a provincial jurisdiction, but what the hell does that have to do with game farming? Game farming is agriculture. Under section 95 of the Constitution agriculture is not only under concurrent jurisdiction, but the federal government has the paramount authority. The only thing stopping an assessment from going ahead is political will.

When we get environmental assessments that look into all of the problems that game farming implies - not just poaching because we create all these markets, but diseases, parasites, genetic pollution and so on - we will see there will be habitat loss.

I'll give you one example in terms of habitat loss. If the industry is successful by its own standards - and they want to rival New Zealand, which has nearly two million animals behind fences - it will represent the single greatest outright loss of habitat in North American history. Our public wildlife, which used to be considered a public resource that was no different from a stream or a river, which had a right to flow freely through private property, no longer has that right. The instant those fences go up, the wildlife loses access to that land for forage, for sanctuary, for escape and migration.

One example of the problems this creates: in Wyoming there was a fellow who wanted to do strip mining for coal on primarily his own land. He knew the wildlife advocates would raise holy hell about this because of the destruction of habitat, so he thought he would get himself out of the problem by putting up fences to stop the wildlife from accessing his land.

Eventually, the courts were successful in getting him to tear down the fences, but not before somewhere in the order of 5,400 antelopes starved to death in the dead of winter because they couldn't migrate through the fences to get to their winter range.

So what we've got is a disaster on our hands and people who are refusing to do assessments. Are we doing this for economic purposes? That's the other thing. Well, the only economic analysis I've ever been able to get my hands on that's been commissioned by a government was commissioned by a pro-game farming Yukon government. I have it here; I've sent it to the minister. I think we presented it to you last time.

First of all, I should preface this by saying this document did not look at any of the costs, the regulation, the administration, veterinarians, all of the laboratory and compensatory measures that are necessary in order to allow the system to work. In other words, all the taxpayers' money was not considered in this. The only thing this document looked at is whether or not individuals could make money.

They had some interesting conclusions. First of all, they said there was no venison market; it wouldn't justify building the special slaughter facilities. Secondly, they said that antler is so volatile you cannot count on it as a legitimate market. They concluded that this industry would show no return on investment and no return on labour. It's not going to create any jobs; it's not going to make any money. So why do it? And they didn't consider any of the costs in this.

I circulated a document to most politicians in the country during the last federal election. I got a commitment from the Prime Minister for an assessment of this. All we want to do is look at it. We want to have people come and put their information on the table and let Canadians decide whether we want to go ahead with the greatest change to our conservation policies in 70 years.

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The Prime Minister made that commitment and now I'm being told it's being hung up because of a turf war, because this is provincial jurisdiction.

I'd like to close by offering some advice from a person I consider to be one of the best resource economists on the planet, Herman Daly. He tells a story of a guy who is known far and wide as the village idiot. This guy was known far and wide because you could go up to him with a dollar bill in one hand and a two dollar bill in the other hand and tell him ``You can take one of these bills but you can't take both''. The village idiot would reach out, grab the dollar bill, stick it in his pocket and go away. People started increasing enormously the denomination of the higher bill. Whether they were $100 bills or $1,000 bills, the village idiot would grab the $1 bill and walk away. Finally, a guy got him in a corner and said, ``Look, I know you're not stupid. Why do you keep doing this?'' He said, ``It's obvious. If I start taking the bigger bill, they're going to quit making the offer''.

Our wildlife offers us $70 billion every single year, unless we get greedy. All I ask is for this to be a first step, that we are able to move forward from here and have legitimate assessments and legitimate analyses. Let people come forward and put their cases on the table. I can't think of anything more democratic than that.

Thank you very much for hearing me.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Rowledge. We remember very well your last appearance and welcome you again.

We will now have a round of questions in the same order we had before, starting with Madam Guay.

[Translation]

Ms Guay: We are quite aware of problems associated with poaching and wildlife conservation. You said earlier the the provinces have some jurisdictions in some area and that the federal government does not always have the same powers. This is quite complicated because some provinces to try to conserve wildlife when others do not have the necessary personnel to do it.

It is obvious that if these efforts are not structured, they will have to be covered by a federal statute. Still, I know that some provinces do their job. I see that you feel that in some places, the work is not done. Do you have some examples to give us? Can you tell me where in Canada is the wildlife more at risk and where are the biggest problems?

[English]

Mr. Rowledge: I'll give you one brief example. In Alberta right now we have a whole bunch of deer and 20 or more elk that are missing from tuberculosis-infected game farms. These animals have gone to the wild.

The very place we imported the animals from in the United States has gone into the wild and killed a couple of hundred animals and tested them for tuberculosis. Unfortunately, they've confirmed that it passed from the game farm into the wild - that is, without escapes. Not only that, it went into different species. To give you an example of how serious it is, they killed 16 coyotes and found tuberculosis in two of them.

Part of the reason we're not getting an assessment is because the bureaucrats within Agriculture Canada are lobbying their little tails off to not ever have this assessed because they want to cover up their negligence.

Those at Ag Canada knew the tuberculosis test did not work. They even lobbied the USDA to try to get it to change its tests. The USDA said no. Agriculture Canada said okay and endorsed the imports and continued to endorse the imports into Canada until we had bovine tuberculosis in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. Then they closed the door.

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The other interesting reason why Agriculture seems to want this, why the bureaucracy wants it, is because for bureaucrats this is a panacea. This is job security. In order to have game farming, you have to have all the regulatory and administrative functions, all the enforcement personnel in order to try desperately to protect public wildlife. My question is why? Why do we need to sell vulnerable wildlife? Who's going to benefit?

That's only one example. There are many others, but I think we probably don't have time to go into them.

The Chairman: May I make the suggestion that you would be most effective by avoiding attributing motives to people who are not in this room, just providing us with the facts and your observations without attributing motives? I think it would be appreciated by a lot of people.

Mr. Rowledge: I apologize. I've just been frustrated by ten years of reluctance.

The Chairman: Fair enough.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: My question is also for you, Ms White. Do you think that with a canadian wildlife act, we might be able to solve a large number of problems? Do you believe on that contrary, that if we develop another legislation and that it is not applicable?

How do you see that? Do you really believe that by developing a new act on wildlife in order to protect endangered species, etc., we'll truly be in a position to improve the situation of wildlife in Canada?

[English]

Ms White: It's not the only answer. It should be part of a comprehensive policy that looks at all the various forms of wildlife that we import into our country for consumption as pet owners, as collectors, as people who eat or wear these animals or plants, those that are being laundered through our country to other countries - that's happening extensively with products like tiger bone and rhinoceros horn - and our own products that are being laundered out, such as bear parts. It involves our own internal care of our wildlife, so it's only part of what I would hope would be a broader, comprehensive program.

The thing with the endangered species legislation - and I wouldn't normally be the sort of person who would support it because I think we need to do the protection before we get to the vulnerable and endangered categories - is that I think there's potential within this legislation to go beyond the simple dealing with critically endangered species. What we were looking at in the committee was to sort of back it up to vulnerable, or before vulnerable, to try to kick in some mechanisms that would allow discussion, that would allow us to reach out to the agricultural people, to the mining people, to the pulp and paper people, to try to build in some kind of preventive measures before the species become endangered.

The bottom line is that there will be conflicts and there will be times when an endangered species comes into conflict with some kind of interest. What we need to have is appropriate legislation to deal with that, but it needs to be part of the comprehensive program.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: I think the chair's comments were well taken, Mr. Rowledge, though I would like to let you know that your presentation to the committee last year really was the impetus for this forum. So people are listening - but it is frustrating sometimes.

A lot of this discussion is just going back to fundamental values, how we value the natural world, how we see ourselves in relationship to the natural world, forgetting that we are in nature and nature is in us and there's no separation. That's a fundamental question that I think we're going to continue to struggle with. We're not going to find answers in a big way until we can come to that kind of conclusion.

I have two specific kinds of questions. In regard to the money, the $12.3 million that had been allocated, I'm wondering if the Auditor General has noticed this problem at all. Ms White, has this been documented at all in any Auditor General reports?

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Ms White: I'm not aware of it being documented in an Auditor General's report. It's difficult to get access to some of that stuff, or at least I find it difficult. It certainly has been a concern I've relayed, but I don't know whether anything has specifically been done about it. In the scheme of things it's probably not a huge amount of money in the federal context.

I think the reason why I have been talking regularly about it is because it's indicative of an attitude within Environment Canada that displaces the necessary enforcement activities. I think the attitude within the department that led to this kind of use of money outside of enforcement needs to be addressed, whether the $12.3 million is ultimately allocated to enforcement again and whether we find out where it all went.

Specifically, I think there needs to be more enforcement officers. I'm not suggesting we need to take all of the various Environment Canada budgets and allocate a whole bunch to enforcement. I think a smart use of talent and activity is the kind of thing that needs to be looked at and a very different way of enforcing and gathering intelligence and that sort of thing. The problem is that you can't do it with 18 people on migratory birds, and you can't do it with 13 people on WAPPRIITA. It is just not possible, even if you share with other enforcement agencies.

Within my report I have a letter listed here from customs. We've done a lot of work around trying to keep people informed about this. I had a letter back from customs intelligence, the border inspection people, who say they're not aware of any problems with regard to wildlife trade. Harmonization is well and good, but if the assistant deputy minister is saying they don't know this stuff is going on, then I would hazard a guess that we're in some problem with regard to the trade. That's why I think the $12.3 million and the lack of bodies to help educate the various agencies that we might use such as customs, RCMP, etc., are not there.

The Chairman: For all those involved, I have to at least inquire whether Mr. McLean is in a position to make a statement at this point.

Mr. McLean: I don't have information today that would explain where all of that $12.3 million that was earmarked in the Green Plan for the wildlife trade act is.

Previous federal budgets - and this will be known to committee members - reduced aspects of the Green Plan. It was spread from a five-year to a six-year program, so that resulted in a reduction to the $12.3 million. I don't know the extent of that reduction.

I would also confirm that my minister has asked that there be no reductions to the enforcement area through the recent budget. The resources we had last year will remain the same this year. In fact, as we move to proclamation of the wildlife trade act there will be additional positions staffed. I don't think we will ever know whether or not that is ultimately enough.

What we struggle with in the department is achieving the right balance. Enforcement is but one strategy used to achieve wildlife conservation. We're trying to find the right balance between enforcement and communications with respect to our science activities. Probably what the committee could in fact do is go through the budget and suggest that every one of those areas is deficient. But the reality in the country is that we simply don't have those dollars available any more. We're trying to make the best decisions possible and to use those dollars in the most efficient way.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Mr. Rowledge, I know your expertise is in the area of game farming. I'm wondering if you have had any experience with or knowledge of fish farming. Are there similar kinds of concerns? If there is anyone else on the panel who'd like to contribute in that area, I'd like to know.

Mr. Rowledge: I have some knowledge of fish farms and the problems associated with them. They are very much similar to the problems experienced in terms of terrestrial game farming.

Norway experimented with this a long time ago. It's a few years ago now, but I remember particular instances where they had to go in and sterilize entire rivers, because they were desperately trying to deal with the parasites, the genetic pollution and the diseases because of fish farms.

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I think the marketing has traditionally been something that is not or was not considered to be as serious. In other words, fish didn't used to be considered vulnerable. We used to jokingly refer to the three ``Fs'' - fish, pheasants and furs. Why, for example was there no problem for fur farming?

In the case of fish and fur, if you were a poacher of these animals, imagine yourself trying to be a poacher of mink. You would come back at the end of the month, you would be tired and hungry, and you wouldn't have a lot to show for it. There was less incentive. There was less incentive until we found out the capacity of technology to completely eliminate fisheries, like what has happened on the east coast.

Now we recognize that, as technology changes, we have to alter our questions of vulnerability. Certainly, the disease, genetic pollution and parasite issues are all there.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: Is that only with fish farms in streams and rivers, or is that a similar problem, for example, with the enclosed trout farms in Ontario?

Mr. Rowledge: I think it's a lot less of a problem with a trout farm that's enclosed completely, because unlike elk that jump over the fence and run away, fish are not quite likely to do that.

The other problems that can result, though, have to do with people and circumstances where they can't make any money.

New Zealand has run into this in their game farm situation. Game farmers are desperately trying to deal with the fact that the markets have crashed. They've actually started turning their animals loose. They don't want to kill them, so they just turn them loose. Fish present a similar problem.

Mr. DeVillers: Ms White, I think you made reference in your first recommendation to the CD standing committee. Could you give us some idea of the composition of that committee?

Ms White: Do you mean the standing committee of CITES?

Mr. DeVillers: Right.

Ms White: I don't have that in front of me, but I would be happy to provide it to you. It's made up of a number of different countries.

Mr. DeVillers: Do different countries have different representatives on it?

Ms White: Yes. Canada has representation on that.

Mr. DeVillers: I think you made some comments about Canada's participation. Do you have more particulars of the problems?

Ms White: Do you mean with regard to CITES?

Mr. DeVillers: Right.

Ms White: The problems we face with regard to Canada as it related to CITES at the last convention, which was in Fort Lauderdale, in November I believe, was specific downlistings.

Canada supported proposals for the downlisting of the African elephant, the rhinoceros - a critically endangered species - and the Minke whale. Canada supported the downlisting of the Minke whale despite the fact that the International Whaling Commission had not made a determination as to whether there was a sufficient Minke whale population to allow a sustainable hunt to take place. It took an enormous amount of lobbying with Mr. Tobin, who ultimately took a very good position on the Minke whale and directed his staff not to support the downlisting. At the conference, it was completely unapparent that was Canada's position when Canada ultimately made that debate.

The Chairman: Some of us were very upset about learning about this downlisting.

Mr. McLean, you may wish to give an explanation right now.

Mr. McLean: I apologize, Mr. Chairman. I became reinvolved with the CITES office only about four weeks ago, so I am not familiar with the issues associated with a number of the matters that were discussed in Florida last November.

The Chairman: Would you mind then to get the information from your predecessor and supply it in writing to this committee in a couple of weeks? Thank you.

Excuse me for the interruption.

Mr. DeVillers: In recommendation 1(b) you make reference to the NGOs participating fully in the consultation process. Are you anticipating a problem, or have there been problems in the past in that area?

Ms White: I think I am anticipating a problem there because of the countries supporting the study - Japan, Norway and Canada - and because of their traditional roles at CITES, which are to begin to undermine conservation ethics at the CITES conference. I think it then becomes a very serious problem.

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This study is indicative of an attempt to undermine the effectiveness of CITES. I think many people who are in the international conservation community would agree CITES has been one of the most successful international tools at developing a degree of protection for those animals and plants at risk of becoming endangered or extinct because of trade. It isn't to stop trade altogether. It deals only with those plants and animals vulnerable to the trade issues.

I can point to the issue in Japan where there was a proposal on the table to put bear on appendix 2 of CITES as a look-alike species. In other words, in other countries there are bears that are endangered. In some countries there are bears that look very much like the bears that are not endangered. It was a look-alike proposal.

My understanding was that Canada did not support that. That is a very serious matter to me when we are dealing internally within our own country with trade in the kinds of animals that we are talking about in game farms. We're talking about genetically altered animals involved in trade. We're talking about our own wildlife species. I find some of the international positions Canada has taken appalling.

That's why we want the committee to take a close look at this study and get the minister to send a very clear message to the standing committee that she wants it clarified that this study is to strengthen CITES, not to weaken it, and that it should be an open process. Canada has contributed $50,000 to the study, on the basis that the NGOs in Canada and around the world should be open.

Mr. DeVillers: I have one final question, Mr. Chair. It's to do with the $12.3 million. The indication is that it was allocated by Treasury Board in 1991 to hire 3 new staff positions for CITES, and also for the 26 wildlife enforcement positions. Do you have a breakdown of how much of it would have been for the 3 new positions and how much would have been for the others?

Ms White: I would be happy to send you a copy of that report.

There is a breakdown. I didn't bring it with me but there is a breakdown within the proposal to Treasury Board as to the cost.

Mr. DeVillers: Thank you.

Mr. Finlay: A very small question I wanted to ask was originally -

The Chairman: They are never small questions, Mr. Finlay. If they appear so, it's misleading.

Mr. Finlay: All right, I'll try.

I have a second question, Mr. Porter. Are lead shot and sinkers banned in the national parks of Canada?

Mr. Porter: No, sir, at this point they're not.

The Chairman: No, they're not. You could have asked the chair that question. The next question is why not?

Mr. Porter: The chair has made very strong representation since last fall on this issue. I did respond twice at the last meeting of the CEPA review of this committee.

We are aware of the significance of the problem. We have set up a working group that deals with all our six regions. That group is working on a plan to make a uniform approach beginning with public education as to how we would solve the problem.

We have no problem with instituting a regulatory ban following consultation. The bureaucratic prerogative to change regulations is rather limited so we are required to go through consultation, not the least of which is with aboriginal peoples who have legislated rights for fishing within some national parks affected by land claim agreements.

We have been consulting with the Canadian Wildlife Service, who have provided most of the scientific information on lead shot and sinkers. Sinkers are the principal problem. We have engaged to bring it before the Federal Provincial Parks Council because we feel that while there is a problem within national parks, and the chair has quite often pointed out that we can set an example, we feel that if we approach it nationally it will be more effective and we won't have a number of different federal and provincial agencies consulting with the same people relative to changing their own regulations. We are taking a combined approach.

The Chairman: I suggest for Mr. Finlay you might also like to explain why B.C. has gone ahead and why one U.S. park bordering with Canada in Alberta has, I believe, gone ahead in banning them. How were they able to overcome all these insurmountable obstacles?

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Mr. Porter: My links are with the parks people in British Columbia. The provincial ban does not come from the provincial parks people; it comes from their other wildlife organization.

In discussions with the Canadian Wildlife Service, they might be the ones to respond because their link is with the provincial wildlife directors and that is another approach that's being taken to try to deal with this nationally.

As to why B.C. did it, I can undertake to discuss that with B.C., but it was sort of a surprise announcement. We read about it in the paper.

The Chairman: Why did the Americans manage to introduce it in one of their national parks?

Mr. Porter: We have some information from the United States as to what the forest service in particular has been doing, which is somewhat broader than the national parks service. They have not consulted with Yellowstone to see in what way they implemented their ban.

The Chairman: Is it not Waterton National Park rather than Yellowstone?

Mr. Porter: My information was Yellowstone. Waterton is in fact a Canadian national park.

The Chairman: Which one is bordering?

Mr. Porter: I know that Waterton Glacier is at the International Peace Park.

Mr. Finlay: That's on the border.

Mr. Porter: That's right. Waterton's the Canadian side; Glacier's the American side.

Mr. Finlay: Is that the one where it's been banned? Does the ban only apply to Glacier, or does it apply to Waterton?

Mr. Porter: I may be wrong. My information was Yellowstone, but I could stand to be corrected.

Mr. Finlay: Well, that's not a border park. Fine.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Rowledge for his presentation and I want to assure him that the information he sent out was read by at least one hopeful MP during the campaign. That's when I became aware of the problem, from the information that was sent. I agree with you it's a terrific problem.

You gave us a lot of figures and you talked about the philosophy at the turn of the century, and so on, but could I ask specifically what the current scale of game farming in Canada is? Does it occur in all provinces or just some? How, in your opinion, does it contribute to illicit trading and poaching, or does it in fact contribute to it?

Mr. Rowledge: Yes, it does.

The Chairman: Could we please have a brief answer.

Mr. Rowledge: The status in the country is that there are only two provinces that don't have it, and they are Manitoba and Newfoundland.

It's been growing very quietly behind the scenes. Notwithstanding that fact, the biggest game farm in the country just went broke in Ontario.

I'll give you one example of the status of the industry that's growing behind the scenes. By next summer in Alberta there will be more elk behind fences than there are in the wild - that, despite the fact that we slaughtered nearly 3,000 animals because of tuberculosis. That's just exponential growth.

Does it contribute to the commercial trade and the illicit trade? Absolutely it does, and the restaurants that were named in terms of the poaching just illustrate that.

The industry wants to get a million animals behind fences. They say they want to have venison offered in supermarkets and restaurants across the country. I don't know where we're going to get the money for this.

Just let's assume that we're somehow able to have enforcement so that 99% of all the animals moving in commerce are legal. That would wipe out the elk in Alberta in one year, that 1% of a million animals. That's how serious it is.

It's a problem where it's the thin edge of the wedge. We can't see the problems in terms of poaching, diseases, and genetic pollution because they're way down the road. That's why we're asking for assessments.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Adams, you also had a question on behalf of Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Finlay: Our colleague, Bill Gilmour, left a question that he asked me to ask on his behalf. It is addressed to Mr. Martin.

Mr. Gilmour asked if you feel that the game farms in Alberta are a threat to the wild game in, for example, Banff and Jasper?

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Mr. Martin: One thing that's starting to emerge for us on the intelligence side is looking at some of our wildlife species that are game farmed. It's not only in Alberta. In terms of being vulnerable for young, live animals, we've concentrated, for the most part, on poaching. The result is a dead animal.

Tracking that, it's come to our attention, from talking to those in some other jurisdictions in the U.S. and also in Alberta, that we may be faced with young animals, calves, being taken live to supplement game-farm operations. The restrictions now are actually relatively tight in terms of moving these animals in and out of provinces.

It may be creating a back-door industry in which young calves of the year are taken out of the wild, not just necessarily national parks, to supplement the game-farming industry. They may be using permit systems that are already in place to cover these transactions. It's something we're just looking at. I can't say that we have a problem. It's just something that has been brought to our attention and that we are starting to look at.

Mr. Adams: I'm trying to follow up on what John Finlay was saying about the scale of it and so on. There was something I noticed. I was very interested in your presentation. You may have gathered in the last couple of days that there have been questions about game farms to various witnesses and so on. I know you're presenting a case in a scenario, but the scenario you presented, which was at the turn of the century...you suggested quite strongly that wildlife was put at risk by hunting.

One of the examples of a game farm that you used involved elk, which were fenced in. Then other elk were kept from their breeding grounds or whatever it was. It was that sort of a story. I would have thought that the prime change in wildlife has been from our occupation of the lands, roads, cities, farms, and things like that, which have simply totally cut off the habitat. I thought it was that, rather than hunting. That's one point.

Mr. Finlay asked you about the provinces and so on. I just wondered if that occupancy of space, as distinct from your points about disease and so on, is yet a serious problem. You mentioned the elk farms. There's a large buffalo farm in my riding, for example. There are other game farms around eastern Ontario that I'm aware of. But I don't get the sense yet that it's at the scale at which it's occupying space in a way that you seem to suggest in your presentation.

Mr. Rowledge: I would agree that it's not yet occupying the kind of space it could.

My points are these. First, in order to allow it, at any scale, you have to pull the fundamental principles from the system of conservation. You have to allow the private ownership of wildlife. You have to not only allow the marketing of wildlife, but encourage it.

You lose the ability to control hunting. There was an example made earlier by Sheila Forsyth about Alberta's situation, whereby we just auctioned a sheep. Some American paid $250,000 for it.

The government in Alberta, which had a restricted budget for wildlife prevention and for wildlife officers year after year, incurred a 30% decrease last year. Now they're starting to auction our public wildlife in order to raise money.

All this does is present an image that this wildlife, when it's dead, equals money. If somebody's willing to pay $250,000 for a hunt, what's the difference between that and the fines we've just put into place? We raised the limits to get into that category for illegal hunting, for example, in a national park.

I think it goes back to what was said earlier by Ms Kraft Sloan about the whole philosophy. I think that's what we're getting at. Those are some of the questions we're trying to ask.

Mr. Adams: I can understand that. It was the other general point I was trying to get at. I understand. I heard somewhere that buffalo are considered to be domestic.

Mr. Rowledge: In some provinces. That varies from province to province.

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Mr. Adams: You talk about philosophy. When does something become domestic? I mentioned earlier a very successful 30- or 40-year-old buffalo farm in my riding of maybe 300 animals. It sells meat, breeding stock, hides and so on. What do you think about buffalo being domestic?

Mr. Rowledge: Everybody should wake up to the fact that the terms ``domestic wildlife'' or ``captive wildlife'' are oxymorons.

Mr. Adams: But there are wild cattle and tame cattle.

Mr. Rowledge: There are no wild cattle in North America that I'm aware of.

Mr. Adams: No, but there are wild cattle.

Mr. Rowledge: Yes, I understand. If we follow carefully what happens to animals after domestication - David Suzuki did a wonderful program on this - you'll find species after species disappearing in the wild. They no longer exist or their genetic material is sufficiently altered.

Specifically with respect to bison, the problems are not as urgent because of the absence of bison as a free-roaming wildlife. They're not licking noses through the fences, as elk are. They're not present in the wild, so the problem isn't as severe. I have difficulty with it on philosophical grounds, but the problems are less severe.

Mr. Adams: The reason I mentioned it was because we've been asked in these hearings to move forward the report on Wood Buffalo National Park. I'm trying to give you an opportunity to talk.

What is the difference between a game farm - As you say, there are no buffalo running wild. They're running wild in Wood Buffalo National Park, but on the other hand, they were put there, or at least a considerable part of the stock was put there. And they have brucellosis. How does that relate to the problems you're discussing?

Mr. Rowledge: The diseases present in Wood Buffalo National Park were contracted from domestic animals. We're talking about bovine brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, which are domestic diseases brought here from Europe. The problem is exemplified by the bison situation.

The Alberta Cattle Commission supported and voted in favour of allowing game farming. We put a simple scenario to them that we knew was going to happen. If this industry transmits tuberculosis to the wild, what will the policy be? Their response was that it was the same as for the bison: they were going to advocate the killing of public wildlife to protect their industry. They said that very clearly. We're in an absurd situation.

We're asking people to slow down and ask why this is being done. If it made economic sense to move ahead with this, then that would be one thing. But every analysis that's ever been done on this shows that it makes no sense whatsoever. It shows a deficit at every quarter. It's going to cost us more and more money. The bigger it gets, the more costly it is to get out of.

I was in the audience earlier when you asked a question about getting gall from bears in captivity. This is going on in China. They implant a permanent fistula into the side of a bear to continually drain gall. I've seen videos of this. You can't stand to listen to the noise these bears make. Their crying hour after hour raises the hair on the back of your neck.

There have been people in Alberta suggesting that we ought to raise lynx on game farms because of the presence of a market. I've asked people in agriculture in Saskatchewan if we are ever going to come to a point at which we'll decide that's enough. We'll draw the line now and not domesticate any more species. One guy said that we don't need to ever draw the line. We should do it if there's a market.

What people are saying is that if Dian Fossey really wanted to protect gorillas, she should have had them farmed. You could lop off their hands, cut out their gall bladders and the parts that were valuable, and they'd still be alive. You could even use them for breeding. It's the same thing, but on a different scale.

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The Chairman: I have a few questions, then we'll conclude.

The first question is for you, Mr. Rowledge. Could you advise this committee on what constitutional base this assessment ought to be conducted? Where is the federal jurisdiction, in your opinion?

Mr. Rowledge: There are areas of federal jurisdiction in a whole bunch of places. First, section 95 of the Constitution gives concurrent jurisdiction over agriculture and the paramount authority in fact to the federal government. That's the first thing.

There are regulatory provisions within, for example, the Health of Animals Act. Federal money has gone into this through the Western Diversification fund. That's another area.

I have letters of support with me begging for an assessment from various people, such as those in Indian associations. For example, the Treaty No. 7 Tribal Council has said very clearly that this is an affront to their most sacred beliefs. Indian affairs are a federal jurisdiction.

One chief described it to me. I was asking his opinion. He kind of shook his head when he commented on game farming. He said that the government first wanted to put Indians on reservations and now it wants wildlife on reservations. That's the degree of contempt with which some of the elders hold this whole process. That's another area of federal jurisdiction.

Anything that crosses a boundary, whether it's international, interprovincial, or in and out of federal lands - Indian lands or national parks - is federal jurisdiction. There are plenty of areas of federal jurisdiction.

The problem we have right now is that despite all of the lobbying I tried to do to get this assessment to go forward, and despite the commitment from the Prime Minister for this assessment, when the new federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was put into place, the law list mentioned only the importation of non-indigenous species. So, effectively, unless we get at the activity of game farming in the inclusion list and make the addition of indigenous species to the law list, we may not be able to do the assessment.

Fortunately, I understand that a review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will take place after one year, which will be January 1996. I'm going to be trying as hard as I can to have those things happen so we can get the assessment to go ahead. But in realistic terms, there are far more federal jurisdictions than provincial ones.

The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Porter, you told us that the National Parks Act was last amended in 1988, seven years ago. Could you tell us whether it's being revised and whether there is a bill in the making that will be introduced?

Mr. Porter: There is a bill in the making. It's essentially a streamlining and housekeeping bill. If you recall from sitting on the legislative committee in 1988, there are a number of acts actually that are rolled into what we call the National Parks Act. One of the things we are trying to do is to write that into one act so that it's much easier to deal with in terms of language, court appearances, training and public understanding.

The Chairman: Does this include changes in penalties and offences?

Mr. Porter: Yes, it does.

The Chairman: Fair enough, thank you.

Mr. McLean, this is my last question. As you may recall, the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the Canada Wildlife Act were amended by this committee and passed by the House in June 1994. Ten months have gone by. This bill was not very long. It may take a month or two to write the regulations and perhaps a few months to get federal-provincial concurrence. Why haven't those regulations been written yet?

Mr. McLean: What areas of our regulations would need amendment? The changes made to the Migratory Bird Convention Act a year ago didn't require a substantive change to the regulations. We already made some changes hard on the heels of the June 23 proclamation of the Migratory Bird Convention Act in 1994. We will be moving a second required amendment concerning the giving of birds, which will be in place prior to the 1995 fall hunting season.

I'm not aware of any other changes that would be required to our regulations, so I have to confess to some surprise at hearing that this morning.

The Chairman: Are you telling us that regulations did not need to have been written as a result of those two bills?

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Mr. McLean: That's correct. The legal underpinnings of whether or not regulations have to be redone entirely depend upon how subtantively a piece of legislation has changed.

With the changes to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, the substance stayed the same. It's for the conservation of migratory birds; the prohibitions remained largely unchanged. The philosophical foundation for the act was the same before as after. We did some housekeeping and streamlining sorts of changes at that time, as well as modernizing the prohibitions.

The Canada Wildlife Act was a substantive change; the committee changed it from wild animals to wild animals and plants. Hard on the heels of proclamation in June last year, we amended the entire regulation to deal with wild animals and plants, so that regulatory work is done.

The Chairman: That brings us to the conclusion. I want to thank you very much for your appearance this morning, for the most valuable input you have offered us and for what we have been able to learn from you.

Perhaps my colleagues would like to make concluding statements. In that case, I would invite Madame Guay to speak first.

[Translation]

Mrs. Guay: I would like to thank you for making us more aware of wildlife issues. Even though we know the environment, we've learned a lot during those three days which we have spent with experts and people who know much about wildlife.

I think, Mr. Chairman, that if we develop a Wildlife Protection Act, we will have to try and avoid as much as possible to duplicate provincial legislation and rather to cover whatever does not exist in provincial legislation. We will have to make sure that we don't create one more piece of legislation that cannot be implemented or that is useless. It is very important.

Considering the very difficult times we now live in because of the economy, we cannot afford any extravagance. We must see what we already have and use it and try to fill the gap. Thank you.

[English]

Mrs. Kraft Sloan: More and more in my work with this committee, and certainly in the past few days with the forum, I'm coming to the conclusion that you cannot fool Mother Nature. We are really running into some big problems.

First of all, I'd like to thank the panellists. I'd also like to thank the clerk and research staff for the material and information we've been given. This represents a fantastic resource package for anyone who's interested in these kinds of issues, and it's going to be a very substantial contribution to my library.

Two things have come through clearly to me in the past few days. Firstly, unless decision-makers and society understand and accept the fact that human beings are part of nature, we're going to be moving to the top of the endangered species list. Secondly, most of the environmental challenges we face are very complex and require difficult kinds of solutions.

However, in the case of lead shot and sinkers, it's a very simple problem with a simple solution. If we don't act in this area quickly, I think our children will have absolutely no faith in our ability to protect and preserve an environment in which they can be healthy.

I want to thank everyone again.

Mr. DeVillers: I'd just like to take the opportunity to thank these panellists and all of the other panellists who appeared over the course of the three days. It was a very worthwhile experience.

If there was a hidden agenda on the chair's part to educate the members of the commitee in this area, I think it was a success. I have the accumlated paper here to show I've learned a lot. It was very worth while. It was an opportunity to showcase the initiatives on lead shot and sinkers that the Wye Marsh in my riding has initiated. I thank everyone.

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Mr. Finlay: I hope other Canadians have learned as much from this panel as I have.

I want to simply add that I believe in our amendments to the Canada Wildlife Act. We also emphasize the protection of habitat, Mr. McLean.

Echoing what Karen Kraft Sloan has said, human society must co-exist on this planet with nature or not exist at all. To excuse our neglect of the biosphere and our inaction, when we know perfectly well in our hearts we should take action, because we live in a market-driven economy I think is unethical.

Mr. Adams: My thanks also to you and to the previous witnesses we've had. I hope this wildlife forum has been of use to your organizations and to you as individuals; as you can tell from my colleagues, obviously it has been to us.

We're talking about what we often call exotic things - these exhibits we have of endangered species and stuff like that. I am definitely of the view that we have to make ourselves - all of us - realize it isn't something exotic. What we're talking about now is something that directly affects us. You're simply dealing with sort of indices of a very big problem we have.

When we began these hearings, I was very often depressed at the things I had to listen to, and I'm not a depressive person. I'm glad when there are people lobbying who have ideas and are trying to implement and improve the regulations. I'm glad we've heard from those people as well, but I still think it's a very serious problem.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan mentioned that we're moving up the list of endangered species. I actually believe we are very high up that list and that it's ourselves and our children who are truly at risk. I want to thank each of you here for what you're doing to help in that respect. I hope we can continue to do what we can.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you all.

I would like to put on record a few thoughts flowing from the experience of the last three days. They include some of the observations that I'm sure Clifford Lincoln, the parliamentary secretary, who is on duty elsewhere, would have made at the conclusion of this forum.

First of all, as you have already done, it is essential that we thank all the people who made this event possible, beginning with our valiant clerk, who put in an enormous amount of hours in organizing a scheme that would have flow, coherence and an intelligent substance to it. Certainly he has succeeded, and I would like to thank him in everybody's presence. Usually I do it behind the curtains, so to speak, and in a growling manner that is not as civilized as it ought to be.

[Translation]

On behalf of all committee members, I would like to thank the participants of all five groups of witnesses who managed to give us detailed and up-to-date information on all wildlife species in Canada.

[English]

In that context I must also remember to include a particular word of thanks to Mr. Jim Foley of the Canadian Wildlife Service and Jean-Luc Bourdages for his fine work in putting together what has already been recognized as a very valuable addition to our respective libraries. No doubt we now have a better understanding of the status of wildlife and its trends, which we were already very worried about since your appearance a year ago, Mr. Rowledge, together with Professor Geist.

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As a committee, perhaps we are now in a position to spread a message across the country during the next few months, and I hope the opportunities will arise for that.

What we have learned boils down to three items: one, a definition of wildlife that is much broader and much better than the one we had when we entered this room three days ago; two, the importance of wildlife in environmental, economic, cultural, emotional and societal terms; and finally, the link between wildlife, habitat and human beings and their behaviour, as many of you have already underlined so well. This last has come out quite strongly this morning.

We were told that major issues affecting Canada's wildlife could be summarized as follows: the lack of knowledge of what it's all about; the upward trend in the number of species at risk; the pressures by developers, farmers and human beings as a whole, particularly on wetlands and forests; the threat, which has been partially overcome, to the Porcupine caribou herd on the northern slope; and this recurring misery in relation to lead shots and sinkers, which are posing a serious threat to the environment, to animals and particularly to an animal that is such an important symbol in Canada's life, namely the loon. We hope the bureaucratic world will be of assistance in this.

We have learned about the decreasing funding available for research, and maybe we'll have an opportunity to pursue that in the estimates at the end of May. We've heard about the increase in illicit trading and poaching. As we were told this morning, there is crime against wildlife, and if we do not act, there may not be much wildlife left.

We've learned about the inadequate resources in enforcement and the practices that must be examined in relation to game farming.

We have learned about a variety of organizations and individuals engaged in wildlife. Time does not permit me to go into that in detail.

Finally, we were urged to improve Canadians' knowledge of biodiversity. We have learned about the importance of public education, of soon introducing a federal endangered species act and of mandatory protection of certain species and habitats at risk. We have learned about the necessity to complete the protected areas network and the importance of finally banning lead shot and sinkers throughout the country.

We must control poaching and illicit trading, change the national accounting system to integrate full environmental values and give political impetus to CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The emerging issue of game farming was already mentioned; we must assess that industry. Finally, we must become more knowledgeable and effective with respect to the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act.

[Translation]

Dear colleagues and participants, we have before us a complete conservation program for wild species and their habitat. Time is of the essence if we want to make sure that the next generation can, like us, appreciate the great Canadian biodiversity. I am convinced that we will participate and contribute very actively to this undertaking.

[English]

so long as this Parliament lasts and so long as this committee functions as well as it does now.

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We are ready and eager to examine the appropriate legislation as soon as it will be introduced. We rely on you in particular, Mr. McLean, to convey that information to your colleagues in your department. We will also examine other items that have been raised, and in that respect again we are enormously indebted to you in this room and to others who preceded you yesterday and Tuesday for the good information you have provided parliamentarians on this committee.

Having said all that, this meeting is adjourned. We thank you again.