To complement that, we are on track to attain the 30 by 30? Where can we find these reports where you inform about the state of the ecosystem health of national parks?

Parks Canada is responsible for a percentage of the percentage of 30 by 30, so it would be wrong for us to comment on the full 30 by 30 on track. However, Parks Canada continues to play its role in moving forward, and we’re having very successful discussions with groups all across the country. I will say that in many cases, it is the local Indigenous organizations who are now coming to us, looking for that level of protection and looking to see if we can do that jointly as an Indigenous-protected area at the same time as we are doing it under federal legislation.

[Translation]

Welcome to the witnesses. First of all, I’d like to thank my colleague Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne for raising the subject of Mingan Islands Park, which I know well, having visited it several times in recent years with my friends and close family in Havre-Saint-Pierre. Your answers have reassured me in this regard.

I will now put on my hat as an economist and member of the National Finance Committee. The bill will significantly increase the size of at least 2 of the 10 parks. I’d like to know what the budgetary consequences will be. What is the size of the budget envelope?

We have a bill before us, but there must be financial consequences and costs attached to it that will follow afterwards, because there are obviously negotiations. What can we expect, from a financial point of view, in terms of the provisions of this bill?

There are two answers to this question. For the smaller islands that are attached to already established parks, there’s not really a big cost. So it’s difficult to determine. We’re under more pressure from each of the parks to get more land to manage.

As for the other major parks, it would probably be best if we sent you a written response, to make sure we have the exact figures.

All right. How does this work? I understand that the procedure to follow and the factors to consider vary from park to park. I’m trying to understand how you determine what you need to protect and the different criteria you rely on. Do these criteria vary from park to park?

You explained the situation for the Mingan Islands. We’re talking mainly about two large parks, one in the Northwest Territories, Tuktut Nogait National Park, and the other in Saskatchewan. What led you to significantly expand these two parks? What were the reasons?

Can you elaborate?

As Ms. Cunningham mentioned, a series of studies led to this decision. At Parks Canada, we have a plan for establishing different parks and acquiring land and different ecosystems across the country. So we have ways of creating representative parks in the different ecological regions of Canada. That’s how we determine our priority for establishing the different parks and marine areas.

In terms of the size of the different places, we want to make sure that we have a certain level of ecological integrity. The purpose of creating national parks is to ensure the ecological sustainability of marine areas. That’s the goal of Parks Canada’s protected areas, and it’s also about having a large enough area to make sure we have real ecological processes in the park.

I’m now going to put on my hat as Quebec’s former minister of economic development and the person responsible for Plan Nord. We had to expand protected areas and negotiations were a little tougher with the forest industry.

Were there any issues in any of the 10 parks? Did you have to negotiate with the forest industry? If so, what was their attitude?

As far as the forest industry is concerned, since most of the discussion is about Northern Canada, it’s not an issue. We consult extensively with the fishing industry, for example, and the transportation industry, in some cases as well.

As I said in my answers to Senator MacDonald’s questions, we always conduct this type of consultation with various groups of people, industries and other stakeholders who are next to the parks.

Thank you.

[English]

Thank you for being here today. It’s much appreciated. As you know, I have much respect for Parks Canada, and I applaud all the processes you so diligently go through, which, of course, take time. It’s very exciting that this bill is actually before us, because I know these things take an extraordinary amount of time.

Following up on my colleague’s question about cost, I always like to ask about value. That may be my mayor’s hat that I’m putting on.

I think the environmental value is obvious to people on this bill, but I’m curious to know: Do national park expansions like these — which is different than the national parks I’m perhaps familiar with — bring these benefits to the local economies in their respective regions?

Thank you for the question.

As you know, coming from Banff National Park, you see a significant number of tourists every year. The tourism economy is certainly one way in which Parks Canada contributes to the gross domestic product. All of these in some shape or form contribute to local economies. They create jobs. The infrastructure is a capital investment over time, both in terms of maintenance and capital infrastructure — the engagement of the private sector, for instance. Our land claims negotiations with Indigenous communities ensure employment, ensure access in some cases and generate some small-scale tourism offers, even in our northern parks where Indigenous partners are often providing logistical support or various types of touring opportunities to engage the public.

In terms of some statistics, across the country, Parks Canada is a renowned tourism operator, welcoming close to 25 million visitors per year. In many of our places, our national parks are iconic. The Parks Canada brand is a strong one. It is a recognized park system and world-renowned in that regard, and we’re seen as a park system that’s second to none.

That does, in many cases — for example, in our national urban park program — create an environment where partners do want to see Parks Canada’s presence. They do want to see our investment, our promotional reach and our ability to continue to foster economic growth in communities.

An example is the infrastructure investments that we’ve done across the country over the last eight years — for instance, with over $3 billion of infrastructure investment. Having come from Atlantic Canada myself, the private sector contribution to some of these places during the winter months, for instance, was significant. I had mayors come to me when I was in Prince Edward Island National Park and even in the waterways and express that they’re seeing construction workers staying in tourism facilities in the winter because of the machinery around the infrastructure, development and economic spinoffs that are generated by that. Certainly from a municipal standpoint, Parks Canada does bring the contributions and ability for other partners to leverage that economic growth.

As we see, there are two other pieces that I want to touch on. One is cultural continuity, of both traditional users and of local Indigenous groups being able to continue to have access, in perpetuity, in a lot of these areas. Tuktut Nogait National Park was a great example, in that the traditional harvest and the protection of caribou herds through that area are very important for the cultural continuity of the individuals that are there. It’s hard to put that in straight economic terms, that cultural continuity, but certainly that’s a large one.

The other one is ecosystem services. I don’t have to tell you what the Colombia Icefield and the water it produces for the rest of the country out of your area. But some of the others, the large peat areas absorbing large amounts of carbon in two of the parks being created here, again would be massive as far as carbon sinks. Our ability, as Canada, to continue to have natural carbon stores and their value to our economy and health, is difficult to exactly quantify. Certainly, there are many models out there that try to do that. I don’t have that exact answer today from the quantification of those ecological services for these particular areas.

I can tell you the value is greater than the cost.

Changing gears, this is for my education. In general, Parks Canada allows Indigenous communities to engage in traditional hunting and harvesting activities in its places, in some of its places. How will that relate to these newly protected lands we are talking about now? Also for my benefit, can you explain the concept of traditional land users and what rights they have or will have?

The term traditional land users is used extensively now when we are making agreements with provinces and territories. I’ll use the Labrador example with the Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve. In that area, the NunatuKavut, which still does not have section 35 rights, are still considered traditional users of the land. There are parameters published around that. I will have to look them up in my notes to remember. There are, essentially, 50 families that come within 10 kilometres. There are a number of factors going into that to establish that part of the community. They would not be considered within the Indigenous group but are traditional users of the land.

There are some other examples where provinces or territories or through, for instance, the Nunavut claims agreement that other traditional users of that land — traditional fishers who may not be part of the Inuit community — would also have use and some harvesting rights. That’s all through negotiation. That’s really how it happens, through section 35 of the Constitution, those are established rights for Indigenous peoples. We do benefit agreements. In this case, we sort of walked through those between Ms. Cunningham and myself in response. Those would be how those traditional rights are managed.

Parks that were established before 1982, there are sometimes rights and recognition agreements that we are negotiating with Indigenous peoples across the country. Those would re-establish rights. Or we can do it through a superintendent’s order. I’m sure some of you, yourself, senator, are following this through the Alberta news that has come out recently around a hunt that took place. It was to be ceremonial, around an Indigenous treaty between the Stoney and the Simpcw. They wanted a traditional hunt within Jasper. It was done under a superintendent’s order.

There are lots of mechanisms. If it were pre-1982, the parks of Prince Edward Island would have a different set of rules than the newly established parks.

I didn’t have a question but then you referred to carbon sinks and you made a comment how significant that is.

The reason I raised my hand is that, in the last four or five months, I thought the sciences had basically woken us to these not necessarily being very good sinks. With the roots and forest fires, increasingly studies indicate it is the opposite. There will be more CO₂ released in the air despite the density of the forest than will be saved. Is that accurate?

I won’t argue the science, today. One of the pieces, if you look at permafrost and muskeg and large wetland areas, in fact, they don’t have the same impact. Fire obviously doesn’t have the same impact on them. Warming has an impact on them, so the release through warming will have an impact on how much carbon they can continue to capture.

That being said, the larger the undisturbed area you have the greater the chance that carbon continues to be captured and not released. From that perspective, from an ecological processes perspective, that’s more what I am discussing.

[Translation]

I’d like to follow up on Senator Sorensen’s point about the use of these national parks when they’re shared and when there’s cohabitation between non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities. I’m thinking, of course, of the new park in Labrador.

In British Columbia, there was the example of an Indigenous community that had historical and territorial rights to Joffre Lakes Park, which is a very popular tourist destination. An accommodation was made to close the park at the time of traditional gathering activities and certain celebrations.

Is there also a possibility, as part of your agreements with Indigenous communities, of closing the park entirely or partially? How does this fit in?

Of course, there are places all across Canada in parks where Indigenous groups can have a restriction, in an area of a certain size, in order to maintain a level of protection that is spiritually necessary for them.

[English]

Although referred to broadly as a housekeeping item, the change in the naming of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve to include the Haida heritage, that is the way the Haida have referred to the area since pre-inception of what we consider a national park. The word park doesn’t work for the Haida Nation. An important change is being made to recognize the fact that there is a spiritual connection to the land element of that park. That is why the Haida have asked us to move forward with the dual name change for that area. Within Gwaii Haanas, there are a number of areas that are restricted to only the Haida Nation because they have such spiritual meaning. They are areas containing the remains and spirits of their relatives. In those areas, yes, there are restrictions, and they are applied in two different ways. In the same way as an ecological restriction, they can be put in under broader pieces within the legislation, but they’re put in through the management plan zoning that I had talked about before, or they can be put in under a superintendent’s order when a superintendent says that in this area there is restricted access.

I understand your answer, but my question was more specific. In those agreements, do you have space to close the whole park, or are you doing it in specific places where there are sacred customs? I would like to know how those agreements are shaped or if they are shaped according to the evolution of the situation. I know that in British Columbia, the event I am referring to was complicated because the whole park was closed.

I should never say “never,” but I can’t foresee a time where we would have the closure of an entire park for a cultural reason. That goes against the overarching mandate of what a national park or a national marine conservation area would be. Today, it is principally done by zone and cultural zones.