AGFO - Standing Committee

Agriculture and Forestry

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37-2 37th Parliament, 2nd Session (September 30, 2002 - November 12, 2003)
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Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry

Issue 8 - Evidence, February 20, 2003

OTTAWA, Thursday, February 20, 2003

The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 8:32 a.m. to examine the impact of climate change on Canada's agriculture, forests and rural communities and the potential adaptation options focusing on primary production, practices, technologies, ecosystems and other related areas.

Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the Chair

[Français]

The Chairman: Good morning, honourable senators, and welcome to another session of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. During the course of our last study, which was called "Farmers at Risk,'' the committee found environmental stresses to be such a pressing issue in agriculture in rural Canada that it decided to undertake a comprehensive study on the effects of climate change. The committee is examining the expected effects of climate change on Canadian agriculture, forests and rural communities, and, more importantly, it will consider how these sectors can adapt to the expected changes. The committee is required to report before the end of 2003, and we expect to have a report by June or, at the very latest, July 2003. Today is our last meeting before the committee travels to Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, where we will hear from scientists, farmers and many other interested groups on our topic, adaptation to climate change.

Today we receive the Agricultural Institute of Canada, which represents professionals and scientists who work for Canadian agriculture. We will also hear from Ducks Unlimited Canada, a well-known organization dedicated to the conservation of wetlands in our country.

Perhaps you two gentlemen could introduce yourselves, and following your brief statements, honourable senators will have questions.

Mr. Ed Tyrchniewicz, President, Agricultural Institute of Canada: Honourable senators, it is indeed an honour and a pleasure to be invited to address you on this subject on behalf of the Agricultural Institute of Canada. Mr. Tom Beach is the Acting Executive Director of the Agricultural Institute of Canada, headquartered here in Ottawa. I am Ed Tyrchniewicz, president of the institute.

By way of a little background, as you indicated, the Agricultural Institute of Canada represents professional agriculturalists and agricultural scientists and is a federation that provides an umbrella for 5,500 professionals dedicated to the advancement of agriculture in its various complexities.

The approach that I will be taking this morning is not to get into a lot of the science. As you indicated, you will be meeting with more scientists. You have met with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. I have had some personal involvement in climate change and agriculture, so this presentation reflects my personal perspective.

I am trained as an agricultural economist. I am, theoretically, retired. I had been Dean of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Alberta. I am living in Winnipeg now. I have been involved with the International Institute for Sustainable Development. I was a member of the Agriculture Climate Change Table and, subsequently, the Integrative Climate Change Table.

I have been involved in a variety of agricultural policy issues, and my perception of science is that I may know more about what I call the "geopolitics of science.'' Just in case you thought you had a monopoly on politics in this area, let me assure you there are politics in the academic and scientific world, and it is perhaps reflected in the controversies that surround this.

Although I am president of this organization, my comments today are essentially from my own perspective as, some people might charitably say, a "policy wonk'' in agriculture. I have been involved in grain transportation policy, and in Manitoba I recently chaired a public inquiry on livestock, particularly hog development. I would like to think I have a sense of how the pieces interact.

I also bring a certain positive perspective on agriculture, where it comes from and where it is going, and you will note that I have chosen to use the term "adaptation opportunities.'' That is what I will try to reflect in my presentation, that, yes, there are challenges with climate change, but there are also opportunities.

Again, I bring a prairie perspective, for which I make no apologies, and I notice there are honourable senators here from the Prairies. My prairie perspective is not quite like the elderly couple, who, I am sure are either from Manitoba or Saskatchewan, as they watch the news and hear of record snowfalls in Victoria and Vancouver, say, "Yes, there is a God.'' I like to think I approach this less emotionally.

What I will try to do is perhaps a little like taking coals to Newcastle, that is, to tell a knowledgeable group like this that agriculture is unique. It is important, as one looks at this, to recognize that agriculture is different from the other sectors, even forestry, with which I was also involved.

I want to touch a little on the elements of climate change and agriculture. I will be brief because you have already heard about those. I will give general notions on the benefits and concerns of climate change and talk about some adaptation opportunities.

I have spoken quite often on this subject to a variety of groups, many of them non-agricultural groups. It is sometimes important to emphasize that the process of agriculture is a biological one and very dependent on climate and weather. This page in the deck is perhaps a practical illustration of what can happen and how weather and climate can cause grief and aggravation. Fortunately, there is no sound clip with this illustration. I grew up on a farm in the Red River Valley of Manitoba, and we did not have tractors quite this big, but I remember my father using colourful language when I did something similar with a tractor.

Climate variability is a fact of life. One notion I would like to leave with you is that it relates to how we manage risk at the agricultural level. That point is sometimes forgotten.

It is also important to note that the agricultural sector, for the most part, operates in global markets with narrow margins and limited opportunities to pass costs on to customers.

The process of policy making, which is an interesting one, is a shared federal-provincial responsibility. It is not just about what the provincial or federal government decides it will do, but the trade-offs, and honourable senators are certainly familiar with the art of policy making, which has been described in various ways as the "art of the possible.'' I used to teach agricultural policy, and I perhaps described it a little more graphically: it is a little like the art of sausage making — awful to watch, but the product, if made and spiced correctly, can be satisfying and helpful.

There is also a tendency to focus on short-term income problems. Given the income situation for farmers not only on the Prairies, but also in other parts of this country, it is sometimes hard to get people excited about issues of environmental stewardship or climate change when the concern is how to make the payment this fall to the bank and stay in business next year. Therefore, climate change has some competition in this context.

Another cloud on the horizon is the perception that agriculture is a polluter, and in some cases destroyer, of the environment. I was involved in a workshop on water in Manitoba on Tuesday to which some 700 or 800 people came. I can assure you agriculture was not looking very well. Whether that was a fair supposition or not does not really matter. It is one of those cases where perception is equated with reality, and we do have some challenges.

I would like now to move on to some fundamental things. When we talk about climate change, we talk about temperature, precipitation, and variability, which, in my view, is the most important one from agriculture's perspective. That tends to manifest itself in more extreme weather events and comes back to the issue of risk management.

Again, I will not spend much time on the technicality of this. The sources of greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide — are things with which you are familiar. However, I want to come back to how agriculture is different. Looking at the global warming potential of the three key greenhouse gases, a tonne of methane is equivalent to 21 tons of carbon dioxide, and a ton of nitrous oxide is equivalent to 310 tons of carbon. Much of the public concern is with carbon dioxide emissions. Based on the 1996 studies of the emissions in agriculture, and the statistics have probably not changed much, only 3 per cent are carbon dioxide, 36 per cent are methane and 61 per cent are nitrous oxide. We may not have that many tons of it, but they are powerful tons. This is important as we look at adaptation and policies to deal with it. I will skip over the sources of emissions.

I will say a few words about benefits. I have looked at some of the transcripts of your previous hearings. Some very knowledgeable people have spoken on this topic at great length. I will not repeat what they said, but I will focus on several things that are critical as we look to adaptation. Potentially, there will be more heat units and a longer frost-free season. These comments are based on some modelling work that has been done. This opens up the opportunity for different types of crops, perhaps some productivity improvements, and some significant shifts. As I said, I tend to focus much of my work on prairie agriculture as we look at diversification away from traditional wheat. There is also the carbon dioxide growth potential. One can get into much detail on this. Certainly this has benefits for livestock production. With warmer winters, the feeding costs tend to decrease. There are many potentials there. Clearly, there are also some concerns.

I want to focus on the issue of increased climate variability. This can manifest itself in floods and droughts. I was present at the 1997 flood in Manitoba. My mother lives on an acreage just outside Winnipeg. I learned skills such as building dikes and rebuilding houses that I never learned in graduate school, and quite frankly, I hope not to have to use again.

As one scans the broader horizon with regard to droughts and floods, the precipitation levels may not have increased that much on average, but it is the variability and the intensity of the floods, droughts, summer storms and winter storms that are important. Because of the biological nature of agriculture, I think this has very significant aspects to it.

I want to emphasize the impact of soil moisture on different parts of Canada. There is a tendency to say, "There will be more moisture; therefore, it will be better,'' but there are pluses and minuses. There will be more and different — and you can tell I am an economist and not a biophysical scientist — weeds and bugs. However, with the warmer temperature there is the tendency for the introduction of different kinds of weeds. Cold weather has a delightful way of getting rid of many of our problems. I have done international work on grain storage. It has struck me what benefits a cold winter can have in getting rid of some of the creatures that infest our agricultural products. We heard a lot about grasshoppers in the drought of the 1930s, and now grasshoppers are becoming much more of an issue again.

The Chairman: It is not just the cold; there has to be frost in the ground to do the work.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: Absolutely.

The Chairman: It could be minus 40, but unless there is frost, it will not do the trick.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: That is right. I lived in Alberta, where I experienced a much more variable winter than in Manitoba, where rumour has it that we freeze over in October and thaw out in June. Watching what happened in Southern Alberta, as Senator Fairbairn can verify, I could not understand why things did not grow as well there and why we did not have trees. When I saw the variations in temperature, moisture and wind, I realized that they have quite an impact.

I understand we will harness that wind for renewable energy.

Senator Fairbairn: We already have.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I have been to one of the wind farms in Southern Alberta.

Looking at these changes, in a sense, the information is almost dangerous. I do not say it is dangerous because it comes from Environment Canada. I have worked closely with Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada as well as Agriculture Canada. I have looked at many models. This particular illustration shows what would happen if we had a doubling of the carbon dioxide or its equivalent in the atmosphere over the next 50 years and how this would change the eco-zone boundaries. We now have grasslands on the Prairies and boreal forest to the north. The grasslands would become semi-arid. The expectation would be that agriculture could move further north. This is a theoretical perception, because to have agriculture, you must have soil. Our soil structures, as we move into Northern Canada, are nowhere near able to support these kinds of changes. I put this in as a cautionary note as we talk about adaptation and opening up new frontiers in agriculture.

I am not convinced that new frontiers will open up, either physically or geographically. As Senator Fairbairn knows, the Peace River region of Alberta is very susceptible to climatic variability. The soils are shallow, and consequently, some of what we might like to see in terms of development there is not too likely to happen.

However, I emphasize this to illustrate that one can take scientific and modelling information and extract more out of it than is legitimate.

I will talk now about adaptation. It is with some pride that I say that agriculture has a history of adapting to change. We have adapted to new technologies, such as moving from horses to tractors. I have been in agriculture all my life. I am still amazed, as we get into things like global positioning systems and GIS, geographic information systems, and the like, at how we in agriculture are capable of adapting. We have adapted to changing markets, such as the wheat market, and the growth of markets like canola and livestock products, et cetera. We have adapted to policies, whether of other countries or within our own country. We have adapted to the change in the freight rates on grain in Western Canada. I chaired a commission of inquiry on that issue back in the mid 1990s.

I am confident that we will adapt to climate change. We have been adapting to the variability in climate, so it is not as if we are embarking on a whole new phase. It is part of the continuum of adaptation.

I want to speak about areas where I think there are adaptation opportunities. I would like to think of these as win- win possibilities. It is hard to get climate change on people's radar screen if they are more concerned about their income situation. For many of these opportunities, I try to focus on the fact that by adapting to new technology, new approaches and practices, there can be a positive economic effect as well as a positive environmental effect.

Certainly, conservation tillage is not unusual. This has been happening on the Prairies, namely, the whole notion of zero or minimum tillage. Less fuel is used, there is a potential for carbon sequestration, and we have less summer fallow. There is also the whole notion of how and when we place our fertilizer. These are techniques or practices that have both an economic benefit to the producer and in terms of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon.

The next area is manure management. That is very much a topical issue. It is a public policy issue, and not just an agricultural policy issue. It involves broader policy issues and perceptions about those of us who work in agriculture. For example, there is the notion that we will dump the manure where it is most convenient. If it happens to be into a stream, then it is less work. That is a terrible characterization, but the reality is that some of that is happening. There are two dimensions of manure management. One is storage. I will refer specifically to hogs, because that seems to be the lightning-rod issue at this time.

The way that one can deal with the storage or application of manure is very simple: You do not expose it as much to the atmosphere. You have a covered lagoon. There are products on the market now such as negative air pressure covers, so that you can cover it with straw. Manure is no longer being sprayed through the air. A lot of it is injected directly. This has some benefits. Clearly, a major issue is odour. We could spend a lot of time talking about that. I take the view that odour is a social issue as much as anything else. With some of these beneficial management practices on manure, we can make effective use of the nutrients. I take the view that it is a valuable product as an alternative to chemical fertilizers. If it is so valuable, then we should use it effectively. This is where the potential comes in, and less greenhouse gas emissions is the result.

This is an example of how, while doing the cultivation, one can inject the manure directly into the soil.

Another area is shelter belts and permanent covers. Again, they have considerable potential. These two pictures are a stark representation of what happens when we do not have permanent cover and shelter belts. This is clearly from the Prairies. The upper picture shows what happens when we put in both shelter belts and permanent covers. This helps reduce wind and water erosion and provides wildlife habitat. Some people from Ducks Unlimited will be speaking to you, so I will not make reference to wildlife habitat. I am sure they will do that well.

An important benefit of shelter belts is the carbon sequestration potential, apart from the fact that it is a good management practice. Earlier, I stated that the challenge for agriculture is how to reduce emissions. We can get credit for doing that by sequestering carbon, and shelter belts are a good way.

I want to say a few words on carbon storage. That has a number of dimensions to it. The sequestration of carbon in the soil is one, but so is the industrial sequestration of carbon through products like Isoboard. This is a picture of the plant west of Winnipeg, where straw is being accumulated and converted into a building material. An experimental process underway in rural Manitoba is using straw for ethanol production. We have a variety of innovative methods that will help sequester the carbon. I mentioned ethanol already, but one can spend a lot of time talking about the pros and cons of ethanol.

Finally, I wish to say a few words about carbon emissions trading, and I will explain why I have used a rainbow to illustrate this. With the pressure to sequester carbon, to show the world that we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is, not surprisingly, the notion that a market to trade carbon credits would arise. I am an economist by training. I have taught price analysis and the use of futures markets, et cetera. I must admit that this issue of carbon trading is little further down the road than some would like to think. It is has appeal. I have this carbon in my soil and that is worth a certain amount, but I ask the question: Does anyone know what a ton of carbon looks like? We can talk about a ton of canola, a steer, a pork belly or a barrel of oil. These are quantifiable, measurable, verifiable items. When we deal with that ton of carbon — having been through the debates — where do you measure it and how do you verify that carbon is indeed in the soil? What if the farmer changes practices? I am not saying this is not a possibility. However, we have a little further to go before carbon emission trading becomes the solution to our problems.

I would be remiss if I did not illustrate some of the views on all of these issues, and here are two fine gentlemen, undoubtedly from the Prairies, saying, "It is getting cold. Throw another one of them Kyoto global warming studies on the fire!'' This is, perhaps, the challenge that you people face, as do those of us working professionally in agriculture, namely, how do we get beyond that cynical attitude?

I am sure you are all familiar with the beatitudes in the Bible, including, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'' I have concluded that may not be entirely true. I should like to suggest another one: "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not get bent out of shape.'' This is part of what we, as a sector, as professionals, and you as policy-makers need to keep in mind. Perhaps we have too much attention on the Kyoto Protocol itself and the negative effects that this will have on jobs and on various sectors. I should like to suggest that we think more positively and think of some of these as opportunities. I appreciate, Senator Fairbairn, that in Alberta — and having lived there — it might not be viewed as the greatest opportunity for the energy sector, though it is interesting to observe how some of the energy companies have become involved in new technologies as it relates to the fossil fuel sector. It is most important that we look at climate change as an opportunity to adopt new technology and to do things a little better.

As I have indicated before, you have heard from a number of people here on some of the technical aspects. There is some good work going on in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Setting up the Climate Change Action Fund, with some $30 million going into the development of science and technology, was very important. However, we still have a long way to go. When I was appointed to the Agriculture and Climate Change Table, we put a lot of effort into trying to pull together what we knew. There were fragments and bits and pieces, but a lot of gaps. Some of those gaps are being identified and filled.

Before we move too aggressively on "thou shalt'' or "thou shalt not'' types of policies, we should close some of those gaps with the science. We need to see the opportunities. Rather than making mandatory conditions, we can perhaps take a voluntary perspective for the risk-takers. That is what agricultural producers are; they must manage risk. We can provide some incentive for them to adopt better management practices, and at the same time, we can reduce our concerns about greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Tom Beach, Acting Executive Director, Agricultural Institute of Canada: Honourable senators, I will make a few comments, primarily about the profession from the perspective of the Agricultural Institute. You talked about adaptation of the sciences. The professions must also adapt on the academic side, on the ethical side and in the discussions that occur. The good news is that some adaptation is happening, but even more should be encouraged. I have been working with the accreditation program jointly run by the Agricultural Institute of Canada and l'Ordre des agronomes du Québec. We see that there are changes as the academic institutions bring agriculture, the environment and health closer together.

We need the next generation to view things from those perspectives. That is where the adaptation must be systemic. You cannot inflict adaptation through policies and laws only. People must buy into it.

The other advice is not to make quick decisions. People are quick to call for a ban on GMO products. Within the Agricultural Institute of Canada, we have ongoing discussions in the areas of both organic production and science. We try to look at things clearly. GMO is an option. However, people need to know what it is. Do not throw it out before we know more about it.

The Chairman: Japan, and many other countries, does not agree with you.

Mr. Beach: I know that, senator.

The Chairman: I appreciate your comments, Mr. Beach.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz, your comments on opportunities for adaptation, and your five-point strategy, starting with tillage, are useful. Senators have some questions, but I hope to come back to those topics because they go to the point of our study. We have been adapting in certain ways in the past, but where ought we to be going in the future, both in forestry and agriculture?

Senator Wiebe: I may be diverging a little from the focus of your presentation, but I would like to get your views on the social adaptation. Let me begin with my story. Back in 1970, I built an 80-sow, farrow-to-finish hog operation. That was considered one of the largest operations in the province in those days. We were able to manage the manure to our benefit. It was a tremendous help in terms of fertilizer.

Today, someone building that size of hog operation would go bankrupt, because the larger the operation, the larger the concentration of manure that must be disposed of and the greater problem you are to society.

Second, we are encouraging farmers to go into zero till. It is a wonderful move, but the equipment, including the large tractor and the zero till machine, is very expensive. It seems that in resolving the climate change problems, we will end up with nothing but large-scale farmers out there. What is your reaction to that comment?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: That is a fundamental question in the climate change discussion. Your example of the hog industry is a particularly telling one. I was involved in chairing a panel on livestock stewardship in Manitoba. We have had a dramatic rise in the size of hog operations and a dramatic fall in the number of hog operations. Right now, there are basically three groups involved, two feed companies and Maple Leaf Foods. That company owns the Maple Leaf processing plant in Brandon, as well as Elite Swine and Landmark Feeds. Those three companies, and the Hutterites in Manitoba, account for about 90 per cent of the production. There is a concentration of ownership.

That raises the question: What will happen to the smaller operators? Many of them will simply get out of hogs. Maple Leaf is the only major processor of hogs in Manitoba. They set certain standards in a concept called Canada Quality Assurance. From the standpoint of getting quality input, that is fine, but it is much more difficult for a smaller producer to meet those standards. We have a variety of pressures.

In my view, this is a challenge to agricultural policy. We have a tendency to look at policy as a "one-size-fits-all'' kind of thing. We need to segment how we look at agriculture. At the risk of wandering far afield myself, I see agriculture as being divided into two components. The commercial component is dependent upon export markets. We need to have the latest in technology and be cost competitive, not only within our own country, but also internationally. For example, in Manitoba we export 90 per cent of the pork we produce, so we are very dependent on the U.S. and Japanese markets. I would like to see us more dependent on the Chinese market as well. Efficient agriculture is a must, so technology tends to drive us toward larger farms.

My next point ties into your zero-tillage question. Many grain farmers, perhaps the majority in terms of numbers, have not grown significantly. For them to play in this kind of game is very expensive. You used the term "social adaptation.'' That may be part of the issue. Governments at various times have looked at doing this, not always successfully because it is a touchy issue. The term "social engineering'' is sometimes used: Where will people live? What will their social infrastructure look like?

The Chairman: Senator Wiebe asked you about the high costs of zero tillage. When you were talking about zero tillage before, you talked about cost savings and the need to use less fuel. Could you address that specifically?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: There is clearly a trade-off there. The capital cost for expensive equipment must be spread out over more acres. Reducing the number of passes required over a field will reduce labour and fuel costs. I cannot answer specifically on the percentage of trade-off. When you go to Saskatchewan, I suspect you will hear from some people who have been doing that kind of work in Swift Current. All of this is a trade-off.

Senator Wiebe: On the technical aspect, I would like to go back to the emissions you described, of carbon dioxide at 3 per cent, methane at 36 per cent and nitrate at 61 per cent.

Of the three, while it is the lowest, I view carbon as the one that will be and is causing the most difficult problem. Life needs some form of carbon. For example, we were told that in 10 years, methane would take care of itself. It will dissipate in the atmosphere. There are chemicals up there that will allow that to happen. Some nitrates are good because they fall back to earth as nitrogen for plants. Should we be as concerned with the other two as we are with carbon?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I would argue that we should be concerned particularly with the nitrates because the concern about water quality tends to focus on nitrate and phosphorous loadings. As I indicated, we just held a major water forum in Manitoba, where the concern was about how much nitrogen is actually going into our waterways. It is important to raise the point here that perhaps from an agricultural perspective, this is not as significant, but from society's perspective, it is. We tend to focus on carbon because of the use of fossil fuels.

The production process in agriculture generates nitrates. For example, the application of fertilizers in the fall generates a lot of nitrous oxide. If the conditions are not quite right, this can release a great deal of nitrous oxide. In the case of hog production, depending upon how the manure is handled, the nitrates can either leach through the soil or wash off in groundwater. I do not think society will let us get away with saying that that will not happen or that it is not a major issue. We can perhaps address those more easily. For example, feeding strategies for livestock to produce less methane certainly have potential, as does reducing nitrous oxide through improved management practices of fertilizer applications.

Senator Wiebe: Farmers who live close to a watershed or a lake are being accused of this especially, but you and I, by burning gasoline when we drive our cars, also distribute nitrates into the air. At least, that is my understanding. The same is true for industry. People cannot see the nitrates polluting the air, so we as individuals, and industry, get off the hook, but because they can see me as a farmer applying nitrogen to my soil, I get rapped. I look at it as a shared responsibility: Compare how much nitrogen I as a farmer am putting into my soil and how much nitrate society is putting into the air by driving SUVs. Do you have any figures as to which is the worst culprit?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I wish I had the figures in front of me. In general, I think I am correct in saying that agriculture, in global terms, is the largest source of nitrous oxide. True, a variety of industrial processes emit nitrous oxide, and someone may know the numbers, but I would say that agriculture accounts for approximately 60 per cent of all nitrous oxide emissions in Canada. It is in that ballpark. I think it is a mea culpa. We are probably as responsible as anyone for that.

We share the CO2 emissions with everybody else. The sources of methane include landfills and mining operations, et cetera. For whatever reason, the media seems to like to focus on methane emissions from cattle. It is true they do account for a significant portion, but if one goes back in history, the buffalo did the same thing.

Senator Fairbairn: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. You began by apologizing for being a policy wonk. After listening to you, I would say we need a lot more policy wonks like you. We have had some extremely interesting and fascinating hearings, also very troubling, to explain to us as lay people what the ultimate future effects of climate change will be. You made the point that perhaps in some cases we have been sidetracked a bit by Kyoto and emissions, rather than focusing more on the ground. Communication comes into this, not just for the public but also for the farmers themselves. You at least gave us some hope.

Senator Chalifoux will know as well that in Alberta we hear from time to time of very enterprising people who have taken the issue of how to deal with waste and have come up with processes in which they are recycling their own production on their own land. They are recovering it and using it, rather than dumping it or making it a negative factor for other people.

I must say that every time we hear about these things, we also hear a skeptical reaction to them: "It will not work,'' or "It cannot be done,'' or "There must be something wrong with it or whoever is promoting it if it appears to be a viable option.''

Do you have a comment on that from the point of view of your continuum of adaptation, which is historically part of farming? Through this almost knee-jerk skepticism, we may be losing many opportunities to grab on to some of these processes that individuals, not groups or scientists, are developing and take advantage of their prospects.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: That is a thoughtful observation. Agriculture traditionally has been innovative in adapting to things. Many aspects of technology come from developments at the farm level. The whole notion of the articulated four-wheel drive tractor came about because a farmer was puttering around. You may be referring to the operation in Southern Alberta, a Hutterite colony where they are actually collecting some of the methane and using it to generate electricity. There are many of these examples. Yes, most entrepreneurs and innovators are met with skepticism. I am not totally familiar with that particular operation, but I know a number of farmers who have attempted to collect the methane and recycle it into energy.

We also mentioned wind power earlier.

Senator Fairbairn: I was going to mention it again.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: TransAlta is now moving into the cogeneration area.

Certainly, there is considerable skepticism on the part of Manitoba Hydro about having some of these electricity- generating operations tie into the grid. It would be unrealistic to expect these types of operations to meet all the needs.

You must look for venture capital to acquire money to initiate some of these things, and that may be one of our challenges — where do we find this capital in agriculture? There is bureaucracy in the private lending sector as well as the government.

Coming back to Senator Wiebe's point about getting bigger, the bigger we get, the more venture capital we need to try some of these things.

This is where some of the innovations will be made. However, how do we create an environment to encourage it?

Senator Fairbairn: If you do not live with wind power, you find it hard to understand it. In Southwestern Alberta, you live with it every day. It is just there.

Technology opened the door that finally made it viable. TransAlta has taken a major interest in being a partner and now owner of the predominant wind farming operation in Pincher Creek that is now coming down in the Fort Macleod area. This is not mythology. Giant white birds are up in the air helping to make the transit system run and light the TransAlta building in Calgary. These are visible arguments against the skepticism about it not working.

Thinking of Senator Wiebe's anecdote, my father was in the vanguard many years ago of insisting on the development of the first major irrigation project, the St. Mary's in Southern Alberta. The young men and women involved in that initially were thought to be somewhat insane or dreamers. What has kept Southern Alberta going all these years in many cases of drought is the fact we have this system, and many people, including the Mormon population, brought the expertise.

It seems we are now facing another kind of issue, and through people like yourself and others, we must persuade Canadians to take an interest in the reality of this and help those on the ground who are being creative and working together through the university, the research station in Lethbridge, to get the kind of support and attention that will help us find the opportunities of adaptation. We have to pull that kind of wall down so people will understand and accept. One of the most difficult things is getting people to accept, not just the reality, but that it is not so big a problem that you just sort of sit back and say, "What can we do?'' There are things that can be done. Many of the suggestions you gave us today are helpful.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: Every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. As a former dean of agriculture and forestry, I can say that the scientific base for many of these things is considerable. People may come up with something in their own backyard, and then they need to do the science behind it and be able to move it to a mass technology from a backyard technology. This is where operations like the Climate Change Action Fund become important in nurturing some of that science and providing an opportunity for the farmers to work with the Lethbridge research station. I was on the station's advisory board for eight years, and I saw some innovative and fascinating things happen.

I grew up on a farm that did not have hydro electricity. We had our own windmill in Southeastern Manitoba. I grew up with windmills. We had a series of batteries. We did not run all kinds of appliances, but we had light that sure beat kerosene lamps. Many of these technologies have been around for a long time. It is a question of harnessing them.

When you mention waste, there is tremendous potential in the whole composting area. I think there is a market for some of these things and that we can turn it around and find opportunities, as well as turning it back into the land, as we do with a lot of hog manure.

Senator Fairbairn: We may see some of this composting, and other things, at the Lethbridge research station.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: There is a good person working in Brandon, and hopefully, she may appear before you. I suggest you invite her. Her name is Dr. Kathy Buckley. She is an animal scientist who has done a lot of work on composting.

Senator Ringuette-Maltais: I certainly appreciated your economist's approach, because coming from New Brunswick, formerly called the potato belt, I can relate to market price issues in the very risky business of agriculture. I recall working many years ago with the tight-knit farming community on trying out crop rotation. It takes a long time for the people from Agriculture Canada experimenting in Central Canada to excite the farming community in different regions about the prospect of diversification of agriculture production.

Production is but one part of the risk. There is then the necessary education concerning marketing and prices, et cetera.

In the last decade, I have seen my potato-farming community start growing peas, broccoli, and now cranberries. However, it all started with just one farmer taking a lot of risk in trying that new crop.

Could the Climate Change Action Fund be used for pilot crops in the regions so that they can adapt?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: That is a good question, senator. I will answer on the basis of partial information. Some of the funds have been allocated to developing beneficial management practices that will focus on the dairy, hog, beef and soil conservation sectors. I believe around $17 million has been allocated to these groups and they are to be working with Agriculture Canada scientists and university scientists in developing some of this. A key element is the demonstration part of it. Farmers love to go and see what their neighbour is doing. They may make fun of the practices of others, but they are always very curious.

I strongly advocate these kinds of demonstration facilities, whether they are farms or a research station. Alberta had a very good on-farm demonstration program as part of the Alberta Agricultural Research Institute — partnerships of farmers and researchers testing technology on the ground. Field days were a key part of that.

I would throw another wrinkle into the mix, especially when it comes to climate change and issues relating to animals. Much of the concern is not only about waste, but also animal welfare. A good example of this is the Prairie Swine Centre building a barn that included a public viewing gallery. You do not want people traipsing in and out of barns because of bio-security issues, but if you have a facility where people may see what is going on, that removes suspicion about agricultural practices and demonstrates new technology. I would like to see more of that kind of effort, whether at the federal or provincial levels.

I have challenged the hog industry in Manitoba to also play a role in setting up demonstration facilities. You raise a very important point: How do we transfer that knowledge? Computers are great and you can surf the Internet, but if you can go out and see it, that is how things happen.

Senator Ringuette-Maltais: Further in regard to markets, prices and so forth, you mentioned that there is a concentration of processors, and therefore, smaller hog or beef producers have a harder time being cost effective because of volume.

On the other hand, I do see a consumer trend toward the kind of commodity that is different from manufactured, high-volume products.

That niche is growing because of awareness of current diseases. The niche for smaller producers is growing. The prices will be sustainable as long as the knowledge of and access to that market is there.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: You raise a good point about niche markets. I will not get into much detail, but I will mention a couple of things. When I say "niche markets,'' I am not just talking about organic production, but production that is done in certain ways. One must also keep in mind that Canadian and other developed country consumers are generally very conscious of food quality and safety. Simply because it is a smaller operation does not mean it does not have to meet certain standards. There is sometimes a tendency to say, "Well, the standards of production are higher with small operators.'' That is not necessarily so. To use hogs as an example, the regulations that a large hog operator must meet are quite stringent. One must have the technology and the technical skill to produce.

The smaller operator, as is often the case in agriculture, must be a master or mistress of so many different things. The idea that one can go back to 5 cows, 10 pigs, 50 chickens, some blueberries and this and that, will not happen. The consumer does want quality and assurances of food safety.

This leads to the notion of a system of grading or verification. I use the term "verification'' often, because that is what gives the buying public the confidence that even though a product came from a small operation, it met certain standards of food safety.

There is a market, but it is not an easy one. In some ways, it will be a tougher market to get into and to maintain.

The Chairman: That might be the theme of our next study. Perhaps if they added value, that would help.

Senator Hubley: I come from Prince Edward Island. We have an island-wide Waste Watch that is both rural and urban. That Waste Watch Program did not see smooth sailing in its implementation, but we are now very proud of it. We had to do a massive composting of potatoes on two occasions. That was perhaps our first experience with a major composting operation. There is a dollar value at the other end. You can now get compost material for your gardens and for your potting soil. There are models out there.

Since we must implement best farming practices in how we manage our risk, do you feel that the Canadian public is getting closer to the point where they would be willing to pay for that?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: You raise an interesting question, senator. On Monday I spoke in Saskatoon with the environmental farm plan component of the Agricultural Policy Framework. I was asked to comment on what the public expects from agriculture vis-à-vis the environment.

An important point underpinning this is that fewer and fewer people have much comprehension of or appreciation for what goes on in agriculture. Many of us used to have a direct farm connection. However, fewer and fewer people now do. There is a lack of knowledge about and appreciation of what goes on, and there is suspicion.

Another point is that many of the things that the public expects, such as pleasant countryside and wildlife habitat, are really, in economic terms, public goods. Yet we expect the agricultural producer to supply these goods at private cost. The question is: What is the public prepared to pay? There are a number of ways one might determine that. A significant component of the European agricultural policy is the preservation of the rural countryside.

Senator Ringuette-Maltais: Would you refer to that as "multi-functionality''?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: Senator, I was told I am not supposed to use that word, but it is the multi-functionality of agriculture.

I suggested to the group in Saskatchewan, and I almost hesitate to say this on the record, that if we do not like multi-functionality, perhaps we could look at what we do with discarded paper, batteries and tires. We could have an environmental levy. I would not advocate this, but I would throw out the idea of an environmental food levy. We would add one per cent to the price of food at the retail level, to be earmarked, not like the gas tax that disappears somewhere, for ensuring that some of these public goods that we expect agriculture to provide can actually be provided, rather than trying to do it through general taxation or through the market.

Senator Wiebe: With regard to the one per cent levy, I made that suggestion to each of the finance ministers across Canada. Their answer was basically that we would skate in hell before that happened.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I do not think the consumer association would go for that either. However, one raises that option, not from the standpoint of advocating it, but of driving home the point that we expect a lot from agriculture beyond just food production and consumers should be paying for it.

Senator Wiebe: I raised that question with the agriculture ministers because I agree with it. If we are going to address many of our concerns in agriculture, we must have a dedicated food levy to provide the funding and all of society should be prepared to support that.

Senator Fairbairn: I noticed some months ago, after the cost of the prairie drought was becoming evident to companies that make bread, that an outlet in an Atlantic province had signs up at its bakery counters saying the price was up due to the drought on the Prairies. That may have had more of an impact on making customers understand than anything we could say.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I should emphasize, honourable senators, that I speak as Ed Tyrchniewicz, not on behalf of the Agricultural Institute of Canada, when I raise the notion of an environmental food levy. It might be grounds for impeachment if I were to suggest that this was the policy of the AIC.

Senator Wiebe: Society must realize that individuals are working fewer hours in a year to feed their families than they did 20, 30 or 50 years ago. The portion of our budget that goes to that is very low compared to what our fathers and our grandfathers paid.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I do not know whether you have this in Ottawa, but Winnipeg and a number of other provincial capitals have Food Freedom Day, and that was on February 8. By February 8, we have earned enough to pay for our food for a year, roughly 10 per cent of our income. That is very significant. We have some of the safest and most nutritious food in the world, and it is cheap.

The Chairman: We are studying climate change and adaptation. In my introduction this morning I said that there are three components to our study. One is agriculture, one is forestry and one is rural communities. I know that you are the Agricultural Institute of Canada, and not involved in forestry, but I would like to ask you whether the institute is doing any study or research on climate change and adaptation in relation to rural communities.

Second, in terms of adaptation, you gave us five strategies that you believe are very important, such as zero tillage. To that, in responding to Senator Fairbairn, you added wind power and other power-generating energies. You did not say anything about new types of seeds, either for forestry or agriculture, but surely that is another adaptation technique that we should keep in mind.

If you are doing work in this area, what types of research are you doing at your institute?

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: It would be inappropriate for me to say that the AIC is doing research on plant genetics or rural communities. Notwithstanding that, our members are involved. You mentioned the whole community effect. There are provincial rural adaptation councils. In Manitoba, the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council studies issues that drive what happens in our rural communities and how they adapt. That group in Manitoba does have some work ongoing on the impacts of climate change, and there are professional agrologists involved in that, but it is not AIC.

On the plant genetic side, again, I was on the board of trustees of the International Centre for Research in Agri- forestry. There is a tremendous amount of work being done by Canadian scientists located internationally, and we bring that work back here to Canada. A good example is CIMMYT in Mexico, where they have the maize and wheat research centre. Much of the basic genetic work, the development of the germplasm, is taking place internationally and being brought into Canada and adapted. The scientists and agrologists who are members of AIC are involved in this work, but it would not be fair for AIC to say that this is what we are doing.

The Chairman: I would like to thank you both very much for appearing here today. We all have many more questions we would like to ask, which is a good sign because it means that you have stimulated us. This has been very useful.

Mr. Tyrchniewicz: I would be glad to leave some business cards. I am theoretically retired, but if any of you would like to pursue any of these subjects with me, I would be glad to talk to you.

The Chairman: We are privileged to have a presentation from two representatives of Ducks Unlimited Canada, Ms. Rhonda McDougal and Mr. Barry Turner.

Mr. J. Barry Turner, Director of Government Relations, Ducks Unlimited Canada: It is a pleasure to be back here to talk about climate change. You may recall, Mr. Chairman, that on May 8, 2001, Dr. Brian Gray and I made a presentation to this committee about the Conservation Cover Incentive Program that Ducks Unlimited was promoting at the time; that was almost two years ago. The focus was on marginal lands, riparian areas and wetlands, and your colleague, Senator Chalifoux, was in the chair at the time. One of benefits that we spoke about then was the carbon sequestration potential of green spaces through the Conservation Cover Incentive Program as it relates to climate change.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in June of 2002 passed a unanimous motion supporting the Ducks Unlimited Conservation Cover Incentive Program. The chairman subsequently wrote to the five ministries primarily responsible for green spaces, indicating that there was strong support from the Finance Committee for that initiative.

We are making progress in this area. We will share some of that with you this morning. I must compliment the government on its announcement in June of last year on the agricultural policy framework. One of the pillars of that is the environment that incorporated, as Mr. Goodale announced in Saskatchewan in July, the green cover Canada initiative, which, in effect, is building on what we have been promoting through the Conservation Cover Incentive Program.

In Ottawa on February 4 there was a national conference dealing with the future wetlands in this country. Dr. Brian Gray, who accompanied me before you almost two years ago, made the plenary presentation on behalf of Ducks Unlimited. He focused on some of the highlights of the Conservation Cover Incentive Program and how wetlands relate to climate change. Dr. McDougal will build on that with you this morning. We look forward to answering your questions.

This is the first time my colleague Rhonda McDougal has appeared before any committee of any form in Parliament. I am proud she was able to come from Winnipeg at short notice to join us this morning. Her Ph.D. is in wetland ecology. She is also a farmer's daughter from Manitoba. She has the best of worlds: the practical one of growing up on a farm in Manitoba; and the academic achievement she has had in her university career.

I apologize that our presentation is only in one language. We did not have the resources to translate it quickly enough this week when the clerk of the committee asked us to appear this morning.

On that note, Rhonda McDougal will take us through our presentation. We look forward to discussion.

Ms. Rhonda McDougal, Associate Scientist, Carbon Research, Ducks Unlimited Canada: Good morning. I want to talk this morning about a bold attempt to fill in some of the research gaps that Mr. Tyrchniewicz so rightly referred to this morning in terms of carbon sinks and greenhouse gases in the whole area of climate change.

While climate change in Canada is a weighty issue, my perspective is that we now have a real opportunity, from the farmers' perspective, for young, conservation-minded farmers like my brother who are looking for management options that have both agronomic and environmental benefits. There is an opportunity here from the point of view of scientists like myself who are looking for ways to further the understanding of wetland science in this area. There is an opportunity for conservation companies like Ducks Unlimited.

One of the first questions that I am often asked is: Why is Ducks Unlimited interested in carbon? Underlying this research initiative and several others, we are looking to further the understanding of wetland science in support of policy related to environmental farm planning within the new agricultural policy framework.

Underlying all our research initiatives we are trying to promote the functions and values of wetlands in sustaining the quality and quantity of water resources and biodiversity in Canada.

Finally, with this specific research initiative we are looking to promote the consideration of wetland conservation as a future component of agricultural soil sinks policy.

The research initiative about which I am talking today is focused in the prairie pothole region of Canada, which is in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It is where 80 per cent of the agriculture in Canada is situated. It is also a landscape that is pockmarked with tens of thousands of wetlands. These wetlands exist within each farmer's field; they exist in rural communities; they exist in the cities on the Prairies.

When we look at climate change scenarios, there are many predictions, but the ones that most often appear are that small wetlands on the Prairies are likely to dry up and disappear; permanent wetlands — the larger systems — are likely to become seasonal in nature. With these kinds of surface changes in the water patterns on this landscape, we will see increased threats to the security of source water quantity and quality.

On the Prairies, a high percentage of farm families and rural communities rely on surface water sources for their drinking water, for livestock and all their other water needs. This is a real concern across the Prairies, which are in a water-limited situation every year, particularly in the last few years.

As we see these wetlands drying up and disappearing on the Prairies, we will also see a loss of rare plant species. We will see a loss of habitat and of some of the shelter belts and willow rings around these systems. Therefore, we will lose habitat for species at risk, for species that use these places as watering holes and as protection from predators at various times in their life cycles.

Furthermore, with climate change, as agricultural activity migrates north — which is one of the predictions of what might happen — we will see agriculture in areas of higher wetland density. There are even higher densities of wetlands in the boreal forest fringe regions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. We will see more impacts in those areas with competing uses for those resources.

Many people ask me why I am looking at wetlands in the context of agriculture, because they are not part of the managed landscape of agriculture. My answer is: Whether or not the wetland is the focus of a decision taken in agriculture, often the wetland ends up being impacted by some of the decisions that are taken in this area.

What we hope to do with this five-year research initiative that has just been started is to look at some of the beneficial management practices that enhance and protect wetland ecosystem function. We are specifically looking at source water protection, biodiversity preservation and enhancement, and carbon storage. Our long-term view is to move toward a better integration of wetland management with agricultural and forestry management in this landscape for a more holistic landscape or watershed approach.

At the national wetlands stewardship conference held here several weeks ago, one notion put forward was that the future of wetland conservation is on private land. One of Ducks Unlimited's views on this is that there are many activities on private lands that benefit the public as a whole. The idea of public benefit through the activities of certain individuals on private lands is something that we need to be able to place an economic value on, place a societal value on, and communicate to the Canadian public that these are services that we need to pay for as an entire Canadian public. The cost of these kinds of public goods should not be borne solely by the farmers who own the lands.

This research program comprises interrelated projects across the three Prairie provinces. There are research sites in both the short and tall grass prairie region; the parkland region, which is aspen grassland type of space; and, in the boreal transition zone in Alberta, where we are looking at agroforestry plantations, annual cropping and wetlands all meeting in the same landscape.

This is a broad approach. We are looking at a landscape approach to this research. We are not looking at just wetlands in isolation but the upland, which is the agricultural land where crops are grown, down through the riparian area which on the Prairies is usually a strip of grass or willow trees and shrubs around a wetland and into the wetland itself.

We are manipulating some of the agricultural land management practices in the uplands. There is a saying "that no one will farm for carbon.'' Farmers make decisions for agroeconomic benefits, to be able to support their families and to be able to sustain their farmland for future generations. The good news is that a lot of the land management practices that have been identified through the process of looking at beneficial land management practices are good not only for an economic reason but also for the land and the wetlands. Those are things such as zero till, putting more permanent cover on the ground, particularly in sensitive areas like those around wetlands; putting in more tree shelter belt areas, using less nitrogen fertilizer where it is liable to run off into water courses.

Those are all beneficial management practices for a number of reasons; they are also good for wetlands. In the long run, we will find some real win-win situations here when we look at this experimentation of various agricultural land management practices around these wetland systems.

Each of the projects is set up to address the questions with a localized focus and to answer the overall question: What is the carbon balance of these wetlands? Interestingly enough, up until now absolutely no research has been done on the carbon balance and greenhouse gas dynamics of these prairie wetlands. The research that we do rely upon in Canada has predominantly been done in the northern peatlands, so the carbon values used as proxies for these prairie wetlands come from northern peatlands and from the surrounding agricultural land. We know that these are biologically different systems, so it is crucial we do this research and get some real numbers. The other important thing about this research is that we are actively coordinating with other greenhouse gas studies across Canada.

We have a wide group of research collaborators. In each province, these groups are led by university researchers from the universities of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. We also have research scientists within our collaborating group from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, from the Canadian Wildlife Service of Environment Canada, from Ducks Unlimited, from the National Water Research Institute, and from the provincial Alberta agriculture department.

These scientists are soil scientists from agriculture faculties. We have brought them together with some wetland scientists. The soil scientists are quickly coming up to speed on what happens in wetlands. They freely admitted, when we first sat around a table like this, that they do not go beyond the edge of the field when they do their research. As wetland scientists, we admitted that we do not go beyond the grass up into whatever is will there. This is one of the first efforts to cross the field boundaries and bring the whole landscape together. That is why it was important for us to pull together such a wide group of researchers to ensure that we have some chance of success in this area.

The core funding for this research comes from Ducks Unlimited Canada, but we also have contributions from the university participants in terms of their infrastructure and grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, NSERC. We are actively looking for industry partners this area. Alberta Pacific Forest Industries has just signed on for the research site in the boreal transition fringe, where we are looking at agroforestry and annual cropping practices.

We are also talking to major utility companies. BIOCAP is a federally funded body that has been set up to channel research funding for carbon and greenhouse gas research to the university community. The structure of BIOCAP is fluid at this point. We are still trying to figure out the intricacies of how to help our research partners in the university community access some of this BIOCAP funding.

We also have some government funding at this point through PERD, the Program of Energy, Research and Development, which came to us from Environment Canada. We also hope to broaden the base of our funding in this area.

In the prairie and parkland region, the focus, as I stressed before, is on looking at the entire landscape. Nothing that happens in a wetland happens in isolation of what is happening on the upland around it. I also mentioned that the net carbon balance in these wetlands is unknown. "Net balance'' means the difference between the amount of carbon being stored in the soils of the sediments and the amount of greenhouse gases that are being emitted. Hopefully, when we subtract the emissions from the storage, we will come up with a positive net balance. Even if we do not, I will show you some data that shows that these wetlands are places where carbon is held out of the atmosphere for long periods of time. This is a benefit that we do not want to lose by having these wetlands disappear.

Our first research objective is to get the numbers for the carbon storage along the wetland and riparian area transects across the entire prairie pothole region, including that boreal transition and parkland zone. Along those transects, we are looking at the greenhouse gas fluxes, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. There was a question earlier about nitrous oxide and methane and their relative importance in agriculture. It is true that in agriculture nitrous oxide is the gas that they are emitting the most. It is also important because of its global warning potential. It has 300 times the impact in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Although nitrous oxide breaks down over a period of about eight to 10 years in the atmosphere, during that eight to 10 years it is having that 300 times impact on our atmospheric global warming potential. Even as it breaks down, the constituents often bind with other constituents in the atmosphere to produce things like acid rain and particles of smog. The oxygen from this can bind with ozone to break it down and can also be part of the balance that actually ends up changing our climate for a period of 100 to 150 years. It is an important constituent of greenhouse gases and it is one that we must measure and deal with.

Methane acts the same, but it has a 25 times greater global warming potential than carbon dioxide. It is also one of which we must be careful. In wetlands, methane is the big, bad story. That is the one that people are scared of in wetlands because peatlands are known to produce probably most of the methane that is being naturally emitted into the atmosphere presently. There are some good biological reasons why these types of wetlands in prairie Canada may be much smaller emitters of methane. However, it has never been measured. That is one of the important things that we must do here.

Although we are worried about methane and nitrous oxide, they are also the two gases for which we have the most potential to make improvements and to change agriculture's balance in terms of the gases they are emitting. A number of the beneficial management practices are focused on reducing the emissions of these two gases in particular. There is good opportunity here for agriculture to be able to reduce those gases quite significantly.

We need to measure the ecological drivers behind what is happening in these wetlands. Here, we are talking about things such as the moisture gradient in the soil, the amount of nutrients in the soil, where those nutrients are coming from on the landscape, what kinds of vegetation are found around these wetlands, and how it interacts with the kind of carbon storage we see and with the water movement on the landscape.

One of our big challenges is measuring this variable type of system. Greenhouse gas fluxes from a field vary even within a wheat crop on a flat piece of land. A heterogenous type of wetland contains different types of vegetation, water, and bare mud. There is a lot of variability in such areas and scientists are challenged in terms of getting numbers that mean anything on the grand scale.

More specifically, we will be managing the agricultural uplands around wetlands. We will assess the impacts of zero till versus conventional tillage practices such as summer fallow and the changing of the catchment to some kind of permanent grass cover. We will study cultivation through dry wetland basins during drought years. Drought has been occurring in Saskatchewan over the past summer and will continue next summer if the water table level is any indication. One of the first indications we have is that when a cultivator goes through the soils, more oxygen is introduced and the stored carbon in the soil is converted to carbon dioxide and blows off into the atmosphere. This has been called the "champagne effect''; just as bubbles leave champagne, carbon is leaving the soil in the form of carbon dioxide as the soil is tilled. That is one reason for the movement toward no till. That is also why we do not want to see farmers tilling through wetland basins, aside from the total disruption of the wetland ecosystem even in dry years.

We will look at the effect of wetland restoration from zero to 15 years since restoration and over the climactic gradient of the prairie pothole region. We are working on developing a carbon model that is specific to wetlands and riparian areas. That model will be linked with other national carbon models. A number of strong soil-carbon models are being developed in agriculture, but those modes are not capable of dealing with the levels of moisture in these systems. We need another model to link up and give the whole picture of the landscape.

We are also linking up to national studies. We have actively solicited the participation of researchers involved in national studies such as the National Carbon And Greenhouse Gas Verification System of Agriculture Canada. There are a number of other studies on this landscape, too. We are not working in isolation.

I want to give you a bird's eye view of a research study site called the St. Denis National Wildlife Area, just northeast of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. This aerial photo shows the landscape pockmarked with small wetlands. Last year all of these wetlands were dry and they will likely be dry again this year. We are starting our research at what is, hopefully, the driest end of the continuum for these systems.

A wet-dry cycle in wetland is a healthy and necessary part of this ecosystem. It allows different species of plants and animals to grow and flourish in different parts of the cycle. We hope to see the cycle go back to the wettest end of the continuum over the next five years. Certainly this has been the pattern over the last 30 years of records that we have for this area: On a roughly seven-year cycle, the area goes from dry to completely flooded and wet. We want to assess the moisture gradient and what is happening to carbon storage in these wetlands.

This photo shows the landscape at ground level. I am sure some of you have been to parts of Saskatchewan or Manitoba or Alberta that look like this. We collected this data last summer. Within the box entitled "Field,'' the pink boxes represent the tonnes of soil organic carbon per hectare in the agricultural soils of that area. The range of carbon in those soils is typical of agricultural fields in Saskatchewan.

The brown box in the first panel is a tillage pond. That means it is a wetland that is right now being cultivated and cropped. You can see that the carbon in that wetland is at the higher end of the continuum even when it is being cropped.

The next two boxes represent the transect of carbon that we have measured across two of the wetlands in this area. The pink box is the carbon in the agricultural soil. The green box is the carbon in the riparian areas consisting of mixed grass and willow shrubs. The brown boxes are the carbon in the wetland itself.

In Pond 120, we have the same pink box with agricultural carbon; the green is the riparian area; and the brown as the wetland carbon, which is three times higher than the carbon in the surrounding agricultural soils.

Pond 117 is interesting because that wetland was plowed through and cropped for a year about five years ago. We have questions about tillage through wetland ponds and how it affects the amount of carbon in the soil. This is something we will follow over the next five years.

High carbon values must be balanced off with the kinds of greenhouse gas emissions coming from those systems. Those measurements are being made. However, because they are so variable over a day, a season or a year, it takes longer to get an average value that we can use to subtract from this kind of soil organic carbon. The soil organic carbon values are stable. It takes five years to measure real change in soil organic carbon based on what is happening on the land management itself.

We have lots of work to do here. It is an exciting study that has just started this past year. We are about half-way through this list of jobs. The research will continue through this field season. We plan to be out there as soon as the snow begins to melt on the Prairies. In spring snowmelt, lots of moisture is available. Microbial activity starts. There is a lot of greenhouse gas emission at that time and we want to be able to capture that information.

This research important both policy-makers at a national level and the agriculture sector as a whole. Communication can be frustrating because the agricultural sector is made up of many individuals working on their own farms, trying to decide on the right thing to do next spring when the crops go into the ground again. I know that, in the winter, my brother spends a lot of time on the Internet and going to meetings, trying to find out what people are saying is the next best thing to do.

Ducks Unlimited has developed an outreach plan helping to deliver programs to farmers to help with things like winter wheat and permanent cover. Managing wetlands for carbon may be another area where Ducks Unlimited can help to distribute knowledge to the farmers in their homes. That is a very important aspect of this study as we go along.

The Chairman: Thank you for your excellent presentations. You gave us a very good exposition on climate change and the future impacts on wetlands, but you did not say what would happen to the ducks and geese coming to these wetlands, neither negative nor positive effects.

Ms. McDougal: One preliminary study was done on the effect of climate change on waterfowl breeding and staging areas. That study showed a negative scenario of ponds drying up across the Prairies, forcing waterfowl to move further north to find similar habitat within the boreal transition zone. The wetlands are similar there but the sites are in among trees.

About four years ago, Ducks Unlimited started a huge research initiative in the boreal forest region to determine how these areas support waterfowl. The vegetation will also migrate north, but at a slower rate than the waterfowl will have to move north.

The Chairman: Is that migration north happening at present?

Ms. McDougal: Apparently that migration north is happening. There are more types of ducks nesting in the boreal forest than there used to be. There is likely to be a major impact on the whole North American waterfowl migration pattern, as well as for many of the small and large mammals that make their homes on the Prairies and use these systems as their watering holes. If these watering holds are gone, we will see these animals migrate north as well.

The Chairman: I do not know if you had a chance to see the transcripts to read what other witnesses have said to the committee particularly about problems in the Prairies, where your study is being done. However, the committee was told that, despite increased participation, agriculture in the Prairies will face large moisture deficits and water management will be more critical than ever, especially if irrigation systems are put in place. We also heard that wetlands now play a role in water regulation.

Could wetlands help to address the issue of the moisture deficit in the Prairies? If so, in what way? How many acres of wetland do we need to protect and secure the water supply if the Prairie climate becomes dryer? Is that possible?

Ms. McDougal: The second part of your question regarding how many acres we need is not something that I can answer today. That is a question that is being asked. Perhaps I can find out if there is more current information.

The Chairman: What is your best guess?

Ms. McDougal: Wetlands do play a major part in keeping water on the landscape. If climate change reduces those wetlands and we see other impacts, then we will see impacts on water quality. I do not really have any good numbers to back that up, but there are other people working on that question. We could bring that information forward. Mr. Turner may have something to add to that.

Mr. Turner: Mr. Chairman, it is hard to quantify the answer to your question. However, when we appeared before this committee in May 2001, Senator Fairbairn commented that when she was young woman growing up in Lethbridge, there were wetlands and waterfowl everywhere and hunters from across the Prairies, eastern Canada, the United States and the world went to her area. If I quote the honourable senator correctly, she said, "That is no longer the case. There is hardly anything left.''

We, as policy influencers, and honourable senators, as policy-makers, really must look at the big picture of how we have been taking our wetlands and our water resources for granted. Regardless of the climate change impact, science can show that wetlands not only hold carbon, but they also absorb carbon and we are researching that.

There is a little town in Saskatchewan called Kuroki that has a population of about 200 — Last spring the wells of Kuroki went dry. Within a few kilometres of the town, Ducks Unlimited had a 43-hectare wetland. When we realized that the town would have to bring in water in trucks to supply their homes, we suggested that they take water from our wetland. That is not our normal practice, however, but because we had protected that 43-hectare wetland, the town of Kuroki had water last summer from our wetland. If you extrapolate that across the prairie pothole region, looking at the bigger picture of climate change and, as Dr. McDougal showed us, these Prairie potholes are drying up quicker than they ever did. We must then say, "What have we been doing to our landscapes?''

The climate change impact and the carbon part are elements of the problem and water is another. As Mr. Justice O'Connor said at the conclusion of the Walkerton water tragedy inquiry, we must now look at and manage the watersheds, not just the little pond that happens to be near a town, city or village.

We are asking honourable senators to think about the larger picture of the hugely significant impact that water and wetlands have on our life and communities. We must address these issues not just from a climate change carbon point of view, but also from a quality of life point of view. The hamlet of Kuroki is a classic example.

The Chairman: Ducks Unlimited has been playing a major role in raising the awareness of Canadians about these wetlands.

Senator Wiebe: I should like to continue on with the same questioning, especially in regard to slide 3. First, I have been a fan for a long time of the work of Ducks Unlimited. I congratulate and thank you for the work you are doing and continue to do.

I return to a statement that was made by one of the scientists who appeared before us. We discussing that if you want rain, you must have heat, because heat causes evaporation and that puts moisture in the air. He said that whether or not we go with Kyoto, much of the damage has been done. We will see extreme, long periods of heat and long periods of wetness. However, where before we would have rain fall over a period of three days, we will have that same amount of rainfall in about an hour and a half. That is what we are looking at in terms of adaptation and how do we adapt to that?

Your example of the small community in Saskatchewan is an example of where that small wetland piece was designed to conserve the rain that had fallen in previous years. We must start looking more at that area in regard to how we adapt, but also how our wildlife will adapt.

My farm is located alongside the edge of Lake Diefenbaker, in the southwest part of Saskatchewan. When I first started farming there, it was just a river. We did not have any geese flying over our land. Their flight path was elsewhere. The dam was built and now near my farm is a body of water that is a mile wide. The flight path of the geese changed and they started flying our way. As farmers, we had to make the adjustments because of the geese. The problem was not so much the geese, but more the hunters who were coming out to make use of that. It was a matter of becoming educated and the hunters educating themselves as to the value of the property.

In the last four years, even though the dam and the water are still there, I have noticed that the flight paths appear to be changing again. We are not getting the same volume of geese any more. Is the wildlife starting to show the effects of what is happening in other areas with regard to global warming? I should like to hear your comments in that regard.

Ms. McDougal: There are probably some effects that are noticeable. The geese are probably more closely connected with the drought period that we are having on the Prairies right now. Whether that continues on a longer cycle than it may have before global warming was really a part of the equation, is a question to which we do not know the answer.

We do know that waterfowl are quite quickly responsive to cues on the landscape. One reason they are not flying over Lake Diefenbaker any more is because there is nothing further north for them to land in. They are choosing to go further east, through the Manitoba landscape, which last year had a significant amount of water. Flight patterns will change quickly, within a year or two. Whether or not that is totally linked to longer term global warming, a better person than I will have to give that final response.

With respect to water-holding capacity on the landscape, a lot of wetlands are obviously in the low areas of the landscape, so they are there when there are torrential rains and flood events. However, over the last 15 to 20 years, during periods of dryness, many of those low spots have disappeared through ditching, drainage and bulldozing. As we flatten out the landscape, we are losing the natural reservoirs that hold the torrential rains.

In the Mississippi Valley region in the United States it was shown that because they had done away with virtually all the wetlands in that region, a couple of large towns there were flooded. Rather than taking an engineering approach to fixing that by building more ditches, they have spent considerable money putting the wetlands back into that river valley region. It has successfully provided them with a catchment that holds back the torrential rains rather than them all flowing immediately into the Mississippi River.

Provinces like Manitoba have to take a better look at this issue. We do have problems with flooding of the Red River, but we need to look seriously at our natural catchments on the landscape and to ensure that we maintain them. As a result of that draining and ploughing of wetlands that we are losing wetlands on the Prairies at a much faster rate than would ever happen through global warming. We must address that.

Mr. Turner: There are natural fluctuations, of course, in wildlife populations. There always have been and probably always will be. I grew up in the Ottawa area, and when I was young there were very few geese around; now there are hundreds of thousands of them. That may be in part because we have enhanced our farmlands and there is more grain for them to eat when they come through this area.

You are right that there are now extremes of weather changes. How best can policy-makers think longer term to manage our landscapes to cope with the extremes that are happening now? I do not think anyone has a simple answer to that, but Ducks Unlimited Canada is now a lot more than ducks, and some of the sophisticated research we are doing is enhancing policy influence in terms of agricultural use.

Ducks Unlimited started in 1938 when some waterfowl hunters noted that there were not very many ducks that year. They decided, since there was a drought in Canada and a depression in North America, that they would reconstruct a wetland, putting their money where their mouth was. Therefore, this company began 64 years ago with hunters who were concerned about restoring wetlands. We have been saying for over 60 years that if we do not protect our wetlands we are affecting not only human health, agricultural practices and soil quality, but also the wildlife populations.

Senator Wiebe: Part of the reason this committee has chosen to study this subject is because we want to try to find some answers to resolve the extremes that are taking place.

In your brief, you mention that another impact of climate change is that nesting areas will be moving further north. We have been presented with graphs that illustrate that the Palliser Triangle, which was once said to be a desert, is becoming dryer and dryer. If the drought area becomes too large in any year, how far can these birds fly without finding some food? The nesting areas may be moving further north, but how will we deal with the area between if this actually comes about?

Ms. McDougal: I am not certain there is a way to address that. There is that mid-continent triangle and waterfowl will probably start following another route.

Mr. Turner: Alternatively, their numbers may crash. The snow geese are eating themselves out of house and home in the Arctic. There are too many of them. They have reached numbers that they cannot sustain with the food available for six weeks of the year while the young are growing on the shores of Hudson Bay.

The Chairman: Does nature not normally look after problems like that? It does with other species.

Mr. Turner: Yes, it does. It always has and it always will. Those are the natural cycles I spoke about earlier. However, humans have altered their environment tremendously. In southern Ontario, for example, 80 per cent of all wetlands are gone as a result of industrial expansion, highways, agricultural development and urbanization. Yet, people wonder why their wells are going dry and why there are flash floods and soil erosion. It is because the "kidneys of the earth'' — the wetlands — have disappeared. They cannot hold back the waters anywhere.

Aside from the benefit they give to waterfowl and the economic implications of hunting and using that as a renewable resource, the impact we have experienced in the last 100 years in our country has been huge. Now we are asking, "What have we done? What have we done to feed ourselves, to make ourselves happier and healthier?'' We are now here asking what we have to do to mitigate the impact on the environment. There is no simple answer.

Senator Fairbairn: You were talking earlier about the stresses and strains on wetlands from climate and drought. We know that spring snowmelt is not the guaranteed thing it used to be, at least not in recent years.

I had a most telling question two years ago from a friend from Atlantic Canada who was flying to Edmonton via the southern route across the Prairies. He asked me to explain the white ponds that he saw across the southern Prairies. I told him that those are no longer ponds, that those were dugouts, or wetlands, and that the white is salt, because there is no water left.

The cycles of reservoirs being refilled no longer occurs. As you said, Mr. Turner, it is tremendously important that, whatever the fluctuations of the climate, what we have done in terms of urban and industrial creep into farmland has taken away forever a huge amount of wetlands that are not only for wild fowl but, in times of need, may be used to help communities that have gone dry.

Have you any way of measuring the degree to which the movement of urban Canada into these areas has cut off our wetlands in the Prairies?

Mr. Turner: I am not sure that Ducks Unlimited could measure that. The Canadian Space Agency has remarkable technology that can measure, through aerial photographs, wetlands down to the size of two metres in width. We are developing a closer working relationship with the agency to do an assessment of wetlands across the country and to develop policies to either turn the clock back — which is a very expensive, time-consuming difficult thing to do — or initiate policies to mitigate the damage of the last 40 or 50 years.

We can go back and ask what was it like in 1950. As your friend saw in the Southern Prairie pothole region of Canada, those white spots on the ground from 30,000 feet, when you get down close to them, it is discouraging. Probably 30 years ago they were not white; there was water there. However, that has been through human impact.

To answer the question, it is very difficult for us, or any other organization —Agriculture Canada or universities — to quantify the rate of damage. We are trying to work with the players insofar as saying we know what we have been doing; it has been having a bad impact on our quality of life and our communities. For whatever reasons, let us fall back, reload, re-examine it and do some good science, as Ms. McDougal demonstrated. Let us come up with better ways to give incentives to private landowners to do things differently or develop rules and regulations that they will have to follow in the interests of society.

Senator Fairbairn: That was the area in which I was going. We will not recover those losses in Ontario and the marshlands. Has the time come when the onus is on governments to develop a public policy that prohibits certain activities or direction in these at-risk areas, for many reasons including the way we eat, the issues of wildlife that matter in the evolution of our society and the way the land works.''

I am filled with angst and questions on this issue because it is so fundamental. As those wetlands have disappeared, we are finding a lot of the wildlife is turning up wherever there is water. If it happens to be a big lake in the middle of the city of Lethbridge, there they are, and when they flutter their wings, you cannot see the lake at certain times.

Have we invaded their turf elsewhere and taken away things, and now they are invading our turf because until they find another flight plan — and that may not be too successful — they have no option? Is that something that Ducks Unlimited, with its observational capabilities, has noted in various parts of the country, not just in the Western parts?

Mr. Turner: We are getting a little bit off the climate change and agricultural focus of the discussion here, but Senator Fairbairn is right. As we have displaced God's creatures from their natural habitat, they are coming into our backyard because they have nowhere else to go. Every fall within the National Capital Region, there are 600 to 700 collisions with white-tailed deer. That has a huge effect on the car insurance industry that you and I are paying for when we insure our cars. It may be because hunting regulations are not strict or generous enough. We are displacing the deer, we are providing corn on the back door of our farms in urban cities and they love to eat the corn. The wildlife will adapt. I do not want to suggest doom and gloom for waterfowl and wetlands. They will adapt. They will go where the water is, and we cannot blame them.

Senator Fairbairn: We are not going astray from the agricultural issue because that is precisely why they are not going where they used to go. We have permitted our agricultural areas to be depleted, and on top of that, whatever is happening with the climate.

Mr. Turner: You are right.

Senator Fairbairn: That is where the rubber hits the road. We are allowing that depletion, and how we regain it is moot.

Mr. Turner: I will send all of you the research we did to develop the Conservation Cover Incentive Program. It looks at the economics, environmental and social impact on rural communities, whether they are near Lake Diefenbaker or in Metropolitan Toronto. I will be pleased to send that to all of you to revisit that issue because it pulls together all the elements that we are talking about here this morning — soil, air, water, biodiversity, agricultural processes, incentives to landowners not to till the marginal land, but to restore it to natural grasses, to protect the riparian zones and to mitigate what runs off the land in terms of nitrates and potassium.

As a company, we have hit the nail on the head with that study, and we need some support from the government to fund the research that Dr. McDougal is now doing and also to initiate some of the evaluation sites. On Prince Edward Island, we are looking at the Mill River watershed as an evaluation site to measure the impact on water quality, which affects the estuaries where oysters are grown. Additionally, if we can implement more of the CCIP, it will have huge benefits on the landscape for the landowners, but they must be given incentive to do that.

The Chairman: We welcome your suggestion that you send that document, and we look forward to receiving it. Our committee is somewhat aware of what has been done in other jurisdictions because in parts of Europe, particularly Ireland, they are doing that very thing.

Senator Hubley: I should like to discuss peat bogs for a moment. Are they considered part of the wetlands?

Ms. McDougal: They are wetland, but a different type. Within the Kyoto view, they are not part of the managed landscape or the human impacted landscape in terms of anything that we would do through land use change to produce a sink of carbon. They are a vast carbon storage area of the world; a huge amount of carbon is stored in Canadian and Russian peatlands. It is at risk as we get warmer and warmer.

Senator Hubley: They do mine these peat bogs. What effect wills that have?

Ms. McDougal: It does have an effect. The Canadian peat mining industry is a much different entity than the European system, where the peat bogs have been virtually destroyed. Because our industry is younger and newer, it has learned a lot from that scenario. It impacts less than 1 per cent of the peat bog resource in Canada. It has a different approach to its mining: It does not destroy the entire bog; it harvests the bog on what its considers to be a sustainable level, and then it spends a considerable amount of money going in and restoring that wetland to an actual functioning entity.

It is a green industry. That is the way it is marketing itself in the global market. They are very much concerned about the impact. It is an industry that has a good appreciation for its environmental responsibility.

Senator Hubley: With regard to wetlands, as farmers adapt to the changes in our climate, do you see any possibility of them moving into wetlands to produce crops such as cranberries? Do you feel such a move would impact on the waterfowl that may have used some of those areas, and that there would be another tug between what is ours and what should be maintained for wildlife?

Ms. McDougal: In the particular prairie ecosystem about which we are talking, we are not likely to see much in the way of cranberry production, as it is not the right kind of wetland for that.

Senator Hubley: I come from the east.

Ms. McDougal: In the east and also in British Columbia, cranberry production is quite popular.

The risk there is in utilizing the wetlands at a level that is unsustainable for the wetland function. On the Prairies, we are more liable to see things that are already happening, where farmers want to plow a wetland area and plant it as part of their wheat or canola crop. Yes, that is a real danger, which is one of the reasons why we are in this business of looking at wetlands for carbon.

In reference to Senator Fairbairn's question on how to get humans to stop encroaching on wetlands, the answer is money. It is the economic value. The wetland community in Canada has not done a good job of discovering the real values of wetlands. We have nebulous environmental values and the kinds of aesthetic and feel-good values that everybody likes to hear about, However, no one pays much attention to these until we come to something like climate change, where we start to see an acceleration of losses of these natural ecosystems.

We have to put a hard dollar value on the kinds of goods and services that we are receiving from wetlands. Such things include water quality protection for communities; evapo-transpiration so that the fields around get a bit of moisture even if there has been no rain for three months; watering spots off the wetland but with pumped water from that wetland; and economic values from carbon storage. It would be a great boon to farmers if they could actually trade carbon credits on some future market. As Mr. Tyrchniewicz said earlier, it is nebulous right now but it is something that is developing, particularly for grassed areas such as riparian-sensitive areas. They are areas known to store carbon. They are areas where industries are looking to buy carbon credits right now to offset the greenhouse gas emissions that they are producing through their operations.

There are some hard economic values out there. One of the things that came out of the recent national wetland forum was that the wetland community as a whole has to put a concerted effort into evaluating wetlands, coming up with hard numbers, and communicating those to the Canadian public so that we actually get buy-in and dollars flowing to the private individuals where these ecosystems occur.

Senator Ringuette-Maltais: I really enjoyed your presentation. I am sure that this will not be your last presentation before a parliamentary committee.

I noticed in your presentation that you have Alberta Pacific Forestry as one of your funding partners. What is the percentage of the wetlands that would be in forestry sectors in the three provinces that you are looking at?

Ms. McDougal: In terms of this study in particular, one of five sites across the Prairies is in the boreal zone. I am also involved in looking at restored wetland systems. Many of those are in the boreal transition zone in Saskatchewan, in the Melfort area, just north of Saskatoon. There is no manipulation being done of those because those wetlands were restored from agricultural practices a number of years ago to their wetland function. I am measuring how the carbon storage has changed in those systems.

That site in Alberta north of Edmonton is specifically to look at the different agroforestry plantation practices and the annual cropping systems that are happening up in that transition zone. It is one part of the study, but we think a very important part because of this move northward of our agriculture.

Senator Ringuette-Maltais: Mr. Turner, I would like to commend you and Ducks Unlimited for the major awareness that you have brought to Canadians in your many years of operation. I look at my own region of northern New Brunswick, where most of the farmers are also woodlot landowners to make ends meet. Therefore, your research that combines the wetlands in both agriculture and forestry sectors is important.

A decade ago in New Brunswick, we were experiencing a major loss of watersheds through different reasons: climate change, pollution, and agriculture and forestry practices. We tried the awareness approach. Because 99 per cent of the people with whom we dealt were private landowners, on whose land these watersheds were located, the end result was that the provincial government had to legislate buffer zones. I must admit in the first year there was much criticism from the private landowners: "You are intervening in my private land and business.'' Gradually, however, the rest of the population became so in favour of the provincial legislation protecting the watersheds and wetlands and so forth, with best practice in agriculture and in forestry, that we would now not see anything less in regard to buffering and protecting those watersheds.

I am looking for your personal view, Mr. Turner. Do you see that although awareness has a certain mileage toward protecting the public good, in the end it is likely that the provincial governments will have to regulate in the best interests of the public?

Mr. Turner: Ducks Unlimited is very involved in education programs, particularly in primary schools. You mentioned that in New Brunswick, 99 per cent was on private land. We have agreements in place now with over 20,000 landowners across the country. We have been working in a very non-confrontational way with landowners and policy- makers for 64 years. We think we know a little bit about what we are doing. In the broader sense, we are making great progress. Canadians — whether they are in New Brunswick, Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Quebec or Ontario — are waking up to the fact we cannot take our environment, our green spaces and our clean water for granted. We like to think we have played a role in that. We are here to help.

Governments at all levels respect us because we are not confrontational. We do not the walk in saying do this or that and this is good or bad. We do the work quietly and we are making progress doing it with the Government of New Brunswick and, recently, with the Government of Prince Edward Island, which issued a new regulation strategy for wetland and water use. Quebec has just done it. Nova Scotia is drafting theirs. Alberta has just invited Ducks Unlimited Canada to sit down with their elected officials. The City of Calgary has invited us to sit with them to say, "How do we mitigate the damage we are doing to our water and teach people at the same time that you cannot take it for granted any longer.'' For better or for worse, Walkerton was a huge wake-up call to all the people of this country. If all the freshwater of the world were to be placed in a five-litre container, only one teaspoon is available for our use. That is frightening. We now must do everything to protect the teaspoon or we will lose it as well.

Are we making progress? I think we are. Could governments play a greater role in working with us to teach more people at all levels? Yes, I think they could. We look forward to doing that.

The Chairman: I have a question about the definition of "wetlands,'' what they are and what they do, because so much of your evidence today has been about that word "wetlands.'' I looked at your brochure during the course of the discussions and it states, "Wetlands are necessary to the web of life. Beetles, dragonflies and a variety of insects reside in the water.'' Because you are Ducks Unlimited, and because you are encouraging more and more ducks and other wildlife, I should like to know the following. If you have 10,000 geese and 10,000 ducks in some wetland, will they not pollute and ruin that water? You say here that the vegetation in wetlands has the power to clean polluted water by removing harmful nitrates and phosphates. Take my example of 10,000 geese and 10,000 ducks on one of these wetlands. Will that not ruin and spoil that water? Or do the wetlands, in and of themselves, have enough natural power to clean that water?

Ms. McDougal: It depends upon the size of the wetlands and for how long that flock is there. Usually that size of flock of birds would be there for only a few weeks during the staging periods in the fall. Yes, wetlands do break down the kind of nutrients that come from the duck and goose feces that goes into the water. When I was doing my graduate work, a fellow graduate student was looking at the effect of duck and goose feces on a wetland ecosystem. She was actually very disappointed because there was little effect that she could measure over the course of a three-year experiment.

These are resilient systems. A huge number of species of bacteria break down organic material because of the water environment. The aquatic plants themselves are known to be luxury consumers of nitrogen and phosphorous. Although they do not need it for current growth, they will suck it up within a matter of minutes of it being available in the water column and hoard it within the cells of the plant for times when they do not have that ready source of nitrogen and phosphorous. Algae, which are the microscopic plants in these systems, are a big player in recycling the nutrients in the system. That was my particular focus when I was doing my research. When an ecosystem is healthy and is full algae and bacteria, it is able to handle those kind of temporary impacts.

If that flock were there from ice-off in the spring and stayed there all summer at that level, yes, at some point that would impact the ecosystem. However, that does not tend to be the pattern for waterfowl. They tend to be a moving kind of force. The greater impact is with an urban community that is nearby, where there is run-off from an operation that is, perhaps, not doing the best job of containing some of their wastes, or where applications of fertilizers are being done on a day that is too windy and it ends up in the ecosystem. Those are threats are more constant because they are there year round. They are the ones we need to worry more about.

Senator Wiebe: My first question is a result of your necessary comment about your teaspoon of water. In Canada now, water is considered to be a resource. We have some areas of government wanting to explore the idea of buying and selling water. Currently, there is a bill before the Senate that was introduced by a senator. It urges us to take a serious look at designating water as a food and not a resource.

What is your reaction to that? Is that a fair question to ask of you?

Mr. Turner: Any questions on Parliament Hill are fair questions to ask. The difficult part is giving a fair answer.

I believe, Senator Wiebe, you are speaking about Senator Grafstein's bill.

Senator Wiebe: Yes.

Mr. Turner: I think you are leading toward the bulk water issue and exporting it. Ducks Unlimited does not have a position on exporting bulk water at this point in our company's history.

Premier Grimes toyed with the idea of allowing this to happen in Newfoundland last year. There was such a public outcry that it did not happen. Should water be designated as a food source? Is it not vital to all sustained life that we have water? That may answer your question, senator.

Senator Grafstein's bill may or may not be the way to do that because of the jurisdictional difficulties we have in Canada relating to who actually manages the water, who controls it and who owns it. Mr. Herb Gray is the chairman of the International Joint Commission. We have talked a number of times about our transboundary water movements, be they Great Lakes, St. Lawrence, Fraser River or the Red River in Manitoba.

We have no simple answer to that question. However, I think it is one with which public policy-makers must grapple. I wish you well.

Senator Wiebe: Thank you for being so frank with us. I have been encouraged by your presentation this morning. We have looked at the problem. We have looked at mitigation. You are one of the few presenters that have really taken time to look at how we will adapt.

As a result of the debate last year over Kyoto, many organizations, individuals and farmers seem to feel that if we solve that problem we have solved the long-term climate change problem. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The problem is there. We will have to start getting people to put their minds around adaptation — that is, how do we adapt to the extreme forces of nature that are a result of what we have done over the last number of years?

What kind of tools does Ducks Unlimited need to do more investigation on the adaptation end of climate change? What should we as governments or as policy-makers be suggesting to encourage a more active discussion and a more active search for the adaptation tools?

Ms. McDougal: That is a big question. The topic of tools has traditionally fallen through the cracks in terms of funding. I will get on my bandwagon now about wetlands. Wetlands have been regarded as wastelands across most of Canada. There is little research funding at the university level for looking at these systems. Ducks Unlimited is one of the few organizations that solidly puts their money where their mouth is in this regard. We also fall through the cracks in terms of aligning ourselves with agriculture and forestry because traditionally there has often been some kind of antagonism going on there.

We obviously need the kind of financial commitment to the research that needs to be done to bring the information up to speed so that we can move to an adaptation framework. Right now we have so many questions that there are no good recommendations out there based on sound science on which we can move forward with adaptation.

I know everyone here says we still need to do more research. Seriously, though, in the area of wetland function, adaptation for agriculture and forestry needs some serious support.

A communication device is needed through all levels that are involved. This may be one of the top levels in Canada, but municipal officials are desperately looking for answers within their municipalities to counteract global change and carbon sequestration. How can they use opportunities and provide incentives? Individual farmers and provincial governments are looking for information, too. These discussions are going on at every level. Often there is not very good cross-communication at the various levels. That is an important tool for this kind of global issue, which affects us very differently within the regions of Canada with an overall national impact. Perhaps this is the kind of body that can bring people from all the different levels to the table to listen and to formulate a plan for adaptation.

For the most part, we are talking about private landowners who are struggling in an economic climate that is not particularly favourable. They have to feed their families. They hope to leave the farm for the next generation. We must protect ecosystems that, through many different forces, have been degraded — not only through the actions of an individual landowner. We need to provide some financial benefits to those private landowners to allow them to preserve this public good.

Regulation cannot accomplish everything. These people need to survive if Canada is to continue producing food. We need tools to provide payments for the opportunity costs that these farmers face in moving towards better land- management practices, in taking areas of their land out of production. We need to look seriously at some of the perverse policies that have been in place. One particular policy used to grant a grain quota based on the amount of land cultivated. Therefore, farmers would cultivate as much land as possible. For wetlands, that was a perverse policy. Some such policies are still in place. National policy review could be a helpful tool.

Senator Wiebe: You have given us a great deal of food for thought.

Mr. Turner: Without incentives people will not adapt. The endangered species legislation took eight years to pass in the Parliament of Canada. It was debated ad infinitum because of the impact on landowners, on how farms are run. The government took the "carrot'' approach and not the "stick'' approach. Unless we have more carrots, landowners will be reluctant to adapt. One of the carrots is incentive programming.

I used to be a game warden in East Africa. When I first went over there in 1969, I thought I would save the game reserve that I was assigned to manage. The expression, "A man cannot share an acre with an elephant,'' meant a lot more than I realized at the time. To apply that expression to what we are doing now in Canada, it is very difficult for a landowner to share an acre with an endangered species or a goose or a duck when he has to meet the bottom line of doing everything he or she can to feed the family.

Governments have tremendous power and great policy tools. We are now looking at what some of those can be and should be. As a company, we would like to continue to work with you to figure out how best to create those tools.

Senator Fairbairn: While you were talking, I thought of the little town in Saskatchewan where the water sources had gone dry. You were able to assist through a nearby wetlands opportunity. In the summer of 2001, in southwestern Alberta, the mighty irrigation reservoir levels were sinking and Big Chin Lake and other lakes virtually dried out. Towns like Tabor draw their water supplies from those lakes.

When those things happen, if we repeatedly turn to wetlands for assistance in those cases, would not the wetland eventually run dry as well? It is being subjected to the same kinds of climactic change as the other sources. Any such strategy would endanger the survival of the wetland if we look at it as a secondary source of assistance.

Mr. Turner: You are right. The Saskatchewan town was a unique and temporary situation. If we keep taking water from the wetlands, they will dry and the problem will be perpetuated. That was a short-term solution. Here we are looking at the longer term.

The Chairman: Mr. Turner and Ms. McDougal, thank you for your excellent presentation. You have raised a lot of interesting questions for us. Your comments will play an ultimate role in our report.

The committee adjourned.