Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries
Issue 16 - Evidence
[Editor’s Note]
CORRECTION
At page 16:16 of the
printed Issue, seventh paragraph, the text reads:
Nunavut is part of
northern Quebec.
The text should read:
Nunavik is part of
northern Quebec.
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 26, 2002
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries met this day at 7:25 p.m. to examine matters relating to the fishing industry.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Our witnesses are from Ducks Unlimited Canada.
Ducks Unlimited Canada was founded in 1938 and is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of wetlands for the benefit of North America's waterfowl, wildlife and people. Ducks Unlimited employs 450 people in 40 offices and is said to be the largest conservation company in the country. Ducks Unlimited was incorporated in the U.S. and is reportedly the largest conservation company in the world.
The Canadian national head office is located in Stonewall, Manitoba. Its major programs include habitat conservation, research and education. Last year, Ducks Unlimited proposed that the government develop a national conservation cover incentive program, CCIP.
I should note that Mr. Turner, the Director of Government Relations for Ducks Unlimited Canada, and I served in the House of Commons together in the 1980s; he is also the Chairman of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians.
Mr. Turner, please proceed.
Mr. J. Barry Turner, Director of Government Relations, Ducks Unlimited Canada: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the generous explanation about Ducks Unlimited. I might just add, for the record, that we are actually the second-largest conservation organization in the world. I was corrected on that last fall. The Nature Conservancy in the U.S. is the largest; with Canada and the U.S., Ducks Unlimited is the second largest.
We have been involved in conservation activities since 1938. We have completed 6,500 habitat projects across Canada; we have agreements with 19,000 landowners across Canada; we have 7,400 volunteers for about 690 events per year across the country that raise many millions of dollars for conservation; and we have over 150,000 supporters across Canada.
In our 64 years, we have been involved in the protection and restoration of almost 19 million acres of real estate across Canada. Thus, you can see that we are a large conservation organization.
We are pleased to talk about our conservation cover incentive program, and it is a privilege to share it with you and the Senate of Canada. It is a good news story for agricultural landscape and riparian zones across the country. This is the fourth parliamentary committee that we have had an occasion to present this national initiative to. In May of last year, we appeared before the Senate Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, chaired by Senator Gustafson, also a former colleague. Last October, we appeared before the House of Commons Finance Committee, and in November we appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture.
We have had hundreds of meetings across the country with premiers, ministers, public servants, landowners, producers, and with national and provincial agricultural groups and associations. We have been receiving a tremendous amount of encouragement from all of those observers at our events on the cover program to continue forward with what they think is a wonderful opportunity.
Today, we will relate the presentation to the impact that it will have on fisheries across Canada, for your obvious interest. It is primarily agriculturally oriented and driven, but the impact this will have on fisheries, particularly in fresh water areas, is quite significant.
As you know, the key issues affecting the ecological integrity of agricultural landscapes are fourfold. This will have an agricultural tone, but you will understand how it ties into fisheries in a few moments. For decades, we have been tilling marginal and highly erodible soils in Canada; we have been draining wetlands across the country; we have been overgrazing our native pasture in riparian areas, which drain into the wetlands, streams creeks and rivers; we have been removing vegetative buffer zones along waterways and field margins; and we have been over-applying fertilizer and pesticide.
You can appreciate off the top that, when it rains, what we put on the land runs off into the streams, lakes, ponds and rivers, which is fish habitat as well as waterfowl habitat.
When we develop marginal soils, they are not ecologically sustainable across the country. We should not be cultivating all those lands. It results in increased sediment and nutrient loads within associated watercourses, which affects fish habitat. In saline areas, it increases the salinization of the associated wetlands, and that is not good for any growth, let alone for the fish.
We lose wetlands and, when they are drained, we lose flood protection and the potential for groundwater recharge; and we lose water filtration and purification functions. You will be reading more about this when the report on Walkerton comes out. Ducks Unlimited played a major role in assisting Justice O'Connor. We also lose associated fish, wildlife and human benefits.
When we lose riparian buffer zones, agricultural activities that reduce or affect riparian buffer zones along waterways affect fish and wildlife habitat, the nutrient and sediment loading of the adjacent watercourse and, especially, the rates of runoff in the springtime.
All these factors in turn affect water quality and water quantity, which now, on the Prairies in Canada, is a huge problem.
We also lose biodiversity. Without native plant communities, riparian and field margin buffer zones, and wetlands, we lose biodiversity and we increase the number of species at risk within agricultural landscapes, many of which, as you would know, are fish.
Another key issue is Canada's greenhouse gas budget. When we are tilling these soils, we are releasing carbon. Conversion of native prairie to cultivated croplands, excessive tillage of marginal land and drainage of wetlands release those gases that create part of the greenhouse effect. There is a big picture to what we are trying to present; it is not just fish habitat.
We have believed for many years that the benefits that accrue to society through the conversion of riparian areas the drainage areas and marginal agricultural land to permanent vegetative cover significantly outweigh the cost of doing what we will show you. We believe that all Canadians have a role to play in this process.
You may have heard about this unique undertaking in New York City. A number of years ago, they began to realize that their freshwater supply was being limited. There are about 20 million people living in the watershed around New York. The decisionmakers had two choices in order to maintain their freshwater supplies to New York City: They could build a filtration plant or new plants that would cost $6 billion to $7 billion, or they could find a source of freshwater that they could drain and pipe to New York City. They decided to take the latter approach.
They went up to the Catskill Watershed, north of New York, and they bought hundreds of thousands of acres of land where there was fresh water. They reached agreements with the local landowners to protect what runs off the land into those waters, and that now feeds the water requirements of New York City. It was a simple ecologically right thing to do, and they saved $6 billion in the process.
Our initiative, we think, should be led by a number of federal departments, one of which is Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and it should be quarterbacked by Agriculture and AgriFood Canada. They are going through a renewal process with this agricultural policy framework initiative. We think that Natural Resources Canada has a mandate with respect to carbon storage. Earlier, I spoke of tilling the land, which reduces green space and releases carbon. We think that Environment Canada has a role to play within its stewardship of the land, and protecting habitat for not only endangered species, but for migratory birds. Fisheries and Oceans, as you know well, has a renewed mandate to protect fish habitat. This initiative has great interest. In fact, we have met a number of times with fisheries officials, who are very supportive. The last is Health Canada because of the need for cleaner water for Canadians. These five federal departments, the 5NR, coupled with provincial counterparts, can all play a role in this initiative.
We are proposing economic incentives for landowners to protect or restore degraded riparian zones on their land and to convert marginal agricultural land to conservation cover. These lands should be managed to enhance the provision of environmental goods and services and longterm securement, preferably perpetual.
In June of last year, the federalprovincial agricultural ministers met in Whitehorse, and they agreed to develop a national action plan to make Canada the world leader in food safety, innovation and environmental protection. Our cover program ties into the elements of environmental protection. One of the ways that they want to do that is to adopt sound environmental practices on the farm.
There are a number of factors that we think will ensure a successful cover program. First, it is voluntary and will not be a mandatory, imposed program. Second, it will focus on retiring lands to provide environmental services, not as a technique to reduce commodity plantings. Third, one size will not fit all across the country. In other words, what we do in Prince Edward Island will be different than what we will do in Saskatchewan or on Vancouver Island. However, it should be kept reasonably simple.
The objective is to maximize environmental benefits relative to cost. Incentive payments should be sensitive to sitespecific markets, depending on the area of the country you are in. It is important to encourage input from other wildlife organizations, and to limit enrolment in a region so that large areas are not taken out of production. This is a major concern on the Prairies.
We want to address environmentally significant or marginally productive agricultural lands and to protect marginally productive land in perpetuity with onetime payments. These programs will be linked to our responsibilities under the Kyoto Protocol with respect to carbon sequestration. Linking this with the new vision for agriculture is essential. Bringing together the 5NR departments Fisheries, Health, Agriculture and Agri-Food, Environment, and Natural Resources to make it happen.
There is a great opportunity for other nongovernmental organizations to participate. We will use adaptive management as the program evolves, because we must learn through experimentation. We know that this kind of incentive program is green under GATT, NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, WTO. There can be no international complaints from the U.S. or Europe with respect to this initiative.
We are simply recommending that the 5NR work together to develop this program and address the environmental issues and concerns of the associated departments. They all have an interest in this. We want to bring them together to make it happen. We would like to be a part of that.
We are suggesting pilot studies, initially, which we will do in different regions of the country. The pilots are the best way to start because we must walk with this before we can run. Before it becomes a national program, let us focus on pilot areas. We have recommended taking a look at the impacts of the program on water, soil, air and biodiversity on a watershed level. We want to do this in parts of the country: Black Creek in British Columbia; the Upper Assiniboine in the Prairies; the Grand River in Ontario; the South Nation River, just south of Ottawa, Ontario; Missisiquoi Bay in Quebec; and the Mill River in Prince Edward Island.
The Black Creek Watershed project is an extremely important area for coho salmon that run up the Black Creek. We are proposing that one of the pilots be on that area, which is just north of Courtenay on Vancouver Island. The watershed is about 80 square kilometres. The main land use attached to it is agriculture, forestry and some rural residential. It is extremely important to fisheries, specifically to coho salmon. In 1999, it was one of the first streams in B.C. to be designated a ``sensitive stream'' under the provincial Fish Protection Act.
The Black Creek has been a coho indicator stream since 1968. Its water quality is poor because of low water aeration, lack of riparian vegetation and increased biological oxygen demands. It needs our attention.
We will also look at the Upper Assiniboine Watershed between Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It is upstream on the confluence of the Assiniboine and Qu'Appelle Rivers. Most of the area is in Saskatchewan, but about one fifth of it is in Manitoba. It is a large watershed, about 21,000 square kilometres. The mainland use is agriculture, and as you can imagine, small livestock, feedlots and intensive livestock operations are becoming more and more common. There are drainage ditches that have been dug by the landowners in the area to drain the lands, and we wonder why the wells are dry and why there is no water left on the Prairies. These drains have contributed to draining for flood control purposes, and wetlands have disappeared as well as much of the surface water. Water quality and quantity are becoming more and more important on the Prairies.
In Ontario, we propose that the pilot projects be in the area of the Grand River Basin and in the South Nation River just south of Ottawa. The Grand River is a large, intense watershed area of about 7,000 square kilometres in Southern Ontario. It is a Canadian heritage river and its use is similar to the west. It is important for sport fisheries, as well as for urban and rural residences. There are two concerns with the Grand River — agriculture and urban expansion. The issues to address in this pilot study are reducing flooding, improving water quality, providing adequate water supplies and protecting natural areas.
The South Nation River is just south of Ottawa and is a large watershed of about 4,000 square kilometres. There is agricultural land use, and rural population is growing significantly. The soils are mostly clay, and deforestation has contributed to flooding and stream-bank instability. Again, water quality is a major issue.
In Quebec, we will look at the Missisiquoi Bay Watershed, which is right on the Quebec-Vermont border. Part of the drainage system is in Quebec, and part of it is in Vermont. It is a 3,000-square-kilometre watershed area at the northern end of Lake Champlain. In the Missisiquoi area, it is 60 per cent forest, 30 per cent agriculture and 5 per cent urban. The impacts are very similar from agricultural activities cattle, dairy and pork.
The water quality has deteriorated since the 1960s, with significant increases in phosphorus, nitrogen, sediment, and nuisance algae, which affect drinking water and recreational and sport purposes.
The last pilot we propose is in the northern part of Prince Edward Island in the Mill River Watershed, which some of you may be familiar with. It is intense an agriculture area. There is an estuary along the ocean that is a habitat for growing oysters, primarily. The watershed is quite small, and most of it is agricultural use, with some use in forestry and some use in wetland. There are potatoes farmed here, and dairy and livestock contribute to an agricultural mix. Agricultural impacts on the Mill River are erosion, sedimentation and also on the fisheries, right along where the river runs into the ocean. This damages natural habitats.
Our company is prepared to contribute significant financial resources to a program that supports the concepts presented in our proposal. We believe that there are significant impacts on fish habitat and on other environmental areas of the country. We look forward to discussing these issues with you and answering your questions.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Turner. Indeed, the program that you propose interests this committee immensely. This committee wants to look at habitat and has chosen that area as the focus of its current study over the next number of months and possibly years.
I have a question about a group called ``Frontier Centre,'' which is located in the Prairies. This group has had a quite a bit of media play over the past number of weeks and months having to do with people who are very unhappy with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans applying its habitat protection program in the Prairies. Are you familiar with the group?
Mr. Turner: No, we are not.
The Chairman: You might want to familiarize yourself with them, and I am hopeful that this committee will have this group appear before us. They have been making some rather extreme comments about DFO protecting streams and rivers in areas where there are no fish. Your organization may want to find out what has caused this concern and how we might look at the importance of protecting our streams and rivers in the Prairies.
Mr. Turner: I should add, Mr. Chairman, that Ducks Unlimited Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada are planning a workshop at the end of April, I believe, in Montreal. We will examine better ways for them and for us to cooperate on joint projects. They recognize that we have been working with landowners for 64 years, particularly in Western Canada and the Prairies, where a group like Frontier Centre suddenly finds, if I may be so disrespectful, fish habitat police on the scene telling them what to do with their landscapes. If you had never seen these people before, you would probably react by saying: ``Excuse me, what the heck is going on here?'' We appreciate that, and we will have a workshop to resolve some of those issues at the end of next month.
The Chairman: From what we can gather, there is definitely an interest in the Prairies to improve the fish habitat in streams and rivers. Cows and fish are the perfect example of the kind of interest that landowners have. I am quite sure that there is some kind of misunderstanding that needs to be clarified, and I am pleased that Ducks Unlimited will be helping DFO in this respect.
Senator Cook: Thank you for an enlightening presentation. Suffice it to say, it is interesting that an ordinary bird such as a duck can be capable of bringing about such an extraordinary effort. I live near the ocean, and so my focus is on what we call in Newfoundland and Labrador ``saltwater ducks.'' I did not see anything in your program relating to the term ``saltwater ducks,'' especially in view of their habitat, the climate change, the oil spills, and the dumping of ballast at sea. What is the affect of that on the population? Do you know the population of saltwater ducks off the East Coast of Canada?
Mr. Turner: Senator Cook, I am not the duck expert, but I am the Director of Government Relations. We would need one of our field staff from Atlantic Canada to answer your question with any accuracy of scientific knowledge. I do not have that information, but I would be pleased to obtain it for you. Most of this program targets freshwater drainage areas, and not so much saltwater areas.
Senator Cook: There is nothing for the saltwater duck other than it survives the best it can, although it is hunted at will. The habitat for a saltwater duck would not be the same as it would be for a freshwater duck.
Mr. Turner: No, it would not be. I do not want to put words in the mouths of one of our field biologists from Atlantic Canada, so I will ask one of them to contact you with an explanation of the impact on sea ducks.
Senator Cook: It would be interesting to know how they survive in their environment or habitat with the climate changes and the pollution of the ocean, which is their primary growing area.
Mr. Turner: I agree with you.
Mr. Ian Campbell, Senior Agricultural Policy Analyst, Ducks Unlimited Canada: One thing we could mention is that Ducks Unlimited Canada monitors and analyzes the sea ducks as well as freshwater ducks. In fact, the current issue of our magazine has a detailed article on sea ducks. In terms of this program, any estuary that is affected by agricultural runoff would benefit from this program. As long as there are sea duck habitats in those areas, they would benefit. Coastal areas that are not affected by agriculture would not be affected by this program. It may be that those areas are not being affected negatively in any event.
Senator Cook: I took a quick glance at your magazine, and I was heartened to learn that you build shelters for the eggs of the eider ducks in the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. Is there a program in that area?
Mr. Turner: Our volunteers, of which we have thousands across the country, are involved in projects such as that with our field staff they build shelters for the eider ducks, and it is referred to in our recent magazine.
Senator Cook: I will leave it to the mainland Canadians to ask you the questions that are relevant to the habitat of ducks. The duck habitats in my area are doing okay because of the nature and environment of the island. However, it would not be the same in P.E.I., where there is heavy agricultural activity.
Mr. Turner: That is the exact difference. This study is focussed on areas with intensive agricultural uses, which, in turn, affects the quality of water that drains off the land. In Southern Ontario, for example, about 85 per cent of the wetlands have disappeared. That is having a huge impact on the landscape. This is much less so in Newfoundland.
Senator Cook: I would say that Newfoundland and Labrador would be a ducks' heaven because no one bothers to drain anything there.
The Chairman: Make it a cod heaven.
[Translation]
Senator Gill: I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Turner, for your presentation. There is no doubt that Ducks Unlimited speaks on behalf of a great number of people in this country. From the point of view of Aboriginals, it is obvious that your thinking is close to the conservation philosophy of Aboriginals regarding the land, namely that we should keep the landscape in its virgin state as much as possible. However, it is not always easy to do so.
Here is my question: to what organizations do you make representations? Do you have contacts only with the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Department of the Environment, for example? What is your objective? On what items do you put the emphasis? What people do you target? I presume that your focus is mostly on the federal and provincial levels?
Mr. Turner: For this initiative?
Senator Gill: Yes, for this initiative.
Mr. Turner: We have met, for example, the officials and the ministers of several departments, such as the Department of the Environment and the Department of Agriculture, not only at the federal level, but in each of the provinces. We have had meetings with the Quebec Minister of the Environment, Mr. André Boisclair, as well as with officials from the Quebec Department of Agriculture. We have done the same all across Canada. We have met every provincial department concerned in order to request their support for our initiative, because we believe that it is up to the federal and provincial departments as well as non-governmental organizations to share the responsibility to contribute to this initiative throughout Canada.
Senator Gill: Was it Ducks Unlimited that took the initiative of rallying all these people, contacting provincial and federal departments and other organizations in order to coordinate this action?
Mr. Turner:Yes.
Senator Gill: Ducks Unlimited is coordinating all activities necessary to end up with the resulting project that has been presented to us earlier, that is identifying the six target projects, if I remember correctly.
Mr. Turner: Yes, we have been pursuing that initiative for the past four years. We have met several persons at the provincial level, at the national level, in order to obtain their support.
Senator Gill: Their contribution and their support?
Mr. Turner: The support of these organizations. It is indeed an initiative of Ducks Unlimited Canada.
Senator Gill: You initiated this four years ago?
Mr. Turner: Intensively for the past 18 months, but we began three years ago.
Senator Gill: Up to now, what have been the results? Did you secure some cooperation?
Mr. Turner: Yes, but it is a slow and difficult process.
Mr. Ian Campbell, Senior Agricultural Policy Analyst, Ducks Unlimited Canada: We have also met with several agricultural organizations such as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which support our project, as well as some provincial organizations and some associations in various areas.
Prince Edward Island supports our initiative in a very concrete way. Of course, the support varies from one province to the other, but we certainly benefit from a very strong support from the Minister in Prince Edward Island.
Senator Gill: What do you expect from the Senate Committee on Fisheries?
Mr. Turner: That is a good question.
[English]
Mr. Turner: I will tell you in English because you have asked a most important question. At the end of our presentation last November before the House of Commons Committee on Agriculture, Susan Tremblay, a Member of Parliament from Quebec, asked, ``What can we do to help?``
My answer was that the committee could pass a motion to support in principle what we want to do with these landscapes. She drafted a motion. It has been presented to the committee. It is not yet passed. We only want the 5NR, the federal government, to say: ``We think this is good. We want to develop it with Ducks Unlimited.''
We would like this committee to pass a motion saying that you think the initiative is good and that it has significant environmental benefits for the country, including fish habitat. We would like the Government of Canada to work with Ducks Unlimited and other organizations to make it happen.
Last December 10, there was a reference in the budget identifying the need for Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to work together to develop a cover program for the country. That was a signal to us that we have landed on the financial radar screen of the government. They said that they think this is worth developing.
We are asking your committee to endorse the initiative not in detail. We do not have all the details. We do not know exactly how this will work yet. Let's sit down and get the 5NR together with us and with other partners to make it happen.
Initiating the five pilot projects would make it happen. There are pilot projects in Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
If you think we are completely out to lunch, tell us we are on the wrong track. So far, all of the provinces and groups with which we have met have said: ``This is good. Let us make it happen.''
We now need a champion. It needs, as Senator Mahovlich would know, a captain to take the puck — or a ball, if we are talking baseball — and shoot it.
Senator Mahovlich: Or pass it.
Mr. Turner: Actually, you can pass the puck, but do not pass the buck. That is what we are asking.
Senator Hubley: There is a new sensitivity to our environment. We are seeing that in concerns for our water and food safety, tourism and landscapes. They all seem to hinge on a safe environment.
In your work, have you seen any indication from governments that they might be willing to compensate the farming community for going that extra distance in following good farming practices or environmentally friendly practices? If farmers had to take some of their farmland out of production for hedgerows or for water buffer zones and things of that nature, would there be compensation? Do you see any sort of movement in that direction?
Mr. Turner: Absolutely. You are quite right in the premise of your question. There is a new environmental awareness in the country about what is happening on our landscapes, our water and our air. As we have been cultivating this initiative with potential partners across the country, everyone has been saying that it is good.
The cover program initiative is modelled after the very successful United States Conservation Reserve Program. Initiated in the first farm bill in the U.S. in 1986, financial incentives were given to landowners to take certain marginal lands with highly eroding soils out of production to protect riparian zones. That program has been very successful for the last 15 years.
We thought that it was time to do this in Canada. However, if you are a landowner, you are not going to give up something for nothing. We have met with all kinds of stakeholder groups, individual landowners and provincial and national agricultural associations to communicate what we want to do. These marginal lands are, for the most part, not very productive. The cost to develop these lands far exceeds the benefits from growing grain on such land.
We have been getting a very good reception. It fits into what Agriculture Canada is doing with the agricultural policy framework review, which is underway now. One of the pillars of that is the environment. This program can tie into that initiative by agriculture.
Yes, the reception has been good. Yes, the timing is good. It will require some funding. It will require a public policy initiative by the government to say, ``We will do this.'' That is how we hope to do it.
Senator Watt: You probably are already aware that I am from the Arctic. I also have a concern with the eider ducks. We are flooded with the eider ducks in the North at least we were until recently. We have been invaded by the polar bears. I do not think the eider ducks will go there with the same success in the future. I would like to put that on the record. I think it is very important.
I also appreciate your plan and how you are dealing with the way the land is slowly deteriorating. We are getting to the point where water is killing the people. With respect to water, we are not only seeing environmental damage but damage to various species on this planet.
I did not see anything for the North in your plan. Nunavik is part of northern Quebec. I do not see anything there. Neither do I see any future plan regarding the High Arctic or the Western Arctic.
I do not think that the plan that you have highlighted here could be implemented in those areas I just mentioned because of the different setting, needs and reality. The land about which I am talking is not occupied by activities, development and nature management. Therefore, it is very different.
Nevertheless, there is a transboundary evolution that is starting to be very noticeable. What goes up in the South, comes down in the Arctic. It may even extend North Pole to South Pole, or vice versa. It seems like the Arctic is becoming a conductor of various contaminants – that what goes up must come down. This is affecting not only vegetation, fish, ducks, et cetera, but the entire food chain. This is what is happening now.
I would like to highlight the fact that you are not there, and I think that you should be there. I would like to see an idea of an enhancement program in the Arctic.
I approached Ducks Unlimited as individual senator a couple of years ago. I was willing to volunteer to help enhance the eider ducks. I suggested building little houses for them, to protect them from the climate and from foxes. I would like to see go ahead.
On another topic, we know for a fact that seals are contaminated; there is much contaminant in them. It is the same with the fish.
It is it possible for Ducks Unlimited to take this matter seriously I know you will by establishing a monitoring system. We should begin to monitor what is really happening to our ducks in the Arctic as a result of the transfer of pollution.
Is it possible to move in that direction?
Mr. Turner: You have covered many challenges that the Arctic environment faces, not the least of which is pollution. As you know, many years ago, DDT was being found in seals in the Arctic. The bears would then eat the seals. Hence, we see the impact on the food chain.
The creatures that live where you live, senator, do not live there year-round. They move south and north.
Senator Watt: Not all of them.
Mr. Turner: A number of them are residents. The polar bear does not migrate but the waterfowl does. That is our area of interest and professional jurisdiction.
By protecting the habitats in the South, we will, it is hoped, be sending healthier creatures to the North, with less pollutants and pesticides, with greater success rates.
The snow geese are an example. There is an overabundance of snow geese around James Bay. They are eating themselves out of house and home. We have been researching that in cooperation with the Canadian Wildlife Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Ducks Unlimited has been involved in some of that research.
Would we be prepared to get more involved in monitoring the heath of certain duck species in the Arctic? Yes, we would. We would like to help you, but we would like you to help us.
As I said, the bigger picture here that we have outlined has an impact on all of us, our health, as well as the animals that live on the land that is being polluted or abused. Could we help? Yes, we could. Should we? Yes, we should.
We talk of carbon sequestration. This may sound a bit off topic here. However, if we do not stop spilling carbon dioxide and noxious gases into the atmosphere — an action that contributes to global warming, which contributes to melting of the ice in your part of the world, which affects polar bear habitat, fish habitat and waterfowl habitat — we are going to be in trouble.
By sequestering more carbon, keeping more green space, using wetlands as carbon sinks, we are actually helping your part of the world because we will not contribute any longer the way we have been to global warming, which has a significant impact on the Arctic.
We are all part of the same chain. Ducks Unlimited tries not to forget that and not think only about our own little backyard as opposed to the bigger picture. As you know, we are across the country, in 38 locations. We cannot be all things to all people. If we could help with a particular project in the Arctic, I would think we would try to do that. We would like you to help us maybe find some more funding for that.
Senator Watt: Are you telling me that your help is conditional?
Mr. Turner: No, I am not. However, our well, our resources, is not unlimited. If we implement some of these pilot projects in this initiative here, it will cost money. We all need funding for our initiatives.
Ducks Unlimited is prepared to spend a lot of money on this initiative. I do not know how much we spend project- by-project, zone-by-zone in the Arctic now. Again, I would defer to our field staff who deal with issues in the Arctic. I am not familiar with all of them.
Senator Mahovlich: The landscape portrait you showed earlier looked to me like a golf course. I believe there is a golf course called Mill River in P.E.I. Is that golf course involved? Do golf courses contribute to pollution? I know a lot of clubs do not like geese around; they try to get rid of them, one way or another. Some courses bring in a swan or two. They think that that will do it. I am not quite sure.
Do golf courses do a lot of harm to the duck population?
Mr. Turner: I am not sure that we can answer that in any general terms. In some areas, they may; in some areas, they may not.
Is the Mill River Golf Course involved in this watershed? I do not know. I did not know that there was a Mill River Golf Course.
Senator Hubley: Yes, there is.
Mr. Turner: It may well be. Does what happens on the golf course affect the watercourses, the habitat of fish and waterfowl and the drinking water for humans? I would think it does.
Senator Mahovlich: They use a lot of fertilizer on gold courses.
Mr. Turner: Yes, they do. Do we need to have nice green fairways? Maybe we do not.
I am not sure there is an easy answer to your question. Without knowing that golf course and what they use on their landscapes, it is tough for us to answer. I am not sure there was a golf course in the picture. It looked like it because of the way the landscape was being grown. There were strips of stubble, I think.
Senator Mahovlich: It looked like sand traps.
Mr. Turner: You are right. It looked like it.
The Chairman: I have never heard anything negative said about Ducks Unlimited.
Mr. Turner: I guess you do not work in my office.
The Chairman: Other than from your staff. Generally, it has an excellent reputation and a good image out in the public and with government, with people in general of all ages. Could you tell me the secret of that successful image?
Mr. Turner: I can proudly tell you the secret to that success. We have never been a confrontational organization. We have never been policy-prescriptive. We have never been in your face. We have been a very well-managed, very professional and very well-financed conservation organization that does God's work. If you want our opinion, we will give it to you; however, we do not picket on the street. We do not write editorials and condemn decision makers at the provincial or federal level. We just do our work to the best of our ability.
As we are not confrontational, we have developed the confidence of decision makers across the country.
The Chairman: My understanding is that you actually receive funding from the U.S. Congress. I do not know whether that funding filters into Canada. Would this be a result of the fact that decision makers in government in that country have placed confidence in the abilities of Ducks Unlimited?
Mr. Turner: Very much so. The U.S. Congress passed twelve years ago the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. In order for Congress, or even our Parliament to spend money, they must have jurisdiction under the law. For the U.S. Congress to spend money in Canada to protect waterfowl, they had to pass an act. Yes, they allocate funding to assist us with our habitat and conservation research in Canada.
It does not come direct to us. It is channelled through Ducks Unlimited in America to us; we are sister organizations. By law, the Americans cannot transfer the funds directly to Canada.
That took place to fund the extremely successful North American Waterfowl Management Plan that was developed jointly, and is a shared responsibility, among Canada, the United States and Mexico. The waterfowl of this continent is a shared jurisdiction. Many of the waterfowl are born and breed in Canada, but they winter in America and Mexico.
Fifteen years ago, the authorities of our three countries recognized that the waterfowl resource was shared and that all governments should contribute to the enhancement and protection of the wildlife resource, waterfowl. That is why we get funds from the United States government. I should add that we get significant funds from them. We do not get a lot of funds from the Canadian federal government.
The Chairman: I am not surprised.
Mr. Turner: Part of this initiative is to try to convince the federal government to put in more funds. Protection for not only our waterfowl, but also our rivers, streams, riparian areas and our landscapes contributes a broad spectrum of benefits to all Canadians. We are asking the federal government to put its money where its mouth is.
The Chairman: In order to give us a ballpark, if we were to decide to pressure the Canadian government to contribute to this, can you let us know how much you are getting through Ducks Unlimited U.S.?
Mr. Turner: It is in our annual report, copies of which we have given to you. In the last fiscal year, we received about Can $25 to 30 million through the allocation from Congress. We also received an equivalent amount from Ducks Unlimited Inc. in America. Of our annual budget of about $75 million, two thirds of it comes from U.S. sources. That is a significant amount of money. Not a lot of it comes from federal government sources.
The Chairman: Could we find out how much comes from the Canadian federal government?
Mr. Turner: Yes. I do not know off the top of my head.
The Chairman: It would be in your annual report, would it?
Mr. Turner: We get support for various projects. For example, Environment Canada in the last couple of years has been very generous with spending money through the Canadian Wildlife Service for specific land acquisition initiatives that Ducks Unlimited has been doing. It is getting better, but it is not quite where we would like it to be.
What do we need for our pilot projects for the next fiscal year? We need Can $2 million. To complete the pilots in the next five years, we need a total of $15 million, which is not a lot of money.
The Chairman: That is good to know. Is Trout Unlimited affiliated in any way with Ducks Unlimited, or did they just piggyback on the very famous name ``unlimited''?
Mr. Turner: A trout is a trout; a duck is a duck. We do know them.
The Chairman: If it quacks like a duck —
Mr. Turner: — looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it is not a trout. I do not know if we have any specific cooperative projects with them. I know that in the pilot that we are proposing in the Black Creek on Vancouver Island we will be working with the local fishing association. Is it called Trout Unlimited? I do not know. Did they sort of plagiarize the name? Probably. That is flattering to us.
The Chairman: Quite flattering, yes.
Senator Cook: I want to thank you very much for this information packet. I believe I hit the jackpot. I got the magazine that tells about the saga of the sea duck. I had no idea when I was asking questions that my answers could be in here.
Mr. Turner: We deliver pretty quickly sometimes.
Senator Cook: I will let Senator Watt read this. There is a lot of information about the Arctic. here is an eider initiative and Ducks Unlimited are generating $1.7 million for scientific and educational projects over the next five years from my province alone. Did you also know that there is $250,000 for an education program?
Mr. Turner: No, I did not.
Senator Cook: It is an incredible piece of information.
Mr. Turner: Yes, we are an incredible organization.
Senator Cook: It is commendable. This is an informative and visionary article. I am grateful for it.
Mr. Turner: Senator Cook, there is probably a membership application in there for you to join Ducks Unlimited.
Senator Cook: It is right there. I just saw it.
Mr. Turner: Only $25 a year.
Senator Cook: It is an incredible story. Is the environment for sea ducks more stable than for other ducks? It talks about your Arctic ducks.
I will be sure to let Senator Watts see this.
Senator Watt: Is Ducks Unlimited already communicating with farmers? Are you in a joint venture with farmers?
Mr. Turner: Very much so. I mentioned earlier that we have been working with landowners, particularly in the Prairies, for 64 years. We have agreements with 19,000 landowners, most of whom live in the Prairies. We have intensive contact with farmers and landowners all over Canada.
Senator Watt: What about the Aboriginals?
Mr. Turner: Yes, we work with them. We are very much involved in boreal forest research with Aboriginal peoples in northern Alberta and British Columbia. We will be very involved with Aboriginal people on the Grand River drainage system. The six First Nations that have lands bordering on the Grand River will be a part of our initiative.
Senator Watt: What about the Aboriginal organizations in the Arctic, or the government for that matter?
Mr. Turner: I do not know if we have had any contact with them. I do not know the answer to that.
Senator Mahovlich: I have a summer home in Muskoka. We occasionally see loons. Land is so valuable now that some cottagers are dredging little bay areas where there was swamp. I may lose my loons up there one day.
Mr. Turner: Yes, you may.
Senator Mahovlich: Is that possible? Could that actually happen?
Mr. Turner: One of the greatest threats to loons is the personal watercraft, the jet skis and all the toys that people now take out on the water at 50 miles an hour. Loons like to have quiet spaces, as I am sure you know. They are not as gregarious as ducks. The impact of the invasion of these watercraft from sunrise to sunset will be great.
You are quite right, we have taken these areas for granted for decades. If your neighbours up there have been dredging little areas, they may be breaching provincial laws in Ontario.
We must stop doing this. Part of what we are saying in the bigger picture is that we must treat our water supplies, water facilities and water courses differently, which affects loons, ducks, fish all of God's creatures that live on around the water areas, including humans.
The Chairman: You talked earlier about the pollution of our streams and rivers. I saw an article this week about pollutants in the rivers in England. Male fish there are turning into female fish because of the estrogen that is going into the water table and seeping into the rivers. It is actually happening to a large proportion of the fish. The sperm count for male fish was significantly down. Could this be having an impact on people in England?
Mr. Turner: You mean are the men turning into women?
The Chairman: I hope not.
If people could only realize how fragile the system really is and how we must be careful of what we do. We must protect our waterways and watersheds.
England is only one example. In England, they are only starting to realize that this is happening. If it can happen in England, it can happen here in Canada and anywhere else in the world. We must be mindful of what we are doing to our lands and waterways.
It has been a delight, on behalf of the members, to have you here this evening. Judging by the questions and the back and forth, I know members thoroughly enjoyed your presence.
I am sorry that it took so long to get Ducks Unlimited to appear before the committee. In the past, we tended to concentrate more on fish distribution and so on. Finally, we are getting into an area of study that we have been wanting to get into for a long time, which is habitat. We are all pleased that we are finally starting to look at this very important subject. If we do not have fish habitat, we do not have fish. If we do not have fish, why have a meeting to distribute what is not there? At the end of the day, fish habitat is probably key to having fish to distribute in the future.
We may call on you in the coming months and years to help us identify success stories that are out there. Perhaps there are other stories that you might be able to pass on to us. The committee wishes to pursue things that people are doing to help our habitat, fish and waterfowl. If you pass these stories on to us, we would be delighted to have them.
Mr. Turner: On behalf of my colleagues, I want to thank all of you. This was a very good, relaxed and healthy discussion. If we can help you in the future, and I think we can, we would be absolutely more than willing to do so.
As you know, my office is here in Ottawa, and, as we say, we are here to help. Your comments about Ducks Unlimited being a highly regarded and respected organization we would like to think have been well earned. We have extreme confidence in our scientists. If we can be helpful to you, whether in regard to eider ducks or fish habitat or working with Fisheries and Oceans, we would be more than happy to do that any time.
The Chairman: There is one last item for the committee members. Would it be agreed that the material provided by Ducks Unlimited be filed as an exhibit with the committee?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Thank you.
The committee adjourned.