Hey All,
Michael is a known crusader for the environment.
Here you see a sometimes charged exchange between him and Minister of the Environment, Barry Penner over the government’s handling of various species at risk.
Enjoy,
2009 Legislative Session: First Session, 39th Parliament
COMMITTEE A BLUES
This is a DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY of debate in one sitting of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. This transcript is subject to corrections, and will be replaced by the final, official Hansard report. Use of this transcript, other than in the legislative precinct, is not protected by parliamentary privilege, and public attribution of any of the debate as transcribed here could entail legal liability.
DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(HANSARD)
COMMITTEE A BLUES
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2009
Afternoon Sitting
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PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM
Committee of Supply
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT
M. Sather: Well, I think what the people of British Columbia are wanting to know is what year — or, maybe, what decade — we’re going to have stand-alone species-at-risk legislation in B.C. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I want to ask the minister about mountain caribou. I did try, in case the minister wonders, to canvass the Minister of Forests about this. He said it should be referred to the Minister of Environment, but there is crossover. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The Minister of Forests has talked recently about the need for commercial forest reserves and the possibility that some environmental restrictions could be lifted on those reserves. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Old-growth management areas are an essential part of the mountain caribou recovery strategy. They’re critical for biodiversity. Can the minister assure the House that the commercial forest reserves will not include old-growth management areas? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1630]
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Hon. B. Penner: I appreciate the member’s question about the mountain caribou. Just to elaborate a bit more on something that I said earlier in response to a question around endangered species generally, I can specify that the ministry has protected approximately 2.2 million hectares of mountain caribou habitat from roadbuilding and logging, implemented snowmobile closures over approximately one million hectares of mountain caribou habitat and established section 16 Land Act reserves that restrict or prevent the development of new heli-ski and cat-ski tenures throughout the existing range of mountain caribou. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Now, whatever other actions take place in the future, our government is not going to deliberately undertake measures that will compromise our recovery objectives for the mountain caribou. That remains a top government priority. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: Caribou in some caribou management areas are in grave danger of being wiped out. For example, the 2009 census of the South Purcell herd found only 14 caribou. This is a disastrous drop from about 70 caribou in this herd in the 1990s. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1635]
Also, the Columbia South herd has dropped from 20 to 13 in the last year. Augmentation from other herds has been suggested but has not taken place. Can the minister explain what’s going on there and why these transplants from other areas have not taken place? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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Hon. B. Penner: This is a matter that’s under active work right now with the ministry. I am advised that ministry staff are pursuing the idea of augmenting or transplanting certain numbers of mountain caribou from one region of the province to the areas that the member referred to. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
But the member will also appreciate that there is a challenge, because that means you have to find a mountain caribou population or herd that is suitable for having numbers of their herd removed and forcibly taken elsewhere. That engages a number of first nations’ concerns. For first nations that are in the areas where the herds may be transplanted and moved to another location, that raises some concerns. Obviously, consultation is required, and hopefully, we can reach some agreement on that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The other perplexing challenge is that as long as there are significant issues around predators, ministry staff have concerns about taking caribou from one part of the province where they are doing relatively well to another part of the province where predators may make quick work of newcomers to their territory. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
With the newcomers perhaps not being as familiar with the territory or the inherent risks from the predators in that new area, their life span may be short and the overall objectives of augmentation may not be met if the newcomers, the transplanted animals, don’t have time to acclimatize and do what we would like them to do, which is perpetuate the species — find a partner and make more mountain caribou. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Obviously, our goal here is to try and do things in a way that is successful for the herds, but it’s not an easy problem to solve. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: The minister mentioned heli-skiing a little while ago. Given that some of these populations are near extirpation, why not just close heli-ski operations in those parts of the mountain caribou range where they’re in danger of being extirpated? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1640]
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Hon. B. Penner: The ministry has been working with the heli-ski operators to find ways that their practices can be changed. I think it’s fair to say that nobody wants to harm the mountain caribou, at least as far as I know. We have actually found the sector to be reasonably receptive to our suggestions, and I’m told that a new set of guidelines has just been agreed to and implemented. I’m told that my deputy, Mr. Konkin, who I should have introduced a long time ago, seated just to my right, just signed off on those new guidelines for heli-ski operations in mountain caribou territory a short while ago. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If the member is suggesting that another form of economic activity should be stopped entirely in a part of the province that’s already hurting from the downturn in the forest sector, he may want to take that up with his colleague, the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, who hardly misses an opportunity to complain about the state of the economy in his part of the province and to ask the government to do something about it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We’ve already taken steps to implement tighter controls on forest activity within the range of the mountain caribou. That has an economic impact. At some point that will probably have an impact on jobs. But on balance, that’s something that our government has decided to do. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We’ve also taken steps working collaboratively with the heli-ski industry to get them to change some of their practices. As I’ve said, we’ve just announced or just concluded some new guidelines for them to follow to protect the mountain caribou but still allow some economic activity to occur so that people can have a living when they live in places like Revelstoke, Golden, or other parts of rural British Columbia. People still need to make a living if they’re going to live outside of the Lower Mainland. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: That was rather an extraordinary statement from the minister. I thought the job of the Minister of Environment was to protect wildlife. Certainly I would hope that that’s what he’s proposing or supporting at the cabinet table. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I guess I’d get the same answer, but what about snowmobiles in those areas that are also having a great impact on the area? They make it possible for wolves to reach mountain caribou at high elevations where deep snow often makes it impossible for wolves to travel otherwise. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In the Revelstoke area, for example, there are some voluntary agreements. If they’re really concerned about preserving these caribou, why doesn’t the minister have legislated closures for snowmobiles in those areas? Or are we just going to let them go in the name of economic development, I guess, according to the minister? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: I’m tempted to offer the member a remedial tutorial in the actions we have taken in mountain caribou. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[D. Horne in the chair.]
I know that he does come from the Lower Mainland, but it would help him to get appraised of the actions we have taken. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A Voice: Where do you come from?
Hon. B. Penner: I do come from the Lower Mainland, and I’ve done my homework. I would commend the member to do the same, because we have taken legal action to close one million hectares to snowmobile use in the mountain caribou range. That is something that the member, if he had been listening, would have heard me say just a few minutes ago. So I’m happy to repeat it for the member. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We are taking unprecedented steps to protect wildlife in British Columbia. It was an NDP cabinet minister that wrote to the forest union, the IWA, to say that as long as the NDP was in office and he was a minister, there would never be legislation to protect endangered species in British Columbia. That was Moe Sihota. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Our government has a different view. We are taking steps to protect all forms of wildlife in British Columbia, and at times that does have an impact on the forest sector. No question about it. But imagine our chagrin when, on the one hand, members of the NDP say: “Why don’t you do more to help the forest industry?” and then another one of their members says: “Why don’t you shut down economic activity?” — whether it’s forestry or snowmobiling or heli-skiing, tourism opportunities that help generate jobs in rural communities. The members of the NDP opposition still haven’t figured out that in order to have funding to provide things like environmental protection you also need to have an operating economy. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1645]
Our government believes that we can achieve both objectives. We can maintain a vibrant economy that provides important dollars for environmental protection, health care, education, policing, forest fire fighting, transportation, roads and all the other things that people have come to expect and enjoy. But we have to do that by making sure that we continue to have an economy. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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If you don’t have an economy, you don’t have dollars to invest in everything from health care to everything else that people want. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Certainly, I would like to see us continue to generate a strong economy so it can continue to fund key environmental initiatives that are important for species in this province and for the people that live here as well. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: The minister has just said that in order to maintain recreational activities…. They’re going to maintain those recreational activities despite the effect that those might have on an endangered species, and he wants us to believe that this government is serious about endangered species. Hardly. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I want to move on to another issue, and that’s about wolves and the harvest of wolves and wolf control in British Columbia. I am told by local hunters in the Cariboo that the government encourages them to kill wolves. I’ve heard on northern Vancouver Island that the government is using legal harvest as a management tool. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Can the minister comment on what their strategy is around legal wolf harvest? Is it to increase the kill? Do they consider that there are too many wolves in the province? I think there’s a two-wolf bag limit on the Island. What is the strategy around the legal harvest of wolves vis-à-vis conservation? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: The member — I just go back to what his last comment was –– is misrepresenting what I said. He’s clearly not listening. I guess we can’t force people to listen or to understand, but as I’ve already indicated, we have taken legal steps to close approximately 1 million hectares of mountain caribou habitat to snowmobile use. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it for the member. If he doesn’t want to pay attention, I guess that’s up to him. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We’ve established section 16 Land Act reserves restricting or preventing the development of new heli-ski and cat-ski tenures throughout the existing range of the mountain caribou, and we have taken steps on 2.2 million hectares of mountain caribou habitat from road building and logging. So compare that to what the NDP did when they were in government –– nothing, Mr. Chair, when it comes to mountain caribou. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In terms of predator control, we take our advice from scientists, so there’s a 14-member mountain caribou science team that’s been put in place. Now, I’m not sure if the member is asking that we take his advice over the advice of this 14-member mountain caribou science team. If that’s what the member is suggesting that the government do, then the member should clearly state that he’s taking that position and he speaks for the official opposition –– that the government should no longer take our advice in terms of how to manage and improve the outcomes for mountain caribou from the 14-member mountain caribou science team. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It would be interesting to see if the member has the courage of his convictions and is willing to state that for the record –– that we shouldn’t follow the advice of that team. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: The minister will know from the letters he’s got that there are many biologists that have a different opinion about caribou management and wolf management. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Actually, my question was, as the minister will recall, on the legal harvest of wolves: what’s the strategy of the government vis-à-vis conservation? I’m told that it’s increased. Can the minister comment on that? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1650]
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Hon. B. Penner: I’m told that we manage the wolf populations and set the hunting limits the same way we do for other species in British Columbia. The bag limits will vary by region depending on the health of the population and depending on other management objectives, particularly mountain caribou. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1655]
I noted earlier that one of the challenges that we’re faced with in considering augmenting some of the smaller herds is the threat from predators that newcomers, the transplanted animals, would have in being confronted by not only new terrain but perhaps new predators. That may make short work of them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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So we have a management approach to setting harvest levels for wolves that is the same as for other species, with the exception that when it comes to wolves, they tend to be predators of other species that we’re trying to protect, which are the mountain caribou in this case. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: I want to move on to the spotted owl. I have quite a few questions, but the time is very short, so I’ll just ask a couple of short ones, and hopefully the minister will answer likewise. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Will the government commit to a minimum recovery of 250 spotted owls, as called for by the federal species-at-risk legislation? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: Just by way of background, it’s true that the spotted owl has been declining in numbers not just in British Columbia, which is at the northern extent of its traditional range, but even in the heart of its traditional territory in Oregon, northern California and in Washington State, jurisdictions where there is federal endangered-species legislation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Clearly, extra steps had to be taken. That’s why we did move forward with a recovery plan that the government is committed to. We’re in year 4 now of a five-year action plan to help recover the spotted owl’s numbers here in British Columbia. I’m told that as of this year, we had four pairs of spotted owls from B.C. in captivity for breeding. There has been some success with that. I believe one owl chick was produced in 2009, and that was only the second captive-born spotted owl in British Columbia and in Canada. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1700]
We are working with our partners south of the border, who are also engaged in attempts at spotted owl recovery through captive breeding. Because of the limited number of spotted owls currently in [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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B.C. — and therefore the limited gene pool — we may be doing some cross-border matchmaking to try and further the reproductive process. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Interjection.
Hon. B. Penner: The member for Victoria–Swan Lake suggests Internet dating. That might be one way to do this in a low-carbon way, but I’m not sure we’ve actually thought about that at this point. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
However, the government is continuing to work with the federal government, trying to meet their objectives, and pursuing this project. It’s not easy. We had, as I said, four pairs in captivity. It had been my hope we’d have, at least, four offspring, one each from each pair — but in fact, only one this year. That highlights again some of the challenges in trying to recover a species. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: On the marbled murrelet. The marbled murelet recovery team has asked for preservation of 85 percent of the marbled murrelets’ critical habitat. Does the government support that view? Does the minister support that view, and is he working towards working with his colleagues, such as the Minister of Forests, to achieve that goal? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: We’re just trying to put our fingers on some notes about what the government is doing with respect to the marbled murrelet. I know it’s one of the four wide-ranging species that we’ve been working to recover — spotted owl, marbled murrelet, mountain caribou. I think there’s one other. It’s a skill-testing question, and I’ll have to get back to you on that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1705]
In any event, the government has undertaken considerable work, primarily through the establishment of additional protected areas, to protect the habitat for the marbled murrelet. Now, [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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it’s been some time since I was briefed in detail on their unique challenges, but I think the last thing I remember hearing is that there’s a certain mystery about what happens to the birds once they go out to sea, where they feed. It was thought that something happening out at sea may be having a contributing effect on the success of that particular species — i.e., perhaps they were encountering new challenges or greater challenges in finding sufficient food to bring back to their young or to feed themselves. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I don’t have any information right at the moment. Perhaps I can get back to the member tomorrow morning, when I’ll have some further information. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: Well, I had another question about marbled murrelets at Bute Inlet, but I’ll maybe pass on that for now. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I wanted to ask the minister a little bit about the conflict between grizzly bear viewing and grizzly bear harvest that has arisen in a couple of areas up the coast. I’m thinking particularly in the Kootenays, where one of the articles talked about an individual, a Mr. Strauss, who has an operation up there for grizzly bear viewing. He said that the biologist in question in the area, Mr. Mowat, had told Mr. Strauss that proposed extensions of the hunt…. That was the issue. It was an issue between the government and the hunters — no one else. Does the minister agree with that statement from his employee? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: I can’t comment specifically on the quote or comment that the member is referring to because I haven’t seen it. I don’t have it in writing in front of me. I can say, generally, that the ministry does try to take into account, when establishing harvest activity regulations for hunting various species, the existence of tenures that operators may have, whether it’s for viewing wildlife or for other activities. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That can at times lead to spot closures in specific locations as a result of the existence of existing tenures or other forms of licenses of occupation or operations on the land base. But our overarching objective when setting harvest levels is to make sure that they’re set in a way that provides for a sustainable hunt. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So we are quite conservative in how harvest levels are set for grizzly bears, the species that the member is referring to specifically. I believe that the best available science indicates that grizzly bears can sustain up to 9 percent mortality per year, and we set our harvest levels at a much lower level than that — I think at between 4 percent to 6 percent. Perhaps it’s 6 percent. When the actual success rate on the part of hunters is taken into account, the actual mortality is somewhere more like around 2 percent from hunting. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Sather: I don’t think that the government really has a good handle on what the mortality is, because a lot of mortality is not reported, unfortunately, especially when it comes to someone who considers the bear a threat. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Lastly in that regard, Mr. Strauss also claimed that the ministry consulted only with hunters groups on the hunting extension plan and refused to include input from ecotourism operators in the decision-making process, which is at odds with what the minister just said that they’d try to do. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So has the minister…? I mean, this was in the news. Has he consulted with his biologists out there, or has his ADM or deputy minister? Is that in fact true — that the regional biologists refused to consult, or the ministry did, with the ecotourism operators about the extension of the grizzly bear hunt, and if so, why? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: My general previous answer stands. We are not in a position to answer the specific question that the member raises based on hearsay or whatever the member is referring to. We have not seen that in writing — what the member is talking about. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
