Thank you for the opportunity to be a witness.

To start, I'll provide a bit of background. The Manitoba Wildlife Federation is the oldest and largest conservation organization in Manitoba. We are over 80 years old and represent conservationists, hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts. Our members are from all walks of life and of all ethnicities.

Our membership shares a deep passion for the protection of our environment and believes strongly that all of our country's resources are shared resources. It doesn't matter what those resources are, be they water, trees, wildlife, minerals or fish; they belong to all Canadians, regardless of economic stature and ethnicity. We are also adamant that these precious resources must be managed and harvested in a sustainable manner.

That's a bit of background.

Moving to my specific comments on Bill C-73, we feel strongly that the federal government is implementing UN-driven environmental targets, which were committed to without consultation with the provinces, landowners and resource users who manage and enjoy these public spaces. We believe this bill provides the minister with a blank cheque to implement changes without any further parliamentary oversight. We feel this bill uses words of symbolism that sound great on paper but fall short on details and are devoid of measurable outcomes.

We feel this bill has the federal government overreaching into provincial jurisdiction. This bill talks about collaboration numerous times, but in fact, it provides the federal minister with wide discretion to consult—or not, if he so chooses—with the provinces, municipal governments, private landowners and resource users, including hunters and anglers.

This bill closely mirrors other federal government United Nations initiatives, like the indigenous protected areas and ecological corridors. It provides the authority for a large-scale set-aside of public lands, which are our country's shared resources, a delegation of control and management of access to Crown lands to unelected management authorities.

A Manitoba-specific example of what I've just described is the federal government pushing the IPAs and ecological corridors without consultation with landowners, the provincial government, municipal governments or grassroots organizations like ours.

With the IPAs, we've seen the federal government deputize Parks Canada to begin the implementation of the Seal River indigenous protected area in northern Manitoba. This large tract of Crown land consists of an area the size of the province of Nova Scotia. This IPA is the first of nine proposed for Manitoba and has received initial federal funding from the $600-million federal allotment.

The implementation of this IPA and the ecological corridors designed to connect the IPAs are being forced through without proper consultation, and they do not have widespread support as stated. Common sense would dictate that these initiatives are bound to fail in meeting their goals without the full consultation of all invested stakeholders.

How can we, as a society, consider restricting access to Crown resources and implement management practices on private land without including the farmers, the hunters and the anglers who live in these areas and who are the true champions in protecting our precious natural resources?

We urge this committee and the federal government to rethink this top-down, UN-driven approach, stop delegating control over these lands to unelected management boards and develop a made-in-Canada approach that engages input from all provinces and all Canadians, who cherish our outdoor spaces.

Thank you.

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