US embassy cable - 03OTTAWA2225

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 OTTAWA 002225 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES/ENV (ROSE), OES/ETC (ROTH), OES/OA 
(HEIDELBERG), WHA/CAN (NELSON, WHEELER) 
 
EPA FOR OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (CHRISTICH) 
 
INTERIOR FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE (GLOMAN) 
 
INTERIOR FOR NATIONAL INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL STAFF 
(WILLIAMS) 
 
INTERIOR (A. GORDON BROWN) 
 
COMMERCE (DEAN WILKINSON) 
 
STATE PLEASE PASS ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS 
 
AGRICULTURE (REBECCA BECH) 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV, TBIO, ETRD, CA, Environment 
SUBJECT: Canadian Invasive Species Plan due soon, USG and 
GoC need to meet now 
 
Ref: (A) Ottawa 00481 Notal 
 
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Summary and Action Request 
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1.  Officials of Environment Canada and the Department of 
Fisheries and Oceans expect a public rollout of a draft 
framework for managing Alien Invasive Species in autumn 
2003.  There may not be much meat on the bones of the draft 
strategy, and a year of consultations and further drafting 
will be required before the framework takes its final form. 
On the other hand, existing law and regulation does provide 
significant scope for action and the GoC intends to focus on 
achieving near-term results within the existing statutory 
and funding framework.  These GoC interlocutors have set a 
high priority on establishing a shared "binational" set of 
priorities for dealing with Alien Invasive Species and would 
like to meet with American counterparts very soon (perhaps 
as early as late August), to begin to establish a strategy 
that will work for both governments.  Post strongly supports 
this initiative and recommends that Washington agencies 
enter into a more intensive dialogue as soon as possible. 
Beginning that dialogue now will allow the U.S. to influence 
development of the Canadian draft framework and lay a 
foundation for more detailed work once pending legislation 
in the U.S has been adopted.  End Summary and Action 
Request. 
 
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Background 
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2.  The GoC made a pledge in 1992, when it signed the United 
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to prevent 
and/or control Alien Invasive Species.  The problem, 
however, according to the Commissioner of Environment and 
Sustainable Development (part of the GoC Auditor General's 
organization), is that this commitment (and the 1995 
Canadian Biodiversity Strategy it precipitated) have not 
triggered any concrete action.  In an October 2002 report, 
the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable 
Development characterized federal government efforts to deal 
with the Alien Invasive Species (AIS) issue as being in 
disarray, with "no clear understanding of who will do what 
to respond" and noting that "no federal department sees the 
big picture or has overarching authority to ensure that 
federal priorities are established and action taken." 
Nevertheless, Canada indicated in its second national report 
to the CBD in 2002, that "federal, provincial and 
territorial governments have agreed that the development of 
a Canadian strategy to address alien invasive species is a 
national priority." 
 
3.  Embassy ESTH Counselor, ESTH Specialist and Intern met 
with representatives from Environment Canada and the 
Department of Fisheries and Oceans on July 30th to discuss 
progress in the Canadian effort to develop a national 
strategy, to discuss the extent of bilateral cooperation on 
AIS and to elicit GoC views on how to foster further 
integration of Canada-U.S. efforts, including their views of 
a potential reference to the IJC. 
 
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EC and DFO Officials acknowledge slow start - but plan is 
coming 
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4.  Emboffs met Robert Mclean, Acting Director General, 
Conservation Strategies Directorate, Environment Canada 
along with George Enei, Director, Conservation Priorities 
and Planning Branch, and Mark Hovorka, Scientific Advisor in 
that Branch.  Sylvain Paradis, Director of the DFO 
Environmental Science Group, represented the Department of 
Fisheries and Oceans. 
 
5.  McLean, who led the discussion for the Canadian side, 
acknowledged the long lag between the commitment made in the 
CBD and mid-September 2003 when a targeted action plan, the 
"National Invasive Species Management and Policy Framework" 
as it is tentatively referred to, will be outlined for 
federal, provincial and territorial ministers.  McLean 
anticipates that the Framework will be unveiled in a public 
rollout as a "White Paper" (i.e., draft public policy) in 
autumn 2003 shortly after the briefing to ministers.  This 
will be followed by a period of seeking stakeholder and 
broad public comment and a final, official, Policy Framework 
in place around autumn 2004. 
 
6.  McLean underscored that although the Framework is still 
under construction, the priorities contained in the nascent 
plan reflect the views of the provincial, territorial and 
federal ministers responsible for the environment, for 
forests and for fisheries.  Obtaining consensus for the 
priorities was facilitated by the fact that the provincial 
and federal ministers in each of the three domains meet 
annually in Coordinating Councils, and since 2001 the three 
Councils have held a joint meeting on biodiversity.  The one 
major set of ministries that has been missing from the joint 
meetings on biodiversity has been Agriculture.  McLean did 
not elaborate on why the Agriculture ministries were not 
part of that process (there is indeed a Joint federal- 
provincial Council of Ministers of Agriculture who clearly 
could have participated in the biodiversity meetings), but 
indicated they are a major player that needs to be engaged 
in the national framework process.  Even at this late stage, 
however, there is much work still to be done.  For example, 
it is not clear to GoC officials, what form the political 
governance structure will take, it may or may not emulate 
the U.S. National Invasive Species Council. 
 
7.  In this same vein, the GoC has not yet done an 
assessment on the need for new statutory instruments. 
McLean noted that there are a number of existing statutes 
and regulations, both federal and provincial that can be 
employed to address the AIS threat (to be reported septel). 
Moreover, he contends that in order to demonstrate to the 
senior political and bureaucratic leaders in the Prime 
Minister's Office and Privy Council Office that the 
objectives of the Invasive Species Framework are credible 
and "deliverable" it will be imperative that GoC agencies 
make progress employing the existing mandates and agency 
programs to address high profile invasive species problems 
(such as Asian Carp) in the near term. 
 
8.  McLean also noted that in addition to the ministerial 
level engagement, federal-provincial working level groups 
are engaged in the development of the plan.  Given the 
division of powers in Canada between the federal and 
provincial orders of government (to be reported septel), 
Mclean highlighted the high degree of challenge in producing 
a coordinated set of actions with respect to AIS.  As just 
one example, provinces are responsible for management of 
fish stocks whereas the federal government has jurisdiction 
in regulating and managing fish habitat.  Thus banning 
possession of live Asian Carp (an emerging federal 
objective) will require enacting provincial law and 
regulation. 
 
9.  Our GoC interlocutors emphasized that the message from 
the provinces is that the federal government should focus on 
policies for prevention rather than dealing with remediation 
and already established AIS.  For many established invasive 
pest species (excluding perhaps Sea Lampreys in the Great 
Lakes, for which a comprehensive plan and funding has been 
in place for decades) our GoC interlocutors noted that there 
is no clear road ahead and that it will probably be the 
provinces that have to lead this effort.  Comment: The 
provinces will, however, be looking to the federal 
government to help fund their efforts at remediation. End 
Comment. 
 
10.  McLean commented that if GoC agencies can produce 
tangible success in the near-term on AIS, the issue is well- 
situated to gain a higher profile in the GoC as a new Prime 
Minister takes over the government in February 2004, perhaps 
even earlier.  And an election is widely expected in the 
spring.  Comment: It can be safely assumed that there will 
be many competing priorities for the attention, and the 
budget, of the new government.  Without a formal policy 
statement of the priorities of Paul Martin, widely 
anticipated to be the next PM, it is difficult to judge 
whether McLean's hope is justified.  Indeed, a review of 
Martin's public statements over the past year has not 
revealed any reference to Alien Invasive Species.  End 
Comment. 
 
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Bilateral cooperation requires much greater coordination 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
11.  McLean noted that there has been long-standing 
bilateral cooperation on AIS, for example with respect to 
the Sea Lamprey problem in the Great lakes, and more 
generally, on AIS important to agriculture and forestry. 
But cooperation has typically been ad hoc, species and 
project specific, agency-to-agency and regional in focus 
rather than as a coordinated overall approach guided by a 
shared bilateral set of priorities.  McLean and Enei noted 
the desire of the EC Assistant Deputy Minister (Karen Brown) 
responsible for AIS that those senior officials responsible 
for AIS policy should meet very soon to begin working on a 
set of shared bi-national priorities.  The outcomes of this 
meeting (or series of meetings) could feed into our 
bilateral consultations on a reference to the IJC, should 
the U.S and Canadian governments deem that mandate 
desirable. 
 
12.  With respect to the expected IJC reference, GoC 
officials emphasize that clear and tangible goals for the 
IJC effort are required.  In their opinion "new money" for 
the IJC effort will not be allocated from the Treasury, 
rather an IJC effort will likely be funded from existing 
departmental budgets.  Without a clear, tangible and "value- 
added" goal, GoC agencies will resist ponying up the cash. 
 
13.  Mclean agreed with ESTH Counselor's suggestion that it 
would be beneficial to have a catalogue/inventory of 
existing collaborative efforts on AIS, but the GoC 
representatives admitted that they have not compiled any 
such inventory.  They indicated it is something they intend 
to construct, but gave no timeline.  Comment: Post strongly 
believes that an inventory of areas in which the two 
governments already collaborate would be very valuable and 
would appreciate receiving such information if it already 
exists with Washington agencies.  End comment. 
 
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IJC Views provide their comment of GoC effort 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
14.  ESTH staff sought the views of the International Joint 
Commission to provide an assessment of developments in 
Canada.  James Houston, Environmental Advisor at the Ottawa 
office of the International Joint Commission (IJC) told 
Emboffs that political awareness of the Invasive Species 
issue has grown markedly in the past 18 to 24 months; he 
pointed to the role that Canadian IJC Co-Chair Herb Gray has 
played since coming to the IJC in January 2002 to champion 
GoC engagement in addressing the problem.  Houston 
reiterated that the key problem in Canada has been lack of 
accountability.  Over the past decade GoC ministries have 
simply passed the buck on AIS, he emphasized that a critical 
component therefore of any new framework is to have a strong 
governance system.  Houston pointed to the management 
structure described by the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 
of February 2000 as an example of what might work, but he 
noted that Chairman Gray is an advocate of the American NISC 
governance model. 
 
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Comment and Action requests 
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15.  The key message provided by our GoC interlocutors is 
that they view it as essential for USG and GoC senior 
officials responsible for AIS to meet very soon to begin 
crafting a shared set of priorities.  More generally a 
bilateral meeting will also help our GoC interlocutors to 
flesh out the draft Framework and give us a chance to 
influence its development.  The Autumn 2003 timeline for 
unveiling the draft Framework (as a policy White Paper) to 
the public for input and comment may well be met, but it 
remains to be seen how substantive it may actually be. 
According to McLean (1) the federal and provincial 
agriculture ministries have not been engaged in the 
development of the draft plan; (2) no assessment has yet 
been done to determine whether any new statutory instruments 
are required; and (3) the governance structure to oversee 
the implementation of the plan, a critical element, is still 
undetermined.  Our GoC interlocutors did not explicitly 
state this, but one presumes they believe that the public 
consultation process and final drafting scheduled for the 
period Autumn 2003 to Autumn 2004 will fill in these 
details. 
 
16.  ACTION REQUEST: We understand that McLean or Enei 
expects very soon to arrange with Lori Williams, Executive 
Director of the National Invasive Species Council setting a 
meeting of GoC and USG policy officials with AIS 
responsibilities.  We understand that the target date for 
the meeting is late August or early September.  Post would 
appreciate details of the meeting agenda and USG 
participants once those are available.  The embassy intends 
to be fully engaged on this issue and wishes to contribute 
to the bilateral effort.  In that vein, we believe that an 
inventory of collaboration between U.S and Canada Ian 
agencies would be useful and request that the department 
provide such information if it is available. 
 
Kelly