(Return tabled) Question No. 79 Ms. Jean Crowder: With regard to water efficiency and conservation programs in Canada: (a) who is working to ensure a budget will be issued specifically to water efficiency and conservation programs under the Building Canada Plan; (b) when will funds be allocated to supporting innovative municipal and federal water efficiency programs; (c) will programs be implemented to encourage the protection of freshwater resources, and to raise awaren ...[+++]ess about water efficiency and conservation; (d) what action has been taken thus far to establish goals and objectives regarding water efficiency and conservation; (e) what plans are there to include demand management programs as a funding condition for large-scale water and wastewater projects as is done for transit projects under the Building Canada plan; and (f) what consultations have taken place with federal departments, provinces and territories, and Aboriginal governments to develop strategic plans for each of Canada’s major river basins?

Flood risk management plans shall take into account relevant aspects such as costs and benefits, flood extent, the role of floodplain areas as a natural retention or buffer of floods and flood conveyance routes now or in the future, the objectives of Articles 1 and 4 of Directive 2000/60/EC, the objectives of Council Directive 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds and Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, soil and water management, spatial ...[+++]planning, land use, nature conservation, navigation and port infrastructure.

Flood risk management plans shall take into account relevant aspects such as costs and benefits, flood extent and flood conveyance routes and areas which have the potential to retain flood water, the environmental objectives of Article 4 of Directive 2000/60/EC, soil and water management, spatial planning, land use, nature conservation, navigation and port infrastructure.

the programming and management of rural development and structural funds is geared towards fostering regional socio-economic development, and the administrations responsible for managing them have, at the moment, still limited nature conservation competencies, lacking the expertise and skills required to manage projects with nature conservation objectives;

Over the coming planning period we will see a number of deliverables in this area, and I'll list a number of examples: completion and publication of a report on the health of our atmosphere—this is a companion report to one you've seen before called Health of our Soils; transfer of the Plant Gene Resources Centre to Saskatoon; registration of a high-protein soybean variety for eastern Canada with significant yield to improvement; registration of prairie spring wheat with significant improvement in protein content; development of new anaerobic digestion technology to handle manure in an environmentally sustainable manner; development of technologies to improve ruminant nutrition—this again has efficiency and waste reduction objectives; ...[+++] development of processes for extracting food or feed additives from various agricultural products; increased access to safe, reliable water supplies for rural areas; maintenance of biological diversity through sustainable management of federally controlled and private range lands; development of a prairie-wide assessment for land-based issues facing the agriculture and agrifood sector; implementation of the national soil and water conservation program; implementation of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's biodiversity strategy; determination of the environmental sustainability of the departmental policies and programs; periodic assessment and reporting of the progress in implementing the department's sustainable development strategy, which is essentially the implementation of the action plan under that strategy; and development and implementation of the department's hog environmental management strategy, HEMS.

These programs and services support First Nations capacity building through the reserve land and environmental management program, First Nations land management, additions to reserve — which includes meeting treaty land entitlement obligations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan — and registration of legal interests ...[+++]in reserve lands.