Environment committee  There are several answers to this important point. The first is that species are part of ecosystems and that ecosystems provide a wide array of ecosystem services that are valuable in a number of different respects and that can be valued economically. When you do that kind of evaluation, it is often the case that the benefits of conservation or restoration outweigh the costs that are associated with that.

Environment committee  This is really crucial and a great way to follow-up the last question, because the next thing we should say, after we talk about how we can spend extra money, is how can we change the money that we're already spending, right? It doesn't necessarily need to cost a ton more money.

Environment committee  Yes. If I could add to that, part of my comments earlier was that if we recognize that the Government of Canada collectively has multiple interests and objectives and we recognize that environmental protection is one part of that, then it is inherently inefficient to subsidize production and then separately try to mitigate the negative environmental effects.

Environment committee  I was impressed. It was a really important decision to make. It's unprecedented in terms of a commitment to conservation in this country's history. That's absolutely crucial. In my remarks, as they got compressed, I didn't focus enough on the importance of what we're already doing and the importance of continuing that and expanding upon that, which is absolutely crucial.

Environment committee  Thank you very much for having me here. It's a great pleasure to have this opportunity to speak. I've provided a presentation that has a lot more detail for your records. I'm not going to go through most of those slides today, but rather jump straight to the highlights that are not already featured quite clearly, but exhaustively, in the summary for policy-makers.