Administration of the Act

B-1 Authorities

Environment Canada administers WAPPRIITA through its national office, where the national CITES management and scientific authorities are located. CITES management and scientific authorities are also located in Fisheries and Oceans Canada for fish and marine mammals and in each province or territory (except Alberta) for provincially or territorially managed species. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency assists Environment Canada by processing CITES documentation for the export of artificially propagated plants as an attachment to documents required under the Plant Protection Act, which it administers.

Enforcement of WAPPRIITA is overseen by the Enforcement Branch in Environment Canada and carried out by five regional offices (Pacific and Yukon, Prairie and Northern, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic) in cooperation with other federal agencies, including the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as well as with provincial and territorial wildlife agencies.

B-2 Agreements with the Provinces and Territories

Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) to support cooperative management, administration, and enforcement of WAPPRIITA have been established with Saskatchewan and Yukon (1997); Alberta, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territories (1998); and British Columbia (1999). Similar MOUs are currently being negotiated with most of the remaining jurisdictions, including Canada's new territory, Nunavut. Agreements with Ontario (1996) Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick (1997) Manitoba (1998), Nova Scotia and Quebec (2000) have been signed by the Department of Justice to permit ticketing for WAPPRIITA offences under the Contraventions Act. Ticketing agreements with other provinces are being negotiated.

B-3 Permits

Currently, all permits issued under the Act are to implement CITES. There were no applications in 2000 to import controlled species listed in Schedule II of the Wild Animal and Plant Trade Regulations as harmful to Canadian species or ecosystems.The following table shows the numbers of CITES permits and certificates issued respectively in 1999 and 2000.

All CITES import permits are issued by Environment Canada, as are all temporary movement certificates for live animals and scientific certificates. Fisheries and Oceans Canada issues CITES export permits for fish and marine mammals. The provinces and territories (except Alberta for all items and British Columbia for exotic species) issue CITES export permits for items leaving their jurisdictions. Environment Canada issues CITES export permits valid for multiple shipments by certified nurseries of artificially propagated plants and permits on behalf of Alberta and of British Columbia with respect to exotic species.

The coming into force of the amendments to the Wild Animal and Plant Trade Regulations in January 2000 exempting certain personal and household effects resulted in the reduction of the number of CITES export permits by forty percent overall; reductions have been substantial in some jurisdictions reaching over seventy percent.