I can give you a brief update, but I'll start with the minister's response, which was that the committee identified a number of directional improvements that could be made to the implementation of the act and the department is committed to undertaking as many of those as possible. A lot of that work is under way and will be reflected in the next CEPA annual report.
Then there are some areas the committee recommended that would necessitate actual amendments to the statute. The government committed to consider those recommendations and to introduce amendments to the act in the next government, so after the election. In the interim, the government also committed to continue to engage with stakeholders to discuss the full set of potential amendments, including those that were recommended by the committee, with particular emphasis on three sets of amendments.
One set is around the so-called chemicals management plan, which really encompasses a lot of the environmental protection authorities in the act, the science and regulatory authorities. We've had extensive engagement with stakeholders for the past year on that, which will continue for at least another year on how that program could be improved and reoriented in the future.
The second area is the regulatory gap on first nation reserves. We have initiated consultations with first nations, in conjunction with CIRNA, because we see this as a subset of a broader governance issue on reserves. Again, the goal will be to conduct those consultations and then use those to inform any new government, post-fall 2019, of what the options are to address that issue.
The third very specific issue that the minister committed us to address is to do some more thinking and consultation, both with external stakeholders and with the Department of Justice, around substantive environmental rights. Those discussions are under way.