Transport committee  If I may, Mr. Jean, if you're nestling that under the current system, it's the same process. Under the proposed amendments--if it's no longer a named work and would necessarily have to trigger a 5.(1)--if it's determined that the replacement bridge poses absolutely no incremental diminishment to the current navigation going under the existing bridge, we would not trigger that environmental assessment under navigable waters protection.

Transport committee  Removing Navigable Waters Protection Act review for something that has no navigational impact--and those requirements that are a process unto themselves for their proponent--will take a piece of the jigsaw puzzle away from the box that the proponent needs to put together in order to get the full picture, which is ultimately his project in place.

Transport committee  From a Transport Canada perspective, it's a major project we would have undertaken even with these amendment proposals we have in front of you. I'm not familiar with the specific file and details, but I can envision exactly the same process with these amendments as it would have undergone then.

Transport committee  That is correct, other than that we foreseeably would have been able to free up additional resources to be able to respond to that file more quickly, because they weren't involved in culverts going across farmers' fields, etc.

Transport committee  The greatest relief that these provide is to free us from smaller projects with no navigational impact in order to allow those resources to respond in a more timely manner to the larger project needs of our clients.

Transport committee  We've not had a lot of push-back from the recreational canoe and kayak associations. I'm aware of the association that has provided the brief--the Friends of the Kipawa--and I think I've mentioned before that we are in litigation with them over a certain situation right now, which doesn't need to be discussed here.

Transport committee  We'll have to move that up the line. It's in draft format right now. It hasn't been accepted by Transport Canada. We'll check on the status of that.

Transport committee  Mr. Masse, your point is well taken. I think I indicated in earlier testimony, with respect to Transport Canada and our prescriptive processes and procedures, that over the course of the last year we undertook, with our environmental affairs director, our aboriginal consultation group, and our legal counsel, to determine where we could find further streamlining by redefining, or better defining, roles and responsibilities and by identifying and removing any redundances within our overlapping systems, in some cases.

Transport committee  Monsieur Laframboise, when you asked the question of DFO, “Therefore, if it affects fish you'll look at it?”, the answer was “Yes”. I think with the amendments that we have here, the essence is if it doesn't directly impact navigation, why are we--Transport Canada, marine safety--looking at it?

Transport committee  Exactly, sir. That's why we're saying if we can get into the right locale, which is navigation, we can free up our resources on these things that we shouldn't be looking at, because there is no navigational impact, and we know that, in order to put those resources against the things Canadians are really quite concerned about, which is the larger infrastructure projects that do have an impact on navigation and need our expert advice.

Transport committee  We wouldn't be here if we didn't think there were some problems relative to delays in responding to our client needs with respect to files. So I would say yes, our processes and procedures cause concern not only for us, but, as you've heard from the witnesses, concern for our clients.

Transport committee  Yes. Mr. Volpe, I'm not quite sure I understand your specific question.

Transport committee  Correct.

Transport committee  I have followed the testimony closely. I did listen to the latter half of the Waterkeeper testimony. Unfortunately, because of the vote call, we were back in the office and didn't realize that you were reconvening, but I had occasion to listen to the Internet coverage. On the minor changes, I don't quite agree with the Waterkeeper view of the NWP processes, procedures, and constraints.

Transport committee  The choosing of the countries in that particular scope was really limited by time and quick Internet access. It was a request for a very quick study that I asked one of our consultants to do for another purpose, and I needed a turnaround time that was very short. So the answer to why these countries were chosen is the fact that they came up quickest in his research scan, with readily available information to give us some idea of equivalencies that may exist out there, or not.