Foreign Affairs committee  Okay, first of all, as I was going to—

Foreign Affairs committee  My comment to that is, if this application were to load train cars, say out of Georgian Bay, as Mr. Tilson said, I believe the bill would cover that off. I strongly believe that. I just believe that it does as far as the provincial part of it. You referred to your home province of B.C.

Foreign Affairs committee  Okay, I'll stop there.

Foreign Affairs committee  Regarding your first question, I would have to think the answer is a clear no, my bill wouldn't address that. In answer to the second one, my first thought to that, Mr. Tilson, is I'm quite familiar with the general area where the quarry is proposed. I've driven through the area.

Foreign Affairs committee  To carry on with the answer, if they were to take that water out and load it on cars, it seems far-fetched to me. I think that it would have to be given a lot of consideration. I'm not 100% clear whether it would come under this bill or not. I think I'd have to see it. It's certainly removal of water in pretty vast amounts; there's no doubt about that.

Foreign Affairs committee  With respect to my response to Mr. Tilson, if you knew where this quarry was that he's referring to—

Foreign Affairs committee  If this procedure were to be applied for, first of all, it wouldn't come under federal jurisdiction. It would come under provincial jurisdiction. They're not taking water out of the Great Lakes or that kind of thing, so I believe it would come under the province. I think that would need to be spelled out, that this isn't the same as taking that water right out of Lake Ontario or Lake Huron.

Foreign Affairs committee  I've actually tabled some myself.

Foreign Affairs committee  Okay. But you question why I—

Foreign Affairs committee  —or the government would bring this forth. My response to that would be that if everything was okay, why were you trying to change it?

Foreign Affairs committee  I think this bill is saying that. As far as environmental assessments are concerned, Mr. Scarpaleggia, in my opinion environmental assessments are actually being strengthened because there are now timelines put on them. Instead of it simply being a delay process, now there are some actual hard timelines.

Foreign Affairs committee  I disagree with that.

Foreign Affairs committee  I disagree with that.

Foreign Affairs committee  You're talking about the aggregate.

Foreign Affairs committee  Certainly not, in my opinion, and I'm not sure why you're even referring to that.