Environment committee  Environment and Climate Change Canada has a separate enforcement branch specifically organized to be separate from the program so as to give it as much marge de manoeuvre as possible, and it does indeed use the various tools in the way you describe. You can envisage a pyramid where the most common response is a fairly light one, such as for a one-time offender who just needs a nudge to come back into compliance, all the way up to prosecution, but indeed there have been a number of prosecutions under CEPA and under the Fisheries Act and other statutes.

Environment committee  If I'm going too fast, slow me down. I'm obviously happy to answer questions after my presentation. I mentioned earlier that some parts of CEPA are designed to codify in domestic law international obligations. Slide 15 speaks to two of those situations, where we have a very comprehensive regime that limits disposal at sea, basically in line with the international obligations under the London protocol, which placed very significant limits on what can go into the ocean for disposal.

Environment committee  I'm glad somebody laughed. I had to try. But the statute has extensive authorities and is used to address a wide range of issues. Let me turn to the kinds of authorities we have under the statute. Of course, environmental and health decision-making needs to be science based and based on good information, so the act gives us broad authority to conduct research.

Environment committee  Like my colleague, I will make my presentation in English, but I would be happy to answer any of your questions in French or in English. Like my colleague, we're very pleased to participate in this review. CEPA is an extremely important statute for environmental protection in Canada.

Environment committee  I'll provide a little bit of background. Health Canada was formed before the Great War. Environment Canada was formed in 1971. Until 1988, Environment Canada operated on the basis of using various statutes that pre-existed the department. In 1988, Parliament consolidated a number of statutes and parts of statutes into what then became known as the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Environment committee  The short answer is no.

Environment committee  We can give you more information, but in general I can tell you that all these large ecosystem initiatives—the ones for the Great Lakes, Lake Simcoe, the St. Lawrence action plan, the Lake Winnipeg Basin stewardship fund, the Atlantic ecosystem initiatives funding program—are long-standing programs and all have built in obligations for evaluations.

Environment committee  It's a little longer than 10 years. CESI dates back to an initiative of the national round table in about 2004. The indicators have been updated continuously since then and expanded, and are now reported under the Federal Sustainable Development Act. But I would emphasize that Environment Canada has had the obligation to report on the state of the environment and to generate indicators at a national, regional, and local level since 1988.

Environment committee  As Mr. Goetze is a poor simple physicist, I'll take that.

Environment committee  I'm sure Dr. Goetze has more to elaborate on this, but the basic issue at the moment is twofold. One, there is a federal jurisdictional issue. If you put that stuff in Lake Ontario, you would be depositing deleterious substances into water frequented by fish. You would have violated a long-standing statutory prohibition and—

Environment committee  Or we have evidence that the substances that you're depositing are posing a risk to the environment or to human health, and that's why Dr. Goetze and his team have initiated the study that he referred to earlier.

Environment committee  If I might add to that as a non-scientist, I would nonetheless repeat the caution that has been made to me many times, which is that this data provides a snapshot. On the one hand, it's comparing against a long-term trend, and then we have a snapshot. The question is, then, is that something to worry about?

Environment committee  The department does participate in a number of water boards, which in some cases provide advisory services, but in some cases actually control water flow and participate in monitoring water quality, for example, at the point where water crosses a border. Slide 15, for example, illustrates the Canada-U.S. boards that we participate in, including the Souris, the Red, and the Rainy-Lake of the Woods boards.

Environment committee  There are two issues there. One is funding. I believe the minister is going to be appearing in front of this committee within the next couple of weeks to address estimates. Questions on the government's decisions around overall funding are best addressed to the minister, I might say.

Environment committee  I'll start, and I think perhaps both of my colleagues might be able to add more detail. The primary jurisdiction over fracking is provincial. Environment Canada could have jurisdiction if, for example, there were evidence that substances that had been assessed as toxic and added to schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act were being created or released in a way that created risk to the environment or to human health.