Transport committee  We have to enter into discussions with them to determine that. But of this there is no doubt: out of all of the agencies and interested parties you've just named, there is nobody, virtually in the last five years that I've been leading this program, no agency, no government body, no municipality that hasn't come to me and said, “Change that bloody act”.

Transport committee  Quite often, these areas they go into.... I'll just use the forestry industry to set an example, because I think it points to our other problem, the other problem being that our current legislation requires that every work--work being every one of those bridges--requires a dedicated approval document.

Transport committee  Mr. Watson, this is strictly off the top of my head, but if we have three tiers, say 30%, 30%, and 30% and you're doing pretty well. But you know, for the 30% of 40 staff members out there, that time and effort wouldn't have to go to the lowest tier because those projects would be treated as minor works--as long as you do this, no need to apply.

Transport committee  Yes, we do. As a start, I think I alluded earlier to our minor waterways policy, which is just about ready to be put in place. If it winds back and forth so often that it takes you a week to go five feet forward, there's no need to apply, because nobody's going to want to do that.

Transport committee  No. We would be classifying the waterway based on its capability to actually entice navigation, and the bottom line is that it doesn't entice navigation. We also have another policy, which we're just about ready to drop, on drainage ditches. If it wasn't built for purposes of navigation, if it is not wide or deep enough to support navigation, if it cannot accept navigation the year round, then it's not a waterway suitable for navigation and there's no need to apply.

Transport committee  That actually falls under our Canada Shipping Act and receiver of wreck, so it's a different jurisdiction. In that particular situation, if somebody found it and wanted to pull the plane up, we would deal with the salvor. But we would first be dealing with whoever owned the plane and the families to determine how they're going to extract the remains onboard.

Transport committee  I can give you some hard examples of that, and it's referred to in the document. Our act, not our regulations, tells you that you must deposit your plans with the public land registry offices. There are no longer public land registry offices in many jurisdictions. In order to change that requirement, we have to change our act.

Transport committee  It tells this in the act, not in the regulations. So in order to change that requirement, we need to change the act.

Transport committee  Absolutely. Perhaps not even through regulation, perhaps through administrative policies and procedures, memorandums of agreement, or agreements for delegation of authority with other jurisdictions. But we need to change the act to allow us that flexibility. The act of 1882 didn't know anything about smart regulation or about streamlining regulations.

Transport committee  I'll try to put it into context here. We'll talk about Infrastructure Canada and the building funds. Let's say you're going to re-deck a bridge that's been there for 40 years and the bridge was approved when it went in. In re-decking that bridge, you're not hanging anything underneath it and there's no scaffolding there, so why are you coming to us?

Transport committee  I don't know.

Transport committee  We don't deal in leases. We are approving the actual construction and placement of the work.

Transport committee  Our criterion is navigational safety, not aesthetics.

Transport committee  That's correct. If they're not part of the port operation, if they're not constructed by the port for the port, they are under our jurisdiction.

Transport committee  Sure. I understand the confusion, because it's very confusing how these various pieces of legislation work. We do our navigational assessment and provide it as part of the environmental assessment. The impact a project has upon navigation is one of the components of an environmental assessment, but we're only one of many components that is evaluated under that environmental assessment.