International Trade committee  We argue for public ownership and governance, especially of drinking water and municipal waste water systems. That is what I said. We don't have a quarrel with provision of services to public utilities, for example. But with the access of the European Union to the provincial governments and the municipal sector, my understanding is that there are private corporations that would like to directly own and operate....

International Trade committee  We'd much rather that the debate was happening in a much more public way. We obtained a draft in the spring, and then we had another draft in the late summer, and that's the one we looked at to revise, and do this backgrounder. We have a more lengthy backgrounder. I don't know if there was time to have it translated, or if that's something the committee has resources to do.

International Trade committee  Yes. With the second one first, the common point in both cases was not to limit the wording to necessary measures, but to broaden it to those things intended to protect the environment and health. On the first point, the U.S.-Australia agreement in 2004, it's the specific point on expropriation that we preferred, in that there was no ability of private companies to sue the government of either country for environmental regulation and claim damages.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  You know, unfortunately, I can't answer that for sure right now, since I haven't pulled my file in a few days. I've been out of the office. So I apologize.

International Trade committee  To be fair to the minister, I also didn't request a meeting, although perhaps there will be an opportunity in the future to do that.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much for inviting me to appear today and also for accommodating a video conference. I would have preferred to attend in Ottawa. I would have had the benefit of the slides, for example. But it would have meant changing a flight, so I really appreciate this. The Canadian Environmental Law Association is an environmental law clinic, one of the specialty clinics in the Ontario legal aid clinic system.

International Trade committee  Yes, I can hear you fine. Thank you.

Environment committee  Yes. We do suggest that adding a specific requirement for a registry would be a good amendment to the bill. We said it could also be done by regulation, but we would far prefer to see it in the statute as a statutory provision. It has been fundamental to the experience of the average Ontarian who has anything to do with the Ontario bill of rights and who does so by way of the registry.

Environment committee  As you noted, this is related to the earlier question as well. The way we see this bill, as in the Ontario case, is that it's an overlay. It provides some commonality across the way departments and ministries make their decisions. It provides some principle to those decisions. It doesn't take away from the fact they have specific jobs to do under those specific statutes.

Environment committee  I might start with the first part of your question, which is whether you need specialized help to access the provisions in the bill. That is definitely not the case in Ontario. On the contrary, as I mentioned, this is a great leveller. Yes, we can run workshops, but even without workshops people can very easily get on the registry and start to watch the notices for their community, start to watch the proposed pieces of legislation and regulations in a ministry they're interested in, and start to make submissions.

Environment committee  Thank you very much. I would echo the thanks for the opportunity to appear before the committee. I also very much appreciate the opportunity to appear by video conference. We too, unfortunately, did not have an opportunity to prepare our remarks in advance. We will ensure that they are provided to the clerk so that a written copy will make its way to you in due course.

Natural Resources committee  The only thing I would add is that in America additional resources are brought to the table by requiring that the other operators also put money in if there is an incident. They would pay that for up to 10 years to help bring that pool up.

Natural Resources committee  Almost the only difference between the current bill and Bill C-20 is the amount of insurance. So yes, while Canada has been out of compliance for a long time with what to this point has been some of the international practice, in our view the $650 million is still so inadequate that it won't make a meaningful difference to the public.

Natural Resources committee  That's assuming that with a $650 million accident, you wouldn't have the federal government stepping in.