Environment committee  Mr. Chair, may I make a slight correction? To Mr. Woodworth's point, the 23,500 dealt with the timeframe 2005 to 2013. I misspoke.

Environment committee  Projects.

Environment committee  Yes, from my perspective that's certainly what's in the context of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Nutrients were identified as a new priority. It has been there before, but it's certainly a much higher profile than in the past.

Environment committee  Through you, Mr. Chair, certainly in the Norfolk region it has gained a lot of traction. Again, it's probably my jaded experience with a lack of funding for incentive programs. ALUS prescribes a model that has funding levels beyond what we've seen, but I'll tell you, if there is

Environment committee  That's true.

Environment committee  At a very surficial level, yes, I think you've captured it accurately.

Environment committee  I echo Mr. Wilcox's comments that it's a very popular program. It does good work and it's very expensive. Part of the challenge going forward is finding an economic model. If you turn it into that kind of incentive program, you quickly get out of my level of expertise and start g

Environment committee  I don't have specific stats. Certainly we fund some portions of wetlands work under the Drainage Act where it's agricultural, and the vast majority of our budget has now gone to maintenance rather than construction of new drains. I agree with Mr. Wilcox that the rules largely pre

Environment committee  Yes, certainly. Mr. Chair, the formal name of the principal program I was referring to is the Canada-Ontario farm stewardship program. Colloquially, it's usually called the environmental farm plan. It's a joint federal-provincial program between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Environment committee  The program generally runs on a sixty-forty basis, with the 60% being provided by the federal government.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  There are slightly different ways of calculating. Those were 23,500 best practices.

Environment committee  The report prepared by the International Joint Commission and in which the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food participated is founded on work by the Science Advisory Board and the Water Quality Board. It states that if you look across the Great L

Environment committee  My ministry administers the Drainage Act. In the last year we've worked with the conservation authorities of Ontario, the drainage superintendents in Ontario, who are usually municipal employees in charge of drainage in their rural municipalities, and the Ministry of Natural Reso

Environment committee  The agreement provides a right to be consulted for any large consumptive takings or exports from the basin, and a right to be heard. It provides certain legal remedies. It would not constitute a veto power, but it does allow you to be heard. It's a reciprocal process, so each of