Bill C-204 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (final disposal of plastic waste)

This enactment amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 to prohibit the export of certain types of plastic waste to foreign countries for final disposal.

[James Puckett]

Yes, and Bill C-204 is a start. It shows intent to deal with this problem, and I appreciate that very much, but it falls short. We need to model what the EU has done, because the big problem is the so-called recycling trade in which the developing world is not handling this material.

This material is not recyclable. It is mixed and dirty, and even when you have a low-wage situation, as in countries like Malaysia, they don't have the people power to sort this material and clean it, and then you always have this residual hazardous material. The recycling trade is very dirty. That's why it's been going to the developing countries, and that's what we need to control it. We're saying to keep Bill C-204 as it is, with a full ban to all countries. Put down your foot, as Mr. Albas said: No exports for final disposals to any country, but for recycling, no exports to the developing world.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of the witnesses.

I want to start with Mr. Puckett again.

The Basel Convention was implemented under a Conservative government back in the late eighties and nineties. Of course it's in effect now, but we've had these issues. Everyone remembers the Malaysia issues, and some of the others have been mentioned. There was a big brouhaha with Canadian plastic overseas.

You mentioned that the Liberals have essentially ignored this problem in the agreements we have with the U.S., and Ms. Khan mentioned the EU waste shipment regulations. Doesn't the fact that we're still having problems prove that we need further legislation, such as Bill C-204, to prevent things like this from happening in the future?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay. Please take the interpretation into account.

I want to join my colleagues in thanking all the witnesses for being here.

My question is for Mr. Masterson.

We know that the export of various plastics to China has decreased significantly since 2018. Meanwhile, the portion sent to the United States has increased. The United States isn't a signatory to the Basel Convention.

Why are you saying that Bill C-204 would prevent collaboration with the United States, when in reality the partnership has been used extensively?

I'd like you to respond quickly, since I have barely two and a half minutes.

[Dr. Sabaa Khan]

Our main concern is that Canada has new international legal obligations that it has yet to implement into federal law. Bill C-204 is an excellent initiative whereby we can actually make some progress in this regard. When it comes down to Canada meeting its international legal obligations, I think inserting the Basel plastic waste amendments into Bill C-204 would provide a significant process for transparency about our plastic waste exports and imports.

[Jo-Anne St. Godard, Executive Director, Recycling Council of Ontario]

Good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity to participate in today's session.

Bill C-204 underscores an important consequence of waste, which is the growing problem of plastic waste in particular. As has been noted, it is estimated that more than 90% of Canada's plastic discards end up in disposal, which has significant economic, environmental and social implications. While this bill highlights the global nature of plastic waste and Canada's responsibility, simply banning its export does not address the root of the issue.

Some plastic discards are desirable commodities. Their use as inputs to replace virgin material in the production of new goods comes with important economic, environmental and social gains. However, some overseas markets that we have become dependent upon employ low environmental, health and safety standards.

In the world of recycling, not all plastics are created equal. Demand, supply and commodity values for different resin types have dramatic variances. Despite these variances, plastics are often managed as a single or homogeneous stream in order to make collection simple and cost-effective. Consequently, plastic exports are often co-mingled, combining several different plastic resin types that are brokered between sellers and buyers as bales or loads. Less desirable and low-grade plastics are mixed and sold with valuable resins that are ultimately cherry-picked away for recycling. Unwanted plastics are then disposed of. As such, what we think has been exported for recycling may, in part, actually end up in disposal or landfill.

Global demand for plastic discards has changed dramatically over the last several years, and as a result, so has the movement of these discards, with China and several other southeast Asian countries limiting purchases and controlling entrance of plastics to certain specific types. In addition, strict contamination standards are being applied, which puts pressure on Canadian collectors, both municipal and private, to vastly improve the source separation of materials. These new restrictions have stunned markets, with some collectors forced to landfill and others to pay for storage while waiting for restrictions to ease and markets to rebound.

Throughout these market unsettlements, analysts, policy-makers and local operators have scrambled for information in order to estimate impacts and explore remedies. This has revealed that a key barrier to reducing plastic waste and improving market conditions is the general lack of market information and reliable data. With no regulatory requirement for tracking plastic discards from points of generation to final disposition, it is simply impossible to fully understand the economic and environmental losses due to disposal or recycling markets, be they local or foreign.

The practice of sending plastic materials to other jurisdictions without reporting and management controls should be stopped. Becoming fully accountable for our plastic waste is critical, which starts with understanding its journey from point of origin to final destination, locally and globally.

It is my recommendation that Bill C-204 be amended to include mandatory reporting requirements to track materials between generators, collectors, and local and foreign processors. This information, centrally organized and freely available, will provide crucial information for policy development, market and industry intelligence, and public awareness.

Better data will provide a clearer understanding of the combined total amount of plastic discards generated and detail the resin types. It will identify, at a resin or product level, what discards are most successfully collected and actually recycled and which are lost to disposal or the environment.

Better data will allow policy-makers to identify plastic materials that are prevalent in the waste streams and identify the regulatory approaches that are appropriate and necessary, such as bans from sale, bans from disposal, expanded extended producer responsibility and other market stimulus approaches, such as mandating a certain amount of recycled content or including plastics in procurement specifications.

Better data will enable more information and improved conditions to attract investment to grow and let flourish our domestic recycling industry. It will provide market knowledge for brand holders and manufacturers to optimize post-consumer recycled content in product design, which spurs demand and increases material value of plastics that may otherwise be lost to disposal.

In closing, while it is critical to account for all waste, and plastics in particular, simply banning export does not effectively address either the full environmental consequences or the economic losses of disposal. Plastic waste is at its peak, and its chronic market volatility requires a multi-faceted policy approach, underpinned by good data that is continually monitored and measured.

Thank you.

[Dr. Sabaa Khan, Director General, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, David Suzuki Foundation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To your members, I appreciate the invitation to appear before the committee today. Today's testimonies have highlighted the significant environmental and human health harms caused by plastic waste and the need to ensure a circular economy for plastics in order to mitigate pollution from plastics production and consumption.

Despite the devastating impacts of plastic pollution, global trading in plastic waste has mainly operated outside the scope of international rules relating to the transboundary movement of hazardous and certain other environmentally problematic wastes. These rules, as you know, are contained in the Basel Convention, a treaty signed by 187 countries, including Canada. Similar to the intent of Bill C-204, this treaty was adopted with the intention of ending toxic waste dumping towards developing countries.

While the Basel Convention obliges its parties to apply the procedure of informed consent when exporting, importing or transiting hazardous and certain non-hazardous wastes identified under the treaty, until 2019 the treaty did not explicitly provide for the application of these controls to solid plastic waste. In May 2019, however, it was amended to enhance transparency and accountability in the plastic waste trade. These rules, known as the plastic waste amendments, entered into force on January 1, 2021. Canada ratified the plastic waste amendments last December.

By virtue of its ratification, Canada is obliged to ensure that shipments of both hazardous plastic waste and non-hazardous plastic waste, newly identified under annex II of the Basel Convention as requiring special consideration, are controlled under the procedure of informed consent when exiting or entering the country.

This latter category of waste requiring special consideration encompasses the types of mixed and contaminated plastic waste shipments that were exported from Canada and seized in the Philippines and Malaysia in recent highly publicized cases of waste dumping. A similar shipment from Canada of mixed plastic waste was seized in Belgium at the port of Antwerp on November 9, 2019, while in transit towards India.

It is precisely because of incidents like these that parties to the Basel Convention, including Canada, decided to enhance the regulatory oversight of the plastic waste trade. It is also because of these incidents that Bill C-204 is before us today. The table provided to the committee as a reference document explains what Canada's new legal obligations are under Basel and their current status of implementation. The only plastic waste streams that should be exported from Canada without prior notification and consent are non-hazardous plastic waste streams listed in annex IX of the Basel Convention. As an OECD member, Canada also assumes legal obligations under the OECD council decision regulating the waste trade between OECD members.

While both the Basel Convention and the OECD council decision oblige Canada to regulate most mixed plastic waste shipments under enhanced environmental controls, these legal requirements have yet to be implemented in federal law. Other countries are ahead of us here; the European Union incorporated the Basel plastic waste amendments into the EU waste shipment regulation in October of last year. Bill C-204 is a positive step towards implementing Canada's obligations under Basel; however, the bill needs to be strengthened to achieve its intended purpose and to align with the Basel Convention amendments. The prohibition on export of plastic wastes for final disposal will be difficult to implement, as shipments are not identified in this way, and we know that the problem stems from shipments falsely labelled for recycling as green list waste.

The solution to ending the leakage of Canada's plastic waste into the global environment is for Bill C-204 to mirror the language of the Basel plastic waste amendments. In the interest of advancing the circular economy for plastics, non-hazardous plastic waste listed under annex XI of the Basel Convention should continue to be traded freely, while trade in plastic wastes categorized under the Basel Convention as hazardous or requiring special consideration should be subject to the requirements of section 185 of CEPA.

Canada needs a law addressing plastic waste exports. An arrangement signed between Canada and the U.S. prior to Canada's ratification of the plastic waste amendments has ignited major concern that Canadian plastic waste exports from the U.S. may be shipped onward for final disposal in developing countries. To effectively prohibit Canadian plastic waste from being dumped in developing countries, Canada should ratify the Basel ban amendment, which would restrict all hazardous waste exports to non-OECD countries. Bill C-204 should further implement the Basel ban amendment according to best international practice. This would require that the bill be amended to explicitly prohibit export of all plastic wastes to non-OECD countries, except those non-hazardous plastic wastes listed under annex IX of the Basel Convention.

Improving accountability for plastic waste exports, particularly in the large volume of trade with the U.S., is critical for Canada if it is to bring its domestic legislation into compliance with its new international legal obligations.

Thank you.

[Bob Masterson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I'm here on behalf of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada. We are an $80-billion chemistry and plastics industry in Canada. We are Canada's third-largest industry, with 80% of everything we make exported out of this nation. This is not a made-in-Canada issue. This is a global issue.

I'm pleased to be joined by my colleague, Elena Mantagaris. She'll certainly assist in responding to any of your questions.

Before I start by offering our perspectives on the bill itself, I think it's important to have some context.

First, it's very important to understand that our industry shares Parliament's and society's view that unmanaged plastic waste has no place in the natural environment.

Second, our industry accepts that it does have a disproportionate share of responsibility for addressing the issue. That must start with the acceleration of innovation towards a circular economy and with design. Our industry has set out ambitious goals in North America to ensure that by 2030 no plastic packaging is designed that is not recyclable. That's less than a mere decade away.

The third area is one that people are often surprised by. I think it's a major difference, at times, between Canada and the United States. Our industry fully endorses extended producer responsibility programs, EPR programs, such as the one in British Columbia, whereby industry is fully responsible for paying for and operating recycling systems that achieve aggressive province-wide recycling targets. We're working every day with other provinces. We expect that in a mere few years, we will have 85% of the Canadian population within industry-funded EPR programs.

Finally, our industry believes that a circular economy for plastics is not only possible but indeed achievable, and within a modest time frame. Our customers are demanding it. There's no question about that. There's a need for a number of transformational initiatives to respond to those customer demands.

You know, we've heard comments about small industries, small solutions. This is a global industry. It's a big industry. The real solutions are getting the recovered materials back into the plastic-producing facilities so that the resins themselves have a high material content of recycled resin, no matter what products they go into. If you have a 50% recycled content resin, then whatever those resins go to will have a 50% recycled content. That's a solution at scale.

We already shared with this committee a comprehensive critique of the private member's bill, so our remarks will be brief.

Again, we do understand Parliament's laudable intentions. Canadians are surely frustrated by the images of mixed, improperly sorted, contaminated plastic waste being sent off for disposal without any realistic expectation that they'll be recycled or processed. However, in our view, Bill C-204 is not necessary to address this. The bill was initiated prior to the Basel amendments, and those significant amendments have come into place, ratified by more than 170 countries, including Canada. The work continues. There's a lot of work in developing guidance for those amendments, and Canada's at the forefront of that work.

Certainly one thing this committee should take into account is the guidance that comes out of the Basel Convention for these amendments. Those amendments do outlaw trade in hazardous plastic wastes and in non-hazardous post-consumer plastics not intended for recycling and without prior and informed consent.

On many levels, Bill C-204 is redundant to those requirements, and at the same time it adds confusion. On the list of plastic wastes, we include things like ethylene, which is a feedstock. It's not a plastic waste.

MP Davidson gave a nice definition of “final disposal”, but there is no definition of it in the bill itself. There's a lack of process that will allow for the continued movement of post-consumer materials, specifically between Canada, the United States and other OECD countries.

There's a lot of work to realizing a global circular economy for post-consumer plastics. It starts with thinking of these materials as a resource and not a waste. We know what to do with waste: We put it in landfill. We know what to do with resources: We let resources move freely between political jurisdictions and across boundaries, so especially in the OECD countries, especially in this integrated North American marketplace, we have to tear down and not build up those barriers to moving post-consumer resources around. We have to recover back into Canada the material that goes into the U.S. with our products so that we can have that circular economy at scale.

Again, if we focus only on what we do in Canada, that's the 20% of plastics that we produce here that stays here. We send out 80% of what we make. If we want our facilities here to have plastic resin that has a high material content of post-consumer plastics, we need to have a mechanism to make sure we bring that back. Thickening the border for the exchange of post-consumer plastics as a resource will not assist with that.

Mr. Chair, those are our comments for today. Thank you very much.

[James Puckett, Executive Director, Basel Action Network]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Jim Puckett. I'm the founder and director of the Basel Action Network, an international organization that takes its name from the Basel Convention. The Basel Convention is a UN treaty that seeks to control the export and import of hazardous household wastes and, more recently, plastic wastes.

At the outset, I wish to applaud Mr. Davidson for his profound and sincere concern over what is indeed a profound problem: plastic waste. The amount of plastic waste being produced globally is frightening, and it is increasing every year. It is highly polluting and often toxic, yet the industry that produces it actually has few answers when it comes to what to do about it.

For many years, we in developed countries have quietly exported this waste to China. This was until two years ago, when China said “Enough; no more.” This sudden refusal by China to take our waste caught countries like the U.S. and Canada flat-footed and sent waste brokers scrambling to divert our waste to other Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

Last year, the U.S. exported over 25,000 metric tons per month to such countries. Canada exported less, around 1,000 metric tons per month. Collectively, the U.S. and Canada are sending more than 300,000 metric tons of our plastic waste to developing countries each year.

It's appropriate, in our view, to consider the U.S. and Canada together in this mess, because late last year the Canadian and U.S. governments secretly concluded a deal to ignore the Basel Convention's recent decision to control trade in contaminated and mixed plastics. Rather, the two countries wanted to allow the trade between them to remain opaque and uncontrolled.

This bilateral pact was condemned by the Center for International Environmental Law, as it ignores Canada's obligations under the Basel Convention. Further, it allows Canadian traders to use the United States, which is not a party to the Basel Convention, as a pivot point to export Canadian plastic waste via U.S. ports to Asia, thus undermining Canada's requirements under the convention.

However, here's the kicker for today's hearing. The legislation proposed by Bill C-204 aims to halt exports for final disposal, but all of this waste now moving to developing countries is not moving for the stated purpose of final disposal; it is all moving for recycling. That might sound good, except that this so-called environmentally benign recycling in Asia is anything but.

This kind of recycling is in fact a fraud perpetuated on all of us. I say this because a large proportion of the plastic waste cannot be economically recycled anywhere in the world. It is simply dumped in Asian farmland and routinely set afire. Even those plastic wastes that do get into the Asian factories to be melted down for some further use create an occupational health nightmare. The very harmful fumes of volatile organic compounds, mixed with chemical additives, become the indoor atmosphere breathed all day long, six days a week, by mostly women factory workers.

I have been inside these factories. This recycling guarantees a splitting headache within five minutes, and of course the long-term effects are far worse.

In fact, then, the biggest global problem, which Mr. Davidson and others are hoping to address with this bill, will not be addressed, because the bill currently only looks at exports for final disposal, which is landfilling or incineration. The bill currently does not address the heart of the problem, which is exports for recycling.

For this reason, this well-intended legislation should be amended, and how to do that is clear. The parties of the Basel Convention have already agreed to ban the export of hazardous waste for recycling from developed to developing countries. This prohibition is found as the new article 4A of the convention.

For some reason, Canada has refused to ratify this new article, something which all of the European Union and another 70 countries have done. Canada must do this. While they are at it, they can properly address the plastic and household waste export issue by modelling what the EU has done and include wastes listed in Basel annex II in the hazardous waste export ban to developing countries. That annex II is where the plastic wastes now sit.

In sum, to correct Canada's current stance, we recommend the following: Amend the current bill to add, in addition to the ban on export of plastic wastes for final disposal to all countries, an export ban of annex II wastes, meaning dirty and mixed plastics—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much, Mr. Davidson, for being here with us today.

Thanks for putting forward this bill, which seeks to end the unacceptable practice of exporting our plastic waste to countries that don't have the infrastructure to deal with it. We should never be dumping our waste on other countries.

I think you outlined pretty well the impacts on health, the environment and our oceans. They've been so severe, especially for countries with low-income, marginalized and racialized populations. These countries have been particularly hard hit by Canada's lack of leadership on this issue. It's really important that we're moving forward in a way that will address it.

I've spoken to a number of experts on the Basel Convention. They've expressed some concern that specifying plastic waste for final disposal only, as this bill does, wouldn't actually stop us from exporting a lot of the plastic waste that is ending up in the oceans and landfills or being burned. The plastic that's ending up in poor countries, like the Philippines and Cambodia, often is not being labelled for final disposal; it's being labelled as recycling, but then turns out to be contaminated and not recyclable in those countries, or they don't have the infrastructure to deal with it.

I'm wondering about your intention with Bill C-204. It sounds like it was really to help prevent this kind of waste ending up in these countries that don't have the infrastructure. I'm wondering if you could speak a bit to that.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thanks for the question.

My bill is specifically focusing on the export of plastic waste for final disposal. That's what I want to focus on. That's what Bill C-204 focuses on.

If there are amendments here today to make it more robust, obviously I'm looking forward to hearing from the witnesses today regarding this. I'm happy for any input we can get on that.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thanks for the question.

Yes, I'm open. As I said, I'm open to working with this committee and following the amendments that the committee looks at. This is a chance for us again as parliamentarians to have Canada take a leadership role like Australia, like the U.K., and make this bill work.

We have something on the table. We're in a minority Parliament now, and that could change at any time. I appreciate the committee convening to look at Bill C-204. It is my hope that we can work together to make this work.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

As you know, I do have the greatest riding in Canada, and it is home to Lake Simcoe.

I was a small business person going way back. I grew up, actually, on Lake Simcoe. I have been around water all my life. Clean water is very important to me. All committee members here know that when we—all MPs, witnesses, our great clerk, our chair—think of Canada, when we talk about Canada from coast to coast to coast, we think about Canada with its pristine coastlines, the rocky mountain ridges and the flowing waterfalls.

Water is very important. We know there's a plastic problem in the oceans. I mentioned the U.K. and Australia, but it's time for Canada to take a leadership approach on plastics, and that's why I truly believe Bill C-204 is so important.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by thanking the members of this committee for all the work they've done to date in protecting the environment. I'm sure the bill being studied today presents another opportunity to further these efforts.

Bill C-204 seeks to prohibit the export of plastic waste from Canada to other countries, where it is all too often being burned, dumped in the ocean or otherwise disposed of improperly, with devastating impacts on the environment.

Other countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and the U.K., have already taken action on this important issue, but Canada has not. In fact, the current federal government has rejected all calls to implement a plastic waste ban, claiming that the practice of sending plastic waste to foreign countries is beneficial, despite so much evidence to the contrary. We can't continue to do what we've been doing. Canada needs to show leadership and take responsibility for its own plastic waste.

This can be achieved through Bill C-204, which amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to prohibit the export of plastic waste to foreign countries for final disposal. This bill has been drafted to ensure that our domestic laws include a strong prohibition on the export of plastic waste that works with our international agreements while still permitting the export of properly recycled plastic waste.

To this end, the definition of “plastic waste” outlined in the accompanying schedule is derived straight from the Basel Convention. Likewise, “final disposal” is a specifically defined term, meaning “Operations which do not lead to the possibility of resource recovery, recycling, reclamation...or alternative [reuse]”. Examples of final disposal operations include dumping plastic into landfills, releasing it into oceans or keeping it in permanent storage. By focusing on final disposal operations, we can ensure that legitimate, sustainable and environmentally sound exports of plastic waste are not prohibited.

Bill C-204 would bring all of these changes in line with the rest of the regulations in this section of the act. This will give the minister the ability to add or remove plastics from the prohibited list, and it would also apply fines and penalties against anyone who contravenes it. Through these changes, the export of plastic waste for final disposal from Canada to other countries will finally be prohibited.

As the committee studies this bill, I believe there are some important considerations that must be made. Foremost, of course, is the environment. It has to be. It's been made abundantly clear that the export of plastic waste, especially to developing countries, cannot continue as it has. The export of plastic waste has decimated the environment in many countries, and it is affecting our own environment here in Canada as well. The good news, Mr. Chair, is that here is a better way. The first and most important step is to ban these kinds of plastic exports.

It is important to consider the role of industry. I'm a small business person myself, and I know that these kinds of changes can have real impacts on businesses. However, it's also an opportunity. There are so many innovative Canadian companies that have answers to our own plastic waste problem. I have mentioned a few before, but Cielo Waste Solutions is a perfect example of a company poised to make a real difference with a clean waste-management process. The biggest problem right now is getting enough Canadian plastic on hand. Too much is being exported away. It is also important to ensure that plastic waste can be exported if it is being recycled properly.

Not so long ago, Mr. Chair, this very committee recommended a plastic waste export ban in its report entitled “The Last Straw: Turning the Tide on Plastic Pollution in Canada”, which was presented to the House in June 2019. That very recommendation, number 11, came after months of committee meetings and many witness submissions from environmental groups, industry and governmental departments. Bill C-204 offers the best opportunity to make this recommendation a reality.

I am grateful for the the support Bill C-204 has in the House and among Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I brought this issue forward because I truly believe that our environment and the issue of plastic waste should not be partisan issues, Mr. Chair. I have enjoyed some constructive conversations with colleagues from all parties on this issue, and I appreciate their insights and contributions.

I look forward to following the committee's work as this bill is studied this week.

With Bill C-204, Canada can take a leadership role once more, and ban the export of plastic waste.

Thanks very much to all my colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I call this meeting to order.

Today we're having the 18th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 3, 2021, and the motion adopted by the committee on February 17, the committee is beginning its study of Bill C-204, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, with regard to final disposal of plastic waste.

Today we have two panels. In the first panel, a one-person panel essentially, we're going to be hearing from the sponsor of the bill, MP Scot Davidson.

Congratulations, Mr. Davidson, on getting your bill to this stage of the legislative process. We all know that it's no small feat, and it reflects on the hard work that you've been doing.

We will start with Mr. Davidson for a little more than half an hour and then we will resume with a second panel.

I don't think I need to explain the rules to you, Mr. Davidson. Obviously you have five minutes, and when you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

Other than that, the floor is yours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is there consensus? Do we need a roll call vote or is there consensus to adopt the steering committee report?

Madam Pauzé?

Do you have anything to add?

No?

Okay.

There seems to be consensus, so we'll adopt the report.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I would like to draw your attention to three deadlines for submitting witness names for future work, future studies.

We need to get suggested witnesses for the meeting on Bill C-204 by February 24. That was agreed to, and that's in the report.

By February 22, we would need witnesses from all the parties for the meeting we're having on the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.

By March 31, we're asking for suggested witnesses from each party for the M-34 study on “freshwater”.

I just wanted to highlight those, but as I understand it, the report is adopted.

Mr. Longfield.