I want to try to be careful. I'm not posing objections. I'm trying to identify implications of the language that may be positive or negative, depending on your view. I'm not taking a position on this.
I commented on three phrases. One is “demonstrably provide”. That is a different legal test. So there's that issue.
The second issue is “quantifiable effects of the regulation”. The main challenge there, in my view, is that it doesn't say on what, whereas the clause starts out saying the effects would provide an equal or superior level of protection in the environment and human health. I think if that's the objective, then you would want to say “the quantifiable effects on the environment and human health of the regulation”. Do you see what I mean? You could interpret it, and you could have a big debate about what the effects are on.
Again, presumably we want to focus on the outcome, as opposed to procedures, reports, or whatever. If you're looking for suggested language to clarify while staying within the intent, I think that would give my colleagues and me some comfort in terms of our ability to interpret this.
The third concern I had was the final clause. I'm not sure I can give you a suggestion there. However, I would like to close with two other points.
First, I think that government has a second amendment. I'm not sure if they're going to move it, but G-6 would say that the agreement shall establish a manner of determining whether the terms and conditions are being fully met. In other words, this would require that each agreement have written into it a customized way of determining, of doing that very measurement. At the moment there is no such obligation on the drafters of the agreement.
In fact, the current agreement does have this, but there's no obligation for us to have that. This would recognize the fact that each agreement is going to be customized and one is going to address pulp and paper effluent, and another is going to address GHG regulations. The way we measure and the kinds of outcomes we're looking at are completely different. This would require that you have that test in the agreement itself.
The second point is that there is an amendment, a further provision--