I would suggest a stronger, tighter Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. That is an international agreement that's been in place for years and it has roots in the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. So simply referencing within the act its commitment to realize those other international obligations would go a long way, I think.
Maybe I'll address your point, Monsieur Bigras, on the generalities of today's presentation. We understood the purpose of today's presentation was simply to provide a general view of whether or not we thought the act required a substantive review at this time. There simply hasn't been enough time to prepare for explicit, detailed recommendations on how the act should be amended.
That said, I'd like to address a question from Mr. Godfrey earlier, which was what specifically is needed. They're similar questions, and I would encourage the committee to review what the committee came up with in 1999. The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development came up with recommendations for a hugely amended act, most of which were not implemented. At the same time, I think it may serve to give you a good update on what some of the environmental priorities were at that time, because many of them haven't changed.
Looking back, if I may take this opportunity, at what we saw coming up the pipe in 1999 and we now know to be the case, I think endocrine disrupters would probably be at the top of the list. It was well known at that time they were impacting development. The World Wildlife Fund was leading a huge international campaign and tried to get this committee--well, different members, a different structure of this committee--to review endocrine disrupters. They did not make it into the act adequately and we now know them to be a major source of environmental concern.