Thank you very much. I will be sharing my time with Mr. Scarpaleggia, because I think we're only going to be getting in one round.
My thanks to all the witnesses. It has been a long trip, but I think we're learning lots.
When you're trying to assess, from 30,000 feet, what you've been listening to over many months, it seems to me that CEPA has to be seen as almost the constitutional base for what we do with environmental issues in Canada. It is a fundamental law, and therefore has to be treated as such. But it also is serving a second function, which I hope is not contradictory, of being a bit of a safety net. It has to capture things that were not anticipated.
The third observation that I would make—and if there's any disagreement or elaboration by the witnesses, that's fine—is that it has to be forward-looking precisely because, as Mr. Freeman pointed out, we don't get to review it that often. We know what happens to old pieces of legislation like the Hazardous Products Act. They are not reviewed and are not appropriate to the time. Therefore, we must be forward-looking. We must examine more recent pieces of legislation, such as the Pest Control Products Act and so on to see what we can learn from them. Indeed, we must also look to Europe, to REACH, and so on, so that we're always ahead of the game and not behind the game. Unless there's a wild disagreement with that, I want to get into a couple of questions.
First of all, on the precautionary principle, Gail Krantzberg and many other witnesses have said we have to apply it. Ms. Krantzberg's view was that we should be looking to other jurisdictions.
Gordon Lloyd said Canada should be better equipped to recognize—and I think I'm quoting—“positive assessments of other jurisdictions”. I'm assuming that if you look to other jurisdictions, you might also get negative assessments. I'm therefore wondering if there's a contradiction between what Mr. Lloyd is proposing and what the other witnesses are proposing about looking to other jurisdictions for issues and clarification on things like the precautionary principle.
Mr. Lloyd.