Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to try to shed some light on the questions put by the member.
First of all, we have signed an equivalency agreement with Alberta, and discussions are underway with each of Canada's provinces with a view to signing other agreements. However, the majority of provinces prefer to sign equivalency agreements for individual issues, or individual activities. We are therefore proceeding on a case-by-case basis. Pulp and paper effluent is a good example, and I could cite other examples.
To date, particularly in the light of the work done by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment with a view to establishing Canada-wide standards, the efforts of the provinces and the federal government have tended to focus on implementing agreements in accordance with those guidelines to handle a variety of issues.
With respect to the equivalency agreements, a number of provinces have expressed interest but one of the aspects not clear in the wording of the act is the recognition of permit-based systems. Most of the provinces — within the framework of their regulations — act by issuing permits to the companies concerned.
In our view, those systems can be recognized under the current legislation, but the provinces are not convinced that the equivalency agreements would fully and properly recognize their systems. We are now trying to solve these issues with the provinces. Thus, the work to date has been focusing on the issues to be dealt with, rather than on the equivalency agreements mentioned in the legislation.