Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be sharing my time with Mr. Lussier.
First of all, in listening to you this afternoon, I'm under the impression that you are sending us the message that the bill needs to be rewritten in order for it to make sense. I'll invite the clerk to note down what our witnesses have said today and to verify the admissibility of certain amendments that will be submitted to us over the next few weeks, to ensure that the amendments proposed by the witnesses are feasible within Bill C-377. According to the comments and suggestions made by our witnesses, I am under the impression that in many cases, these amendments could be ruled inadmissible.
Mr. Hogg, I was struck by your intervention, particularly by page 5 of your testimony where you stated:
The vagueness and breath of Bill C-377 has the potential to reach deeply into many fields of provincial authority. Without more careful definition of the kinds of regulations that are contemplated, the bill is outside the national concern [...]
And yet, the sponsor of the bill no doubt took this into account by suggesting, in clause 10, that in order to fulfill commitments provided for in clause 5, there must be, and I quote: “(iv) cooperation or agreements with provinces, territories or other governments;”.
Am I to understand from your presentation that this aspect of clause 10 doesn't give anymore protection either and that there are numerous aspects that could lead to encroachment regarding sectors of provincial jurisdiction? Would it be possible—I know that this is the case with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act—to sign equivalency agreements with the provinces in certain sectors? Would it be possible to envision equivalency arrangements, not regulatory arrangements but agreements based on results, such as those that we integrated in Bill C-288?