Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to this distinguished panel. Not being a lawyer, I must confess to some level of intimidation in terms of the wisdom and experience that's being brought before us today.
I'm also very interested in the process that we go through here in Parliament in regard to establishing constitutionality, and also establishing a certain level of unknowns regarding what will be tested in court and what will stand up in court. I'll encourage our witnesses and also committee members that we don't necessarily need to wait for lawyers to agree on this fine point before Parliament acts. I think Canadians would urge us to take some risk on the constitutionality question in order to achieve the targets and goals that Canadians endeavour to have.
In the place of this, we are seeking in this bill to establish national targets based upon scientific measures in order to mitigate the effects to our society and our environment of dangerous climate change. I've not yet heard testimony today saying that the attempt through this bill is a deed that Parliament shouldn't perform. I get a suggestion--there are very different tones and approaches to how this bill is being considered--of the question of whether the witnesses were seeking ways to improve this bill or whether witnesses were seeking ways to prove themselves right and defeat this bill on constitutional grounds.
Mr. Hogg, I'll start with you. There were some questions of specificity in your argument that as it stands now, the bill is not sufficiently specific for a court to feel comfortable with it in terms of the Constitution. From the testimony you've heard today, or perhaps from some other readings you have, do you believe that by including greater specificity, including some of the language out of both the favouring decision in Hydro-Québec and the dissenting one, specifics could be brought to this piece of legislation to, as Mr. Elgie said, move the constitutional meter closer to favourability?