By virtue of the Constitution, this bill can only apply to items that fall within federal jurisdiction. And a lot of items on which the government makes policies, plans, and proposals fall within federal jurisdiction. As I said at the outset, and as is stated in the proposed legislation itself in the proposed amendment to subclause 8(2), it is with the cooperation and approval of the province that this legislation could potentially apply to areas that come exclusively within provincial jurisdiction. And that's recognized in the proposed amendment to paragraph 8(2)(a), where it says, and this is referring to the targets, “while recognizing the respective roles and responsibilities of the federal government and the provinces and the territories”.
We also have that in the proposed amendment to subclause 5(2): “The Government of Canada therefore, working with the provinces and territories and recognizing their respective roles and responsibilities, adopts the following goals”.
So in each instance, any effort to usurp provincial jurisdiction would run into the barrier of the Constitution and would therefore fail.