I don't have a problem with giving an extension to Bill C-469, but the testimony we heard at our last meeting from the department—Daniel Blasioli said what is being proposed would actually weaken CEPA—really concerned me.
What's being proposed by a Bloc member, Mr. André—and thank you for being here--and what the government did by notice of intent in February are pretty similar, but they have different results. In doing it by regulation as opposed to by a private member's bill, you use CEPA and amend what's already in CEPA to 0.5%. Its effective coming into force date will be July 2010.
So the bills are similar. The Bloc wants it to come into force approximately a year earlier, and we can hear from witnesses what the ramifications of that will be. But I want to remind the committee that what's being proposed will actually weaken CEPA. We don't want to weaken any environmental legislation; we want to strengthen things when we can. We just did a total CEPA review about a year ago.
I'm a little concerned, and I would ask if Mr. Bigras would be willing to remove Bill C-469.