Right now the amendments proposed by the government provide that all of the proceeds of all of the fines imposed by convictions under these various statutes, including CEPA and other environmental statutes contained in Bill C-16, would go to the environmental damages fund. What my amendment, the NDP amendment, proposes is that the exception to.... I should clarify that later on, the government actually makes provision for the judge to recommend to the minister that a portion of the penalty imposed could instead go to an individual or organization rather than the fund.
The purpose and intent of our amendment is several-fold. As I said, we appreciate that some recognition is given to the fact that it may be appropriate for some of the fine to go to other parties than to this fund, but our recommendation is that's the wrong route to go. I've talked to a number of environmental prosecutors across Canada to confirm my discomfort with that. Under our constitutional system of government, our democratic system, the judicial and executive functions are very carefully separated. What the government's proposed amendment does is to blur those lines. I would welcome the government outlining to our committee any other circumstance where there is a judge making a recommendation to an elected official to do something. The provision is that a judge may recommend to the minister to give some of the proceeds of the fine that's going to the environmental damages fund to somebody else, which the minister may or may not agree with.
What we're proposing is something much cleaner and more consistent with the way the democratic system in Canada works, where the judicial and executive functions are separated. We had a bit of a discussion about this in our last meeting. What usually occurs in the prosecution, and is very common now in environmental prosecutions—and there is a whole book now on innovative environmental sentencing, which I encourage members to look at, if they have an opportunity—is that the enforcement officers, the investigators, actually make recommendations to the prosecutor on sentencing. The prosecutor in turn makes recommendations to the judge in those cases where they deem it appropriate. For example, if a river has been damaged and there's a river-keeper organization, they know about that through the department and their ongoing relationships and they'll make a recommendation. That is a much cleaner way of doing it. In the case of the Ontario region, for quite some years they've actually been compiling a list of organizations that do good work on the environment, and they have categorized them, for cases in which they do bring a prosecution, so that they can recommend appropriately, and already know about the organization. So that's the process that usually proceeds.
What we are proposing through this set of amendments is to provide, instead, that all funds, all proceeds, and all of the fines in an environmental conviction go to the environmental damages fund, except.... And then a provision is added saying that the court has the power to determine that it will award all or a portion of the penalty to an individual or organization.