Evidence of meeting #21 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cema.
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
CEMA's research is ongoing, so, as was confirmed this morning, there have been approvals before the completion of some of CEMA's work, yes. And some of the problems or issues that CEMA deals with may arise after the granting of permission to do things, so it's an ongoing thing.
Probably, in a perfect world, a lot of CEMA's working groups would have preferred to have done some of this 10 years ago.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
My understanding is that some of the frustration is particularly with agencies like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who have the power to actually impose binding obligations for the proponent to do something to mitigate or restore a fishery, but what in fact is happening is it's just simply being referred to CEMA instead of a legally binding mitigation measure.
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
I really couldn't comment on that. All I know is the issues that CEMA is asked to deal with; sometimes I'm not sure of the origin of those things. But with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, it recently put together an oil sands group specifically to look at those issues. It requested to work very closely with CEMA on helping to identify those issues, and then on how to deal with the issues.
Liberal
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you.
On the membership, again, what is the number of members who are representing industry?
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
Twenty.
Conservative
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
My math might be wrong here.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Okay. And then there are approximately six aboriginal groups—
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
Yes; and five ENGOs.
Conservative
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
Three, and three first nations.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Okay. So the majority of ENGOs and the majority of aboriginal representation stayed?
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
Correct.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
So the group continues on, CEMA continues on, the research continues on. A small number of ENGOs and aboriginal representatives have left.
Are they providing input? I think you would accept that input if they were to provide that input in writing. Is that a correct assumption? And do they provide input?
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
Yes, in answer to your question. We've actually gone beyond that. We've established a non-member policy so that, for example, in the phase two water study, we changed our rules to allow non-member organizations to participate fully. That's why groups like World Wildlife Fund are sitting at that table, even though they are not CEMA members.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
So they never have been, but they are non-members, and they're still participating in--
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
Yes. They demonstrated that they had expertise that they could bring to the table, and it was the decision of the members of CEMA to allow them to bring that expertise to the table.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Was it at the same time that the aboriginal representatives and ENGOs withdrew from RAMP? Was it approximately 2003? And was it in a similar timeframe when they actually stepped back from CEMA?
Executive Director, Cumulative Environmental Management Association
No, they left CEMA in early 2008, I think it was.
