I'm happy to take that one.
We have been hearing some suggestions, from others before you, that a conservation agreement should also count as an exemption from the prohibitions in SARA, and our opinion is that it should not. The reason we say it should not is that section 73 of the act, the common permitting section, has some very careful safeguards in there. In particular, subsection 73(3) has three carefully drafted safeguards to make sure the impacts are minimized from a permitted activity, to make sure that all of the reasonable alternatives have been considered, and to make sure there's no jeopardy to the survival or recovery of the species. If those three conditions are met, then a permit can be given out under section 73.
We do not believe a conservation agreement on its own, which wouldn't necessarily ensure all of those safeguards were in place, should also act as an exemption, but we think there should be some investigation by the federal departments into whether or not these two can work together. For example, could one agreement count as both a conservation agreement and an agreement under section 73 that meets those preconditions? I don't know. I think that's something for further study and investigation by the departments.