Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I want to thank both witnesses for taking the time to testify. I know you're both very busy working on exactly this kind of work and I know Canadians appreciate it.
You're of course being put on the spot because of my bill, and my committee members chose not to ask the questions of me, so I'll help you with the answers to some of them.
On the issue of whether or not private prosecution is affected by this bill, I'd be interested in your response to this. Certainly this bill would enable private prosecutions, because it allows people under any environmental law to request an investigation and also to access information. So while it does not do so directly, it does indirectly.
The Yukon bill does specifically accord the right to file a private prosecution. The Criminal Code already allows that. I had actually preferred that this be in the government's Environmental Enforcement Act and consistently across the laws, if we're being consistent. I want to thank Dr. Boyd for bringing to our attention the fact that the government's Environmental Enforcement Act is not yet proclaimed. So thank you for that.
On the whistle-blower protection, the question is whether or not this is necessary. The whistle-blower protection measures are under CEPA, but the purpose of the environmental bill of rights is to apply to all environmental statutes. It would extend those kinds of protections to officials under all those statutes. Perhaps you might want to comment later on whether that's worthwhile.
I wanted to thank you for your recommendations on amendments and just clarify those that are brought to my attention. There are drafting errors in the course of many drafts of the bill and your recommendations are very welcome.
I wanted to ask this of both of my witnesses. I mentioned in my presentation that among the purposes of this bill one of them is to actually provide the domestic federal mechanism to implement, in domestic law, many of the obligations and commitments made by Canada for access to information and for participation in environmental decision-making, for example, under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, under NAFTA, under the more recent agreements that have been signed, and under commitments made through the G-8 on biodiversity.
Would you comment on that? Do those international laws and commitments not become fully binding and enforceable--for example in our courts--unless they are implemented in domestic law?