Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to suggest a friendly amendment if Mr. Warawa is prepared to accept it.
If we delete the entirety of those last two and a half lines or so, we will be in effect expanding the paragraph to simply say that the Government of Canada shall not deny standing to participate to anybody.
The words “solely because they lack a private or special legal interest in the matter” are, I think, an important qualification. If they are left, then the clause would, with Mr. Warawa's thought, be amended to say that “the Government of Canada shall not deny any resident standing to participate solely because they lack a private or special legal interest in the matter”.
But there may be other reasons why the Government of Canada may deny standing to Canadians. If we also omit the words “solely because they lack a private or special legal interest in the matter”, then if there is another good reason to deny standing, I'm afraid the government won't be able to make use of it.
So the friendly amendment that I'm suggesting would result in an amendment that would simply delete the words “or to appear before the courts on environmental matters”--full stop--and leave in the words “solely because they lack a private or special legal interest in the matter.”