Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just briefly, if the governments of the day choose not to clarify in law, it is up to the courts to determine. In fact, there is a case before the courts right now arguing for the public trust in Canada. I'm sorry, I can't give you the citation, but we could follow up in another committee meeting and provide that.
A preferable way, obviously, is to clarify in law. As was pointed out in testimony to us, more than 100, almost 200, countries have chosen to provide the public trust and the right to a healthy environment through statute or constitution, the majority of those through actually amending their constitution to provide the public trust. Of course, how exactly this will be applied depends on its application and the circumstances of each case and precedent as it's determined.
The main reason for finally bringing this forward in a statute is there is study after study, as witnesses told us, by everybody from the Conference Board of Canada to the Canadian Medical Association, that Canada is being shown increasingly to have a poor record compared to other wealthy industrialized nations. It's also important for Canada, in harmonizing with other nations, to say that we believe that environmental protection is equal to economic development, which is reflected in the side agreements to some of our trade agreements.
It's very important that we have this document that simply clarifies in law and gives those rights and opportunities.