Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be giving most of my time to Mr. Barnes.
Good morning, and thank you very much for the invitation to appear. My name is Michael Atkinson. I'm the president of the Canadian Construction Association. I'm accompanied today by Mr. Jeff Barnes, who is a senior principal with Stantec Consulting Inc., a member of our association. Mr. Barnes has over 30 years of experience in environmental assessment across Canada and internationally, and he will be outlining our position on the CEA Act.
The Canadian Construction Association has some 17,000 member firms from coast to coast to coast across Canada, working primarily in the non-residential construction industry. As an industry, construction employs over 1.25 million Canadians and accounts for just under 7% of Canada's overall GDP.
I mention this to provide you with some context and to emphasize that when planned projects experience issues of uncertainty, unpredictability, and unnecessary duplication in relation to the environmental assessment process, our members and the economy of Canada are both adversely affected.
CCA members remain extremely supportive of environmental assessment and believe it can be an important contributor to sustainable development in Canada. But our membership is greatly concerned about matters relating to the efficiency and effectiveness of the administration of the CEA Act, and the uncertainty and unpredictability of its implementation. That is why our association fully supports the amendments the government made to the CEA Act through clause 20 of Bill C-9 and the issuance of the establishing timelines for comprehensive studies regulations. We are therefore before you today to provide some additional recommendations on the CEA Act for how it can be further improved.
I will now turn to Mr. Barnes to outline the position of the CCA, as outlined in more detail in our written submission.