I'll ask my colleague Francine Richard, who is our CEAA expert. Maybe she could come to the table.
Within the five evaluations of environmental assessments, there is, under the CEAA Act, the wording that cumulative effects should be considered. The wording is so vague that “considered” is fairly open. That's one of our conclusions that we put in the perspective at the beginning.
Within a project-by-project assessment, they will do a project-related environmental assessment. Then within that context, they're also supposed to provide consideration of the combined or cumulative effects of that project in relation to the other projects that either are in place or are planned to be in place in the next five to ten years. What we found is that this part of the CEAA is an important one. It's a difficult one. Cumulative environmental assessments are tough. Right now the wording of the act is such that they're single project assessments. But as the government has acknowledged in its July phase two report, the ultimate objective of the government's new approach and the new plan is to put in place a cumulative environmental monitoring system for the region that goes beyond project-to-project and actually looks at some regional characteristics of environmental change.
It's a long answer. If in the committee's future work there is a review of CEAA.... I think this may be one area that I felt sufficiently important to put in the perspective, because I think this ambiguity has created problems in terms of reliable information on findings.