Thank you for your question. I'm sorry, I can't respond en français. I only speak two languages, which are English and legalese.
I would look to what happened here in Ontario in the late 1980s and also in 1996. We had something called the Intervenor Funding Project Act, which was a mandatory requirement upon proponents to provide adequate levels of participant funding to interested parties. That was a highly effective, well-regarded program that was terminated, I would suggest to you, for larger political reasons in Ontario. There are some good lessons to be learned from that process, because it enabled people to retain the technical and scientific expertise that is necessary to fully participate in these sometimes complex environmental assessment processes.
I know some will suggest that while we have participant funding for comprehensive studies and joint review panels, etc., under the CEAA.... We do. I question, first of all, the quantum, the amount of the money that's provided to public interest groups and others under the CEAA process.
I'll give you a good case study. My colleagues and I are currently involved in the joint review panel that's going to start next year on the proposed deep geologic repository for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste on the Bruce Peninsula. CELA, my group, has been awarded a grand total of $37,000 to assess what is probably a multi-billion-dollar project, which has been in the planning process for literally years. The proponent, Ontario Power Generation, probably spent millions of dollars in assembling the technical and scientific material needed to prepare the 10,000-page environmental impact statement that's been filed.
Yes, we have participant funding at the federal level, but it's a mere drop in the bucket compared to what proponents are spending. If we're really going to be serious about increasing public participation, we need to look more seriously at increasing the participant funding program.