There's no question that the legislation that was changed by the previous government gutted the protections that existed for our navigable waters. I was there at the time. I remember spending a great deal of time on that particular act when the government decided to make the changes. It ended up making many navigable waters essentially unprotected, and that was a totally unacceptable situation as far as we were concerned. If you didn't like it, you could go to court. Of course, that's a very long and very laborious and sometimes very expensive process.
What we've done is change it by making the new Canadian navigable waters protection act apply safety and security measures to all navigable waters. As I said, if somebody wants to build something, there has to be a public notice. The information will be put in a public register held by Transport Canada. We will go through a process of determining whether it's a major work, a minor work, or something in between.
In some cases, if it's truly a minor work, it will be pre-approved. If it is a major work, something like a dam or some other major work, it will have to go through a very formal process, as you know. If it's somewhere in between, there will still have to be a process.
If it's in the special schedule, there will be the full-blown approval process. If it is not in the schedule, there will have to be a process by which it's determined whether it is acceptable or not. Instead of having to go to the courts, there will be a process that will be streamlined, whereby my ministry will make a decision on whether it constitutes an impediment to navigation.