Madam Chair, it's been a while since you heard from all the witnesses, but I just want to preface this by saying that this amendment comes from the expert advice, from Professor Martin Olszynski, who is one of the pre-eminent experts in environmental impact assessment in Canada. He's at the University of Calgary's faculty of law. He's provided some examples in his evidence of where the words “scientific integrity” have been used in other jurisdictions. In particular, the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act require that U.S federal agencies ensure “the professional integrity, including scientific integrity, of the decisions and analyses in environmental impact statements”.
The U.S. Geological Survey similarly has a section on scientific integrity which says that those employees of the geological survey “communicate the results of scientific activities clearly, honestly, objectively, accurately, thoroughly” and expeditiously.
You might think that this is automatic and that anyone doing scientific work is going to report it honestly and ethically and that scientific integrity will matter to any government, but there's a pattern. It's been discussed in some recent news articles, and I've seen it myself over the years in environmental assessment. Consultants hired by the proponent can put pressure on or even add it after the fact to the reports that were done by scientific researchers. The word “devastate” for instance can be edited to “alter”. That's a real life example.
This would be a new subsection 6(3) to be found in the mandate section. There is a subsection 6(2), which I leave unchanged. Subsection 6(3) would say:
(3) That the Government of Canada, the Minister, the Agency and federal authorities must, in the administration of this Act, exercise their powers in a manner that adheres to the principles of scientific integrity, honesty, objectivity, thoroughness and accuracy.
I'm sure the government of the day absolutely supports this. You might think it's redundant, but believe me, and if you don't believe me, please believe Professor Olszynski. This is really important if we can add this in.
Thank you.