Madam Chair, I want to briefly review the concerns that have been expressed by many. We also had the expert panel on environmental assessment, which recommended that energy regulators did not have a role. They were not referenced as having any future role or expertise that's useful to environmental assessment in the very substantial and thorough report prepared by the expert panel on EA that the federal minister commissioned.
My own personal concern, I have to say, just based on years of work in the Maritimes, is that it really matters that the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board have a legislated mandate. In fact, they have an affirmative duty to expand offshore oil and gas. That's their mandate. It comes out of the accords that were negotiated between the federal government and those provinces.
In this case, I'm deleting the sections that say the roster for an environmental assessment should include people appointed from the membership of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. I don't know how those people could do the job they are supposed to do on impact assessment without prejudging the outcome when they have a legislated mandate in the body they serve to expand offshore oil and gas.
I think it's not personal to those individuals. It's not about the agency's record. It's just a legal fact that these entities have a statutory conflict of interest, which has not yet been removed. They could have removed it in the context of this legislation, but it was not removed. Of course, the reason it could not be removed easily is you would have to go back and revisit the accords between the federal government and the provinces.
I'm explaining this more for my friends at the end of the table who I know are new to this discussion. It is mind-boggling that this would be proposed, that members of a board that has a mandate to expand offshore oil and gas would be required to serve on panels to decide if it should go ahead or not.