As I expected, this is a stellar panel. I wish we could have had each one of you for two hours.
What I'm hearing is, in a number of areas we're getting strong consensus from all the witnesses who have come forward, certainly on strengthening CEPA on environmental rights and on obligations to extend. I noticed, though, in the preamble, interestingly, that there's absolutely no reference to public rights, which is odd. That's something we might want to look to if we're going to be trying to build on.... Interestingly, we have part two, and yet there's no reference in there to do that.
There is the recommendation by a couple of you that we consider endorsing the Aarhus convention. The argument back then by Canada was that we have those rights in CEPA.
As Professor Winfield has pointed out, and I think possibly Dr. Doelle, those aren't provided in other statutes at all. I would welcome any additional presentations. You're well aware that I've tabled an environmental bill of rights three times over in the House. It is basically a framework for exactly the kinds of rights that you're calling for. The reason I did it that way is it should cover everything: endangered species, fisheries, and so forth. I welcome that input.
Thank you, Dr. Winfield, for mentioning part 9. That's been a bugbear ever since CEPA was enacted. It's never been expanded, and I welcome your recommendations also on equivalency. I think both of you talked about that; there's a problem.
One thing I would like any of you to speak to is this issue of the federal government asserting its jurisdiction, and that basically they become a doormat to the provinces. I notice that in section 55, the Minister of Health has an option to confer with other levels, but it's not an obligation. In fact, she has mandatory obligations, whereas the environment minister doesn't, which is a real oddity. I wonder if you could speak to that, about how we might revise CEPA to actually require action instead of this continuous study.
I give you as a case study, mercury. Mercury was actually listed before CEPA. It was under the clean air act. CCME identifies coal-fired mercury as the top priority substance and it's reprehensible that to this day there's no federal regulation on mercury.
I welcome any recommendations you have on how we assert federal jurisdiction more strongly into actually acting on these toxins that we have listed.