Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Bossio, I appreciate that.
Minister and Parliamentary Secretary, thank you for being here. Thank you for bringing this legislation forward. It is really exciting to have parliamentarians working together.
I think this is a great step forward. This is an act that does need to demonstrate to Canadians that we can take leadership in shifting the way our federal government is accountable for its own behaviour. Hopefully, we can have the federal government lead the rest of the country as well.
There are some avenues that Mr. Bossio has pointed to already that could enable strengthening. One aspect I would like to see beefed up is the principles that are applied.
A number of principles were recommended in the original report but aren't reflected here. I'd like to hear whether you're open to other principles. There are some that stick out for me: the principle of prevention; the principle of non-regression, in light of what happened with the previous administration; the principle of environmental justice; the principle of a right to a healthy environment. Those are some of the principles that were pointed to in the original report.
I wonder if you could speak to your openness to considering others.