Mr. Chair, there are provisions in the Impact Assessment Act that allow the minister to designate individual projects that aren't described in a regulation to enter the impact assessment process. That is one mechanism the minister has to bring in projects that aren't described in regulation.
The committee member also asked about regional assessments. The minister has the authority under the Impact Assessment Act to look at regional assessments, or to create a regional assessment to look at issues that may be clustered in a particular geographic area.
For regional assessment to move forward, the minister would take into consideration factors like the influence that regional assessment may have on future projects, the contribution of the regional assessment to get a better understanding of what cumulative effects are under a fellow jurisdiction, and whether or not the regional assessment would be in the public interest to move forward.