Thank you for your consideration, Mr. Chair, and thank you, again, to the members of the subcommittee.
I think the best place for me to begin is to talk about the fact that, of course, CEAA is being repealed in its entirety, and perhaps more importantly, the preamble to CEAA is being repealed. If you look at the preamble of CEAA by itself, it is perhaps one of the most definitive statements of Canada's objective to achieve sustainable development going forward, through the reconciliation of the environment and the economy, for Canada's ultimate well-being.
In fact, the processes by which we achieve sustainable development in this country have been led chiefly by Canada's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. Changes contemplated to CEAA, to the National Energy Board, and to the Fisheries Act, as well as the imposition of what can only be described as arbitrary assessment timelines, have a direct and causal connection, a direct bearing on Canada's sustainable development.
Because the round table is Canada's primary agency to help us achieve sustainable development, let me take a moment to address what the NRT might be able to do to help Canada and the government make progress in this regard. In fact, the changes that are being contemplated should be, in my view, referred to Canada's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. Let me say why.
First, these changes would benefit—as Chief Atleo has pointed out—from being hived off, from being separated out from the bill, so a national multistakeholder independent consultation process could be conducted. That's why, for now at least, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy exists: to help ground-proof the proposed changes that are being put forward by the government. It would be apropos for the Prime Minister to refer these changes to what was, up to recently, his own agency, before it was demoted, so to speak, from having the PMO to having Environment Canada as a reporting structure.
Let me talk a little about what the national round table could help Canadians with when it comes to these very significant changes. I think, first, if there was ever a time when Canada needed a multi-stakeholder body and a process that worked to reconcile competing interests as we look to strengthen our economy, enhance our ecological integrity, and improve our well-being to deal with the changes in this part of the bill, it's now.
The round table isn't merely a research institute. It's not a publication house, as several ministers would have us believe. Of course, it performs background research—and it could do so with respect to these passages—and issues reports providing advice to the government, but its most important function would be to allow for debate and deliberation. There is no substitute for a body that convenes all the important players as we look to make progress.
This is not a function the government can fulfill, because it is ultimately the government that receives advice from its own round table. It can't be accomplished by a university or a research institute or through the Internet. The value of the process conducted by the national round table is in providing advice in the form of practical options for change.
Let's talk a little about some of the options the round table might actually explore under part 3 of this bill. For example, why couldn't the national round table, on behalf of the government and the people of Canada, take part 3 and examine regulatory reform in its entirety? Why can't we, for example, look and see what is happening at the provincial level where there is duplication, where there is triplication in some instances? Why don't we actually take a long, hard look at what is happening at the provincial level to see where we can find best practices? Why can't the national round table at the same time look to international comparative examples to see what has worked in other jurisdictions? For example, let's see how many OECD countries or G-20 countries have imposed arbitrary timelines when it comes to conducting environmental assessment processes.
Let's explore what it means when the Minister of Natural Resources says that federal and provincial government regimes will have equivalency when the federal government adjudges that provinces have the capacity to conduct environmental assessments. What does that actually mean in practical terms?
The round table could go further. First, it could hold its hearings in public and be fully televised for Canadians, as these hearings are being televised. It could work to improve Canada's energy and environmental regulatory regimes and integration by addressing other elements. As I said, a complete examination of the interface between existing energy and environmental law and regulations: the mandate, the operations, and the funding levels of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency; where applicable, overlap and duplication between federal and provincial energy and environmental regulatory regimes; an examination of the fairness of the independence and the use of evidence in regulatory processes as we make these contemplated changes to the NEB.
Let's talk and have a round table address on behalf of the government, the public access, and participant funding in review processes, aboriginal consultation best practices, as Grand Chief Atleo referred to, and, as I said earlier, comparative international approaches. Let's talk about these arbitrary timelines in this sense: let's have the national round table perform an analysis of all the environmental assessments that have gone on over the last, say, 30 years. Let's look at how long they've taken, and then let's try to find out why there were such delays. Were the delays on behalf of the project proponents or on behalf of the capacity of the regulatory regime to conduct the hearings? These are the kinds of questions....
And perhaps finally, Mr. Chair, I'd like to see the national round table examine these changes under part 3 in this context: I'd like them to advise Canadians and the government on the implications of NAFTA's proportionality clause with respect to energy security.
We could even go further, building, for example, on timelines and the mandate changes that are being proposed. The national round table might, for example, Mr. Chair, advise Canadians on the notion of pricing carbon. A good point of departure for that might be asking them to examine the speech given by Prime Minister Harper in 2008, when he committed Canada to delivering a price of $65 a tonne for carbon by 2016-2018. It would be important to see what the contemplated changes in part 3 do to the government's commitment, not only in terms of pricing carbon, but also the government's commitment to achieving 17% reductions of its GHGs in the next seven and a half years. I think that would go some distance, Mr. Chair, in helping Canadians understand the massive implications of the contemplated changes.
I have a number of national processes in front of me, examples of processes conducted by the national round table, which would form, I think, wonderful precedents for the round table to rely on in order to conduct that deliberative process.
In most instances the round table engages somewhere between 200 and 500 stakeholders across Canadian society, including government officials, who often sit back and watch the deliberations so they can learn from best practices, best evidence, best research, best approaches going forward.
I can take a few minutes, Mr. Chair, to highlight some of these that I think are very apropos, but perhaps to wind up, the fact that the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy exists is a wonderful asset for Canada. The processes it conducts have been nothing short of inspirational for over 80 national councils for sustainable development all over the world. They have been inspired by the national round table, inspired by its practices, and I think Canada and Canadians ought to be proud of what the round table has done for the country, and I think could really use its help at this stage. It's simply unfortunate the government has decided to eliminate Canada's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.