Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I too would like to thank the witnesses for their presentations today.
I would also like to reassure Ms. Tully; there is no need for her to apologize for not taking part in broader consultations, since no such consultations were held. She has nothing to apologize for.
Mr. Osbaldeston, I must start off by saying that I have the greatest respect for the civil service. Having spent more than 30 years in the public service, half of it as a civil servant, including being chairman of a large regulatory agency, and half of it as an elected official, I can say that I know the difference between the two. I don't think, Mr. Osbaldeston, that you know the difference between the two, and I say that with respect.
If you enjoy the game of politics, have the courage to put your face on the telephone poles and get yourself elected. Tonight you came into this committee and did something that none of us has ever seen before. I have never, in over 30 years, seen a civil servant come before a committee and deliver with such a purely partisan mind. When you have the temerity to come before us and say that there's nothing in here that removes environmental protection, you're simply not telling the truth. It is not true that there's a tiered approval process in here. It's a complete change in the whole regulatory structure. All the enabling provisions under this statute will be changed to give, as Ms. Tully correctly pointed out, pure discretion here in Ottawa.
Now, I don't doubt your good intentions, but I am telling you that what you told this committee about the effect of this legislation is not true.
In response to Mr. Jean—and I saw you pass a note to Mr. Jean before, and I think it's worth saying that....
Sure I'd like to see it, Mr. Jean, colleague and confrère. I'm a lawyer too. And I can read a statute, because I was involved in statutory drafting for a number of years.
There is nothing further from the truth than that this doesn't lessen environmental protection. An anecdote is not an argument is not a case.
In Mr. MacLaren's very colourful example he evoked the Drainage Act, which, as you know, is an Ontario provincial statute that has nothing to do with what we're discussing here today. He evoked Fisheries and Oceans, which again has nothing to do with what we're talking about here today. He also alleged that there was an anecdote from the owner of a piece of equipment that it would be Fisheries and Oceans, but we have no evidence of that whatsoever. Yet you bought that holus-bolus, and you reinforced it here before this committee. And that's wrong, because this committee is trying to deal with a statute that would deal with something that has been properly protected in this country for over 100 years. The Conservatives don't believe in environmental protection, and that's why they want to remove it.
You admit that there will be changes to the triggers for environmental assessment. That was leaked a few weeks ago. We made it public. The plan is to reduce environmental assessments as a function of the value of the infrastructure being put into place, as if the protection of a precious wetland had something to do with the value of what you put on top of it. Ten million dollars is the cut-off. If you destroy a precious wetland for infrastructure worth $9.5 million, somehow that becomes okay. It's not okay. That's why we have a Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
Your anecdote about your North Channel Bridge makes me want to know about the effect of the exclusion of the current Navigable Waters Protection Act--we keep saying navigable waters act, but it's the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I'd love to know what the exclusion of the St. Lawrence Seaway--because it's obviously a continuity of that--has to do with your anecdote about the North Channel Bridge. Perhaps you could provide some of that in writing.
Coming here and pleading the backlog of cases as an excuse to go on and on about the more flexible process is a purely partisan political argument and has nothing to do with the facts. Saying that you're here to streamline is a purely partisan political argument that has nothing to do with the facts. Saying that financial opportunities are being lost is their line. They're elected. They put their pictures up on telephone poles and they were elected to do a partisan political job. You didn't.
Welcome to the debate, Mr. Osbaldeston. If you want to play politics, welcome to the debate.
They're right; this is a scandal, removing a hundred years of protection that Canadians have fought for. There are several signal pieces of legislation in this country we can be proud of, and this is one of them. They don't believe in it. They're removing it.
People, like some of the ones who have spoken, are trying to give themselves a little bit of leeway in their own ridings in the north by trying to say that they did what they could, and that's not what the statute did, and we brought the guy in to tell us that it wasn't the case.
It is the case, Mr. Osbaldeston, because only a very naïve person would believe that with the type of opening at the breaches and the enabling provisions here for coming up with rules and regulations that will allow the creation of categories--that is not a tiered approval process. That's the ability to gut the essential elements of this statute. That's what this is about, and that's why we're opposed to it, and that's why you should have been more forthcoming in your assessment before this committee. I don't agree with the fact that an officer of the civil service—un grand comis de l'État, as we would say in French—should be used to come in here and spin a purely partisan political line. I don't agree with that at all.
I would now like to ask Mr. Edwards if, in his opinion, the wording of the amendments to the enabling provisions for the making of regulations potentially opens the door to the all-out destruction of the protection afforded Canada's navigable waters?