Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's great to be here with regard to my private member's bill. I'd like to thank the committee for dealing with it so quickly after it passed second reading in the House on October 3. I appreciate that. As you all know, it did pass with unanimous consent that day. While I won't characterize it as a grandma and apple pie bill, I think it's seen somewhat that way. It seems to be a non-partisan bill, and that was my intent in drafting it.
This bill, as you all know, amends the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act. It strengthens prohibitions against bulk removals of water that currently are in place. The change ensures that all waters under federal jurisdiction are protected from bulk water removals. These amendments are meant to complement provincial protections that are already in place to protect waters under their jurisdiction. The bill also strengthens the penalty and enforcement provisions and moves some definitions and exemptions found in the regulations into the body of the act. It makes the provisions that much stronger, I think, and parliamentary oversight of the act will be a little easier to conduct. There are some minor exceptions, such as for firefighting, and humanitarian purposes.
Bill C-383 is very similar to legislation which the government introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-26. There was one criticism of that bill at the time by the Munk School of Global Affairs, and this bill has that amendment in it. The primary difference between Bill C-26 and Bill C-383 is an amendment to the International River Improvements Act that will prohibit a licence being issued for a project that links non-boundary waters to an international river where the purpose or effect is to increase the annual flow of the international water borders. This is intended to prevent the use of an international river as a conveyance to transfer water across the border.
Having spelled out those two issues, Mr. Chair, I understand some amendments are coming forward which, for technical reasons, aren't ready to be presented to the committee today, but I am aware of the ones being proposed. In my view they're housekeeping matters, and I have absolutely no problem with them.
With that, I'm certainly willing to take questions.