Thank you very much.
I want to thank Mr. Davies for the amendment he's brought forward. I wanted to start by saying I think we all agree with the spirit of what he's trying to accomplish, which is to make it easier and more expedited to get these applications through. I want to remind everybody that there used to be 26 criteria that basically froze the development of these safe sites, so there's already a significant loosening of the strictures that were there and that what is in the act is from the Supreme Court. That was a Supreme Court decision. I just wanted to start with that.
I think the suggestion to move from “evidence” to “information” is a really good idea. There are significantly different criteria and interpretation around that, so I think we would support that. I think removing the “if any” clauses for the (a), (b), and (c) criteria actually reduces the minister's flexibility and discretion, so I'm a little bit uncomfortable to see the “if any” removed for (a), (b), and (c).
Unfortunately, I've been stuck on the scrutiny committee for regulations, so I'm starting to understand acts and regs and how departments interpret things. I think overall, what we're trying to do here is dip into how an application process should be constructed and prescribe an application process, so I want to ask the department if they could walk the committee through the impact of this amendment and tell us what impact it would have on the proposed application process. Could you talk about the application process to us a bit and give us any concerns you might have about moving away from the Supreme Court's recommendations?