Thank you.
Just at the outset, I would like to say that I'm not going to dwell on the particular issue, the particular employee that Mr. Regan spoke to, but I do want to raise with the minister—he doesn't have to worry about responding, but he could—the concern about ministerial responsibility, and perhaps a word for the wise, given a recent court decision in Alberta about ministerial accountability for the conduct of senior staff.
In that case, the court ruled that the energy regulator had erred in law because senior officials had suggested behind the scenes that witnesses on energy projects shouldn't be heard if they were opposed to such energy projects. It goes to the conduct of officials, so it would be our understanding.... It's a big theme over the last year on what's going on in the House about ministerial accountability for what goes on in staff, so probably all ministers should be taking heed of that recent court decision.
My first question, Mr. Minister, goes to vote 1b and more dollars—$750,000 essentially—being spent to “streamline...import regulations border processes for...trade”. I'm raising a concern on that because it is actually a violation of both NAFTA and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation for any of the parties to that agreement, which of course includes Canada, to downgrade environmental measures for any kind of economic benefit.
I had the privilege at working at the NAFTA environment commission. At that time, there was a big issue of fuel cocktailing, and there was an issue of a lot of illegal trade in endangered species and so forth, so we were trying to step up inspections at the border. Since then, there's a big push to fast-track movement at the border. I wonder if you could explain what you mean by “streamline”. Does that mean to deregulate and downgrade at the border any inspections for environmental reasons?