Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting 16.
The order of the day is to study the current status of navigation protection of the Canadian waterways, including their governance and use, and the operation of the current Navigable Waters Protection Act.
Just before we get into that, as advice or a heads-up for our committee, Mr. Lewis will be here on Thursday with regard to railway safety, and I'm going to ask that we set aside about 10 minutes at the end of that meeting to have a little further discussion as to where we want to go after we get his report, in regard to meetings. You'll also have received your summary of our rail safety discussions from the committee. They should have been electronically transferred to you this morning.
I had the opportunity to meet with some of the directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities this weekend in Brandon, and they're thrilled that we're doing this study. In fact, I think the participation that we're going to see from that level will be very positive. “Long overdue” was the comment I heard many times. So I share that. I'm talking about the navigable waters.
With that, joining us today, from Infrastructure Canada, we have Shirley Anne Scharf, director general, and Keith Grady, senior adviser on environment review; from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, John Smith and Steve Burgess; and from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Ginny Flood and Gilles Belzile.
Welcome. I presume we have some sort of presentation. I don't know if you've had any agreement as to who would like to start, but please begin.
Ms. Scharf.