Merci, monsieur Laframboise.
That's a fair comment. I'm not sure we're suggesting at all that we not be subject to environmental responsibility; we're saying the process should be simplified. If you change the definition, with some of the recommendations we're making, that will simplify it and shorten up the timeframe. You will still have responsibility on the environmental side to meet the requirements.
I think one of the challenges we have is that many times we really don't know what the rules and regulations are, and there seem to be differing interpretations across the country. I've read some of the background. When we went through with DFO the last three years.... We now have a memorandum of understanding. The chairman was in Brandon in February, and we finally reached an agreement on how to make that more workable and more effective.
In Quebec there has been some discussion—I think it went to the Quebec Superior Court, and I apologize that I don't have that information directly in front of me—about the definition of navigable waters and the challenges they have, in the same way we're talking about today.
While I'm sensitive to what you're saying, as a municipality we're not saying we don't have that responsibility, because we clearly do. We need to have some clarity of the definition so we know what the rules are. If we can avoid some of the long and complicated assessment procedures...and to me there's no reason. Even for a good environmental assessment, it doesn't take a year to do an environmental assessment.
We also get involved with DFO, so there are provincial regulations on the environment, federal regulations on the environment, provincial regulations on engineering standards, and federal standards. There's a whole mix of regulations we need to be responsible to in making certain we do this correctly.
I absolutely agree with you that we need to be environmentally responsible, and we're endeavouring to do that. We're just saying to clarify the definitions.
We don't have the Environment folks here today. Maybe we need to talk to those folks about that to get some clarity on what their requirements are. We have had discussions. I think it will simplify it, shorten up the timeframe, and reduce the cost. At the end of the day, you and I get to pay.
I don't know if that answers your question.