Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing.
Mayor Francis, I will come to you very shortly on the DRIC, but first let me welcome Mr. Marit to the table.
Mr. Marit, you were last in front of this committee in April of 2008 as we were looking at the Navigable Waters Protection Act at length for several weeks back then. In anticipation of Build Canada, we were looking at how we might amend the navigable waters act for greater efficiency while those projects were being carried out. At the time, many of the witnesses recommended a complete rewrite, and I think that now that Build Canada is quite far down the road, we're now looking at that.
I want very quickly to put a question on the intent of the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I'm going to quote a witness we had, Ron Middleton, who at the time was the director of environmental management services for the Ministry of Transportation of the Government of Alberta. In his testimony, he said that he had checked this testimony with seven provinces and two territories prior to appearing before committee. Here's what he said:
For much of the 20th century the Navigable Waters Protection Act was only applied to major waterways and major projects across this country. Both the federal and provincial governments assumed that was the intent of the act, and that's how it was applied. As a result, very few approvals were issued for about 100 years.
He's talking about navigable waters permits. First of all, is that your understanding of what the Navigable Waters Protection Act is about? Secondly, in your estimation, do the amendments before us right now in Bill C-45 return it to that intention with great clarity?