Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Okanagan—Shuswap for his question and for the respectful way in which it was posed. I will return with equally good spirits.
My concern is exactly what he put his finger on. There are ways to make the process work for everyone more expeditiously. I mentioned in my speech that, under the existing law, timelines can be placed by a minister on a panel review. It does not require repealing the act to do that.
The industry was pleased with the progress being made under the environmental assessment to have timely reviews. There are ways to ensure federal-provincial co-operation, but this is going too far. By completely repealing the act, we are not amending the existing act or finding compromises within the existing act, we are destroying the existing act and replacing it with something.
I have read this bill over and over again, and there are 67 pages of the new Canadian environmental assessment act, 2012 buried in the budget bill. As an environmental lawyer, I am warning the House now that this will cause more confusion, industries will not be more satisfied and environmental reviews will not only not go faster but they will not happen at all, and they will not examine all the aspects of environmental, social, economic and other unforeseen impacts.