Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women, but when he says to us that the discussion document released in late June “summarized what we had heard”, I think there is something wrong with the Liberals' hearing. The expert panel said loud and clear said the National Energy Board should have nothing to do with environmental assessments. So too did the expert panel on the National Energy Board.
The environmental assessment expert panel, chaired by our former commissioner for environment and sustainable development, was very clear that sustainability should be central, and was very clear we need to go beyond a project list that limits when environmental reviews take place to look at federal jurisdiction overall. None of these recommendations, broadly supported by tens of thousands of Canadians, made it into the discussion document.
Please, scrap the discussion document, and go back to the expert panel.