Environment committee  Thank you very much. My name is Warren Everson. I'm the senior vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. As you know, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is the organization that is the most representative of business people in Canada. Thanks to our network of more than 400 loca

Environment committee  I'm not in a position to comment on how the civil actions work within the provinces, but I am aware they do exist in a number of provinces. It begs the question of whether or not you would need a federal statute on top of that to allow additional layers of citizen involvement.

Environment committee  I think that's an extremely good point, and I can hear Johan wanting to get into this conversation. I'm not a lawyer, and I can't comment on the difference between a civil action in the federal House and the common law. There is certainly a jurisdictional issue this committee w

Environment committee  I'll speak to that, and of course that does summarize our view. One time many years ago I was in a parliamentary committee, and one of the members of Parliament spoke exactly to this issue of the unanimity of legislation. He called it—he was making an extreme point for the purpo

Environment committee  I'm not a lawyer, so I can speak with the freedom of ignorance here. I would go to court and would say that I was authorized to do this thing and that everybody understood—the people who permitted me understood—the extent of my activities and understood that there would be enviro

Environment committee  I think the bill is established specifically to permit legal proceedings above the regulatory processes that are in place today. As such, of course, we would expect to see a lot of actions. It's an interesting question as to whether or not they would be forward-looking--i.e., abo

Environment committee  As it's currently drafted, the bill has no protection against that, so yes, of course. You said that everyone in testimony supported the purpose of the bill. But I don't actually agree. The bill proposes to install individual action to the court over the regulatory processes tha

Environment committee  Of course I can't assess what a cost would be, but I would like to point something out. In the current CEPA, the precautionary principle cites cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness, even in a piece of legislation that was a very significant achievement for environmentalists. The

Environment committee  I'll take the plunge. It seems that in every parliamentary committee hearing somebody, somewhere, has to say “If it's not broken, don't try to fix it.” So it falls to me to say that here. It's not clear to us. Your colleague compared this legislation to the charter. What the ch

Environment committee  I'll take a shot at that. First, I do think the bill is disrespectful of the jurisdictional relationships between the governments of Canada. A statute that says any Canadian or resident of Canada can seek a review of any policy or regulation is excessive. In my view, this bill

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Warren Everson. I am from the Chamber of Commerce. With me is Jonathan Allen from RBC Capital Markets. Thank you very much for inviting us to appear. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is Canada's most representative business association. Thr

Industry committee  I am conscious of my time, so, while we have submitted our brief to the clerk, I'm going to jump through and address in particular two points. First, you've seen a trend in recent years of sponsors moving away from defined benefit plans. I worked at a company that did that and I

Industry committee  I understand the emotional difficulty of dealing with people, and the fear and frustration that someone would feel in a situation such as Joel described in the two cases. However, the significant thing for Parliament to consider, we think, is the access to capital and the capital

Industry committee  Thank you. I have just one very quick statement. The bill asks you to pick a particular party and assign them the most importance in a bankruptcy situation. We understand the reasons for that, but you don't know the other parties in the bankruptcy situation and you don't know w

Industry committee  Well, I know that no member would want to suggest that nothing is being done on this issue. Pensions are an extremely active area. Your Parliament has passed a series of reforms--