Finance committee  Yes, the whole schedule of those 14 classes were all subject to a sunset clause at the end of next month.

Finance committee  The exclusions are tied to projects that are funded under 14 or 15 specific funding programs. You're right, many of those will expire at the end of this year, but there are some, notably the Building Canada plan, that don't expire. Those will continue. So there very well may be p

Finance committee  No, those were amendments to a separate piece of legislation.

Finance committee  Those are the projects that are set out in the schedule to the bill. There's a variety of projects--14 classes of them. To summarize, they deal with modification or construction of various types of buildings in certain circumstances. They deal with construction of public transit

Transport committee  On your first question about the named works, my understanding of the current situation of the proposal is that because the named works are in there, minor versions of those types of works can't be excluded. So no matter how small any one of those types of works is, it will alway

Transport committee  The interpretation of what specifically would constitute a minor work is, I think, a question we would have to put to our Transport Canada colleagues in terms of any specific waterway.

Transport committee  If your question refers to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, there aren't any fines or enforcement provisions in that piece of legislation. What that legislation does is impose obligations on federal bodies to conduct an environmental assessment of the project they're co

Transport committee  The funding trigger--in other words, a decision that needs a funding that triggers an EA--is something that's in the legislation. In terms of considering whether to suggest changes in that area, it would involve a legislative change. There are various mechanisms within our curre

Transport committee  I think you're referring to gutting it. I would say it's not gutting it. I would say it would result in fewer environmental assessments, but the projects for which environmental assessments would not be required are those that are small, not likely to involve significant adverse

Transport committee  The proposed amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act would mean that for certain minor projects that don't need an approval, you'd remove one of the triggers. So if there's a case of a project for which, before, the only trigger for a federal environmental assessment wa

Transport committee  Yes. Oui.

Transport committee  The funding is, as I mentioned, one of the triggers for an environmental assessment. So in general, yes, you're correct. Now, within our legislation, there are mechanisms for excluding assessments of small projects. We have a regulation, called the Exclusion List Regulations, 200

Transport committee  For a specific project, if you amend the NWPA and the minor works are removed from the need for a permit under the NWPA, that removes one of the triggers for an environmental assessment. But on that same project, if there is federal funding or a decision by another body, the envi

Transport committee  As I indicated before—and I hope this doesn't sound too much like sitting on the fence—I don't think we have strong views on one approach versus the other. Certainly there are some immediate benefits in terms of streamlining that could be achieved. In terms of looking at an ove

Transport committee  That's right. That I can be clear on. We think it's a good idea, and we don't see any problems with that.