Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I absolutely support what Dave has said. It's not exclusively rural Canada either. I've had some conversations with our urban counterparts in terms of the associations that also are part of FCM, and they really don't have a lot of examples to come back t

Transport committee  I appreciate that the area you come from is one of the most environmentally sensitive and talked-about areas right now, because of the tar sands and what's going on there. There have actually been some very good things done in terms of reclamation in that area, which I don't thin

Transport committee  Yes, exactly.

Transport committee  I think that's fair. One of the things we've noted—and our provincial governments have noted this as well—is that we have a number of structures, culverts or otherwise, that would be considered unlawful under the current definition. That's why the grandfathering perhaps comes in

Transport committee  Yes, they do.

Transport committee  In fairness as well, we've had quite a little discussion in Alberta with regard to intensive livestock operations and feeding and bedding sites and not having them in proximity to even intermittent streams that others might be using for domestic water purposes. So there are fairl

Transport committee  The only thing I'd remind you of is that municipalities are creatures of the provinces, under the legislation and under the federal legislation as well. Under the Constitution, the provinces have been given responsibility to organize and set out legislation that governs the role

Transport committee  I believe it will, and one of the things that our chairman was asked when we had the memorandum of understanding between FCM, the municipalities, and the federal government with the DFO was to provide precisely that kind of forum so that we can have a conversation and discussion

Transport committee  If we've given the impression that we're saying just eliminate the navigable waters program and have it provincially, that's not what we're saying. We're saying some of these minor works perhaps belong a little bit more effectively in the responsibility of the provinces and/or mu

Transport committee  Just to clarify on the irrigation systems, the canals themselves aren't huge in terms of width. You might have one that's 50 feet across, maximum, and that will be a major canal, a feeder canal; and then you get into minor canals that feed off that. In terms of the reservoirs,

Transport committee  This came from Saskatchewan, so I don't know, Dave, if you want to comment. That was added as part of our discussions.

Transport committee  We support what Saskatchewan was getting at there, because if you have that one-metre draft, which I agree is fairly deep...I mean, you can have a cabin cruiser that wouldn't draw a metre. You've got more of them in Ontario than we have in Alberta. We truck them out to B.C., to t

Transport committee  Yes, both federally and provincially.

Transport committee  Even municipally, yes.

Transport committee  Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could respond. Mr. Fast, in response to that as well, I want to emphasize this again--I said it earlier. It would be a mistake to think that municipalities are trying to encourage a change for any other reason than what David has really done quite a good