Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  We think there's an opportunity to amend it to the extent that a mechanism be put in place, which doesn't appear to be there, to deal with existing fish passage that might be in the system. I think there is an interpretation issue afoot, and we would be interested in understan

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I'll answer the second question first, which is simply that we don't see less rigour. Of course, people can interpret it as they see fit, and we don't predict that we're going to do anything less rigorous in terms of meeting our responsibilities, balancing social, environmental,

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  We do see risk and, as the previous speaker said, risk is a hard thing to assess. We assess it every day in terms of the reliability of our system, and across some of our major utilities in the country there's a tremendous amount of infrastructure that has been in place for a lon

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  The first question you ask is what type of membership makeup we have. Obviously several of our members are crown corporations—BC Hydro, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, OPG, and parts of Newfoundland—but there are also a number of us that are privately held. Nova Scotia Pow

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Thank you. Since the inception of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the world, the economy, society, and environmental legislation and policy have changed considerably. Provincial governments have refined their laws and regulations not only to address emerging issues bu

Environment committee  We're supportive of that. And we're also supportive of the role the major project management office has played in trying to bring together, along with the CEAA, some of the considerations.

Environment committee  Today the triggers are broad and down to very small project size, where there are many screenings. If you were to talk to most agencies that have to execute those screenings, they would echo the comments you made earlier, that indeed they've put a lot of resources into some of th

Environment committee  Almost everything we do now has some element of public consultation, from rate applications to environmental assessment, to integrative resource planning, to simple day-to-day consultation with constituencies on a more regular basis in between regulatory processes to make sure we

Environment committee  There's no question that with the growth in the number of projects, at least in the region I live in, which is Atlantic Canada, it certainly has taxed all of the agencies, not just the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, but the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, other dep

Environment committee  I'd like to see them in, in the proper way, and a consideration of benefits, not just impacts.

Environment committee  While it's very early in the game, we have a number of projects that are occurring across the country. One example is the maritime link project associated with the Lower Churchill, which is starting to benefit from the process, we hope. It's really too early to tell in that regar

Environment committee  I think obviously those need to be considered at the right stage, so it depends on the level of assessment you're talking about. If we are talking about a strategic assessment where you're starting to broaden your examination of an issue for an area or you're looking at a policy

Environment committee  The short answer is yes.

Environment committee  We've provided some indications on our thinking in that direction. We believe the act needs to be revised, in conjunction with some of the other pieces of legislation, and set up in such a way that each process takes care of the issues and responsibilities under that act. We're

Environment committee  Yes, we're very pleased to see that as a very good start towards identifying some of the root issues and making some step changes. There are more changes to be made, but we are encouraged by those changes.