Natural Resources committee  Part of the rationale behind the model we proposed was that it is doable. Statistics Canada has the mandate to collect the information. It has relationships with the provinces. I will let Mr. Israël comment on what we can do to get more timely data, immediately.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  I'll let Mr. Israël comment on that.

Natural Resources committee  To pick up on what Mr. Fogwill said, that funding is really critical. You might need to mandate an extended funding period, up to 10 years, at the beginning of the organization, to ensure that stability and ensure it gets created. There are a number of models that would work. On

Natural Resources committee  I do. I feel that whatever organization gets created needs to have a really strong public interest mandate. If it were private, particularly if there were a for-profit model, I would worry that the public interest mandate would be compromised. The committee might look at the ex

Natural Resources committee  Well, our recommendations were largely designed around the idea of trying to minimize additional resources that are needed: rather than creating an entirely new institution, use the capacities that already exist. I will say, though, that we know there are other models out there,

Natural Resources committee  I'll now briefly go through some of our recommendations. In our role as advocates for evidence-based policy, we have recently undertaken a series of expert interviews and developed recommendations for modernizing the National Energy Board. The state of energy data was raised re

Natural Resources committee  Hello, and thank you for the allowing us the opportunity to comment on the state of energy data in Canada and to offer our recommendations. My name is Nichole Dusyk. I'm a postdoctoral fellow with the Pembina Institute, and my colleague Benjamin Israël joins us from Calgary. He'

Environment committee  Basically there are two functions we look at when we're looking at energy information, and this is important because good decision-making has to be based on good data and based on high-quality data that is bias-free. What we have suggested is expanding the role of Stats Canada in

Environment committee  Yes. In our written brief, we did make a recommendation along those lines. The factors that we thought would be important to consider would be climate impacts, indigenous rights, and impacts on indigenous peoples, as well as public input. We would like to see that included in a p

Environment committee  Are you asking a particular participant?

Environment committee  Okay. I am going to quote John Sinclair, who has a submission on impact assessment, because he has a definition in his submission. Meaningful public participation establishes the needs, values, and concerns of the public, provides a genuine opportunity to influence decisions,

Environment committee  I won't comment directly on that, but I will say that there is definitely a need for flexibility and for understanding that public participation will look different for different projects. In that sense, I don't necessarily see a harm in including a definition of meaningful publi

Environment committee  That's exactly it. We have had rules around public participation for a long time, but I think what we really need to think about is how we can grow institutional culture that not only allows for public participation but actually values it and understands the role that it can play

Environment committee  Yes, exactly, in terms of potentially creating classes, groups of citizens together.