Finance committee  The Minister of the Environment would also be the minister responsible for the Canada water agency. Right now, as I said before, there are 3,000 or more employees across the federal government in the water field. About a thousand of those are in Environment Canada, and they're al

Finance committee  Thank you. I am here on behalf of the Forum for Leadership on Water, or FLOW. I will be offering a few observations regarding the provisions related to the establishment of the Canada water agency. FLOW has been working for over 15 years to help secure the health of Canada's fr

Environment committee  —a continental and perhaps even a global industry, and you can't move ahead in Canada faster than that. I don't entirely buy that, but we probably can, because some of the European countries do move ahead very quickly. What will happen typically—

Environment committee  Typically, what happens is that the Europeans move first in this area, the Americans follow, and then the Canadians follow. I suppose we'll always do that, because there is no substantial chemical industry in Canada, so we're kind of tied to the Americans. Maybe Mathieu wants to

Environment committee  I served for several years on the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, and I'm very much impressed by their model and by their work. One of the things I really like about their model is that it's self-financing. For most of these things that are being suggested, there's a nice

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I agree with you in principle. There's something called the Collaborative for Health and Environment. It's an international group of the best experts in the world, and they give seminars about twice a month. In fact, right at this moment, there's one

Environment committee  Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't repeat what I said last time. I will just briefly remind you of what is in the seven-page FLOW submission. The FLOW submission looks back half a century and forward a couple of decades. If you look back half a century, it concludes that w

Environment committee  I can come back any time.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank the committee for undertaking this study and also for the opportunity to meet with you today. I'm just going to start with a few words about a seven-page submission that you received from the Forum for Leadership on Water—or FLOW—a lit