ENVI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DURABLE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Good afternoon.

[Translation]

Yes, we have the quorum. There are ten of us.

[English]

Perhaps we should start where we stopped yesterday, namely, with the brief conversation or exchange on an amendment by the member for Fundy—Royal, which was not yet moved. He had indicated his wish to shorten it.

Would you like to take us by the hand, Mr. Herron?

(On clause 16—Composition)

Mr. John Herron (Fundy—Royal, PC/DR): Sure, Mr. Chair. I don't have it right in front of me just yet—

The Chair: All right, get organized. It's page 65.

Mr. John Herron: The government has made a far more prudent aspect of the amendment. Essentially, it tries to demonstrate or be mindful and helpful of the independence of COSEWIC.

It says “Each member of COSEWIC shall exercise his or her discretion in an independent manner”. I would like to end the amendment there; put in a period and strike out the remaining words in the amendment.

The Chair: Would you mind repeating the last sentence, because we have problems with the equipment?

Mr. John Herron: The amendment on page 65 would read, “Each member of COSEWIC shall exercise his or her discretion in an independent manner.” The remaining words I would not move. It's a modification of the amendment. I'm just shortening it.

The Chair: And you move accordingly.

Mr. John Herron: I so move.

The Chair: All right. Are there any comments on this?

Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance): Not that I'm against the amendment as such, Mr. Chairman, but will this not appear in the regulatory body as regulations that follow this act? Does that belong in the act itself?

The Chair: It can appear here. It can appear in the regulations. It can appear nowhere.

Madam Redman, have you any comments?

Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Perhaps Ms. Wherry would like to speak to it, but my understanding is that there's a manual that accompanies this. I'd ask her to comment.

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Ms. Ruth Wherry (Director, Species at Risk, Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada): Yes, there will be a procedures and operations manual for COSEWIC members, which they're working on together, and something like this would be in it.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): Following up on that logic then, why would the government be opposed to putting it in the act?

Mrs. Karen Redman: We're not opposed to it. There is the amendment.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Then let's vote.

Mrs. Karen Redman: It was Mr. Bailey's question.

The Chair: Are we ready for the question?

(Amendment agreed to—[See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 16 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 17—Regulations and guidelines)

The Chair: Thank you. We come now to page 66, and the member for York North.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. This asks that COSEWIC and the public be consulted when the regulations or guidelines respecting the appointment of members to COSEWIC are being undertaken.

The Chair: Are there any comments?

Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair. These appointments are already in the Gazette, and I'm wondering what, beyond gazetting, the public would see. What additional steps, besides what is being carried out, would they see?

I also question, looking at that clause on page 13, if the intent is to delete everything after “members”, or would we include “and the carrying out of COSEWIC's functions”, which is how it is written in the actual bill?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, it would also delete “the carrying out of COSEWIC's functions”. My concern is that COSEWIC has to play the primary role in determining what its functions are, and certainly a number of its functions are laid out in the act itself. I'm concerned about the restrictiveness on COSEWIC. I also think it's important, when there is an establishment of regulations and guidelines regarding appointments, that COSEWIC at least be involved. I'd be willing to remove “public” from this amendment so it would be COSEWIC that would be consulted.

The Chair: Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would ask Ms. Wherry or Mr. Near if they would like to speak to both of these issues.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: Well, with respect to—

The Chair: Could you address the amendment as now reduced? Thank you.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: The words “and the carrying out of COSEWIC's functions” would be consistent with paragraph 15(1)(e), where it already provides “and perform any other functions that the Minister, after consultation with that Council, may assign”. So you're just being consistent by carrying this over into clause 17.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Would the minister be assigning these under regulation, or is this the regulation-making section of the act?

Ms. Ruth Wherry: This is just an enabling provision if they want to make any regulations or guidelines. It doesn't necessarily mean any would be made.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: What is the difference, Mr. Chair, between the way the language appears in paragraph 15(1)(e): “provide advice to the Minister...and perform any other functions that the Minister, after consultation with that Council, may assign” and establishing regulations on the carrying out of COSEWIC's functions?

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Mr. David Near (Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Department of Justice): With respect to paragraph 15(1)(e), it's a general assignment to COSEWIC explaining what their functions would be in consultation with the council, with respect to the minister.

Clause 17 is merely a power to generate regulations, part of which could be to implement something the minister had assigned to COSEWIC under paragraph 15(1)(e). It's not necessarily so, but there may be an instance where some regulatory power would be required.

The Chair: You raise a good question.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair.

The Chair: One more question.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I would be willing to change my amendment so the only thing that would be added in the clause is consultation with COSEWIC.

The new clause would then read, if the amendment carried:

The Minister may, after consultation with the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council and COSEWIC, establish regulations

The Chair: So have you taken note of all this change?

Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: For further clarification, would we keep “and the carrying out of COSEWIC's functions” as it reads in the bill?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Yes.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm taking “public” out, and not deleting the last bit after “members”.

I'm sorry. I'll read it right from the beginning to the end. The new clause 17 would read:

The Minister may, after consultation with the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council and COSEWIC, establish regulations or guidelines respecting the appointment of members and the carrying out of COSEWIC's functions.

The Chair: Is that clear enough? Thank you.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 17 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 18—Subcommittees)

The Chair: Mr. Mills.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance): I'll withdraw page 67 and go on to the next one. It incorporates that.

The Chair: All right, we're on page 68.

Mr. Bob Mills: Basically, I think eliminating that last part would just make it more specific. I don't really believe that last section is necessary. So it would read:

COSEWIC must establish subcommittees of specialists to assist in the preparation and review of status reports on wildlife species considered to be at risk.

That argument goes along with what we discussed earlier.

The Chair: All right, this is a short form for subclause 18(1).

Madam Redman, what are your comments?

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have a problem with removing this section. When you reference the bill, it would actually remove the reference to establishing the aboriginal traditional knowledge subcommittee under COSEWIC. Much work has already been done with the national aboriginal organizations toward the establishment of the terms of reference for this subcommittee.

If COSEWIC is to fulfill its requirements under the bill to consider aboriginal traditional knowledge in its deliberations, clearly a framework is required for both the collection and the analysis of this knowledge. The aboriginal traditional knowledge subcommittee would be a very important element in this process.

The Chair: Are you ready for the question?

(Amendment negatived)

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The Chair: Madam Redman, are you prepared to move the amendment on page 69, by any chance?

Mrs. Karen Redman: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am prepared to move it; I'm just organizing my notes.

This amendment is that Bill C-5 be amended in clause 18 by adding, after line 25 on page 13, the following, with the marginal note “Aboriginal traditional knowledge committee”:

(3) Subject to subsection (2), the chairperson and members of the aboriginal traditional knowledge committee shall be appointed by the Minister after consultation with aboriginal organizations.

The Chair: You are referring to a subcommittee rather than to a committee in your text, after the word “knowledge”.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Yes:

(3) Subject to subsection (2), the chairperson and members of the aboriginal traditional knowledge subcommittee shall be appointed by the Minister after consultation with aboriginal organizations.

The Chair: Fine.

Mrs. Karen Redman: If I may continue, subsection 18(1) of Bill C-5 requires the creation of a subcommittee specializing in aboriginal traditional knowledge. The chair of this committee will be a member of COSEWIC. Typically, COSEWIC chooses the members of subcommittees, and those members select their chair. These chairs are often appointed to COSEWIC by the minister.

The purpose of this amendment is to add a new subsection that will authorize the minister, in consultation—as it says—with the aboriginal organizations, to appoint the chair and members of the aboriginal traditional knowledge committee.

The Chair: It seems to be pretty straightforward and self-explanatory.

Are there any questions? , Are you ready for the question?

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 18 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 19 agreed to)

(On clause 20—Staff and facilities)

The Chair: We are now on clause 20 and the amendment on page 71.

Mr. Mills.

Mr. Bob Mills: My only change here would be to take out “may” and put “shall”, which provides funding and support for COSEWIC on a permanent basis. “May” simply leaves that open. It could be subject to cabinet whims and so on. I think that having “shall” there would assure their financial security and existence.

The Chair: Thank you.

Other comments?

Madam Redman, Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, the amendments we're dealing with, pages 71 and 72, deal with somewhat the same subject matter.

The Chair: Yes.

Mrs. Karen Redman: I would make the observation that this is subject to annual budgetary choice and the availability of finances, so we would have some concern with changing the “may” to “shall”.

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Yes, Mr. Chair.

I apologize. I didn't hear what Madam Redman had to say. I just wanted to say that Mr. Herron has an amendment on the following page.

The Chair: We know that.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm just wondering what the effect is.

The Chair: It depends on how this fares. This comes first in the order of priority. If this fails, then we will deal with Mr. Herron's.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: But if it passes, then we can't deal with Mr. Herron's.

The Chair: That is quite correct. We can only deal with anything following the first line. We could consider Mr. Herron's but would have to delete the first line, because they both start on the same line.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Reed.

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Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): It seems to me that yesterday we had a debate on the subject of public servants being paid extra and whether or not it was considered double dipping. It seems that in at least one amendment, if my memory serves me correctly, we voted against doing this.

The Chair: Yes, but there are no salaries involved in clause 20, if you read it carefully.

Are you ready for the question? Those in favour of Mr. Mills' motion on page 71, please so indicate.

(Amendment agreed to—[See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: Mr. Herron, your amendment should be presented without the first line because of the rule saying you cannot have two amendments on the same line. But the amendment just passed takes care of your first line, so would you please adjust your amendment accordingly?

Mr. John Herron: Karen's finished with “The minister shall provide COSEWIC with....” All right, mine would start, I guess, at line 35.

The intent of the amendment itself is to compel the minister to provide COSEWIC with all the tools they need to carry out their functions. This includes all necessary support staff, utilities, and supplies. This also makes it clear that personnel are to take directions solely from COSEWIC itself. This amendment was advocated by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund during the committee period.

The Chair: Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have a great deal of difficulty with this amendment. It leaves the impression that the federal government is solely responsible for COSEWIC and requires the minister to provide—as is listed—“professional, technical, secretarial, [and] clerical” support. And it requires the secretariat to take direction from COSEWIC.

We do not want to restrict the availability of other people, including the provinces and territorial governments, to provide support for COSEWIC, which is not a federal body. And this amendment unnecessarily restricts federal support: there's no flexibility in where the resources come from. In that way it would limit the amount of resources that were available.

The secretariat consists of federal employees who report to the Government of Canada and cannot solely be under the direction of COSEWIC, as this amendment would have them be.

There are duties and obligations for an employee of the government. This proposal might come into conflict with those, so there may be employment issues. As such, and given that it's such an open-ended requirement, the government would not support this.

The Chair: Any other comments? Are you ready for the question?

(Amendment negatived—[See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 20 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 21—Status reports)

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

What this amendment does essentially is set out the content of the status report, some of the things it must include.

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So, for example, beginning with proposed paragraph (a), it includes “an assessment of the past and present distribution and population of the wildlife species concern”, then continues:

(b) identify the habitat that is important or critical to the species; and

(c) identify existing and potential threats to the species and its critical habitat and evaluate how serious they are.

The Chair: So your amendment sets out in detail specific duties. Is that in essence...?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: The content of the status report, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: And?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: And.... Well, Mr. Chair, it sets out the content of the report. These are three items that must be included.

The Chair: Thank you.

Do we have any comment?

Mr. Near.

Mr. David Near: Mr. Chair, as I read the effect of this proposed amendment, it would in fact dictate the requirements of the regulation, because it actually indicates this is a power to make a regulation and then indicates in this power what actually has to go into the report that is the subject matter of the regulation.

The Chair: And so...?

Mr. David Near: You don't generally give the minister the power to make a regulation and then dictate what's in the contents of the regulation.

The Chair: What says that the content of the report must be defined in the regulations only?

Mr. David Near: Well, but it also says the report must—as I read it, unless I'm incorrect—include (a), (b) and (c).

The Chair: Correct.

Mr. David Near: So what you're doing, in the power to make the regulation, is dictating what's in the regulation itself. In effect—

The Chair: For grace of precision.

Mr. David Near: —there's no discretion for the minister to make the regulation.

The Chair: Well, it may be that the word “include” should be the one that overarches, so to say, proposed paragraphs (a), (b), and (c), so that the minister's powers are not precluded from adding other items.

Mr. Knutson, please.

Mr. Gar Knutson: My reading is that this proposed subclause just sets out a minimum standard.

The Chair: Yes, it does.

Mr. Gar Knutson: It's not narrow. It sets a baseline that has to be met—a threshold or a test. Thresholds are defined in legislation all the time.

Mr. David Near: If I may, I'd say in some ways it's mixing apples and oranges. In the first part of the amendment there's a power to make the regulation. Then it speaks about a report, and one assumes the report is the subject matter of the regulation. In the report, the requirements that have to be included are outlined in proposed paragraphs (a), (b), and (c). In some ways, if the intention is to indicate what needs to be, or must be, in the regulation, you really shouldn't speak about reports; you should speak about what needs to be in the regulation.

The Chair: But subclause 21(1) deals with this status report.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Well, then, we can change it. Mr. Chair, if I could, I would ask Madam Douglas to suggest a friendly amendment to deal with this.

Ms. Kirsten Douglas (Committee Researcher): I'm wondering if the wording would be clearer, then, if it said “but the regulations must require that status reports” include the items in proposed paragraphs (a), (b) and (c).

Mr. David Near: It would be clearer. As to whether it's what the committee wishes to do, that's the subject of the committee's decision.

I would also point out that the amendment specifies “on the recommendation of COSEWIC”, which is a change from “may, after consultation with COSEWIC”. It's unusual for a minister or the Governor in Council to have their discretion to make a regulation fettered by the activities of an outside body.

The Chair: Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make comments. I wonder if Monsieur Nadeau would like to comment as well on this amendment.

Mr. Simon Nadeau (Head, Endangered Species Recovery, Environment Canada): The first thing is COSEWIC already does what's covered by proposed paragraph (a), and COSEWIC does identify habitat that is important to the species. It doesn't identify critical habitat.

The logic of the bill as it concerns critical habitat is that the identification of critical habitat is directly related to the definition of the recovery goal, which is going to be defined through the recovery process. That's because the recovery goal in terms of population number and distribution has a direct impact on what will be defined as critical habitat. So it would be very difficult—and I would argue impossible—for COSEWIC to identify critical habitat before the recovery goal is actually defined.

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Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chair, if I could add something as well, it narrows the requirement by including the word “critical” before habitat and also raises the bar for public and private persons who might want to initiate the process. Some of the issues addressed in this new amendment are actually addressed further downstream in the process, and it's our contention that this would bring about a major delay in listing.

The Chair: We'll have another comment from Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, I just want some clarification here. Mr. Nadeau had said that COSEWIC already does what's contained in proposed paragraph 21(2)(a). As you've heard me say time and time again, I'm concerned about what COSEWIC has been doing before this bill and I'm concerned that COSEWIC does it after this bill. I see no harm in including proposed paragraph (a) if that's the case.

The point Mr. Knutson had brought out was that this is not excluding regulations to include only these things. This is setting a minimum standard, and I'm sorry, but with respect to the discussion on critical habitat, proposed paragraph 21(1)(b) says “identify the habitat that is important or critical to the species”. It's not restricting it to “critical” in proposed paragraph 21(1)(b), and proposed paragraph 21(1)(c) talks about “existing and potential threats to the species and its critical habitat and evaluate how serious they are”. Now, I'm sorry, but I didn't follow the argument you made with regard to the objectives of the recovery strategy.

Mr. Simon Nadeau: Maybe I can be clearer. The definition of “critical habitat” talks about habitat that is necessary for the recovery of a species, so “recovery goal” is defined through the recovery process and the recovery strategy. Defining the recovery goal will have direct implications in terms of defining critical habitat because that critical habitat has to help us achieve the recovery goal. It has to be necessary to achieve the recovery goal. If there's no goal with respect to population numbers and geographic distribution of these individuals or these populations, it will be very difficult to identify the areas that are necessary to achieve these goals.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: That's what I thought you said, but doesn't COSEWIC do work on looking at the critical habitat of species?

Mr. Simon Nadeau: No, they look at habitat.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: They just look at habitat. Then why don't we remove “critical”?

The Chair: Are you ready for the question, Mr. Knutson?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: No, not yet.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Mr. Nadeau, did I understand you to say they don't look at critical habitat?

Mr. Simon Nadeau: It's not in their terms of reference to look at critical habitat. They look at all types of habitat that are used by the species. They look at habitat trends, etc., but they don't use the expression “critical habitat”.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Well, maybe they would if we put it in legislation.

My guy behind you is shaking his head. I don't know if he's doing that to be helpful, but....

Mr. Simon Nadeau: In fact, I said that it doesn't really matter whether you put it in the legislation or not because it's linked with the recovery—no, I mean that at that stage with COSEWIC.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Thank you.

Mr. Simon Nadeau: The recovery goal will not have been developed, and they're not independent. They're directly related.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes. In fact, they are directly related. If we're going to have a recovery goal, we have to identify critical habitat.

Mr. Simon Nadeau: Yes.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes. I'm sure I could go back in the record of proceedings from 90 seconds ago and hear you say that COSEWIC doesn't look at critical habitat.

Mr. Simon Nadeau: It doesn't.

Mr. Gar Knutson: It doesn't. You just said they have to look at critical habitat at some point in the process in order to—

Mr. Simon Nadeau: No. It's not COSEWIC that does it, it's the recovery team. They're the people who will be in charge of developing the recovery strategy, and that's not COSEWIC.

The Chair: Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey: This is just for clarification. We see in this section that you're talking about reports the committee has received, ones they've done or ones that have been prepared for them, right? Now, if this is in place and somebody is assigned to make a specific report, they may not be able to live up to proposed paragraphs 21(1)(a), (b), and (c) here anyway. That's not their assignment.

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I'm concerned about that. Suppose you have somebody who is a specialist, and you want a very unique subject studied; however, you can't bring back your report until you identify all of this, yet that wasn't their assignment. Now, if you consider that as part of the report, period, then that takes on a different light. But you have two different reports being mentioned in these proposed paragraphs, and I find it difficult to make sense out of all these being included with each report that comes in.

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, I've had some consultation with Madam Douglas. You had suggested that perhaps we should just remove “critical” from this.

Ms. Kirsten Douglas: If it helps, I think what I understand the officials to say is that at this stage of the process it's habitat identification that takes place. The subset of that is the critical habitat, and the identification of that subset is part of the consultative recovery strategy process. To indicate at this stage that there should be critical habitat identified is just putting it in the wrong place.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Okay.

Ms. Kirsten Douglas: But if you identify the bigger category, the habitat, at this stage, you're fine, and that's basically what takes place. So in both paragraphs 21(1)(b) and (c) of the proposed amendment, you could remove the word “critical”.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Okay.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, just to reiterate, all we're asking for is to specify some minimum standard that has to appear in the regulations for the content of the status report. For the most part, these are things COSEWIC already does.

The Chair: I'll take the vote very soon, but Mr. Mills has an intervention.

Mr. Bob Mills: Just briefly, I would speak against this in that I believe this limits too much. I think it's better to leave COSEWIC with more flexibility, and I just feel it's restrictive in nature.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair?

The Chair: Yes, Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: We have a situation where COSEWIC existed before this legislation. Now we have legislation. This is an enabling clause to dictate what is going to be in the status reports themselves. The regulations could omit these things. What we're suggesting here is that there be less political interference in the scientific work of COSEWIC. What we're saying is that at a very minimum—this is not limiting, Mr. Mills—this is the standard we're expecting. We have two different rules here: we have a pre-SARA world and a post-SARA world. COSEWIC had a lot of freedom to do the kind of work they did before, so now we just want to ensure that there's a minimum standard of content within the status report.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Herron, you have the last word.

Mr. John Herron: I'd like to speak in favour of the amendment. We've been around this a bit before. The point is that this would enshrine into law part of the functions COSEWIC performs now and would ensure that they do it in a post-SARA environment. I don't know why we should be overly concerned about who does this and that aspect of it. We had a discussion yesterday where we said that 70% of the membership of COSEWIC consists of government officials anyway. The other 30% of those officials would likely be individuals who have more scientific knowledge from an institutional basis and who would be able to provide invaluable advice in that regard. I think Mrs. Kraft Sloan's amendment is dead on.

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan, would you like to read the amendment again for everybody's clear understanding, please?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Okay.

The Minister may, on the recommendation of COSEWIC, and after consultation with the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, make regulations establishing the content of status reports, but the reports must

Ms. Kirsten Douglas: But the regulations must require that status report.

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Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: It reads:

(a) include an assessment of the past and present distribution and population of the wildlife species concerned;

(b) identify the habitat that is important or critical to a species; and

(c) identify existing and potential threats to the species and its critical habitat and evaluate how serious they are.

The Chair: Thank you.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 21 agreed to)

The Chair: We welcome to the committee our distinguished colleague, Mr. Dominic LeBlanc.

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, Lib.): Thank you.

(On clause 22—Applications)

The Chair: We move swiftly and briskly on to clause 22 and an amendment to subclause 22(2) by Mr. Mills on page 74.

Mr. Bob Mills: It's simply a change to “shall, after consultation” from “may, after consultation”. I think that makes the regulations much clearer, and it should avoid some less than acceptable requests that might come forward. I think it will restrict that and make it a more functional and more realistic clause.

The Chair: All right, we had a good discussion before on a similar amendment. Are you ready for the question?

Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Are you looking for further comment?

The Chair: Yes, if you like. Also, we can anticipate the nature and substance....

Mrs. Karen Redman: In our opinion, changing that word actually diverts resources from the protection of species to the process of developing potentially unnecessary regulations.

The Chair: That was perfectly read. Are we ready for the question?

(Amendment negatived)

(Clauses 22 to 24 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 25—Copies to Minister and Council)

The Chair: Well, we are proceeding at breathtaking speed, and we are on clause 25.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: We have an amendment by Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chair, I move that Bill C-5, in clause 25, be amended by adding after line 41 on page 14 the following:

(3) On receiving a copy of an assessment of the status of a wildlife species from COSEWIC under subsection (1), the Minister must, within 90 days, include in the public registry a report on how the Minister intends to respond to the assessment and, to the extent possible, provide time lines for action.

The Chair: All right. You've heard this bold amendment. Are there any comments?

Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, I want to know the intent of this clause. What does this clause mean?

Mrs. Karen Redman: I'm more than happy to respond.

We want to ensure the tools provided by species at risk legislation are applied as soon as possible once COSEWIC determines the species at risk. This amendment will require the minister to respond to the assessment within 90 days; therefore it strengthens reporting requirements around the minister's response to each of COSEWIC's assessments and will provide additional public accountability on these scientific assessments.

The Chair: Are there any other questions?

Mr. Laliberte.

Mr. Rick Laliberte (Churchill River, Lib.): Is there any reference on the government side to look at timelines on the establishment of subcommittees under this process as well?

Mrs. Karen Redman: I don't believe they're referenced in this part of the bill, but I would defer to Ms. Wherry.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: I'm not exactly sure I understood your question.

The Chair: He asked whether there are any timelines in the committee for the establishment of subcommittees.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: Timelines for COSEWIC subcommittees? Not in the bill, no.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madam Kraft Sloan.

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Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, if you take a look at the process overall, COSEWIC makes an assessment, and the way the bill is currently drafted, the minister has to make a recommendation to the GIC, and then the GIC makes a decision on listing.

There is no requirement for a timeline for the minister to make a recommendation to the GIC, and there is no requirement for a timeline for the GIC to make a decision on listing. So how does this amendment affect those timelines?

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chair, what this timeline does is ensure that each and every species is dealt with in an expeditious manner within the 90 days by the minister. It doesn't speak to the issue. I don't know if Ms. Wherry wants....

The Chair: It focuses on the assessment phase of the process, no other phase.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Yes.

The Chair: Mr. Near.

Mr. David Near: This particular clause is not related directly to the listing process, as you've outlined. It would give an early indication of the minister's thinking with respect to the assessment.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: When you read this clause, if you read it quickly you could think, oh well, maybe the minister is going to respond to the assessment and present his decision within 90 days. But the other way of reading this clause is that the minister is going to tell you in 90 days how he's intending to respond, and provide timelines for actions. So the second way of thinking about it is the process for outlining the process of responding. Is it the former or the latter?

Mr. David Near: It's the latter.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: It could be both.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm sorry, I don't understand how it could be both.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: If in 90 days the minister was in a position to indicate exactly what he was going to recommend, he could do so. If he wasn't in a position to do that, for example, if he had to say, well, it's in an area of a land claims settlement—or something like that—and he needed to go out and consult, he could say it's going to take three months to do it, so he'd come back in three months. It could be either way.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, it does have to do with listing. You are saying it could be the minister responding in 90 days with his recommendation.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: It's possible he could come out in 90 days and say he's already made his decision, and this is what he's going to recommend to the GIC. That's always possible.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: If that is the case, we need to clarify this, Mr. Chair. Perhaps what we need to do is to move it to proposed subclause 27(3).

Perhaps a new amendment would, for clarity, state that the minister's recommendation must be included in the public registry within 90 days of the minister receiving the assessment of the status report from COSEWIC—subclause 25(1)—and if the minister is not able to provide a recommendation at that time, then the minister would have an additional 90 days, etc.

The Chair: Thank you, Madam Kraft Sloan.

Madam Redman, do you see merit in transferring this to clause 27?

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chair, that is not the intent of this clause, and I would ask Ms. Wherry to speak to it. This was to add public accountability and some kind of assuredness that when COSEWIC made its scientific listing, the public would have a yardstick by which they could count on having some kind of indication from the minister.

I would ask Ms. Wherry to comment.

The Chair: This amendment comes under the general heading in the act of “Reviews and Reports”. Clause 27 deals with lists of wildlife species at risk. So we would be moving it into a different category, Madam Kraft Sloan. I don't think this is feasible.

Can we deal with your amendment, because if we begin to transfer to other sections, we'll be here until the cows come home.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: But, Mr. Chair, I feel this is a very important point. First of all, there has been a great deal of concern suggested around accountability and timeline triggers.

• 1625

My concern is if this is what the government is providing as a way to address those concerns, it's not really addressing them, because it's only talking about the process for the process of the recommendation—if people can follow me on that. It is not a 90-day limit for making the recommendations.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: That's right.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Exactly. So now people will begin to think there's a timeline in place for a requirement to make a decision, and what we have in this legislation is a huge cone of silence that drops down when decisions start disappearing into the minister's office.

For example—

The Chair: Excuse me. It depends on how people read this amendment. If they read it carefully, they will not think this is more than just what it says, because it is an assessment, and so on. It will not lead anyone to think more than the words that are printed in this amendment.

Could you please come to a conclusion?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: My second conclusion, now that we've clarified exactly what this amendment is about, is that it applies a 90-day buffer into the process. Is this not just a time delay? I don't see how this gets us a better answer on a response to species.

The Chair: If that would be the case.... Or you can lose the vote against it.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you.

The Chair: Madame Scherrer.

[Translation]

Ms. Hélène Scherrer (Louis-Hébert, Lib.): I am sorry, but I am still having difficulty understanding the aim of this amendment.

We are asking for an evaluation of a situation and then, if I understand correctly, the Minister will react to this evaluation of the situation. I am having trouble understanding why it is that there is no direct link with the establishment of the list, since we are taking for granted that the Minister will not react to a situation that is considered to be alright or satisfactory. The Minister will necessarily react or will be called upon to act when there is a situation that is considered to be deplorable or for which something could be done.

In my view, this obviously limits the Minister's intervention at the very time where something that could be done would be identified. In my view, at that stage, it truly becomes direct intervention with regard to the list, because we are taking for granted that in all situations considered to be satisfactory, the Minister will not react.

[English]

The Chair: Madame Redman, would you like to reply?

Mrs. Karen Redman: I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was actually seeking clarification.

The Chair: As far as I can make out, Madame Scherrer is perfectly correct in her interpretation—

Mrs. Karen Redman: It's my experience that Madame Scherrer is usually correct.

The Chair: —but I'm not the parliamentary secretary. I just guide the traffic.

Madame Kraft Sloan, would you like to make a last—

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: No, I'm fine.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 25 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 26 agreed to)

(On clause 27—Regulations)

The Chair: We'll now go to page 77, clause 27.

Mr. Mills.

Mr. Bob Mills: I would start off by saying that we went through all of these, some 13 or 14 pages of amendments, and there seem to be a few common lines tying many of the things together that I think a lot of us could agree with. But I'm not quite sure, following the procedure that we're following, how some things could be eliminated as we go along.

My solution to this, which I will put forward and you can tell me no, is that it would seem if we could go through and capture what we're all thinking about on this clause 27 and then have someone draft those thoughts, we'd probably come up with a perfect clause.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I've done that.

An hon. member: Mr. Perfection.

Mr. Bob Mills: Well, Gar, you are fairly close on that. But do you see what I mean? If we go through this, we may well not even get to yours. Do you see what I'm saying?

• 1630

I'm asking, can we do that? Is that possible?

We could kick and kick, and because Gar is down the line—

The Chair: Madame Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I may be wrong, but I thought there was a point on committee that we talked about the overlap of amendments, and in this case, not necessarily duplication but there is a varying degree, and perhaps we would start with the ones that were of the bigger varying degree and go down to the lesser varying degree. So in my reading of this material, perhaps Mr. Herron's amendment is the bigger varying degree and that's the one we should start discussing, if other members of the committee are in agreement with that.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: My understanding is that Mr. Herron's amendment is automatic listing as opposed to a more middle position, which we could call “reverse onus”, as opposed to the government's position, which is status quo but we provide reasons for this. That's why I think it makes sense to start with Mr. Herron's amendment.

Mr. John Herron: I agree.

The Chair: Madame Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: I think there's some merit in discussing the substantive features of each of the bundles of recommendations. I'm just trying to reconcile what I heard Mr. Mills say with the suggestion that has just been made that we start with Mr. Herron's, because it may be, for the lack of a better term, the more extreme position.

I guess I have some problem with it when it's Mr. Mills who has made the suggestion, and clearly, if we proceed the way we have been going, we would entertain Mr. Mills' bundle of amendments first. I wonder if somehow we're able to reconcile dealing with the substance of the issues without precluding the fact that Mr. Mills actually—what I would suggest—have first crack at his amendments. He may be precluded from putting them forward.

Mr. Bob Mills: I'm talking about clause 27 now. I'm not talking about future ones, and so on.

With this clause, going through all these amendments, it seemed to me that there were so many ideas here, that in order to capture the best ideas, there's going to be probably a bit of two or three drawn in there. So for the sake of time, I thought it might be easier to do that, and I guess I'm the one who can offer that, seeing as I would be first, if you want. I think that will give us something better.

The key things are that we do need to set a time limit, because of inaction that has happened before, and we do need to give the minister some opportunity. There are a lot of features—and Gar, there are many goods ones in yours. But I just put that forward because this clause seemed like the first one I've come to that I have real difficulty with.

The Chair: All right. This has been very helpful.

I would propose that we do this. On subclause 27(1), for which we have several amendments, we have a brief discussion allowing each proponent of an amendment to that clause to put forward the reasons for his or her amendment, and having done that, we will assess the situation and decide in what sequence we will proceed, as to which amendment should be handled first. Is that agreeable? Thank you.

We will start in the order in which they are in the book. Mr. Mills will present and explain his amendment, followed by Monsieur Bigras, and so on. Then, hopefully, we will reorganize ourselves in 10 minutes.

Proceed.

Mr. Bob Mills: Basically, as you can see, this is to change the word “may” to “shall”. Again, it's more specific, and it focuses us on the issue. So for this first one, it would be that word change, and the same arguments I've been using would apply for this one.

• 1635

The Chair: But you are also eliminating the minister from the picture with your amendments. The minister is no longer recommending....

Mr. John Herron: Who is it, GIC?

Mr. Bob Mills: It's “shall, on the recommendation of the Minister”.

The Chair: Right. But in your amendment the minister disappears.

Mr. Bob Mills: No, it doesn't do that.

The Chair: It says “shall, by regulation” .

Mr. Bob Mills: No, it's just “the Governor in Council shall, on the recommendation of the Minister, by regulation, establish” and so on.

The Chair: That's not how the amendment I have, 77, reads. There is no minister in the picture.

Mr. Bob Mills: That's a mistake, sorry.

The Chair: All right, then please read how you intended it in the first place.

Mr. Bob Mills: “The Governor in Council shall, on the recommendation of the minister, by regulation”, and it carries on.

The Chair: Fine. That's very helpful. Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Bigras.

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I too had the same question regarding Mr. Mills' motion. As you can see in the amendment being put forward, the aspect of the recommendation by the Minister is well established, but the aspect of the change or of the listing would in that case fall to the Governor in Council.

We nevertheless believe that a time frame must clearly be established in the bill and that it should be of six months. Obviously, compared with the other amendments that have already been moved, the time frame is longer. I must say that I am at the outset open to other amendments that might reduce the time frame, but as far as the initial amendment is concerned, it is a six-month time frame that is provided for.

The Chair: Thank you.

[English]

Then we have Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

In terms of following the logic of what I've done, my key amendment is actually on page 88. The gist of what that says is if the Governor in Council, which is a fancy way of saying cabinet, hasn't done anything within 60 days after receiving the assessment of COSEWIC, the minister shall, by regulation, amend the list in accordance with the COSEWIC assessment. So the government has a certain amount of time to respond. They can say no, but if they end up doing nothing, then the COSEWIC list gets rolled over and becomes the legal list. I refer to this as the reverse onus. The government has an onus to respond, and it can't simply make a decision not to list by doing nothing.

The Chair: Thank you.

Then we move on to Mr. Herron who has instead deleted “the Governor in Council”.

Mr. John Herron: I have taken a slightly different approach, more direct, because it actually reflects why the government had received a fair amount of criticism with respect to the approach on the Species at Risk Act early on. I still, to the moment, don't see why it's as contentious as it is.

The approach we're taking is the approach that industry and many environmental NGOs both subscribe to. It really does say something when you have agreement between folks like the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, the Mining Association of Canada, and the environmental NGOs, like the Sierra Club of Canada, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, or the Canadian Nature Federation—folks who have traditionally scrapped with each other left, right, and centre. They agreed, from completely divergent perspectives, that the matter of whether a species is at risk is one of science; it shouldn't be one of political choice.

• 1640

So the list should be the list. We shouldn't go through so many different machinations between Governor in Council and reverse onus, and all these other different approaches. Let's establish the list. We know as a point of fact that the good aspect of this bill is that it provides an immense amount of flexibility for action. So the socio-economic implications are always taken into account when developing the recovery plan.

There is permitting under clause 74 whereby in certain circumstances we may not protect a particular species. But we shouldn't hide behind the list itself. We should all be grown up enough to say, yes, we know that particular species is at risk; the critical mass of scientific evidence produced by COSEWIC and the government officials agree. So the approach we've taken, the position the coalition of industry and NGOs has taken, is that the minister, as opposed to the Governor in Council, is responsible for establishing that list.

I would reiterate to the committee that whatever compromises we may make down the road the socio-economic considerations are taken into account. I don't know why we want to do somersaults and try to duck the list if we don't. The point is that those individuals or provinces that don't have scientific listing don't list. It stays in this never-never land for a long period of time. So we may as well get the list done.

Those are my comments, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

Madame Redman, would you like to introduce your amendment?

Mrs. Karen Redman: I would, and I'd also like an opportunity to respond because I feel this is a fundamental issue. Perhaps after we hear from Monsieur Bigras and Mr. Comartin....

The Chair: We heard already from Monsieur Bigras.

Mrs. Karen Redman: I'm sorry. There's one left, right?

I would ask Ms. Wherry to speak to this. But our government amendment basically changes from “regulation” to “by order” in clause 27.

I'd ask Ms. Wherry to speak to why we're proposing that amendment.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: Originally when Bill C-5 was drafted it had that the GIC by regulation would amend the list. There is no schedule attached to the bill that is the so-called legal list. What the proposal is is that from an earlier one there be a schedule 1, which will be the legal list. So this is something new the government is proposing. When you do it that way, you are saying in clause 27 that the GIC can amend this schedule, add to it or delete from it, and the normal process for the Governor in Council to do that is by order as opposed to by regulation.

This is the rationale for that change. Does that make sense to you?

The Chair: To some extent.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: There are two substantive points. One is the rollover of the existing list, and I think the government is to be commended for agreeing to rolling it over. The second substantive point is whether the government would agree to automatic listing, which I don't think they will, or whether they would agree to a reverse onus. I think for our discussions we should be clear in keeping those two issues...to roll over the list is a simpler one. The government has agreed to do it. I think we're all in agreement that that's a good thing. The second point is where we go after that.

The Chair: Madame Kraft Sloan and Mr. Herron.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chairman, I have a question about the difference between an order and by regulation.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: It's somewhat of a similar process. It's a shorter time to do an order.

A voice: You should ask Mr. Near.

Mr. David Near: I was just having a similar conversation with Mr. Herron. Essentially the process is the same. An order is a slightly more expeditious way of getting it through the government bureaucracy, if you like.

• 1645

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: But you have to gazette regulations; is that correct? And is there public consultation?

Mr. David Near: Yes, and you still have to gazette an order as well.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: And is there gazetting with an order at all times?

Mr. David Near: Yes.

The Chair: Mr. Herron.

Mr. John Herron: So there is gazetting with an order?

Mr. David Near: Yes.

Mr. John Herron: What period of time is specified?

Mr. David Near: Essentially, the only real difference in the process is that you might be able to do a shorter re-assessment, which is established by Treasury Board guidelines. But an order is a statutory instrument and subject to the same provisions as a regulation.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Could you explain what the difference is again? You told me how they're the same, but—

Ms. Ruth Wherry: The regulatory impact assessment—some people call it doing the socio-economic considerations—that you normally do in a regulation, and the Treasury Board policy, etc., for doing it, is slightly shorter in an order than in a regulation.

The purpose of this proposed change—going to an order as opposed to a regulation—is that the proposal being made by the minister is to have the legal list be made a schedule to the act. Bill C-5 doesn't provide for that now. As part of making the legal list a schedule to the act, we had to change clause 27. The Governor in Council normally does it by order rather than by regulation; that's the rationale for that change. The process for doing an order is somewhat shorter than the process for doing a regulation.

The Chair: Look, I think it will take some Solomonic wisdom to decide at this stage which amendment would go first, for obvious reasons. So I think we should go by the process of voting so that we exclude those that the majority wishes not to have. In that sense, I would be inclined to follow the order in which they are in the book, even if some are overlapping. But as you can see, the amendment by Mr. Mills is at the other end of the spectrum, so to speak, in the process of exercising power, from the amendment by Mr. Herron.

Anyway, I invite your comments before finalizing the procedure.

Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to speak a little bit to the subject matter rather than directly to all of the individual scenarios, because we really are looking at different variations of reverse onus rather than what the government has proposed all along, which is rolling over the list and letting the Governor in Council apply the socio-economic pressures and then they would decide what the legal list would be.

Having reverse onus, and having COSEWIC's list automatically take on the proportions of the legal list, and then after a certain period of time having the Governor in Council take species off, would in fact create a great deal of uncertainty for whatever time period the species was on the legal list. Prohibitions and other things would be triggered in the act during that period of time, while at the end of the deliberations by Governor in Council, they might indeed be delisted.

We've contended all along that it should be possible for science to be done in an unfettered way by scientists, as COSEWIC will be able to do it. By separating out the socio-economic issues and having the Governor in Council deal with them, we're going to avoid subjecting scientists to the kind of lobbying efforts that undoubtedly would happen.

• 1650

The likely scenario, from among the approaches that have been suggested, we think would be more confusing. What would happen if the government were to decide to relist a species after it had undertaken consultation and consideration? You could have a species appear on the legal list, be delisted, then put back on the list. In order to have more certainty for Canadians, and indeed for the people on the ground—who, I again highlight, are those who are going to make the protection of species at risk in this legislation work....

It would add to the confusion. It's far cleaner to have a process in place where, at one point in time, a decision is made as to whether or not it's the legal list. That is why the government wouldn't support reverse onus, or however you want to characterize any of the scenarios that have been put forward.

The Chair: Thank you, Madame Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, I was going to suggest that perhaps we take a straw vote, which is a vote, according to my colleague, Mr. Knutson, that doesn't count on the record. We can take a straw vote as to which proposal we want to proceed with first.

Mr. Gar Knutson: You mean, which one we want to pass—

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Well, which one is it?

Mr. Gar Knutson: —and the one we want to pass is the one we start with.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: And the one we want to pass is the one we want to start with. Well, whatever way, we could look at each, if that makes things go a little smoother.

The problem is, Mr. Chair, that the amendments are broken up and scattered throughout this section. It might be easier if we took a straw vote and decided which group we felt we most supported and therefore wanted to deal with first, if that's in agreement with committee members' wishes.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Bigras.

Mr. Bernard Bigras: The principles just outlined by Mrs. Kraft Sloan are very nice but I would like to know how this would work concretely.

The Chair: Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

[English]

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Bigras, after we deal with this clause we can certainly go back to the former method of dealing with things. It's just that the way the amendments are laid out is very complicated. This way, at least we can tackle one group. We may pass one amendment, which voids the beginning part of another amendment, and then pass the second person's amendment. It's very complex. This was just an attempt to look at it more simply.

The Chair: We'll pause for a moment.

• 1653

• 1701

The Chair: May I ask members whether there would be agreement, in this labyrinth that we are trying to explore and resolve, to tackle, as the first amendment in clause 27, the amendment by Mr. Knutson on page 88, which some members have been discussing in recent minutes. If there is consensus to deal with that first, then I would be inclined to take it. If that carries, it would certainly simplify matters considerably. If it does not carry, then I would take, as a second one, the amendment proposed by the government, which would also have a certain impact.

Mr. John Herron: May I raise a point of order?

The Chair: Yes. Could I therefore seek some guidance whether members are inclined to proceed in the manner I just indicated as a possibility? Mr. Herron.

Mr. John Herron: Mr. Chair, I think what I personally would be most comfortable with at the moment is if we were to reflect, in the spirit Mr. Mills talked about: “Gee, I wish we could have the best compromise amendment we could possibly have.” I think Mr. Knutson's amendment tried to offer just that. If we added the timeline of six months to Mr. Knutson's amendment, I think there's a building consensus—not unanimity—within the room. So I'd like to see if we could go forward with debate on Knutson's right now, if we could, sir.

The Chair: You are indicating that Mr. Knutson's amendment should read, instead of 60 days, six months.

Mr. John Herron: Six months.

The Chair: Now, that is a suggestion, but could I have an indication whether you are willing to proceed in that fashion, Madam Kraft Sloan and Mr. Mills?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Yes, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: All right, if there is consensus to proceed with it, I invite you to turn to page 88. I will ask Mr. Knutson to read the amendment as it has been negotiated.

Mr. Gar Knutson: My preference would have been just to present the amendment on page 88 and then have Mr. Herron or Mr. Mills make a subamendment changing the 60 days to six months.

The Chair: What happens to your other amendments?

Mr. Gar Knutson: They become consequential amendments. They're still in play.

The Chair: I've been informed by our legal assistants here that if this carries, then we will deal also with the other two in the name of Mr. Knutson. Is there now the wish to move a subamendment to Mr. Knutson's amendment? Who wishes to do that? Mr. Mills?

• 1705

Mr. Bob Mills: Yes. I'll add the subamendment to change it to six months from 60 days. It's on page 88.

The Chair: So we are on page 88, the motion is before you, the amendment is before you, and a subamendment has been moved, replacing 60 days with the words “six months”.

Are there any comments or questions on that?

(Subamendment agreed to)

Mr. John Herron: That made that section pretty easy.

The Chair: I'm advised that to the best of our knowledge, and within the limits of human possibility of error, the next step is to deal with the motion NDP-5 on page 86.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: On a point of order, we have to pass this motion. We did a subamendment on that.

The Chair: Yes, of course. We passed the subamendment of Mr. Mills.

(Amendment agreed to—[See Minutes of Proceedings])

The Chair: Mr. Proctor, on page 86 there is a motion by the member for Windsor—St. Clair, which you may wish to introduce on his behalf.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: On a point of order.

The Chair: Yes.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I just want to ensure that Mr. Knutson's other amendments have passed because they're consequential.

The Chair: They are consequential. That's right.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Are all of them consequential, or do we have to go back?

The Chair: No. We've now carried L-6, L-7, and L-8. They are consequential, according to our books.

Mr. Gar Knutson: What does that mean?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: They're all agreed to.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I don't think people knew that.

The Chair: Can we now proceed with Mr. Proctor?

Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP): I'm happy to speak to it, but it's being suggested that we may have already dealt with this by passing Mr. Knutson's. I thought it went with the Knutson package.

The Chair: We have not dealt with that.

• 1710

Mr. Dick Proctor: It's my understanding that the proposal of Mr. Comartin is to delete lines 11 and 12, but take into account the assessment of COSEWIC in respect of the species. The rationale is that this will be an automatic listing based on scientific assessment. I believe that farther down you will see that Mr. Comartin will bring that in later on in this bill.

The Chair: Okay. Are there any other comments from Madam Redman?

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Again, I think the two amendments on pages 86 and 89 would make COSEWIC the legal list, and for the reasons I've stated earlier, it's not something the government would support. It would lead to political lobbying of scientists, rather than allowing them to make their scientific assessments. It should be left to elected officials to determine the action taken.

The Chair: Thank you.

Are there any other comments? Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: This amendment, as I understand it when you take a look at the grouping of the amendments, deals with straight scientific listing; therefore it would be in conflict with Mr. Knutson's option that we just passed. So even though the lines are not in conflict, I believe the intent is in conflict with this section. So I don't believe these amendments are in order because of the content.

The Chair: The idea is to delete paragraph 27(2)(a).

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Yes.

The Chair: How would the deletion of that put it into conflict?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: This is being done in a bit of a backward order. You delete the COSEWIC assessment because you're going for an automatic straight scientific listing. Therefore the COSEWIC list becomes the list, and in this case you don't have the consult with the COSEWIC assessment because it's already the list.

The Chair: This is how the bill is written right now.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Yes.

The Chair: Correct.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm sorry, but let me just look at this direct section, please.

The Chair: If anything, your argument applies to retaining paragraph 27(2)(a).

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: This says that before making a recommendation, the minister takes into account the assessment of COSEWIC, with respect to the species.

The Chair: Right, and the amendment aims at deleting that section.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Yes, but the amendment on page 89 that makes this scientific listing says:

If COSEWIC assesses a wildlife species as a species at risk, the Governor in Council shall, by regulation, add that species to the List of Wildlife Species at Risk.

This package of amendments does it backwards. This is straight automatic scientific listing, and the amendment on page 86 is linked to that because in the bill it says you have to take the assessment into account when the minister makes his recommendation. Well, if it's automatic listing, you don't have to do that.

The Chair: That's correct. The aim of this particular amendment on page 86 is to do away with paragraph 27(2)(a), to be consistent with what has been done so far.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Actually, we're going for negative-option listing.

The Chair: Yes, that's correct.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: So I don't think we would want to delete this section because that would mean the minister would not be making considerations around....

The Chair: Fine. If you want to retain this clause, vote against the amendment.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Why don't we just ask Mr. Proctor if he would like to withdraw it?

Mr. Dick Proctor: I was prepared to do that.

The Chair: All right. Is there unanimous consent for the withdrawal of this amendment?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: The amendment is withdrawn.

Do you also wish to withdraw the amendment on page 89?

Mr. Dick Proctor: Yes, sir.

The Chair: Thank you.

At this stage, I'm advised it would be in order to proceed to page 90, to the amendment by the member of Fundy—Royal, who is proposing an insertion after line 20.

Would you like to introduce it, please?

• 1715

Mr. John Herron: Mr. Chair, I'd like to propose a very small, friendly amendment to my amendment, if I could. By substituting the word “known” as opposed to “possible”, Mr. Chair, the amendment, namely proposed subclause 27(3), would read as follows: “to the extent known, the Minister shall notify all directly affected private landowners”.

The purpose of this, Mr. Chair, stems from the fact that we believe, as does the government, in a graduated approach to protecting species at risk. There are stewardship initiatives, etc., but the very first thing we need to do is sometimes just to notify the landowner. Sometimes the first step in protecting a species at risk is just letting landowners know that the species exists on their property so they can decide to take some precautions. It may not mean anything, and they may not have to do anything in particular different from what they've already been doing.

That's one aspect of it before we get into all the stewardship initiatives. That's what we're advocating, the public's right to know, where possible, in situations where we know. There are going to be situations where we don't know, but that's the direction of the amendment.

The Chair: Thank you.

Are there any comments?

Mr. Mills and Madam Redman.

Mr. Bob Mills: I think one of the biggest fears I hear from landowners is that somebody is going to be planning the preservation or listing of some endangered species off in a vacuum in Planet Ottawa or somewhere and they're not going to be informed about it. In effect, you're trying to put it into law that wherever possible, the landowner will be informed. I think that will be very important to potential landowners out there.

The Chair: Thank you.

When you read the amendment, Mr. Herron, you placed the word “directly” between “all” and “affected”.

Mr. John Herron: I swung it around from the original amendment, yes.

The Chair: You swung it around.

Mr. John Herron: Yes.

The Chair: You also replaced “possible” with “known”. Is that correct? Could you then read it again?

Mr. John Herron: Yes. “To the extent known, the Minister shall notify all directly affected private landowners”.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madame Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would ask Mr. Near to comment on this amendment as it now reads.

Mr. David Near: The concern we have is the introduction of the concept “known” and what the test is going to be as to how we're going to establish what the government knows at a given time and what it knows later. What if information changes? What is the impact if it's not done? Does it challenge the validity of the listing process itself?

There is a public gazetting, a normal government process for regulations and orders, and these people would avail themselves of that opportunity. To introduce another statutory obligation that has the term “known” in it introduces uncertainty and a possible challenge to the listing itself.

The Chair: What is the circulation of the Canada Gazette?

Mr. David Near: I'm just saying that this is the normal way the government publicizes its activities.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, in many respects, I'm very supportive of this amendment. I think it is important to reach out to private landowners to make sure they're aware of the situation. I am concerned about the ability to enforce the act and all those other things, because what is the test on some of these issues? I'm wondering if there is a possibility to work on drafting some language.

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The Chair: There's been the whole summer to do that.

Mr. Mills and Mr. Reed.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: All right, do it with the officials.

Mr. Bob Mills: That's exactly the point I was making. If you expect that landowner out there to be reading the Canada Gazette every day to see if an endangered species is on his land, you're just dreaming. I don't even think they would know where to get it, let alone read it. After all, who reads it? That's just not an answer, and I certainly could not stand up in a town hall meeting and say, check the Canada Gazette every morning. It's just not saleable. If you tried to communicate that, you'd end up wearing something.

You just have to have a method by which you contact landowners and say, “You have an endangered species here; let's work together to save this thing.”

The Chair: Mr. Reed, Madam Redman, and Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Julian Reed: As a landowner, I smell someone telling us to shit, shovel, and shut up.

The Chair: Madam Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I realize that it's with the best of intentions that everybody wants landowners to be informed, but the fundamental problem with this is that it could well be the thin edge of the wedge of something that does the exact opposite of what this legislation is proposing. I'd ask Ms. Wherry if she'd like to make a comment on that.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: I'd say a few things, actually. If you were going to put something like this in, why would you just name landowners? Number one, why would you limit it to that? The other comment I'd make is, if we ever get this legislation in place, part of the education process involved consists of going out and talking to people about how we will implement it. Part of this is developing a notification policy as to where the species are, where their residence is, and how we're going to work with people. It's not a case of the government dictating how it will do notification. The landowners, etc., have to work with us to come up with a process that works.

For example, there was the blue racer story in the Ottawa Citizen. There's a wrong way you can do things. We want to work together to develop it through policy. If you put it in legislation and prescribe it, someone will always argue they weren't notified. Therefore, how can you come after them and say they killed this species, they destroyed this residence, or they did something else if they were never notified? That's the downside. It makes a lot of sense from a policy position.

The Chair: Mr. Herron, would you like to indicate why you changed the word “possible” to “known”?

Mr. John Herron: Because you don't always know.

The Chair: Then why didn't you stick to the word “possible”?

Mr. John Herron: Both words have the same intent. I disagree with Ms. Wherry where she says that we want to work out the right way to notify. We want to work with landowners and the government to figure that out. Nothing would preclude you from doing that with this language in the bill. You can still cooperate with people even if it's in the law. You can still develop a formula to do that.

I'm indifferent on “known” and “possible”, but Cyrano over here thought that “known” was better than “possible”.

A voice: It's your fault.

Mr. John Herron: Well, we've won some amendments, so it's to your credit too.

The Chair: We have on the list—and I apologize—Mr. Laliberte, Mr. Bailey, and Mr. Mills.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: I'm just trying to look at the language on the proposed amendment. There is language that exists in paragraph 27(2)(c) of the draft bill, “if the species is found in an area”. I think that's what we've got to preclude. If you look at the wording of Mr. Herron's amendment, “to the extent known, the Minister shall notify all directly affected private landowners”, you could define it as including every private landowner who could be affected in one way or another for a species anywhere in Canada. In order to be more specific, we should say that if a certain species is found in an area where there are private landowners, then you ought to notify them. I think that would be clearer language.

The Chair: So are you saying that this amendment should be incorporated in paragraph 27(2)(c)?

Mr. Rick Laliberte: Paragraph 27(2)(c) is more specific in the preconditions for recommendations. I think this one is more about notification. Even after the recommendation I think there's a notification.

The Chair: But still, this amendment should relate to or be part of the consideration given to the area.

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Mr. Rick Laliberte: I'm just taking the language from paragraph 27(2)(c), which is in the preconditions for recommendation section. Proposed subclause 27(3) stands on its own as a notification clause, not a precondition to a recommendation.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey: I'm concerned about the notification process, Mr. Chairman. I can think of seven or eight different individual landowners, or people who have title to land. I don't like that word “private”. It would exclude government land, crown land, Indian reserves, and so on. So why would you want to keep the word “private” in there?

The Chair: Mr. Herron.

Mr. John Herron: I just said the same thing a second ago. I'm amenable to taking out the word “private”.

The Chair: So it would read, “To the extent known, the Minister shall notify all directly affected landowners”.

Ms. Wherry, is that what you were suggesting a few minutes ago, to delete the word “private”?

Ms. Ruth Wherry: No. I think I was talking about plainly putting this kind of notification and requirement in legislation, period.

The Chair: Mr. Near.

Mr. David Near: The difficulty is even if you deal just with landowners, when a species is listed, the impact is that prohibitions are going to come into place, but prohibitions do not affect just landowners; they will affect lessees of crown land, for example—probably for the most part—such as resource extractors. So if you introduce this notion, the validity of the listing may be at risk. If the listing gets knocked out because we haven't done a good job in notifying everybody possible, then your prohibitions won't come into place either. That's the concern I have.

The Chair: Mr. Mills and Madam Scherrer.

Mr. Bob Mills: Maybe you'd get around that by simply saying “land users” or some such terminology.

To get back to what Ms. Wherry said earlier, she implied that it's not the government's responsibility to notify somebody that a species is on the list—you'd better just check the gazette.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: I didn't.

Mr. Bob Mills: You didn't say that, I know, but Mr. Near did, and he's beside you.

A voice: So you're at fault.

Mr. Bob Mills: So you're at fault.

But you know what I mean. I don't think that's acceptable. I think it's the government's responsibility within this legislation. You're going to pass the legislation. It's your responsibility to notify those people who are using the land, tell them, “This is what's happening, we want to work with you in a recovery program”, etc. It's up to the government to notify them, not take a chance.

The Chair: Madam Scherrer, please.

[Translation]

Mrs. Hélène Scherrer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have some difficulty with this amendment in the sense that it really involves a level of responsibility. It is certainly desirable for people to be informed. It would certainly be good for people to know, it would be desirable to be able to notify them.

Where I have a problem is that once you write this into legislation, it becomes mandatory to ensure that all land-owners are notified. Since this can be problematic, the author gets around that by restricting the requirement with words such as “to the extent possible”. Either we do it and we do it well or we do not do it. I for one am opposed to writing this into the bill since it can be very difficult to notify all land-owners. I think we should use all means to ensure everybody is informed and maybe even have a second round of notification. Otherwise we will not be able to say that prohibitions apply when we are not even sure people are aware. The process should be the same for everybody. Either we do it properly, or we do not do anything.

The Chair: Thank you, Madam.

[English]

We have three final interventions: Mr. Laliberte, Madam Kraft Sloan, and Mr. Herron.

Mr. Rick Laliberte: I would suggest we stay this amendment and look at a language change if possible. Maybe we could ask the member to look at a subamendment to this to change some of the language to make it clearer. Then the debate would be clear on which way you're choosing. Right now we're still trying to be fluid with the language and to get interpretation, translation. It might make it a little clearer and buy some time on it.

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, I was wondering if the officials could explain to us what they're intending for different media and options for notification. What kinds of things do you have in mind in terms of how you're going to notify me?

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Ms. Ruth Wherry: Well, again, that was part of the discussions. We actually started. We had some folks already engaged in that discussion, how we would develop it together. It may be that in some cases you might have a group in between, some group that knows, let's say, all the cattlemen or something, that can play an intermediate role and be involved in doing this.

That's the point I was trying to make. It's something on which we have to work together with affected people like landowners to come up with the right way of doing it, and not, for example, the process that was used in Ontario with the blue racer. That antagonized landowners so much, because people went on their land to fulfill their notification functions and then, as you know, as you read about, it was so bad that they just wanted to kill those endangered species on their land.

So we have to work together to develop the proper notification policy.

The Chair: Mr. Laliberte, I thank you for your advice, but I'm not inclined to go that route, because it seems to me the amendment is clear and its title is as lucid as it can be at any time. Therefore, we should conclude and take a vote, once Mr. Herron has made his final comment.

Mr. John Herron: In my view, this is an issue that comes down to rural versus urban Canada. Rural Canada has always said “Well, I didn't know”. This is a clear signal the Government of Canada has a responsibility—because we're going to tell them sooner or later anyway. If we show that one of the first actions we're going to take is to notify those individuals we know about in the best possible way, it actually gets buy-in from them. So they can't say “Well, I didn't know. I'm scared I'm going to get prosecuted on something I wasn't aware existed.” Every landowner group said they just wanted to know. That's why this is put in here.

I'm going to stick with the word “known” as opposed to “possible”.

Again, it reads: “To the extent known, the Minister shall notify all directly affected private landowners”.

We still have the government with full flexibility to inform people the way they want to.

The Chair: You read “private” again.

Mr. John Herron: With “private” taken out, yes.

The Chair: Would you read it in your final form?

Mr. John Herron: In its final form it reads: “To the extent known, the Minister shall notify all directly affected landowners”.

The Chair: Thank you. Are you ready for the question?

(Amendment agreed to)

The Chair: Shall the clause as amended carry?

Mr. Gar Knutson: I have a point of order. We're on clause 27. I apologize to the committee, but I have a drafting mistake on page 79.

The Chair: We'll check page 79.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Page 79, which we're treating as passed as a consequential amendment.

The Chair: Please proceed.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Where it says “The List of Wildlife Species at Risk is established in Schedule 1 and sets out extirpated, endangered and threatened species”, it should also say “and species of special concern”, because schedule 1 does that.

The Chair: That is the name of the schedule?

Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes.

The Chair: So it should reproduce exactly the title of the schedule.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Or what's included in schedule 1. Species of special concern are included in schedule 1.

The Chair: That's fair enough.

Mr. Gar Knutson: The other thing is, where it says “(2)”, it should be “(1.2)”.

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The Chair: Would you mind raising the second point, related to “subsection (1.2)”, when we deal with the schedule, so that we make the correction there in the reference?

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'll take your guidance on this.

The Chair: Fine. I think that is a mechanical adjustment that needs to be made.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Fine.

The Chair: Thank you.

(Clause 27 as amended agreed to)

The Chair: We will move now to page 91.

Mr. Reed.

Mr. Julian Reed: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, there are some amendments ahead of these ones we voted on that we didn't vote on.

The Chair: That's correct.

Mr. Julian Reed: Are they not going to be moved?

The Chair: No.

At the beginning of our proceedings, we discussed the problem of line conflict, namely that we could take amendments on lines once only and not twice.

Mrs. Karen Redman: For clarity's sake, can we talk about which ones we have dealt with and what number we're at right now?

The Chair: Yes.

Would you please do that?

Mrs. Karen Redman: Clause 27.

Ms. Susan Baldwin (Procedural Clerk): Basically where we are at the moment is that due to line conflicts, we are not dealing with amendments CA-24, CA-25, or.... These are the first ones in clause 27.

The Chair: Go slowly.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Would you give us the pages instead of the amendment numbers?

Ms. Susan Baldwin: Okay, let me go back.

The Chair: It's page 77.

Ms. Susan Baldwin: Amendment CA-24 has two consequential amendments attached to it, which are amendments CA-25 and CA-26. Those are pages 77, 84, and 87.

We put Mr. Knutson's amendment first, which was on page 88. He had a package as well; there were three that went together. The vote on page 88 applied to amendments L-6 and L-7. So those are agreed to.

There is a line conflict with Mr. Mills' amendments, and Monsieur Bigras' amendments cannot be put because we adopted amendment L-6.

It is very much the same situation with Mr. Herron's amendments to this clause. They can't be put, and neither can the government's, because they're all line conflicts with amendment L-6 or with one of the other ones that were adopted.

Then, the last one that we could possibly put, amendments NDP-5 and NDP-6, which are yet another package on pretty much the same theme, we did discuss, and we decided we could not put those because they were in conflict with Mr. Knutson's scheme, which we had adopted.

So that leaves only the last one, Mr. Herron's motion, which we just finished adopting. Everything else was eliminated, in effect, when we adopted Mr. Knutson's scheme.

The Chair: Madame Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chairman, I would contend that the motion on page 83 has not been discussed or voted on. Is this not being put?

Ms. Susan Baldwin: It's consequential to amendments L-6 and L-8. So we vote on one, and the vote applies to the other two.

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Mrs. Karen Redman: I believe there was some confusion around that issue.

Ms. Susan Baldwin: There may have been. It was a very confusing operation.

Mrs. Karen Redman: I would contend that—and again I look to the committee—there was some discussion as a sidebar about this, and I would be very interested in having a discussion and a subsequent vote on it because I believe some changes are in order, and we contend that it wasn't our understanding, and certainly mine, that we were voting on this particular amendment when we voted on the previous one.

The Chair: We have adopted the clause, so we will need unanimous consent to reopen it to discuss Mr. Knutson's motion on page 83. Is there agreement?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Agreed.

Mr. John Herron: I'm not sure just yet.

The Chair: I'm asking whether there's agreement on reopening page 83.

Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: On a point of order—without reopening the clause, so it's an academic discussion for the time being—I'm advised by the parliamentary researcher that we should treat the 60 days on page 83 as also having been amended to six months.

The Chair: Yes.

The essence is the same as the one on page 88 by Mr. Knutson, so we are covering the same ground.

I'm asking again, is there consent to reopen clause 27?

Mr. John Herron: No.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I would ask for a little bit of goodwill here.

We are moving along, and it has been a confusing intervention, so I would like to suggest what I feel is a friendly amendment to subclause 27(1.2). I would ask for some kind of consideration from the committee to at least hear the discussion.

The Chair: Mr. Herron, would you please consider favourably the consent?

Mr. John Herron: Are we going to hear the discussion before opening the clause? If we're going to hear the discussion on why, before opening the clause, sure.

I want to see what you have in mind.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Is that all the goodwill you can muster?

Mr. John Herron: Hey, listen, it's a start. Maybe we can get more.

The Chair: We would be having a discussion in a vacuum, because we have nothing before us at this stage, because we have moved to page 91.

Mr. John Herron: Okay.

The Chair: Agreed?

Mr. John Herron: Agreed.

The Chair: We have unanimous consent to reopen.

Madame Redman.

(On clause 27—Regulations)

Mrs. Karen Redman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As Mr. Knutson has already attested, the 60 days would be six months, and under subclause 27(1.2), if you read along

27.(1.2) Where the Governor in Council takes a course of action under paragraph (1.1)(b), (c) or (d), the Minister

I would put forward an amendment to strike the word “must” and put in its place “shall, with the approval of the GIC,”

include a statement in the public registry setting out the reasons.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm sorry, may I have that again?

Mrs. Karen Redman: After “Minister”, in the second last line, you would strike the word “must” and insert “shall, with the approval of the GIC, include a statement in the public registry setting out the reasons”.

The rationale for this is the fact that some of these discussions may be subject to cabinet confidentiality, and as such would require the minister to discuss with his cabinet colleagues what kind of public statements were made.

The Chair: All right, you heard the subamendment to Mr. Knutson's amendment.

Mr. Knutson, can you support this amendment?

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Mr. Gar Knutson: Yes.

The Chair: Thank you.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 27 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 28—Applications for assessment of imminent threat)

The Chair: Mrs. Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Chairman, I move that Bill C-5 in clause 28 be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 29 to 37 on page 15 with the following.... I would read it to you but you all have it written there.

The Chair: We'd be delighted to hear your French.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

An hon. member: No, you wouldn't.

Mrs. Karen Redman: No further explanation is needed. But if we agree, I would move that amendment.

(Amendment agreed to)

Mr. Gar Knutson: I have a point of order.

The Chair: Point of order, Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I'm just wondering if we could call it quits here.

The Chair: We'll adjourn at 6 p.m.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Fine.

The Chair: Mr. Mills, would you like to put forward your amendment?

Mr. Bob Mills: My amendment relates to lines 41 and 42 on page 15. I propose we change them to:

Species Conservation Council with a copy of its assessment and a copy of the assessment must be

I guess I'm looking here at accountability. I think just a simple notice is not enough. By being much more specific, we're making it more likely to get that assessment.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madam Redman and Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Redman: It's our feeling that the amendment isn't necessary, as assessments must be included in the public registry under clause 123, and therefore would be accessible to the council.

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm just wondering if Madam Redman could point out exactly where in clause 123 it says the assessment is included in the public registry. I'm having difficulty finding it.

Mrs. Karen Redman: That's probably because I misspoke. It's actually in clause 25. Perhaps Ms. Wherry can read it.

Ms. Ruth Wherry: It says in subclause 25(1), “A copy of the assessment and the reasons must also be included in the public registry”.

The Chair: Mr. Mills, what do you think?

Mr. Bob Mills: I certainly can't see any problem with repeating that. It simply makes it very clear. My emphasis is on accountability, and that just makes it clear we will get written reasons.

I would let the motion stand, please.

The Chair: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I'm just wondering if the situation changes slightly because this is an application for an assessment by an individual or a person.

Taking a look at subclause 28(4) it says:

COSEWIC must provide the applicant...with a notice of its assessment and a copy of the notice must be included in the public registry.

What if the individual doesn't have access to a computer or the electronic registry? This is not a general case; this is a very specific case where an individual is making an application for an assessment. So I'm not so sure.

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Clearly, in an individual case it's not going to be common practice. It's not for the public at large. What harm would there be if the individual received a copy of the assessment? It's really important to make sure there's a lot of accessibility out there and people have access to these things. Including them in an electronic registry might work, on one hand, but what if someone is in an isolated area without computers, or even feeling uncomfortable around the use of computers? So I think Mr. Mills' amendment speaks to accessibility issues for people.

The Chair: Thank you.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 28 as amended agreed to)

The Chair: All right. Why don't we end on this note? We'll continue tomorrow with clause 29, which will certainly not be a short one.

Thank you very much.