[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, November 9, 1995
.1105 
[English]
The Chairman: I will call the meeting to order.
Very quickly, Bill C-339 has been referred to the committee. Perhaps, as we do have quite a significant agenda, we'll just refer this to the steering committee to make a decision. Would that be satisfactory with everybody?
Mr. Reed (Halton - Peel): Mr. Chairman, I think there should be, at some point, some debate in full committee on this.
The Chairman: Certainly. This is what we'll do in the steering committee. As you know, with all new pieces of work, we'll have it come back on a schedule, and that kind of thing. It will of course have to be subject to the decision of the full committee. If that's satisfactory, that's what we'll do.
.1110
We are continuing our work today, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), to look at the overlap and duplication of regulations in relation to the mining sector. We are very fortunate today to have the president of The Mining Association of Canada, Mr. George Miller.
It's pretty open today, but usually there's about 20 minutes for a presentation. Then each party gets 10 minutes, and each individual gets 5 minutes after that.
Perhaps, Mr. Miller, you can introduce your colleague. You may start when you're ready.
Mr. C. George Miller (President, The Mining Association of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
My colleague is Mrs. Justyna Laurie-Lean, Vice-President, Environment and Health, for The Mining Association of Canada. She's here to field the real zingers that you may have for us.
I will make a brief presentation at the beginning. I hope it won't run to 20 minutes, but we'll try to introduce the subject.
We have submitted a fairly detailed brief with all our recommendations in it. We'd be happy to elaborate on any of them when we finish the introduction.
We certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here in front of the committee today. I believe this committee has done a great deal to show interest in our industry and to become quite expert in how the industry works. It has certainly made efforts to create the conditions needed to keep mining in Canada.
The final report, which you issued about a year ago, made several excellent recommendations. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for concrete progress on these recommendations and on several commitments the government has made relating to regulatory reform.
Our written brief lists the government's commitments in some detail. We're convinced that reducing the unnecessary burden of Canada's regulatory jungle, which is a major impediment to the economic health of our industry, is one key area in which progress can be made quickly and efficiently. In all our minds, a clear, predictable, and straightforward regulatory framework is no more and no less than a manifestation of good government.
Before turning to our analysis and recommendations, I wish to state that in making suggestions for regulatory improvement, we are not suggesting any decrease in environmental protection or any lowering of standards. Our industry is unequivocally committed to environmental excellence and to the concept of sustainable development. We have made major steps forward in environmental protection within the industry, and we have made public our support of effective and efficient regulations that maintain high standards of protection in a cost-effective way.
The current regulatory situation is far from cost-effective. Our analysis shows that the current regulatory system is choked with red tape. Regulations, guidelines, and decision-making processes duplicate and contradict each other from one department to another and between the two levels of government. Our formal submission details a number of these instances, so I will only mention them briefly.
There are four main areas in which regulatory reform is urgently needed in order to restore the mining industry's competitive position.
The first area is the Fisheries Act and its fish habitat management provisions. The Fisheries Act is one of the oldest environmental statutes in Canada and one of the most powerful. It was passed more than a hundred years ago to protect fish stocks, both for economic and environmental reasons. There may have been good reasons at that time for some particular provisions that still exist, but it is time now to adjust the operation of the Fisheries Act to be in accord with current reality.
The reactive and absolute nature of the Fisheries Act makes for uncertainty in its application, both intrinsically and when it interacts with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
.1115
Any ambiguity regarding the application of the act or the involvement of fisheries officials in an assessment under CEAA increases the project's uncertainty and discourages investment.
There is great potential for conflict between sections 35 and 36 of the act. For example, a physical work or activity authorized under section 35 could be a contravention of section 36, and regulations under section 36 are themselves a duplication of provincial regulations.
Risk assessment is ignored in the act.
The Fisheries Act emphasizes single water use, to the exclusion of all other legitimate users and uses of water. This has become a major obstacle to the development of a coherent federal water policy, which we believe would recognize that mineral development and other industrial development are also a legitimate use of water.
The respective approaches, roles, and authorities of Environment Canada and of Fisheries and Oceans Canada need clarification. They both get involved in interpreting the act. For example, Environment Canada recognizes the legitimacy of mixing zones, whereas Fisheries and Oceans is exerting pressure to discontinue the practice.
Duplication, overlap, and related cost escalation between federal departments and agencies, and between the federal government and the provinces and territories, are a major cause of concern. There is ample evidence that effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act are a virtually complete duplication of provincial controls on operating sites.
The second area I want to talk about is the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
Under CEAA, which came into force in 1995, the Fisheries Act is now a trigger for an assessment, whereas it was not a trigger under the Environmental Assessment and Review Process, or EARP. CEAA has therefore greatly increased federal involvement in the permitting of mining projects. Moreover, because of CEAA's reach and complexity, that involvement is cumbersome, uncertain, and broader than that of assessments under provincial jurisdiction.
The limited experience to date with projects that have entered either comprehensive study or panel review under CEAA indicates that interpretation of CEAA is inconsistent within federal departments across Canada and among departments.
Most troublesome is the concept of cumulative effects, which is difficult to implement and is frequently interpreted very broadly.
CEAA has no mechanism to encourage timeliness or efficiency. The proponent's business success or failure is at the mercy of the goodwill and capacity of individual officials, yet the proponent suffers greatly when his project is delayed. Some projects might not be coming forward at all, because of the fear of long permitting processes. This situation is contrary to all principles of good government and quality assurance.
Streamlining of the assessment process with provinces towards a single process for each project seems to be moving further out of reach. The harmonization proposed by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment is on hold. Bilateral agreements are being discussed, but they have weak provisions and depend on the goodwill of local officials from both levels of government and their willingness or ability to cooperate.
While there has been halting progress towards harmonization between the federal and provincial governments, there appears to be none within the federal government. Each department involved in an assessment is free to make its own interpretation of CEAA and to set its own requirements and time lines, without regard for burden to the proponent or to the economy.
CEAA introduces a requirement to consider how the effects of a project may combine with the effects of other projects to cause cumulative effects. There is no technical consensus on how cumulative effects can be assessed. Moreover, the CEAA provision is being interpreted in many different ways by departments and individual officials.
It is currently proposed that the administrative and participant funding costs of CEAA and other federal regulations be cost-recovered from the proponent. This proposal ignores the public good component of the assessment process. Moreover, it might create a system with a built-in incentive for inefficiency.
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The third area of discussion is the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The government is in the process of reviewing the report prepared by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. The report is entitled It's About Our Health! Towards Pollution Prevention.
Unfortunately, after carefully assessing its 141 recommendations, we are convinced the report does not reflect any widely held interpretation of sustainable development in Canada. We feel the recommendations present an unbalanced and unproven description of the state of Canada's environment.
The report fails to support its concluding statement that: ``We are squandering our unique environmental heritage and putting our own health at risk in the process''. On the contrary, environmental quality is improving, and our written brief provides several examples of statistics that show that.
The recommendations of the report fail to take into account the cost implications associated with the numerous proposed actions. Each proposed initiative in the report suggests a growing governmental bureaucracy and cost at a time when federal expenditures are being reduced. The recommendations ignore a sound scientific framework for action.
Much of the report's focus is on toxic substances. Inherent toxicity is the concept promoted for action rather than risk assessment, and it's well known that risk assessment is the main measure by which countries can relate environmental priorities one to another and to other needs.
The recommendations are highly intrusive on industry operations and provincial jurisdiction. The themes of partnership, harmonization, and cooperation are discarded in favour of an adversarial command-and-control approach.
The recommendations create a remarkable degree of uncertainty for the mining industry. New and very broadly defined principles, concepts, and terms are suggested for inclusion in CEPA.
Ecosystem approach and biological diversity are promoted as guiding principles. The MAC believes these are important considerations for sustainable development, but to include them in legislation is a different question. For investors in mining projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars prior to the feasibility stage, such loose concepts introduce an unacceptable degree of uncertainty because we simply don't know how they will be interpreted.
The fourth item is land use issues.
In recent years the federal and provincial conservation agenda affecting land use and land access for the mining industry has become long, diverse, and seemingly unending. Habitat conservation and ecosystem management initiatives appear uncoordinated and duplicated.
There is a lack of coordination and of consistent, scientifically based rationales and decision-making processes within and between governments on protected areas initiatives. Clarity is lacking as to the types of protected areas included in the federal and provincial territorial networks of protected areas and as to the areas that are open, closed, or restricted to mineral activity.
The government has many opportunities to act on its promise of regulatory reform. Some proposals contemplate the use of administrative arrangements to allow the two levels of government to work more effectively together while leaving existing legislation and powers in place.
But administrative arrangements can only go so far. Real progress requires the removal of costly regulatory systems that are process-based rather than performance or results oriented. This implies a willingness by the federal government to let go of outdated and expensive centralist systems, a willingness that has not been expressed in concrete action to date.
The mining industry urges the committee to use its influence to bring about the fundamental change so urgently needed at this time in our country's history.
I have a list of fifteen recommendations. Perhaps I won't take your time to read them, because they're the same as in the brief, but if I could hand them to the clerk, I'd really appreciate it if they could appear in the record of the discussion.
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The Chairman: Okay.
Mr. Miller: I think there is a copy.
Mr. Rideout (Moncton): I think that needs a motion.
Mr. Reed: So moved.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: Do you wish to start the questioning?
Mr. Miller: Yes. We've finished our presentation.
The Chairman: Mr. Deshaies.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies (Abitibi): Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Miller.
On Tuesday we had witnesses from Natural Resources Canada and I asked them what they thought about mechanisms aimed at reducing the number of regulations. They answered that they didn't see how they could intervene with other departments, that it was a complex matter and that each department had its own set of regulations, that it wasn't part of their mandate but that the minister might be able to issue guidelines aimed at improving interdepartmental communication on such matters.
Today we are told that there's too much regulation and that it is sometimes so vague that businesses hesitate to get involved in the project in case a misinterpretation of the regulations ends up costing them thousands of dollars.
Based on your experience, what is the first step in dealing with this matter? If we keep on waiting for another department to take the initiative, nothing will be done and we'll be going around in circles. Who should take the first step?
I personally would see Natural Resources Canada instituting some type of single wicket policy. Thus the mining industry, like other industries, could apply to a single place for permits and this would save time and money. We could also eliminate the duplicate legislation that is found in various departments and make Canada a place that is attractive to investments.
In your view, who should take the first step and how can we arrive at something concrete?
[English]
Mr. Miller: I think the Natural Resources officials advise their counterparts in other departments as to the impact of policies on the mining industry. I believe they do what they can to urge on specific projects and on specific company issues that arise. I believe representations are made.
At the same time, we are talking about structural issues that require the government as a whole to make some decisions. There are inconsistencies between departments in the interpretation of existing legislation. Some strong guidelines coming from the cabinet as to the interpretation of provisions of CEAA would be a start and is something that could be done relatively easily.
A more fundamental review of federal legislation, of where it's needed and where it's really not needed, would be more appropriate and is needed in the long run.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: We'll be hearing from many stockholder, from all provinces I hope, who will be speaking to us I imagine about the labyrinth of regulations preventing their industries from functioning better. You are only the second group to appear and it is difficult to have an idea of the direction our committee should take.
.1130
Our report contains nine recommendations aimed at promoting the mining industry. Although it was adopted unanimously, it's been put on the shelf. I'm attempting to understand how, after studying the matter for two or three months in our committee, we can better serve the industry and provide our minister with an effective political tool to change the structure. I agree with you that the structure must be changed and I think my colleagues also agree.
[English]
Ms Justyna Laurie-Lean (Vice-President, Environment and Health, The Mining Association of Canada): One avenue that would be very helpful would be for the various committees within the House of Commons to talk to one another, because among committees there tends to be a difference in attitudes and views towards industry and regulation.
For example, in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and its review, a lot of the concepts the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development had were very good, but the proposals they made for the actual implementation would result in an extreme bureaucracy with no environmental benefit that we could see.
A greater cross-fertilization between the groups and a better understanding of the practical impacts of some of these concepts would be very helpful.
At the other extreme, some of the practical difficulties we encounter can be resolved fairly easily. The biggest complaint from our members is delays, timing, and non-answers, where they ask a question of clarification on whether or not a process applies or they put in an application and they don't hear back for six, eight, or ten months.
It's extremely difficult to take recourse from a non-answer. You can't write to the Prime Minister and say you don't have any answer. It's much easier when you have something in front of you. That could be fixed without damage to the environment, the government's authority or the regulations, to enforce some kind of discipline in answering requests and questions.
Right now, for example, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act has created a situation in which officials are penalized if they don't follow the structures of the act, but they are not penalized if they do nothing. Therefore, the normal human behaviour is to do nothing. If you're not sure and you could get penalized, just don't answer, or else think about it and consult.
Our members are being told they can get an approval in three years. Well, for most investors that is simply not acceptable, yet that is what we are being told officially by government representatives.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Deshaies.
Mr. Strahl.
Mr. Strahl (Fraser Valley East): Thank you for coming to the committee today. It's very interesting, and I appreciate the format of your presentation. I wish all people before committees would present their recommendations in bold print like that, so we don't have to try to fish them out of the mire. That's useful.
I have a series of questions, and they're all over the map, because as you were talking and as you went through the brief, I just picked up on them, so we'll tie into them and see where it goes.
You mentioned the time lines for opening a mine or approval for a mine opening. Three years is unacceptable. Do you have a recommendation as to how long it should take? In other words, you go to Voisey Bay and you're excited. Now what? Should it take three months to get this, three more months to get that, and so on? Do you have a set of time lines? If three years is too long, what is acceptable?
Ms Laurie-Lean: I don't think there's any magic number, although saying a maximum of three years would be more acceptable. Even the largest project should be able to get through the approval processes in three years, as opposed to absolutely the best-case scenario being three years.
From there, because there is great discomfort on the part of officials, particularly in the different federal departments, with having any uniform standards applied, as a minimum we were asking for thirty days to respond to any particular question. While that would not guarantee you the overall timeframe, it would at least ensure that the process is moving at any one time. You're not waiting for an answer or guidance as to the next step in the process.
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Because of the attempted harmonization between federal and provincial processes, I think there will be an imposition of some time lines, in some cases, on the overall process. It is still long. I understand the B.C.-Canada agreement proposes 40 months as the guideline. But within the federal government, there is a refusal in departments to talk about harmonizing their processes.
Mr. Strahl: That's interesting. Many of us met with people from the mining industry during the Keep Mining in Canada lobby day, which was very successful, I think. We got a summary package of the newspaper coverage.
What is glaringly different between the newspaper coverage and the kind words spoken on the Keep Mining in Canada lobby day is that everybody says the right things, but they don't do a damn thing to help out the mining industry. That comes out in your newspaper clippings you sent, which is that people in the mining industry are getting tired of the lack of response.
I have a couple of questions. For example, you said the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment - that whole system - is on hold right now.
Ms Laurie-Lean: On the environmental assessment.
Mr. Strahl: On the environmental assessment. That's just on hold. Do you have any idea why this is so?
Ms Laurie-Lean: No, we're not privy to the internal discussions -
Mr. Strahl: So that's just governmental; it's not held up by industry, surely?
Ms Laurie-Lean: No.
Mr. Strahl: What about the proposals by Industry Minister Manley? He has promised by December 5 of this year to come out with a set of proposals on how he hopes to coordinate the activity for the mining industry. Do you have any idea of the status of that?
Mr. Miller: Following the lobby day that you mentioned, we met with a number of officials from a variety of departments, including Industry Canada, the assessment review agency, Environment Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
We held a workshop on these same four issues we raised with you today. We wondered what on earth we could do. Can we develop, as a group of thirty well-meaning and hard-working industry and government officials, some consensus and action steps that would move this whole agenda forward and help Mr. Manley keep his promise?
I must say that we got a sympathetic and professional response from the officials. We did identify a large number - at least a dozen - of concrete steps that can be done. In some cases, this would create standing consultative arrangements between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the mining industry that would avoid some of the inconsistencies we mention in our brief. But I don't think we got the feeling that major announcements were in the immediate offing.
I really can't give you a progress report on the government's intentions with respect to building a more innovative economy.
Mr. Strahl: I kind of agree with my colleague. The concern of this whole process is that we may come up with a set of recommendations that will go into political cyberspace again. Of course, that's what the mining industry is getting a little fatigued with. I don't know what to do.
Say you were to deal primarily with the provinces on approval processes. Say the feds removed themselves one way or another from a lot of it. Some people would say that's because you're going to deal with the provinces that have lax standards. It's an easy way to do it; you can just run roughshod over the environment.
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I come from B.C. I cannot imagine that B.C.'s standards are lower than federal standards. What's your reaction to that? How do you respond?
Mr. Miller: We reject that assertion categorically. I'm glad you mentioned B.C. In British Columbia, for some years, the provincial government had a mine-approval process, which was coordinated by the mines department. It brought to the table all departments of both the federal and provincial governments that had any concern with the project. Fisheries and Oceans was there. Environment Canada was there. The provincial environment departments were there.
That was an exemplary process of assessment. It was thorough, but it proceeded along a time line that was driven by the province. The other people, all the participants, had to commit themselves according to the strict time lines.
As you say, the results were excellent in terms of the technical quality of the developments. There was no falling off of standards. Admittedly, that was before the federal government created CEAA. This was under the days of EARP. There is no doubt that CEAA has put a new complexion on the federal government's ability within that legislation.
Mr. Strahl: So let me get this straight. There's a lot of talk right now about the devolution of powers and realignment of responsibilities, whatever people might want to call it. There has been a trend, certainly in the standing committee's report, to increase the federal role, as opposed to decreasing it.
In other words, if the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Environment were to be accepted - even half of them - I would think you're looking at an increased role for the federal government, not a devolution of powers at all.
Mr. Miller: You're absolutely right.
Mr. Strahl: That's a disturbing thing. You do mention in your brief something that surprised me a little bit about the need for a federal water policy, as opposed to dealing through Fisheries, Environment, and so on. If they had a federal water policy, are you concerned that it would merely be another tool or hoop that you would have to jump through, or do you think that somehow would streamline it?
Mr. Miller: The sort of water policy we were recommending would simply allow the federal government to get its own house in order with respect to the priorities of different departments. There are existing powers and existing functions within the federal government dealing with water, but at the moment, the Fisheries Act overrides them all. Other priorities don't get to the table when the Fisheries Act is being discussed.
So I think a policy decision as to how those priorities should be related within the federal house would help us a lot.
Mr. Strahl: You mentioned -
The Chairman: We'll move on to the next thing. We'll get back to you.
Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To you both, when I hear you deliver this brief and some of the explanations, I sit here saying yes, yes, yes.
I'll express my own frustration. Having had some experience dealing with bureaucracy and dealing with the prejudice that exists in bureaucracy in terms of the interpretation of regulations, I sometimes wonder if the approving body should be in a separate office outside these ministries and that the ministries should be commenting bodies rather than the permit issuers, and so on.
.1145
In reference to the problems with the fisheries, the government has been in discussion with provinces regarding the elimination of duplication and so on, and provinces are not always willing to go along with that devolution, because sometimes it makes the province accountable for the first time and they can't hide behind the federal back-up any more. We are working on trying to get hold of this problem.
Also, fisheries interest me, because fisheries are really a combination of science and black magic, depending on the school you graduated from and whose set of prejudices you adopted regarding the reality of fisheries. I'm not sure how we overcome that with the present structure we have, but it seems to me that in the end there has to be some arm's length approving body.
Perhaps the time has come, in the evolution of our concern for the environment - which has been expressed by the public and by various organizations and so on, and with some real effect, I might also add - for us to bring a new word into this milieu now and call it ``eco-realism''.
What we're hearing from interest groups and so on regarding environmental concerns really is negative. If you were to believe some of these things, you would think the environment we live in is getting worse, when in fact in many respects it's getting better. Our challenge is not only to sustain that improvement, but also to find ways to add to that improvement and look at the positive side rather than the negative side. In other words, what can we do to make this work?
One thing you didn't mention in your brief - and you covered a lot of ground - is the business of regulations changing during the time of seeking project approval. I speak from the heart on this one. A proposal is made, based on whatever knowledge of regulations is there. Then, during the course of consideration of that proposal, somebody down here decides we're going to change this regulation, which results in a resubmission, which results in more money, more time, more discouragement for investors and so on.
It seems to me one thing we can do is change the act, if you like, to grandfather a submission so that new regulations during that process of approval don't get imposed on that project. They're okay for the next guy, but they shouldn't be imposed on something that's under way. In opening a mine, for instance, the cost must be often in the millions of dollars to meet this bureaucratic change.
You spoke of the need for a water policy, and I couldn't agree more. The so-called water policy that exists now abandoned some years ago the navigability test, for instance. Consequently all rivers in Canada are considered navigable unless proven otherwise somehow, and there's no real test to prove it otherwise. So what happens is it goes into the Supreme Court and a judge will talk about whether or not you can float a toothpick down a stream. Once again, there's a cost.
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I do believe a revival of the traditional tests is very much in order so that everybody understands what constitutes navigability. That has resulted in incredible costs, not just for the mining industry, but for municipalities all across Canada, which must submit to this kind of thing.
You talk about cross-fertilization among committees.
The Chairman: Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed: Have we run out of time?
The Chairman: Your question has taken -
Mr. Rideout: It's like an opposition preamble.
Mr. Reed: Well, it is. This is a question period.
The Chairman: They have four minutes to answer.
Mr. Rideout: Did you forget what the question was?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Reed: In the interest of time, I'll just ask you to comment about the changing regulations during the process and the business of the so-called centralist system. I happen to be one of those who believe that a system with some central governance can be a positive thing.
Mr. Miller: Let me make two remarks on that.
We see a clear role for the federal government in maintaining national standards and in dealing with environmental issues at the international level - real environmental issues that exceed provincial boundaries in scope. There are many roles for the federal government, but duplicating provincial regulations at operating sites doesn't seem to us to be a very sensible one.
On the question of regulations that change during approval processes, the number of times a formal regulation changes and creates problems for a proponent is vastly outdone by the number of times opinions of officials change during approval processes. A department that has reviewed the submission comes back and says ``Oh, there's another thing we want to know.'' These are relatively frequent in the federal system right now, at least to my understanding.
My colleague probably has more detail on that matter than I have.
Ms Laurie-Lean: I think you may be referring to the situation of getting caught within CEAA under the Fisheries Act, which previously would not have applied. We foresaw that transition problem because of the Fisheries Act, specifically with mining projects. Previously some did not get caught if there was not a navigable waters provision or if they were not in the north. But that does not happen very frequently. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any mechanism for resolving these things speedily.
As to the centralization issue, that's a tricky one. Industry has seen the positive and negative aspects of it. Having a central assessment process within the federal government would overcome some of the problems of poor interpretation and experience and discomfort with the process. On the other hand, there is a fear on the part of most industries of having some remote official in Ottawa who doesn't know anything whatsoever about the industry, the economy or the region making a decision in the abstract. That's a real fear.
The contrary argument is what does the coast guard official know about mining? What does the fisheries expert know about mining? You have this problem, and it's particularly acute in the industries that are not regulated by the federal government.
In areas such as uranium mining or transport, where you have an already existing federal authority, adding the environmental aspect to it is fairly reasonable. But where the federal involvement in an environmental assessment of an industry is tied to incidental triggers, such as whether or not you put a culvert over a creek, I'm not sure how you resolve that into a functioning process, unless you combine it somehow with the provincial permitting process, which permits the mine, not the culvert, and tends to see it a little more holistically than the federal government does.
The Chairman: You'll have to continue in the second round, Mr. Reed.
Mr. Deshaies.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: I have two short questions to ask.
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You mentioned that the Whitehorse Mining Initiative was an excellent experience allowing for a great deal of progress but that the new Environmental Assessment Act had more or less brought things to a halt.
Do you think that another mining initiative similar to the Whitehorse one would force departments to modify their decision-making process? Would that be a good recommendation?
[English]
Mr. Miller: The Whitehorse Mining Initiative had some very substantial benefits for us. We dealt extensively with the issue of environmental assessment with environmentalists, with aboriginal peoples, and with provincial and federal officials.
It became clear that some of the interest groups feel that they don't have a forum in which to express long-term concerns about government policies generally, or long-term concerns about land use over a large area generally. So they bring those concerns to an environmental assessment process and load them onto individual projects.
An individual uranium mine should not be held up by or held responsible for the federal government's nuclear policy, yet that is the kind of concern that is brought to the assessment of a uranium mine.
We felt that the Whitehorse Mining Initiative was quite useful in clearing that issue away. We could agree with the environmental groups that they need a forum somewhere to express long-term views about policy and land use. Once we agreed with that, they then agreed that a single environmental assessment, where the provinces and the federal government cooperated, with time lines, with all the things we want in an assessment, was reasonable. They could see that such an assessment would not result in a decrease of environmental protection. But really what we were talking about were two different forums to discuss the technical aspects of a project in one and long-term and broad-scale policy considerations in another.
The problem we have is that we don't have those two processes going on separately in this country right now. If you could suggest a process that could allow the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to separate clearly and say, ``It's not a part of our mandate to deal with nuclear policy long-term concerns, social policy issues that are not related to this project, but we will limit ourselves strictly to dealing with the project'', then that would assist the proponents considerably.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: According to you, should we suggest that the provinces, if they're interested, can take over the management of federal environmental regulations? If the provinces were responsible for administering such regulations, it would reduce the number of intervenors and there would be fewer officials to meet and fewer interpretations.
[English]
Mr. Miller: I think that's precisely the right way to go. We feel very strongly that one expert provincial investigator can carry two clipboards when he goes to a mine. We don't need two inspectors collecting salaries in order to administer a federal regulation and a provincial regulation. But even that situation is not ideal. What we really need is the federal government saying, ``Look, the contents of our clipboard are very similar to the contents of the provincial clipboard. Why don't we just combine them?'' Why don't we say in our act that the two systems are equivalent and allow the provinces to carry the ball?
.1200
I take the point that some of the provinces say, ``Give us the resources to do that'', and perhaps the cost savings have to be shared, but it should be possible to work something out.
Mr. Strahl: You mentioned the role of the federal government. What should be the role? That's one of the things we need to decide during the course of these committee hearings. You mentioned setting national standards as one of the necessary roles of the federal government.
As I understand it, if the federal government were to adopt the standing committee's recommendations on the environment, the federal government would lose some of the privilege of setting national standards because it would be adhering to every UN resolution, every resolution of any developed country. Even a province could.... For example, in B.C., where we don't have a big asbestos industry, we could ban asbestos and tell Quebec to listen up and ban it, too.
In other words, if the recommendations of that standing committee were accepted, then the setting of the national standards wouldn't really be possible for the federal government. At least, some of that control would be taken away from the federal government and from the Canadian people.
Mr. Miller: Justyna has studied that point.
Ms Laurie-Lean: I think the concept of using the evaluations of other jurisdictions to assist in our regulatory process was very good. The recommendation that we automatically take the regulations of others and implement them in Canada was not a particularly good one, especially if you look at regulatory structures in other countries. They are simply formatted differently. You cannot take their ideas and put them in Canada. They just don't fit into our legal structure. So that obviously is something that cannot be accepted.
We need to keep in mind that national standards don't necessarily mean only federal regulations. National means that the federal government and provinces get together and discuss things. For example, there has been a lot of progress and common understanding in looking at acid rock drainage, which is one of the big problems in our industry, by having the provinces and the federal scientists working together with academics and with industry. At the end, everyone had the same understanding of the problem and could go away and manage their site-specific requirements from a common knowledge base that did not require a federal statute that imposed something on the provinces.
So there is a role, particularly in the science area, understanding research, for the federal government to help bring together and advance knowledge, and that can result in national objectives or national guidelines. But recognize that a lot of things are very site-specific and cannot be determined intelligently at a national level.
Mr. Strahl: So is your suggestion that if the guidelines or standards were set nationally, the provinces would enforce them locally?
Ms Laurie-Lean: They should be set in such a way that the provinces can make use of these standards or objectives in protecting their environment in the permitting process, using the same expertise and science base.
Mr. Strahl: There are all the platitudes. You come here and everyone will tell you, ``Yes, that's exactly what we should have - harmonization of regulations. We're going to work together. We've got a red book promise, a green book promise, and a blue book promise.'' Everyone is promising that's what they want to do.
What is the problem here? Is it bureaucratic inertia? Is it that the provinces don't want to give up some power? Is it that the feds want to expand their power? Where is the problem here? Everybody agrees with you that red tape has to go. It's a good speech; I used it myself in the election campaign. But where is the problem? Why can't we move ahead on that?
Ms Laurie-Lean: That's a tricky question. A lot of it is due to fragmentation. It's a little bit like the regulatory review that the government undertook, I guess two years ago. It took each regulation in isolation and asked what was wrong with it and whether it should be abolished. It came up with, ``Oh, all of those regulations are really good'' - but it asked the wrong question.
For example, the metal mining liquid effluent regulations are essential because of the way in which the Fisheries Act is created. It prohibits anything unless permitted by regulation; therefore, you need the regulation to do anything. So when asked if it is a good idea to have the regulations, you have to say yes, that it's a good idea. But if you ask if the act is structured in such a way as to make the best regulatory process, no, it isn't. So if the fisheries department looks at it from its point of view and the environment department from its, it's very difficult to reconcile.
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You need some vision, trust, guidance, and leadership from the top, and a real belief that not only the cost to government should be lowered, but the cost to the economy. It's one of the things that we really overlook in a lot of these initiatives.
For example, the federal-provincial agreements on environmental assessment are all written to make things easier for governments. They totally ignore the costs and delays to the proponent, as well as the proponent's needs. It's at the discretion of the government and for its benefit.
There has to be some recognition by the government that the economy and the proponent are also a significant player in this.
Mr. Strahl: Somebody gave out this voluntary emissions reduction booklet. I just got this. I haven't looked through it recently. It has some nice graphs in it. I like pictures, and I will look at it later.
Today's newspaper carries a story about voluntary emissions - it's not from the mining industry particularly, as it speaks of the OECD report - that are going to be good enough for greenhouse gases, specifically. So the environment minister has suggested - this is at least in the paper, but I don't know what else she said - that basically it may have to look at fees, taxes, and other economic things that it can do to industries in order to force them to meet emissions of some sort.
What is your opinion? Everybody in industry likes the voluntary emissions reduction program, because it's voluntary and it doesn't involve as much regulation and bureaucracy. How would you counter the argument that you guys aren't doing enough and that your emissions, voluntary as they are, are just not going far enough, fast enough. So now they're going to make sure with either regulations, penalties or taxes to make sure that you do something more about it.
Ms Laurie-Lean: It's a trick question, because there is a significant difference between the climate-change issue and other types of hazardous air pollutants. I wouldn't want to equate the two issues. We're not as familiar with the climate-change file. We are very supportive of the voluntary challenge, and we are participating in the energy-efficiency program.
It's somewhat different. The emission reductions we've been able to achieve, from our smelters in particular, for example, with SO2, have been quite dramatic. I think the scope is much lower for future gains in energy efficiency and CO2 reductions and the issue is much more global.
You can't really draw a comparison. I don't think you can say that it's voluntary or regulatory. There may be circumstances in which regulations are necessary, and there is a demonstrated need and priority. We believe the reason for ``voluntary'' being preferred is that you can actually achieve more when you have the flexibility and the view is performance oriented rather than proscriptive.
Say you have a regulation. If the government were to impose those kinds of reductions, they would be much lower. That's because with the technology that was available even at the time the ARET challenge was issued.... For example, on mercury, we could have made only marginal reductions. But at the time of the challenge, the companies with major emissions invested heavily in searching for and trying out new technologies. They implemented them and then were able to promise a 50% reduction. They're hoping they can achieve more than that.
Had it been a regulation and an adversarial circumstance, they would not have gone out of their way to find new ways of meeting it, because they knew that whatever they found would be imposed on them.
So it's a very different approach. You have to keep in mind that regulation can achieve less than a well-designed, well-embraced voluntary program.
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The Chairman: Mr. Rideout.
Mr. Rideout: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one question, although it may have a number of parts. I just wanted to look at two or three things.
Listening to some of the questions that are being offered, it strikes me that we're going through a real process of trying to decide how we want this country to be governed and what's to take place. I know that Natural Resources Canada has consulted with industry as to the role that the federal government should play in the mining industry. I think it might give our committee some benefit to have an elaboration with respect to that, because there is the image that these are all provincial assets and the federal government should therefore be out. So we should forget about that and move on to another topic.
Second - I was in opposition, so I can say this - when you're in opposition, you work under this ``poof'' syndrome. You just come along and go ``poof'' and all these problems just disappear.
The magnitude of the approach we would have to take in order to resolve some of the duplication and overlap is not susceptible to ``poof''. It takes a little longer than ``poof''.
Perhaps you could give us some ideas as to the priority areas at which we should be looking, because I think a journey starts with the first step. Maybe we should start on some specific things and work on those, then maybe the rest will follow. So you could give us some ideas of priority areas.
Third, perhaps you could give us some specific recommendations in those areas of priority. You may want to write us afterward rather than get into that. Could you give us some actual specifics as to how the regulations, or whatever it may be, should be altered?
In a general sense, the federal government's done some things to get its financial house in order. In our recent budget, the mining industry was the only one mentioned specifically as far as trying to make some changes that would be of some assistance.
Here's one of the other things we did do. The federal government entered into some bilateral arrangements, particularly with British Columbia, in giving a single window on project review. Perhaps you might want to tell us how you think that's going to work and whether this could be a model for us as far as some recommendations are concerned.
That was my only question, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller: I'd like to handle the first part. Perhaps Justyna could deal with the specific recommendations and priorities, and the bilateral arrangements on project assessments.
It is true that mineral rights and the administration of mining are a federal responsibility. It is also true that there is no policy area into which the federal government can enter that does not have a major impact on the mining industry. It would be folly for the federal government to abandon its department in which the expertise about our industry is situated.
I'm talking now first of all about the policy and economic side, which is the sector in NRC that deals with metals and minerals policy. It's the only place in Ottawa where you'll find expertise relating to mineral markets, commodity price structures, the impact of mineral-specific taxation on the industry, and so on.
All of these issues of international trade and institutions and their effect on the Canadian mineral industry, and many others, are dealt with by the policy sector in NRC. Without having the mining industry expertise located in the federal government, you could find the federal government doing things that run counter to common sense without being aware of it.
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In the second place, the scientific sectors within NRCanada play an important role at the national level, and it's a role that's well recognized by the provinces. They have national facilities and world-class expertise in geology, metallurgy, and other fields.
The provinces and the industry look to the Geological Survey of Canada, CANMET, the geomatics sector, and all of these sectors to provide technology and to provide a window into government science where they know they'll get an expert hearing and a fair shake.
We're working very closely with CANMET on the issue of acid drainage from mines. The two of us together, plus the provinces, are solving the problem. We're spending zillions of dollars, we're doing research, and we're developing technology that is going to improve the Canadian environment and provide export opportunities for the consultants who have developed the expertise. That cannot be done province by province. It has to be done at the federal level.
With the Geological Survey, we're cost-sharing a program to sort out the actual fate as compared to the supposed fate of metals in the environment.
If you take a core sample in just about any lake in northern Canada, you're going to find some metal compounds in the sediment. If you ask a geochemist where he thinks those metal compounds came from, the geochemist will say they obviously came from the weathering of the bedrock and so on - local sources of deposition. If you ask an environmental scientist working in some university or even in Environment Canada where he thinks the metals came from, he's going to say they're obviously from airborne pollution created by our industrial society and the metal smelters in southern Canada.
We have to sort this out. There again, without bringing the geochemical expertise of the Geological Survey together with the environmental expertise of Environment Canada, with funding from industry, our hopes of ever getting a clear answer to that question and some policies based on clear scientific evidence would be nil.
I make no apology for the role of NRCanada in the federal government. It's an absolutely essential component of the federal government, and it works to help the industry, but in a very ethical way. We're not asking for special deals here; we're asking for expertise that can bring benefits to the industry and to Canada.
Wasn't that a pretty good speech? I'm sorry about that.
Mr. Rideout: We were following every word, George.
Mr. Miller: For specific recommendations on priorities and how the bilateral arrangement with B.C. works, why don't you take a quick crack at that?
Ms Laurie-Lean: I'll start with B.C. The proof will be in the pudding. There are some good signals, but we'd like to see a little bit of concern. The outer framework is forty months, and that's a bit on the long side, but we'll see in practice. It's at least better than some of these other agreements.
As to priorities, it is a little bit difficult to say fix this or fix that, because of the interrelatedness of the issues we touched on, maybe with the exception of CEPA. That can probably be put in a separate category.
The Fisheries Act would not be such a concern if it were not a trigger for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. That triggering makes the timing of the fisheries involvement very critical.
Similarly, the cumulative effects problem would be much easier to solve if we had a coherent land use policy and approach from the federal and provincial governments. At the risk of being a little too technical, I'll explain a little bit where the problem comes in.
The way the act is worded, it does not ask how this project contributes to the overall damage in this area from human activity and then answer whether that is okay or not. It asks what the cumulative damage is and whether or not it is significant, which places on that proponent the responsibility for assessing what the impacts are of all the other projects. It's very difficult to say what the spatial and time limits are to that.
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One of our members was asked to assess all effects of human activity since the Stone Age in this area. In that case it was something that the company could undertake. For a smaller company it would have been simply impossible.
Mr. Reed: Those are real acts of wisdom.
Ms Laurie-Lean: Yes!
But the way the act is worded, it is almost impossible to resolve. We had actually asked a consultant, who had advised the federal government, to work with us on developing some practical solutions, but at the end we're concluding that it might not be so simple.
It could be accommodated if there was good regional land-use planning, good federal-provincial cooperation, so that the individual proponent could look at his project in a wider context. But when there's no wider context, that is a really problematic one.
In terms of what could be done now and simply, I think of some of the timing issues. It's not too much to ask the government either to pass a regulation or to incorporate a regulation in the Environmental Assessment Act, or, even through a Treasury Board directive, to issue some kind of directive whereby questions will be answered. Even if you answer that you don't know the answer, at least answer within some specified time period.
We quote 30 days because that's a number. But almost any number would be better than no number at all.
That's something that surely no one could argue is damaging to the environment or to the authority of the federal government. So that would probably be number one.
The other issue is that we've got to keep working on them in total.
The Chairman: You indicated that officials are penalized for the wrong action but are not penalized for taking no action. What did you mean by that? Can you see any remedy for that sort of situation?
Ms Laurie-Lean: The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act sets out all of the things that the government must do, at the risk of being taken to court, as they were under the EARP guidelines, in order to meet the requirements of the act; but there's nothing in the act that stipulates that some action has to be taken. It is only that you can't take action unless you've done certain things. So I guess it's a presumption of guilt. You must follow all the little details of the act and fulfil its requirements before you can make a decision. You're not allowed to make a decision until you've done it.
The Chairman: So you're saying that there should be something to spur people to get the job done, right or wrong.
Ms Laurie-Lean: Yes.
Mr. Miller: Some statutes, not necessarily at the federal level, have time lines, which put the onus on the government to show that such a decision should not be positive. In other words, if an official hasn't shown within 60 days that he should not issue the permit, then the permit will be issued automatically. That focuses the mind.
The Chairman: You were saying something about a three-year timeframe for some mines to get up and running. What was that three-year timeframe?
Ms Laurie-Lean: The first memorandum of understanding was between the federal government and Alberta. The local representative of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency made a presentation to our environment committee on this wonderful single-window approach. When asked, given this streamlining in efficiency, how long it would take to permit a mine, he said, ``Well, within three years we should be able to start considering a decision.''
The Chairman: So that means six?
Ms Laurie-Lean: Yes.
That shocked a lot of people.
In practice, for a very large development that might not be unrealistic. But if from the starting-point it's going to be at least three years, that is very scary to investors.
The Chairman: What does it take now?
Ms Laurie-Lean: What did it take without CEAA? It varied right across the country, but it was driven largely by provincial requirements. On a smaller project, six months has been possible. You're probably talking about one or two years.
The Chairman: Six months from what to what?
Ms Laurie-Lean: From the time when the application was made for a permit -
The Chairman: To mine.
Ms Laurie-Lean: - to when the permit was issued and construction started, roughly.
Now, that's for a small project or an expansion. You'd expect a little bit more than that for a larger project, a more complex project, and of course it depends on how much controversy there is and on other interests. But where there is good consultation with the local population beforehand, it should be possible.
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The Chairman: When there is three years, four years, or five years, each year must diminish returns on investments. Do you have any figures that would show the impact of these types of delays?
Mr. Miller: At an earlier meeting of this committee, several years ago, we submitted a little graphic illustration of that. We modelled a typical mine, which requires a period of negative cashflow while you're exploring. At a certain point you find something. You then sink a lot of money into the ground to develop a mine, and you get your revenues some time later. So this is a typical cashflow profile for a mine.
If we insert a two-year waiting period between the finish of the exploration period and the beginning of construction, then clearly that reduces the rate of return to some extent, because your revenues are deferred and yet you still spend some money up front.
If we introduce a four-year period of delay rather than a two-year period of delay, then, for a marginal mining project that would have earned 15% before taxes, that would decrease the rate of return by about 2%. So it would have dropped it before the likely threshold of decision.
You can argue about whether 15% is the right rate of return on which to base your decisions, but the conclusion stands: whatever assumptions you make, a delay in the period will drop the rate of return and make the project less attractive.
Mr. Strahl: You might be asked to make another submission on something in the weeks to come, but I'm not sure. Last night we had referred to us a private member's bill calling for intervenor funding, with which I'm sure you're familiar. The preamble says:
- The purpose of this Act is to require any person proposing a project that would affect the public
interest or the environment and that is required by law to be reviewed by a public process before
being approved by government or an agency of the government
- - and this is what it wants -
- to provide funding to assist organizations that represent a relevant public interest and that wish
to intervene in the review process to represent that interest.
This would be a federal act. I think it's appropriate just to ask here.... If it's not another layer of regulation, then it's certainly another federal hoop, in that if a project was coming up you would be asked to pay money to groups that want to protest the fact that you are going to put a project forward.
There is already some provincial legislation like that.
Is it an undue hardship on industry, or has it worked well in the provincial realms in which it has been tried?
Mr. Miller: The answer is that depends on the fine print.
In principle, I think our members are comfortable with consultation processes and with mediation processes. They accept that they have to allow members of the broader community to express opinions about a project or an operating mine, so some method to do that has to be found.
They are not fond of the concept of intervenor funding, but, as you say, some jurisdictions already have it and we might have to accept that it exists.
But the actual impact of that depends on what is defined as a relevant interest and how representative the person who puts himself forward looking for intervenor funding is. Does he represent a very small group of people who have just created an organization with a big name in order to intervene, or does he represent a substantial body of people who have been committed to this area for a long time?
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The other question you need to ask is what limits are going to be placed on the funding? Do we extend the invitation to all conceivable groups and fund them for all time, or do we build a fence around the commitment of somebody else's money? Those are questions we would want to look at very carefully.
Mr. Strahl: You may want to get a copy of this bill. It will affect mining significantly if it goes forward. We will be looking at it in the months ahead, so you may want to spend some time looking at that fine print. I agree with your questioning just where it would lead us.
Again, although we cannot go ``poof'' and fix all the problems, my concern is we don't want to go ``poof'' and destroy the mining industry.
Mr. Rideout: That's why we're here.
Mr. Strahl: Exactly. Hopefully we won't still be here two years from now, discussing the same thing.
Mr. Rideout: That depends on how long you take asking questions.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Strahl: I have one other question.
You mentioned the fact that the federal Fisheries Act triggers an investigation under the CEAA, which is a big problem. You list quite a few things to do with the Fisheries Act here.
You talked about the ample evidence that the effluent regulations are virtually a complete duplication of federal controls. Do you have that ample evidence? Can you give us that?
Ms Laurie-Lean: There's a parallel requirement in every province in Canada, either the exact same or more stringent. I think Quebec has a slightly more stringent pH requirement, but that's it. That's uniform across the country. On top of the base regulation, when provinces issue site-specific permits, they may make them more stringent where there are reasons to do so in a particular circumstance.
Mr. Strahl: I know from my logging background that a deleterious substance placed in a habitat frequented by fish can pretty well make it impossible to do any work.
Ms Laurie-Lean: It can be its own sediment, like the sediment in the creek. So actually, in theory, putting your foot in the creek is depositing a deleterious substance, because you're disturbing the mud.
Mr. Strahl: Again, it depends on the official.
My last question is totally unrelated to that one. You mentioned the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the recommendations of It's About Our Health. You mentioned that inherent toxicity is the concept promoted for action rather than risk assessment.
Are you aware of any other jurisdiction that considers inherent toxicity rather than risk assessment? In other words, is there another developed or developing country that uses risk assessment rather than inherent toxicity? Which does everybody use?
Ms Laurie-Lean: By and large it's risk assessment, although no one ever gets quite so detailed. Countries usually regulate certain substances for certain purposes, but there is no jurisdiction, as far as I know, that makes a list of inherently toxic substances and then says anyone using them must do this or that. That is impossible, because in fact everything is inherently toxic, and therefore you would have an endless list.
If you look at the transport of dangerous goods regulations, they cover millions of things; it's simply a humongous field.
So it's trying to link the concept of inherent toxicity to some kind of automatic regulation that becomes a problem, because they're nonsense. It doesn't really tell you anything.
Mr. Strahl: So it's not done anywhere in Canada currently?
Ms Laurie-Lean: No.
Mr. Strahl: And it's not done, as you say, in any jurisdiction you know of?
Ms Laurie-Lean: No.
Mr. Strahl: Thank you.
The Chairman: Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to be a little more brief this time.
I want to get back to this business of decentralizing and centralizing. We had an experience in Ontario where policy was decentralized. The regulatory process was decentralized in the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the assumption was that it could be a good thing, because the people right there, the local people, could make the decisions on the firing line.
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The end result, after six years of this being in place, is that each region now is expressing its own personal policy based on its own personal prejudices, and therefore there is no ability for anyone trying to do anything to find clear guidelines. That's the downside of decentralization.
Even in the province, when they say ``Okay, you guys are out in the firing line, so you do it'', you run into this process of ``Better to do nothing than to get my backside burned.'' Also, there's ``Now that you've done this, this is what we want you to do, and oh, yes, there's something else over here that we want you to do too.''
I put that caution on, but one of the good changes that's happening in Ontario is that the approval process is going to be taken out of those ministries that are commenting and put into another ministry. I do believe that's a positive thing. Ministries such as Environment and Natural Resources and so on become commenting bodies, and a separate entity then studies those comments, weighs the pros and cons of them in the balance, and makes a decision based on the government policy of the day.
There is another concern, and quite frankly, I must admit I don't know whether it applies federally or not, but it does apply provincially. There's a section in the Environmental Assessment Act of Ontario that says any person can raise an objection at any time during the process of a mine development or some other kind of development.
That's fine - they can do it on the basis of their environmental concerns, etc. - except that in many cases it will stop a project. When it stops a project, the financial cost is laid back on the proponent, but the perpetrator of the action is not financially liable in any respect. So if it's a facetious objection, there is no cost or responsibility placed on the proponent.
Do you have any experience with that?
Mr. Miller: We've dealt with it, in a policy sense, several times. There have been different opportunities.
When the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights Act was first promulgated or first discussed, many people were concerned that citizens' rights could be abused. Earlier than that, in Ontario again, with the proposal that a workers' safety committee could shut down a workplace, the employers originally were concerned that could be abused. In fact, I believe the feeling is now that it is very seldom abused.
On the other hand, we do also know that with any lack of clarity between federal and provincial jurisdictions, the first thing that happens is some concerned group will take both parties to court to compel them to do this or to do that. There is certainly scope for abuse of all kinds where people are given the power to stop something.
I would hope that when we're writing laws, we limit the power to stop projects and make sure that if there are messages of concern, they be sent to the decision-makers, but the decisions still have to proceed.
Mr. Reed: Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Reed.
Mr. Strahl.
Mr. Strahl: I just have one or two short questions, though I'd like to spend another year on this, if I could.
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Your conclusion is that administrative arrangements only go so far. There needs to be a willingness by the federal government to let go of outdated and expensive centralist systems, which is a willingness that has been expressed in no concrete action to date.
Of the things you're looking for rather than letting go of in outdated and centralist systems - whatever they may be - are these in your recommendations? Are these what you're talking about there? Or are you talking about setting national standards and allowing the provinces to do this site management?
I think we're looking at two different philosophies of government. I agree with your analysis of the role of the federal government. I think that's right. Obviously, it should be involved in international trade, regulation of international goods, international protocols, interprovincial movement of environmental problems, and so on. Those are all things that none of us are going to....
In scientific cooperation, those are all good. However, you've mentioned here that there is an unwillingness to let go of outdated and expensive centralist systems, which is what we need to get to. Are those contained in your recommendations? Or are you just talking about a mindset here? What are we dealing with?
Mr. Miller: Some are contained in the recommendations. I think we feel that, in certain areas, if the recommendations of the CCME are carried forward, they could imply administrative arrangements, but they could also imply legislative changes. So the role of the two levels of government would simply change it. That would eliminate some of the unnecessary duplication.
I think we recommended that the federal environment assessment process should not simply be coordinated with the provincial environmental assessment. It should become a single process that would satisfy the decision-making needs of both levels of government. That clearly calls for changes in CEAA, and possibly in provincial systems as well, to permit really binding joint proposals.
The existing agreements between British Columbia, Alberta, and a few other provinces, with the federal government, don't go far enough. They provide for coordinated, but parallel, assessments.
We haven't done it here, but we could bring you legislative wording for the Fisheries Act, which would give the federal minister a little flexibility that he doesn't now have. If the federal minister was satisfied that provincial regulations with respect to water quality were essentially equivalent to what he would write under the Fisheries Act, he would be able to say, in his opinion, that they were equivalent, so he would not act on water quality.
That's not in the act now. It is possible for the federal minister to make an administrative arrangement with a province to say that their inspectors will also be his inspectors, but they'll have to carry two clipboards. That doesn't go as far as we think it should.
There are probably other areas in which we could also bring forward specific changes.
Mr. Strahl: If you had those, it would be useful. It is a very broad statement to say that the government should be willing to get out of its centralist ideas. We could fight about that, but it's no good unless we have some specifics.
If you had those specific recommendations and you're willing to share them with the committee, I think it would be useful for us to look at that.
Mr. Miller: Yes.
Mr. Strahl: That's all. Thank you.
The Chairman: I think we've pretty well canvassed the witnesses as to the members' concerns.
I very sincerely wish to thank the representatives of the Mining Association of Canada for being kind enough to share their point of view with the committee.
As Mr. Strahl indicated, we'd be happy to receive any recommendations of a specific nature that you may have on any of these areas over and above your materials that are already submitted. I'm certain that anything like that would be welcome. We certainly appreciate anything that can assist the work of the committee in doing its job better.
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In addition, I do have a few questions written down here. Maybe you could take them, look at them, and provide some answers. That would be helpful. I would appreciate it.
Mr. Miller: Sure.
The Chairman: Once again, thank you. Committee members, thank you, and have a good day.
Mr. Miller: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned.