Thanks, Mr. Chair. First off, I have a confession to make. I am passionate about this bill. This is the first time that the Environmental Rights Act has been through a review in 29 years. There have only been four requests under the act. It is not very well used; I don't think it's terribly well promoted. Of the four requests, there has only ever been one investigation carried out. I helped make that request with a friend, Chris O'Brien, about emissions from the Giant Mine.

Because this area of environmental rights is evolving over time, and certainly a number of other jurisdictions have adopted environmental rights right into the constitution, 149 of 193 countries have done that. Unfortunately, the bill that we have before us is really only making some minor improvements to what we have in place.

I will say that it does extend the basis for investigations, court actions, to acts of omissions, but there is now a significant harm test. You have to show that something has significant effects on the environment before an investigation or a court action might be permitted. There is to be a State of the Environment Report and a statement of environmental values. Those are improvements, but it's not a rights-based or obligation-based approach.

This really doesn't even deliver on the promises that were made by the department during the public consultations. What was promised were things like an environmental registry, a method for the public to propose policies, programs, agreements, initiatives, and a period for public comment on these things, and in some cases, even a response from the department. There was to be a definition of the right to a healthy environment, public trust was to be defined, and an obligation placed on our government to basically take care of the environment. There is to be dispute resolution incorporated into the bill, and investigations would initially be carried out by inspectors.

There was a lot more promise than what has been delivered in the bill. Committee did look at this and tried to find some ways to make some improvements in areas that we could, and I am pleased to say that most of the recommendations from committee have been incorporated into the bill. Those do include things like how to better define some criteria that can be considered in terms of defining significance, some principles that can help the Executive Council in drafting the statement of environmental values. These are well-accepted environmental principles. The statement of environmental values is to go through a public review now, similar to that that was can contemplated for the state of the environment reports. There have been some improvements made to the bill. There are still some areas that I would recommend some further improvements on.

Although they didn't receive committee support, I brought them to the floor of the House. I also indicated my willingness to work with the Minister and the department on further improvements, and I look forward to discussing those a little later when we get to the bill itself, Mr. Chair. I think that it is important for the public to know that we did receive significant amount of public concerns, submissions around how to improve this, and committee has done its best to try to do that within the scope of the bill that is before us. I look forward to further opportunities to improve this bill. Thanks, Mr. Chair.