Thanks, Mr. Chair. I mentioned earlier how the department, in carrying out the public consultations that went into the development of the bill, had said that they were contemplating the development of an environmental registry.
Ontario has such as registry already in place, and has had it in place for more than a decade. This is one place on the Ontario government website where any individual can go and find important decisions that are made with regard to the environment; proposals for policies, programs, new regulations, draft regulations; and there is an opportunity for the public to comment on these, so we already have a model or a system that works in another jurisdiction. Apparently, the department heard some concerns about duplication with the Land and Water Board registries or the review board public registry. That is not what I think this contemplates. Those registries do a great job of informing people of decision-making proceedings under the Mackenzie Valley Resources Management Act.
What we are talking about is areas of GNWT jurisdiction, things like the Forest Act or the Environmental Protection Act, where GNWT has specific authority and makes decisions, issues permits and so on. That is where these things could be located because right now there is not much access to some of that information, although, through committee's development review of a number of the resource management bills, there will now be registries for mining, for public lands. All of those could be combined and put into an environmental registry, providing some greater coordination and maybe even some cost savings. That is what the purpose of this is, to ask the department to further consider this idea of an environmental registry and how to allow our citizens to have more information about important decisions made about the environment and maybe even a chance to comment on decisions before they are made or drafts of things before the decisions are made. Thanks, Mr. Chair.