[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, April 18, 1996
.0835 
[English]
The Chairman: Buenos das, bonjour, good morning. We have a quorum, so we'll start our proceedings.
We have this great opportunity to have before us today members of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Comision para la cooperacion ambiental.
I believe we have two witnesses, Mr. Lichtinger, who is the executive director, and Ms Ferretti, who is a director of the commission. We welcome you. We are very glad you could make time to come and speak to us.
The commission is located, as you know, in Montreal. Recently a book with a foreword byMr. Lichtinger has appeared in the bookstores. It is very well written and quite comprehensive. It's entitled The Environment and NAFTA. It is all you wanted to know about the relationship between and the role of NAFTA and the environment. I recommend it very highly. I just read a couple of chapters and found them extremely informative.
As la pensée du jour, the thought of the day, perhaps to launch and to introduce you,Mr. Lichtinger, I have a quotation from a speech by Warren Christopher at Stanford University on April 9. It is a very brief paragraph. He addressed a number of items in his speech, including the Rio Conference, and then he went on to say:
- We are striving through the new World Trade Organization to recognize the complex tensions
between promoting trade and protecting the environment and to ensure that neither comes at the
expense of the other.
Actually I would like to bring it to the attention of all members of this committee as a good item to read, because it definitely shows a change in the attitude of the State Department vis-à-vis the environment. It may be an indication also of what the president will be saying in the next campaign, in the fall probably. There is too much substance in it to consider this just an electoral ploy.
Mr. Lichtinger, we're glad to have you. If you would like to speak in Spanish, I'm sure our translators will do their best. If not, choose your language. We welcome you and Ms Ferretti before us. The floor is yours.
Mr. Victor Lichtinger (Executive Director, Commission for Environmental Cooperation): Thank you very much, bonjour, buenos das. I will not speak in Spanish because I have not met the translators. Like in French or in English, Mexicans have a strange accent, or a good accent vis-à-vis the others. I don't know if they would understand my Mexican accent, so I prefer to speak in English. Thank you.
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I'm very happy to be here with you. I have been executive director of this commission for close to two years - one year and eight months. I started this by myself in June 1994. Now I feel quite comfortable and somehow proud that we have a very good team in the commission. We are, as you know, based in Montreal and we're very happy to be there.
We are a team of around 30 to 35 people from the three countries, who are working on a common regional agenda of work on environmental issues, promoting environmental cooperation and dealing with very interesting issues that I will put forward to you in a little while, and trying to begin to foster a culture of looking at things from a North American regional perspective instead of just a national perspective.
As I told you, I have a team of people from the three countries. With me is Janine Ferretti, who is one of the directors. I have two directors who work with me. She is what we might call the Canadian director, but we all work as one team, not representing our own countries in dealing with regional issues of the environment.
The commission was created when NAFTA was signed, and it comes out of a parallel agreement on the environment that was negotiated at the end of the NAFTA negotiations. If you remember, at that time there was a lot of concern about what effect a free trade agreement would have on environmental standards, on the environment itself, on the different issues that relate to the three countries on environmental matters.
The response to those concerns was that the governments got together and negotiated an agreement. The main result of that agreement is to have several commitments of the parties vis-à-vis each other on enforcing environmental laws, on notifying themselves of changes of laws, and so on, and to create a commission that would deal with these regional issues.
The commission has as its objectives in general to promote environmental cooperation, to make sure the environmental laws of the three countries are enforced, and to support the environmental commitments of NAFTA. Within that support of the environmental commitments of NAFTA, we have the responsibility to try to avoid, prevent, and solve trade disputes that have an environmental content, or environmental disputes that might arise between the three countries.
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation has mainly three bodies. One is the council, which is comprised of the three ministers of the environment of the three governments - in the case of Canada, as you know, it is Minister Marchi. We have the secretariat, which I head, comprised of the team I am talking about that implements the work program during the year - and I will talk about in that a little while - and we have the joint public advisory committee, which is a committee comprised of five individuals from the three countries, who in their personal capacity advise the council on implementation of the agreement.
The negotiation of the North American agreement on the environment was very much guided by the notion of sovereignty. It was very clear that there was really a need to have a regional organization but that there was a very clear understanding that we were not going to be creating a supranational body that would be imposing laws or regulations or different kinds of, let's say, decisions that would impact on the sovereignty of nations.
.0845
That's why it is very clear in the agreement that the countries and the governments are compelled and committed to follow their own environmental legislation. They have the responsibility and the right to enact them through their own legislative processes, to enforce them, and to implement them themselves.
Of course, once the society and the bodies like yours decide on different issues there is a commitment among the three to comply and to enforce them, but the sovereignty of nations is very much respected in that each country decides its own national laws, policies, standards, and so on. There is no intention nor mandate to equalize standards. There is a global intention to have standards in the region progress towards a better environment and better protection for citizens and their health. However, there is no intention of equalizing, either at the maximum level or at the minimum level, the standards of the region.
I would separate our work in the commission into three parts. The first has to do with a regional agenda we have, the issues that the three countries have decided through the council to work on and promote cooperation between the three. It's a big program of work, and you have a copy in front of you. We have around $10 million U.S. to implement that program every year. There are many issues of importance, but I would underline some issues that I think not only traditionally but actually right now are very important to Canada as a whole and to different regions in particular.
In the first instance, we have an important couple of projects that deal with the long-range transport of pollutants. Today when I was having breakfast in that very nice hotel, the Château Laurier, I was reading in The Globe and Mail an article about the Inuit feeling the impact of pollution from the south and about the increase in cancer they are alleging the Inuit population is having.
Much of the issue repeats itself with the Great Lakes as well. We know there are a lot of pollutants that travel long distances. Even though those pollutants are not - especially in the Arctic - emitted in the region, they travel from abroad.
As you know, you have been dealing with that issue of the Great Lakes with the United States for a long, long time. You have an agreement on acid rain, and you have tried in the past to expand that agreement to many other things.
Mexico has some sources of pollution that have been shown to be found in your territories and your sinks, which is mostly the Great Lakes and the Arctic. We are trying to give a lot of priority to this issue to begin to understand where the sources are, to begin to work towards possible understandings, monitoring agreements on this level, and to begin to raise the consciousness of the population, the governments, the parliaments, the people, that you have to work together as a region to solve the issues. Whatever the Great Lakes do binationally in the area is not enough, because pollutants are coming from outside of the very close area.
.0850
We have found - and the IJC has a lot of studies on that - that in the Great Lakes much of the pollution by certain pollutants that are very dangerous to health is coming from outside the near area of the Great Lakes. There are issues the IJC, in their Great Lakes agreement, cannot deal with because they go much further than that. Even the North American region is too small to deal completely with that problem because many of the pollutants come from Siberia through the Arctic or from other places.
Within our organization I think we can be a leader in beginning to deal with these issues, and link with efforts in the European commissions and other places that are also beginning to deal with these issues.
That's one of the issues in our agenda that I think is relevant to the interests of Canada. I am going to talk about a couple of them because the list is quite long and I would be willing to go into a discussion with you after this presentation.
We have another project where we're trying to negotiate with the three governments a legal instrument that would deal with the transborder environmental impact assessment. This means that when some project that might have an environmental impact on the other side of the border is constructed or is planned, the impact that project might have on the other side of the border must be taken into consideration.
As a Mexican and you as Canadians, we have a big neighbour to the north and south of us, respectively. They have strict rules on environmental impact assessments, but when they do projects near our borders they do not always look at the potential impact on the other side of the border.
It is a long tradition that interests of Mexico and Canada have been notified before a decision is taken about a particular project, and have been able to comment on those projects, and for the public of those states or provinces to participate in the process of decision-making about the project.
We have a mandate in the agreement to finish this kind of instrument and to have a final draft by the end of this year. We are working with the strong and interested participation of the Canadian federal ministry to try to finish this by the end of this year.
We are dealing with issues that are particular to other areas, like conservation. We are dealing with ecosystems and issues of particular pollutants like PCBs, DDT, etc. Maybe I will leave that for the questions. I won't go into that because I still have several things to say about the commission.
That's one part of what we do - the cooperative agenda. The other part is that when this agreement was negotiated, there was a big concern about the unequal level of enforcement of environmental laws in the three countries. The concern - being Mexican, it is easier for me to say it - was more with Mexico than with any other country.
Having studied the three legislations and understood that all three were more or less comprehensive or sufficient to be able to enter into a free trade agreement.... The legislations of the three countries are kind of comparable, even though they're certainly not equal. They're more comprehensive in some things for the United States and Canada, but somehow the three legislations are at an international level that is acceptable.
.0855
It was a big concern that the enforcement, the compliance, of the legislation was not equal. Mexico very quickly enacted laws when they decided to go into NAFTA negotiations. They enacted so many laws and regulations in such a short period of time that they did not have the infrastructure to implement and enforce those environmental laws.
There was a big concern in society about competitiveness, pollution havens and different flows of investment to Mexico, etc. That's why the three governments decided to put a lot of emphasis on enforcement issues. As I said before, this was based on the principle of respecting the sovereignty of nations, because the commitment was to enforce the laws of the country that they themselves democratically had accepted and enacted.
I order to be able to follow and monitor the enforcement of those laws, they gave the public a very interesting role. The public of the three nations - by this I mean any non-governmental organization or individual - have the right to request that the secretariat look into a particular issue in any of three countries where they allege that there is a lack of enforcement of environmental laws.
The secretariat will look at these requests, these submissions, and start a process of complying with certain requirements etc. At the end we will have the possibility of developing a factual record to confirm or not confirm the alleged lack of enforcement of environmental laws.
Up to now we have received four such submissions - two for the United States from American NGOs, one for Mexico and one for Canada. The first two were for the United States were very similar. They said that certain revisions and amendments to the law being proposed by the Republicans in the U.S. Congress, and which at some point were accepted by the Clinton administration - they said those revisions on not allowing the agencies to fund the Endangered Species Act and Forestry Act, for example, were a lack of enforcement of environmental laws. We rejected those two submissions because we thought that to go into discussing the sovereign decisions of the U.S. Congress in this case - but it could have been the Parliament of Canada or the Congress of Mexico - would be going into the sovereignty decisions of a particular country.
It is not the same to amend a law as to amend an agency of the executive branch not enforcing a law that the Congress or the Parliament has decided. So we rejected, on that basis, those two first submissions that we received.
We then received a submission from three non-governmental organizations in Mexico, and it is now in process. This petition says that a construction permit given to a company in southeastern Mexico, in Cozumel, which is near Cancun, was given without respecting the Mexican environmental legislation and regulations. We have accepted this submission.
.0900
Unlike the other, the submitters allege that the executive branch did not do something it was supposed to do. It is a perfect case for this kind of instrument.
Now, after asking for a response from the Mexican government, we are considering if we will recommend to the council the development of a factual record on the issue. In a few weeks we will know what we are going to recommend.
You might have seen this in the press. It has appeared on Canadian television. It has appeared in several of the national newspapers of Canada as well. Certainly in Mexico it's a big issue now.
I must say that this kind of instrument is not a legal instrument as such. It is a moral instrument in a way that applies a public, regional pressure to a particular issue. Whatever we decide, if we do a factual record, there will not be a legal, binding recommendation to Mexico. But it will apply a very strong regional pressure through the media and through the other two governments to deal with the issue in the way they should have done it, if the case arises in a particular issue. But it is not a legal court. We are not a court. We have a process by which we apply regional pressure to something that is of importance in a country and that might have a regional aspect.
In this case it is a pier being constructed in Cozumel; they're alleging that they're not complying with environmental law. The pier is very near probably the most important North American coral reef. It is a very important area for the reproduction of marine ecosystems and species. So it is certainly an issue of regional importance and an issue that merits some attention. That's the third case we have.
The fourth case has to do with Canada, in particular Alberta. We received a submission alleging that Alberta and the federal government are not enforcing its environmental laws and are allowing high levels of pollution in I think it's called the Big Lake area, some wetlands in Alberta. We just received this one and a half weeks ago.
Yesterday we accepted the petition in the first step of the requirements they have. The next step is to decide, with some criteria we have, if we're going to ask for the Canadian government to respond to the petition. We have not yet decided if we're going to do that, but it's an issue that is before us and we have to take a decision fairly soon. It's at least the first step, which is the basic threshold. Certainly the petition has succeeded in going forward in the process.
We have another very important mechanism that I would like to mention, which allows the secretariat of the commission to produce and develop a report on any particular issue that we might think is an important environmental issue, regional issue, in North America.
Last year we developed a report on the mortality of ducks, migratory waterfowl, in Guanajuato in central Mexico. There were 40,000 ducks that died there. There was a petition by the citizens of the area for the Mexican government to explain the reasons for the mortality. The Mexican government produced an answer. The citizens were not happy with the answer. This is a very polluted region with a basin, a river that is incredibly polluted. It is an area that is very industrial, with a lot of the industry that produces shoes and tanneries and all that. The citizens of the area were not happy with the answer because they thought the answer was hiding away a little the issues at hand, and they asked us to come in and make a report.
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We did. We made a report. We produced the report and the report was made public by the council a few months ago. Now the council is deciding what to recommend to Mexico and to themselves to try to avoid these kinds of issues in the future.
So that's a possibility we have. We can do these reports based on our own common understanding in the secretariat of what should be done. We can also do these reports based on petitions from the public on what to do.
We have received one petition from an individual Canadian organization to do an article pertaining to an issue that concerns them. I would like to mention it since it might be of interest to you. It is an issue in Ontario, and an issue that is quite old. It seems that the city of Detroit has been polluting the Detroit River for a long time without much effort to change the situation. There have been suits against and forth from the EPA to the city. There is a long history to that. The IJC has been working on this for quite a while. It seems, at least the petitioner tells us, that there hasn't been any betterment of the situation. The Detroit River is coming directly to Windsor and to parts of Canada and Ontario, and polluted ecosystems are becoming a risk to human health in the region for Canadians.
We have looked at the issue. Since it is an issue that the IJC has been looking at for a long time, I decided to send a letter to the IJC telling them we had received this petition and asking them their opinion and what they were doing about it. We will have to take a decision on that as soon as we receive a response from the IJC. They told us we would receive it next week when the commissioners of the IJC meet. So that's the kind of request we are receiving.
I must underline that these kinds of mechanisms are very interesting for these kinds of issues - that is, issues happening on one side of the border that are affecting the health or the environment on the other side of the border. There have been very few mechanisms up to now, with the exception of this one, that allow the citizens and the governments to complain to the other part about what is happening on one side that is affecting the other.
In the case of the Mexico-U.S. border a lot of the pollution - at least traditionally it has been thought, but I have my doubts all the time - is created on the Mexican side and goes to the U.S. side. The U.S. is always complaining that Mexico is polluting the U.S. In the case of Canada and the U.S., the paradox is that it seems in many cases, but not all, to be happening the other way around. The United States is saying this is not happening in the north, but it is happening in the south.
So you have a situation where you might be able to deal with many of these issues in a trilateral way in a much more efficient and powerful way with the Americans, as Canadians, than you would in a bilateral framework. It does not mean the commission will take over all bilateral issues, but for some of the issues you have been dealing with bilaterally for a long time, sometimes without much success, you will be able to use this new instrument to get better results.
You will certainly have a different point of view. You will have a regional perspective. You will have the example of Mexico, where the United States has the position that Canada is having on many of the issues. They will not be able to negate what is happening, and there are transboundary effects of different activities.
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We also have another mechanism that is more trade oriented; however, that has to do with government-to-government participation. A government member of NAFTA can complain to the commission that another of the parties to the agreement has a persistent pattern of non-enforcement of environmental law. I underline ``persistent pattern of non-enforcement''. At that time, it has to be a certain activity or sector that is traded among countries. In the other mechanism, it doesn't have to be an issue related to trade; in this case it does.
A process of solution of controversy, a very traditional one, starts with a panel of arbitration, etc. It goes into a long process in which there is plenty of opportunity for the two or three parties in dispute to reach an agreement. At the end, however, the panel can impose a monetary fee on the government that has been shown to have a persistent pattern of non-enforcement of environmental laws, in such a way that at the end, based on what I've been saying, the commitment to enforce when you really are not enforcing, and you show that you don't want to enforce in a persistent manner.... You are somehow subsidizing a particular activity, because you are making society pay for the private pollution of that particular industry.
I repeat that this is related to trade, because it has to be sectors or industries that are trading among themselves. This we have not developed. This is an area we have not developed. We don't have clear guidelines of how to do.... None of the governments have seriously begun to make an effort to do that, and I don't see that in the near future we are going to have one of those cases.
We are talking about persistent, so it starts from the beginning of NAFTA, which is 1994. I think this will come in the future. I probably will not see it as an executive director, so the new executive director will come and tell you about it when the time comes.
I have to say that one of the issues I think you should be informed of is that Canada negotiated the agreement in such a way that whenever the federal government signed, only the federal environmental legislation was committed to it. The provinces in Canada have a lot of legislation and jurisdiction. This is different from what it is in the United States and Mexico. In the Canadian case the provincial legislation does not enter into these processes and mechanisms unless the provinces ratify the agreement.
There are a lot of caveats and technicalities about when it enters, etc., but up until now only one province, which is Alberta, has ratified the agreement. We expect and hope that others will do so soon.
Frankly, it seems to me there is a lot to gain from the provinces participating in this. I have told you about the regional cooperation part, which I think is very important for them. The assessment would impact on the provinces directly, not on the federal government as such, and many of the cooperative activities we do are very much of interest to the provinces themselves.
After two years I would have expected more of the provinces to have ratified, but maybe the provinces are feeling that they don't want to be subject to these mechanisms, the ones we have been talking about.
.0915
The fact is, as I understand it, they are subject anyway. If we receive a submission of this sort from the public, from a province that has not ratified, I think it would be much worse if we, as a commission, responded to the public that we could not enter into the issue because the province of British Columbia, or Ontario, or Quebec has not ratified. In that moment, the issue would create much more public concern than if the secretariat were to take, as we do, a neutral view of the different issues and give the opportunity to the provincial government to defend and to put forward its case. If the province is not part of the process, it cannot put forward the case within the process. The view that would prevail would be the view of the submitter of the public.
I put to you that the issue of the provinces not ratifying is of serious concern to me. It could become a very serious concern to the other two parties, and it could be a real blow for the federal government and the provinces themselves. Not being part of the process would not allow the province to put forward its case on the particular issue and would create a bigger scandal about a lack of equitable treatment vis-à-vis the other two nations that are part of NAFTA.
Mr. Chairman, I will stop here. I would be very happy to answer questions. I hope Janine will also help me answer the questions, and I would be very happy to have a dialogue with you.
The Chairman: That's fine. We agree. And thank you for that exposé.
We will start right away with Mr. Asselin.
[Translation]
Mr. Asselin (Charlevoix): With the exception of the NAFTA countries, namely Canada, Mexico and the United States, does your organization have several dealings or links with foreign countries such as Japan?
[English]
Mr. Lichtinger: We have entered into informal contacts with different environmental organizations. We have had a lot of contact with the United Nations environment program. We are following very closely what they are doing and linking into some of the global efforts they are making. For example, they have a program that is looking at and trying to reach a global agreement on land-based sources of pollution. We have a program that fits within that global effort to diminish the sources of ocean pollution. Certainly we are working towards a lot of the global efforts that are happening in the world.
We're also linking into climate change issues, and we're working at trying to promote the cooperation of the three countries of North America with climate change.
We're working with a new biodiversity convention, which is actually going to be in Montreal. Actually, the new biodiversity commission is going to be just above us in the same building. We had a meeting yesterday with the executive secretary of the commission, Mr. Juma. I had a long meeting with all my staff and Mr. Juma. Now he's in the position I was in two years ago: he's alone and needs help, and we are helping him to settle in Montreal. We're linking into their programs, etc.
We also have an informal relationship with the OECD. We have established a certain context with them. We are certainly working with them to find a case study we can do within the OECD program. As you know, the three parties to NAFTA are members of the OECD as well.
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We are also beginning to deal with the links to the APEC process. I went to the GLOBE in Vancouver one month ago and gave a presentation to all the delegations of APEC, including China, Thailand and Indonesia, and Mexico and Canada and the United States, on what the commission needs.
Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that the relationship between environment and trade is certainly an important one. We feel that we are one of the few - I wouldn't say the only, because the European Commission has had a lot of experience in this - but we are one of the few organizations that somehow link and have a role in the environment-trade mix, the complementarities.
APEC was very interested in knowing what we were doing. I received a lot of questions and it was a very interesting meeting.
We are also trying to have a say in what happens in a hemispheric way. As you know, there is this effort to have free trade within the hemisphere, within the continent of America. Again, the link between trade and environment is an issue. You know that Canada is negotiating a free trade agreement with Chile because Chile was not able to negotiate with NAFTA because of lack of fast track. The Canadian government very wisely - and I really commend this effort - is negotiating free trade with an environmental side accord similar to the one we have in the commission within NAFTA. This will facilitate the entrance of Chile into NAFTA later on when the issues in the United States are in a better position to have fast track for the government.
We are an example, in a way, of how environment and trade can be done. I don't think we are the only example. We are a pilot example, which might be shown later on to have certain deficiencies, because I think we do, but I think we are a first step in the right direction of this link.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Asselin.
[English]
Mr. Forseth.
Mr. Forseth (New Westminster - Burnaby): I was interested in what you had to say about the provinces, with only Alberta signing on with the organization. Maybe you could talk a little about what the process of ratification is. Would that also involve a monetary commitment on behalf of the province once it gets involved?
Mr. Lichtinger: The process of ratification is, I would say, a simple one. I think it would have to come from the executive branches and go through the provincial parliaments.
If there is a need for a monetary contribution, that is something the federal government will have to discuss with the provinces; it is something we don't know. The agreement does not say anything about it. It's something internal to Canada's government with the provinces to decide if the fact of ratifying means giving money or not.
I don't think it's a real issue because we're not talking about much money. Canadian contributions to this are in Canadian dollars...well, in U.S. dollars it's $3 million U.S. a year for the last year. We expect, hopefully, that this year we will have a little bit more. We had so little because we were growing, but now that we're all in place we would expect a higher budget. But we're not talking about a lot of money if you divide it among many provinces. That's something for Canada to decide internally. It is not something that is determined.
Mr. Forseth: I wonder if you could describe a little more what ratification really is. Is it some recognition that they ascribe to some list or protocol and then pass an Order in Council or something rather than, say, an act of the provincial legislature? Just describe a little bit what ratification is in its substance.
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Ms Janine Ferretti (Director, Commission for Environmental Cooperation): From where we see it, there is an agreement between the federal government and each of the provinces, and the process, from our point of view, is that the provincial government would have to sign on.
I'm not exactly sure how this translates into action in each province. I'm not sure if it requires a legislated act. I'm aware that in some provinces it would, but I'm not sure if that's equally so for each province. However, once a province is identified as having signed on to this intergovernmental agreement between the federal and provincial government, it then notifies the other two parties to the North American agreement, which would be the United States and Mexico, and that province's name is added to the annex. There's an annex to the North American agreement for environmental cooperation that lists which provinces have signed on to this federal-provincial agreement. I imagine somebody like Mel Cappe could give you a better answer in terms of what the procedures are like and what some of the obstacles have been.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Lincoln (Lachine - Lac-Saint-Louis): I agree with Mr. Lichtinger about the importance of the commission as a worldwide model. I think we are breaking new ground here, and I think the commission could be an exceptional instrument and model in trade-environment interconnections. Looking to the future, as trade becomes much more globalized, I think it could be a tremendous model.
I would like to ask three questions to Mr. Lichtinger.
First, on the issue of coordination, I realize that governments remain sovereign. At the same time, however, there's sort of a dichotomy here in the sense that the government is represented directly in your council, so you come to decisions at the council which sometimes are in conflict with decisions governments make in other fora.
On issue of toxics - I will use lead as an example - you might take a position that the council endorses but governments, at a subsequent time, take a different position. How do you see better coordination between your recommendations, which are endorsed by your council, and decisions that are made by governments on a sovereign basis?
Second, what impact do you see the commission having on the future of trade in North America and South America if Chile comes in? You referred to the environmental side agreement that Canada is negotiating with Chile. Is the commission going to be involved? Is the commission going to be the instrument to carry out this environmental side agreement? If we created another instrument for that, I think it would be very counterproductive. Looking into the future, if the two Americas are in one free trade bloc, how do you see that evolving? Shouldn't the commission be the one instrument to coordinate all of this? How do you see it happening? Then it would be a formidable task.
Finally, one question that preoccupies a lot of us here, especially since we've just had a meeting in the Arctic - you referred to this in your submission - regarding transboundary pollutants.... What you said about The Globe and Mail today we heard very clearly in Yellowknife the other day. Everywhere you go the transboundary pollutant question is perhaps the most challenging of all. You have taken a very active view of this. In view of what will happen in the future regarding the spreading of the environmental side agreements to countries such as Chile and South America and so forth, what do you see as your future role - which I hope you will carry out - in the realm of long-range transboundary pollutants?
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Mr. Lichtinger: I like those questions because they come with an answer. Let me start with the last one, on the transboundary pollutants. We consider that to be one of our main priorities. We have at least three different projects that direct themselves to the same issue. We are not here as a commission to repeat what the governments are already doing; we're here to complement what the governments are doing.
The three governments are fighting for diminishing pollution within their own territories. However, they're not considering what is happening with their emissions in other territories that may or may not be nearby, because here we're talking about long-range.
One of the main tasks of a regional commission is to look at these kinds of regional issues of importance. We think our role is to promote awareness of the importance of this issue, and to promote discussion among the governments and citizens of the three countries about how to deal with these issues.
In the long run, we see the possibility of more formal and legal ways of dealing between the three countries on the long-range transport of pollutants, and working together in trying to monitor and understand the issues, the effects they have on health, and the responsibilities that lay with each of the parties. When we expand trade and relations through the commission or otherwise, I think this will be a key factor on the continental level as well.
So in answer to your last question, yes, we consider it a principal role of the commission, and that's one of the areas where I think Canada as a country can play a leading role. The commission is comprised of three countries and we cannot impose ideas on any of the three. Many of the decisions are taken by consensus. There is a possibility of voting, but you need a leader besides the secretariat who is behind the ideas.
I would expect that these kinds of issues - you have two of the biggest sinks of pollution, namely the Great Lakes and the Arctic - these issues have been of traditional importance to Canada, and will be in the future. I hope Canada will take an important leadership role within the region and at an international level to help us in the secretariat develop that. Our intention is to strongly support this possibility.
Let me go into the other questions. I think the issue of coordination is an important one. We are starting our mandate now. We are beginning to have recommendations on different things - pollutants, the reduction of emissions, recommendations to solve particular issues like the issue of waterfowl, and different kinds of environmental policy issues.
We will soon have to come up with a policy of follow-up and review. It is important that governments are accountable and feel committed to the public of North America at large and to their own citizens...to what they commit to in the council and in the commission.
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I think one of the basic roles the secretariat will have in the future is to give a review of how governments and societies have followed and implemented the recommendations that they themselves are doing to each other and to themselves. I expect this will be a very strong role for us in the future, and certainly for the public as well. The public can come to us with these very open mechanisms that we have and really tell us that whatever commitment they did is not happening. We have the mechanisms and the possibilities.
There would be many examples we could trace. There will be recommendations on particular issues of phasing out pollutants, for example PCBs or DDT. We as a commission and governments will be accountable for that and will have to respond on what we have done.
There is a third question, very quickly, that Mr. Clifford Lincoln asked, which is the impact of the trade of the continent on the commission. Up to now the Chile issue has been negotiated with a parallel agreement on environment. I don't think if Canada has a free trade agreement with Chile that automatically the commission will be the one to take over that relationship. Up to now this relationship, the free trade agreement, will be bilateral between Canada and Chile. But it prepares the road to Chile's becoming part of NAFTA, and certainly at that time it would be more automatic and more logical that Chile would come into the commission's sphere.
For the whole continent, I've seen a lot of resistance from some of the countries in South America in particular to linking trade and environment. They still see the issue as a new conditionality on trade, as a possible imposition of developed countries towards developing countries, the very old north-south discussion. I think we as a commission have a role, if the governments allow us to have it, especially Canada and the U.S. and Mexico, to give an example of how trade and environment can happen with respect to sovereignty and with the possibility of having trade and environment, as the quote of Mr. Christopher Warren says, be complementary.
We are the possibility of a mechanism to be able to do that. In fact, we are convinced that we will have an important role in the continental phase. But it's a difficult issue because Mercosur, the free trade agreement of South America, does not have an environmental component. They resist the idea of having an environmental component.
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Steckle.
Mr. Steckle (Huron - Bruce): I very much looked forward to this morning because I didn't know a great deal about the commission, its boundaries and its beginnings.
It's obviously a very new organization. It's my understanding that the concept was developed through the development of the NAFTA agreement. Is the mandate you were given broad enough? Do you see that mandate changing as perhaps an evaluation is done by the three countries involved in the agreement down the road? Do you see that mandate changing because of some of the comments? As we relate to Canada, is the fact that the provinces are not part of the agreement detrimental to the kind of work you can do? Would it be best if the provinces could be part of the agreement? In the case of provincial matters, some are very localized.
The one concern I have is that basically while you can recommend and make suggestions and point out deficiencies in the way environmental law is enforced.... Let me give an example.
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You mentioned that 40,000 birds died as a result of some contaminant or for some reason in Mexico. Those birds may have been born in Canada. I don't know what birds they were, but given the fact that in Canada millions upon millions of dollars are spent to develop a breeding habitat for these birds, and then we find that as a result of those birds being born through a very successful program here, they fly into another country where they would subsequently die.... The reason for developing those habitats is to breed the birds for sporting purposes, which is a part of the economy that works not only for us but for people in other parts of the country as well.
What can we do? I'm using that as a tangible example. We have these pollutants that go from one part of the country to another, but we can see the birds; we can't always see the pollutants. Let's take something we can put our hands on and talk about.
How can we impress upon another country if, for instance, this is the case.... It could be vice versa, and I'm only using this case because it's easy to relate to. How can we give the commission strength when you can only recommend, when you basically cannot enforce a country to take action if they choose not to? Do you have a mechanism by which you can relate back at some point and say that you're not getting the response so you need a broader mandate?
Mr. Lichtinger: Of course they're related, but I would like Janine Ferretti to answer the part about the ducks. There are several projects on that account, on songbirds, on monarch butterflies, on migratory species.
Is the mandate broad enough and is it changing? Certainly the mandate is very broad, but it's not specific enough. As the first executive director and the first team, the first secretariat, we have been trying together with the governments to focus the impact and the activities of the commission into the issues that are useful, that are important, like the ones we were talking about before about the pollutants and the migratory species. These are the issues that, as you say, we can see as the issues linking the three nations, and activities in one nation would be complementary to the activities and needs of the other.
So we have been trying to focus the work on those kinds of issues. But they're very different issues. They go from the conservation side to the pollutants, from the green to the brown, to legislation issues to learning about experiences, etc.
In that vein, is the fact that the provinces do not participate detrimental? I would say yes, because we have not been able to participate directly with the governments of the provinces. They have a big chunk of the jurisdiction on environment. They have the issues of waste, emissions, protecting habitats, protecting forests where a lot of the habitats are. A lot of the jurisdiction we deal with is part of provincial jurisdiction. Enforcement of environmental law is done at the provincial level. We have a working group that deals with cooperation of enforcement. In the case of the United States and Mexico, enforcement is very strong for the federal government. In the case of Canada it is not; most of the enforcement is done at the provincial level.
So yes, it is definitely affecting the level of commitment of Canada, the level of participation of Canada, and the possibility we have of becoming a relevant institution in Canada itself. We are in Canada, but the fact that we are physically in Canada does not mean automatically that we are relevant in Canada. We would have a much better chance of being relevant in Canada if the provinces were active players.
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On the ducks and migratory species, I think you're right - those are the things that are seen. Those are the things the public really cares about because they see them in their backyards. They see the monarchs coming to their gardens in Ontario and other places; they really see it.
I will let Janine Ferretti give us an explanation of that based on your question.
Ms Ferretti: Actually the ducks are managed under a North American strategy called the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, which has to date been rather successful in establishing habitats, as you've mentioned.
When these ducks died, one thing that was clear that it didn't cover so well was making sure that the habitat is clean and can support these populations, and also providing some sort of capacity-building or support, in Mexico in particular, for dealing with wildlife disease outbreaks. When we actually investigated we found that the birds did die from botulism, but contaminants might have played a role in some way. Later on ironically - I think it was a month later - 100,000 waterfowl died in Alberta from botulism as well.
So this is a problem all three countries have. We turned it back to the three governments and said, this is an issue all three of you are concerned with; could you as the wildlife agencies develop a cooperative wildlife disease outbreak surveillance and emergency response? They're meeting to discuss this.
There are other species that don't enjoy this kind of North American protection. Songbirds is one, as well as raptors. You might have heard about the swainson's hawks - I think 700 perished in Chile as a result of eating grasshoppers that were contaminated by a certain pesticide, even being sprayed directly. So raptors and songbirds don't enjoy this kind of protection. We at the commission are involved in an exercise of identifying important bird areas throughout the free countries, as well as developing a basis for a North American strategy for the protection of these songbirds and raptors. We hope this will be successful in the next two years.
Monarchs is another species we're investigating in terms of trying to provide some North American cooperation. Mexico and Canada have it, but we know that the United States is in between, and we also know there are some pressures on the over-wintering grounds in Mexico.
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Finlay.
Mr. Finlay (Oxford): I want to express my apologies to our presenters for not being here to hear what you had to say. However, I did read the briefing notes I received yesterday.
Mr. Chairman, if I am going over old ground, stop me. I want to follow from what Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Steckle talked about, because I read two sentences in here that I'd like a little clarification on.
Incidentally, I think the last answer would make it clear to all of us, if it hasn't been clear to us after two and a half years here on the Hill, that Canada is one very difficult country to govern, probably more difficult than any other country in North America. That may be a good thing; I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I think we're getting into the age where the public is going to have to take control of its own future regardless of governments, whether national or provincial. We may learn how to do that if we keep at it.
Page 3 of what I have here says that citizen participation in the CEC is channelled through the JPAC - I'm one who hates these acronyms, but there you are, it's the joint public advisory committee of 15 volunteer members - as well as through the filing of submissions in cases where a failure to enforce environmental laws has been alleged.
Then the last paragraph says that under article 13 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, which is the side agreement to NAFTA.... Incidentally, I'm very pleased it is up and in place, because it was one of the promises our party made in the last election. People pooh-poohed it largely. So you have to carry the banner and do the job so that we can say we are paying attention to it.
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Under article 13 of this agreement, which allows the secretariat to report to the council on any environmental matter related to the cooperative functions of the agreement but not related to a party's failure to enforce its environmental laws, if the public makes a submission to the JPAC alleging that environmental laws have not been enforced but you don't have any enforcement capacity, what happens to the...? If somebody goes to that body and says this is not working, and then the body reports to you as the secretariat, what happens then? Can anything happen?
Mr. Lichtinger: Yes, sure. First of all, the submissions come to the secretariat, not to the JPAC, the joint public advisory committee, which is just an advisory committee. The secretariat develops factual records on the issue, but that's article 14 and 15.
Article 13 is the report we can produce, which usually - I think the phrase is not entirely correct - will not be on enforcement matters. But article 14 allows the secretariat to look into the public submissions on the failure to enforce and develop them into factual records and make them public.
What happens is, as I was saying in my presentation, we have a kind of regional pressure factor. We are a kind of shame factor, moral authority in a way, that would be looking at particular issues in North America. As you rightly say, we do not have any powers to enforce, because every nation, every country, enforces its own environmental laws, and the decisions and the factual records do not have the possibility of being legally binding on the governments themselves, but they apply regional pressure to lack of enforcement of environmental laws.
I must say, Mr. Finlay, that this has been an issue that has governments more nervous than the possible fines or sanctions they might get in other processes, because they prefer a monetary fine to an article in The New York Times.
Mr. Finlay: Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Madame Kraft Sloan.
Mrs. Kraft Sloan (York - Simcoe): I would like to compliment you on your very accessible and comprehensive annual program report. It certainly has a lot of tantalizing items and projects that you want to be able to follow up and get more information on.
My two areas of concern deal with climate change and with environmental ecological accounting, so my two questions will be directed in those areas.
I wonder how you feel the commission can act to help us meet our commitments around climate change. Secondly, could you explain for the committee a little bit about what you're doing around natural resource accounting? I've noticed that this is one of your.... Is it effects or objectives? It's an objective, I guess.
Mr. Lichtinger: I will ask Janine Ferretti to answer on climate change. It's an issue she's actually overseeing right now in the commission.
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The natural resource accounting was a project we began to work on last year. We did, I must say, a small study of what was happening in the three countries, with a view of trying to see if the commission could have a value added in this issue, which, I agree with you, is a very important issue.
We ended up with a study that told us that somehow the three governments were working on it. Mexico has an office that is trying to have what we call green accounting. Canada has an exercise as well within, I think, one of the statistics offices. The United States is also working on it.
There are several international exercises that are working on the methodologies. The United Nations economic programs have been working on it for quite a few years. The OECD has been working on it, and they were trying to enter into the part of economic incentives for natural resources conservation and utilization linked to the fact of accounting.
To be frank - and this happened with a lot of issues, this is not the only one - we ended up with an issue where we thought, at least at the moment, we did not have much to contribute to what was already happening, because we were looking for issues that were of a regional nature where we would have a real impact. We were looking at issues, especially the first year, where we would not be duplicating what other international organizations were already doing.
In the case of accounting, we didn't find a niche for the commission, even though - as I tell you personally and also as I'm sure the team thinks - it's an important issue, because you will not really take it seriously until you understand that exploiting natural resources and using them has an impact on growth, not only in what income you are creating but also in the renewability of that resource. You will not really take the issue seriously policy-wise until you have credible accounting. We are not really having a program that is substantive and important on the issue.
On the issue of climate change, we do, on certain parts of the issue, and I would like Janine Ferretti to explain about that.
Ms Ferretti: We're addressing climate change in two discrete initiatives. One is promoting the energy efficiency in North America. We have a situation where there are different levels of experience in each of the three countries, and the thinking is that if we can actually enhance the knowledge and understanding of these experiences and make them much more of a common daily practice, it would actually go quite a long way in terms of achieving some of the goals in reducing some of the carbon dioxide emissions eventually.
In that regard, there are two different initiatives. One is developing a common protocol on how you measure efficiency gains through different kinds of measures so that there is a common understanding between the three countries on what is in fact an efficiency gain and how you measure that so that you can actually see the value of an investment made in energy efficiency. There isn't that kind of common understanding.
The second is to promote the use of energy efficiency audits - this is related to that - and establish some financial mechanisms that would facilitate small and medium-sized companies, in particular in the three countries, having access to energy efficiency technology and information.
The second project we are undertaking is in relation to joint implementation. There are a number of discussions going on globally about JI and its merits, and what we thought we might be able to contribute as a North American region is a greater understanding of what are those controversial issues that surround JI, how they can be addressed effectively.
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Finally, on a pilot project basis, looking at, developing and kick-starting some JI initiatives based on an understanding that we need to look at JI initiatives that have a technology base as well a carbon-sink base, joint implementation -
Mrs. Kraft Sloan: So what does that mean?
Ms Ferretti: That means that, for example, in this case a company in Canada would make an investment in a project in say Mexico and therefore get credits for it. As the chairman knows, it is a controversial issue. There are a lot of concerns surrounding it.
In a North American context the three governments wanted to actually examine those issues jointly in a North American region.
The Chairman: Before we launch a quick second round for each one of you, there are a few questions from the chair.
Like Madam Kraft Sloan, I also would like to congratulate you on your annual program and budget. It's extremely well done.
It struck me that under technological clearing house, considering the importance of that particular item, you have a very modest figure.
I suppose you are struggling to square the circle like everybody else, but it seems to me that technological advancement is a very important component in making progress on pollution prevention, and the like. So I was wondering whether you are planning to expand this particular sector of your activities.
Secondly, as you know, there is a report by this committee called ``The CEPA Report. '' It was submitted to the government, and the government has replied. The government is now in the process of preparing its final position, and then during the summer, we will be told to prepare a bill.
Despite your reservations about sovereignty, Mr. Lichtinger, it seems to me that there wouldn't be anything wrong in your commission making some formal thoughts and comments known to the government at this particular time as it is preparing its report. You could comment, as you like, on any part of the CEPA report, particularly on anything that impinges on or relate to with the commission's particular role. I think that it would be seen as a very legitimate role on your part.
That leads me then to my final question: how do you push international environmental standards? How do you go about it? How do you plan to do that? As you push them upward, then eventually you would also push upward the domestic standards.
That brings me back to the comments and questions of Mr. Lincoln and also some of your comments, Mr. Lichtinger, on transboundary pollution. We do have a major problem here, particularly in the Arctic, as others have already indicated. If there is a North American push upward for an international environmental standard in transboundary pollutants, that could also have repercussions in Europe and in other regions of the world. We would be heading at higher than the glacial speed with which we are proceeding now in arriving at international protocols.
As you know, we have a protocol on sulphur dioxide, which is not too bad, according to majority views. There is some work under way that will soon emerge in the form of an organic pollutants protocol.
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It seems to me, and as you've heard already, the public in all three countries would be extremely grateful if there would be an additional effort made to this global push by the commission itself. It seems to me - and I would like to hear your views - that effort could be best channelled in pushing upwards the existing international environmental standards in order to bring in their train better standards on the domestic level. What are your thoughts?
Mr. Lichtinger: First, let me answer you on the technology clearing house. Yes, it's a very small amount, but I think it's a matter of presentation.
Last year we did have a more substantial amount of money dedicated to that project. Last year we found that there is an interest and need in North America to relate different efforts that are happening, and to have a clearing house on technology that would be looking at things from the consumer point of view instead of the technology producer point of view.
We have found that especially for small and medium-sized companies in the three countries it is very difficult to understand the market out there, what technologies apply to their problems and commitments vis-à-vis compliance of legislation. We think there is a need for that kind of clearing house.
The problem is that we found out that kind of clearing house would need a lot of money to be put in place. That very little amount of money you see there is an intention to look for a partner with funds, or partners with funds that would be interested in taking the job of making this project a reality.
We already have a pre-feasibility study of the clearing house that we are ``selling'' to different foundations, governments, agencies, etc., to see if they would be interested.
We also feel that, in the long run at least, this project would be self-financing, and we could charge for that kind of service. So that's why you see we have so little money, because we have already done the work. We are now just in the last phase of the project.
I hope we can find some partners. It is not easy because the big companies, especially the big technology producers, want to have their own means of getting to the consumers. We somehow do not fit with some of the interests up there, but certainly we are concerned about the small and medium-sized industries in the three countries, and we think it is worthwhile to try.
On the CEPA report, Mr. Chairman, I have to tell you that we have read it with a lot of care. We are following it, and we certainly relate and have even used some of the ideas that are there in our programs. We have somehow regionalized two or three of your recommendations, and taken them into the regional arena. I hope you don't mind that we are somehow stealing your ideas in a way.
I remember, for example, one of them is the issue of the clearing house on pollution prevention. We have a project on a regional scale for a clearing house on pollution prevention opportunities and technologies. We also have an important project that is linked to long-range transport, as we discussed, the North American pollutant release inventory.
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We want to have a North America using what the three countries are already doing, a North American perspective of how much we as North Americans emit to the regional environment.
We are trying to harmonize and help the three governments in harmonizing their methodologies, approaches, and measurement methodologies, to have a regional perspective on the pollutants release inventory. That is also a recommendation you have in CEPA, and you give a lot of importance to that.
So we are very much linked, and certainly I think the government should know about it. I will take very seriously your recommendation to talk about that with the council on the issue of how we link up to what you're doing in this CEPA report and the bill.
On international environmental standards, as I was saying, we do feel that this regional institution has a role in pushing forward many of the global issues that are already there. It's very difficult to find new environmental issues that have not been touched by the global environmental community. If you talk about pollutants, oceans or climate change, biodiversity, they're issues that are already there. We are working within the region to push for that kind of implementation at the global scale.
We see each other modestly as a small contribution to a global problem, but I think an important one because we can have a real leadership role in this push for international standards.
The Chairman: How do you go about it?
Mr. Lichtinger: For example, with regard to organic pollutants, one of the cases you are mentioning, there is an international global exercise that has identified certain substances to be phased out because they are hazardous and dangerous to the environment and health.
We are doing the same exercise but at a much faster pace. We have already chosen four out of the twelve substances for regional action plans with timeframes and concrete commitments that will show the commitment of the region on these very global forums, such as the agreement on organic pollutants.
I must say, Mr. Chairman, that when the governments deal differently with those international global commitments and they deal with our own commitments, they have a different approach to them. In one sense it's good, and in one sense it's bad.
I have felt that some of these global issue are taken a little bit more loosely because they're very general. For example, if we go into the Rio Conference, Agenda 21 is a very general document. It has so many commitments. There is no follow-up - and that comes back to the question of Mr. Lincoln - if Canada, Mexico or the United States has really complied with Agenda 21. There is not really any accountability vis-à-vis anyone. There is no mechanism with which to follow up on that; it's very difficult.
When it comes to negotiating things among ourselves, the three, when the issues are very concrete, when the pollutants we're talking about are well known, and the interests of the United States, Canada, and Mexico are put forward, there is a tendency to be more careful with those negotiations. That will be accountable, and there are more mechanisms in place for the public to make the government accountable, more so than for the global negotiations.
So it is even more important to push on the regional scale to show that we are serious about implementing global agreements, and to make sure that there are certainly incentives for those global commitments to be implemented and for them to have a certain reality that sometimes disappears in time and space as time goes on.
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The Chairman: Thank you.
A quick round now, one question each for those who are interested. Mr. Forseth.
Mr. Forseth: I'd like to give you an opportunity, in terms of since the establishment of CEC, to talk about some of the future goals and objectives as you establish yourself and consolidate your operations. You obviously have some more long-term targets as you see your organization coming to full fruition. Maybe you could describe where you hope to be in five, six or eight years.
Mr. Lichtinger: As you know, it's a very new organization. My main worry at the beginning was to put in place a solid team, solid processes and policies that have an efficient organization, a non-excessively bureaucratic organization and a democratic secretariat, because we're a trinational team that has the processes within itself to take decisions and to have participation, and different processes that allow for public participation, for the right influence of the governments into our program and for the right practices that keep the accountability of the secretariat vis-à-vis the governments, but also the necessary independence of the secretariat vis-à-vis governments.
That has been, in a way, much of the concentration of what we have been doing in focusing our program into main priority areas and trying for this commission to be an important player.
I think in the future the issues themselves might not change too much, but what I really would like would be to gain a very strong credibility in North America. The commission, as you know, as a new institution is still not very well known by the public. It is certainly well known by the very interested players and the environmental NGOs. The Friday group, of course, knows about us, and now you know about us. But it's a restricted, small world that knows about us.
What I really want, first of all, is to enlarge for the public at large the existence and the relevance of the institution and certainly to give credibility to the neutrality of the institution, to the usefulness and to the scientific base of the institution. I think that takes time. I don't think we can have that automatically. We have to work towards it, to become relevant, to become important, to influence, to push standards forward, to push higher compliance and enforcement and cooperation among the three governments.
The themes themselves I don't think will change very much, because those problems of environment have been there for a long time, and will keep on being there for a long time. I think we will keep on working on them and advancing step by step on these kinds of issues.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Lincoln, one question.
Mr. Lincoln: Mr. Lichtinger, the chairman really watches us.
You are going to be releasing your North American pollutant inventory report by the middle of this year, hopefully. I was wondering if it was on target and whether you're getting full cooperation from the two ministries in the United States and Canada, and how far you are getting with regard to Mexico cooperating.
The Chairman: That's five questions in one, but go ahead.
Mr. Lincoln: I think it's one question.
Mr. Lichtinger: If you don't mind, Mr. Lincoln, Janine is ready to answer the question.
Ms Ferretti: The pollutant release inventory has been delayed. The North American report will come out by the fall, toward the end of maybe October. The reason for this was the shutdown in the United States. The government there had some difficulty keeping going. As a result, there's a delay in their processing of their data. This delay affected us because the pollutants release inventory for North America is really a compilation of data from the U.S. toxic release inventory, the Canadian national pollutants release inventory and the Mexican pollutants release inventory.
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I think we are seeing a greater interest from the three governments in this exercise. First of all, it does provide an understanding of what are the loadings into the North American environment. But I also think the three governments are realizing they have challenges, in each of their countries, in improving their release inventories. They're anxious to exchange information and learn from each other in the experience, enhancing their own inventories. So I wouldn't be surprised to see, for example, in the next two to three years, an improvement and more effectiveness in the various domestic inventories as a result of this experience. I know that's something your committee has been quite interested in.
Vis-à-vis Mexico, they are just starting this. They have a pilot project, which is something we're assisting them with. As they begin to develop their inventory with more data and broaden it, it will be fed into the North American inventory reports. So they'll be part of the first one - as you can imagine, the data will be substantially smaller - and it will increase over the years.
The Chairman: Mr. Finlay.
Mr. Finlay: I have one brief question, Mr. Chairman.
With which departments of our government do you have the most liaison? Are there some you need to liaise with that you maybe aren't?
Mr. Lichtinger: I think it's a very important question not only for Canada but also for the three countries. It is one of the few very formal instruments where the foreign affairs ministries or, in the case of the United States, the State Department, are not the ``spokesagencies''. The environment ministries are the ones that are the direct representatives of the government.
My interpretation, and all the legal interpretations I've heard from very important lawyers, indicate that whenever Canada's Minister of the Environment is a member of council, he's certainly not representing the Department of the Environment. He's representing the Government of Canada. So that means there has to be a coordination effort within each government with different other branches.
Foreign affairs and state department ministries in the U.S., Canada and Mexico are used to this coordination. Certainly that's their role, in a way. They have done it for many years. They did it in the environment at Rio. They have done it for all the negotiations of conventions. So certainly they are very used to that.
The environment ministries are not used to that. Sometimes turf has begun to intervene in some of the activities we have had. I repeat, I'm not talking only of Canada. I'm talking of the three countries. It's a very similar case in the three countries.
Mexico is the easiest situation, because the ministry in Mexico is a very big one. It's a ministry of natural resources, environment and fisheries. It includes at least three of the main functions we would see as necessary for the functioning of the commission.
In the case of the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has quite a limited mandate vis-à-vis our own goals. They don't include any of the conservation part. So we have been dealing with the Department of the Interior, but certainly we have had to make an extra effort for the Department of the Interior to participate strongly in our commission.
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In the case of Canada, it is the same. The Minister of the Environment is certainly participating in the commission, but there are other ministries, the ministry of fisheries, the ministry of natural resources, energy, and so on, that we would have hoped would have participated and would participate in the future with much more intensive commitment.
So certainly that's a case for the three governments. The North American agreement recommends to the three governments the creation of a formal interagency group. The United States has created it more officially. Somehow Canada and Mexico have it. But you know how bureaucracies function and how the responsibilities are divided, and sometimes that has been difficult to deal with.
The Chairman: Are there any further questions? If not, before thanking our witnesses I would like to inform the members of this committee that the clerk is going to send you a proposed work plan in the mail - tomorrow at the latest - on biotechnology and CEPA. It is a subject we have discussed a few times and would like to explore in May, leading to a short report to the House of Commons, that being the aspect of CEPA that requires more attention. On Tuesday, when we meet again, I would ask for your comments on that proposed plan.
We can conclude here. We think this was a very worthwhile meeting for us. I hope it was for you as well from the point of view of the questions you heard, so that you have a better understanding of where the political thinking stands at the present time, at least in this committee.
We would like to do this more regularly. We would like to hear from you when you feel that you want to tell us something, and we would like to invite you when we want to tell you something or ask you something, as we did today. It's a very worthwhile exercise. I'm sure my colleagues will agree that it was quite an educational experience.
We wish you well, as others have already. We congratulate you on the work you have done so far, and the report in particular. We hope that our channels of communication will be reinforced and expanded in the months and years ahead.
Having said that, we will adjourn the meeting, and we wish you well and a safe journey home.
This meeting is adjourned.