I think it still leaves it open. I think we would need to look at that offline and get counsel on that.

Which amendment are we looking at here?

I haven’t put it forward yet. It would be number 2. I’m having this discussion to make that determination.

Okay.

Did the Auditor General’s report say that Parks Canada was not doing its job in keeping the parks clean? Is that where your concern came from? I was going to raise it at committee, that there was a report that said that. Do you know of it?

The other thing I have — and I understand you have a concern with it — is that I might put forward an amendment that says:

Every person has a duty to take measures to prevent the discharge or deposit in a park of a substance capable of degrading the park, injuring fauna, flora, cultural resources or endangering human health.

I understand your concern is that the words “every person” are too broad. I’m thinking that “every person who enters a national park” would be an amendment — who has a duty — so that it’s saying those who enter the park. Do you have any comment on that?

Maybe I will pose that the second challenge here is that the person has a duty to take measures. To what extent is the duty, and to what definition is the measure? It would be largely personally driven in terms of how you would define that as an individual as to what measures the expectation. It’s really around the difficulty and the open-endedness of trying to define what the expectation is on that person.

The duty would eventually be defined by the courts, if necessary.

The duty could range from reporting, to taking physical action or attempting to mitigate in a variety of different ways. You can imagine a number of examples that would be far-reaching.

What would the probability be that such would be problematic? I suggest not much.

The onus would be on us as officials to make this an enforceable measure and judge whether a person has taken responsibility for that duty and whether we would be able to enforce whether they had.

That’s discretion. It’s a really important front-line discretion. I believe your employees, officers, et cetera, do that every day. This just gives them a tool to do it. They make the determination.

I’d like to thank the officials for being here and available to answer questions. Thank you for your understanding that you’re not going to participate in the debate but are here as a resource. In that connection, I’d like to ask a question.

Mr. Campbell, I understood from your discussion with Senator Arnot that you felt that the first amendment, while it does replicate what is already in the Parks Canada Agency Act, is, I think you said, expansive and difficult to measure the extent of encouraging public engagement — the words from Senator Arnot’s proposed amendment. My question is this: could that question not be defined in policy, assuming the amendment passes? Could that not be spelled out in policy or procedures that would be developed by the Parks Canada administration?

At some point, yes, you certainly could. Within anything in an act, you can set it out again, as we know, in regulation, policy and procedures. In this case, though, it would be how you were then narrowing what, in fact, legislators have put forward. Normally, narrowing isn’t an approach that we would take in policy.

Maybe, if I could, where we would normally see those things to give us those aspirational goals are often in preambles of acts. That is not to say that might be a better place for it, because that would be outside of my point, but that’s normally where we would see those things that would help us in determining those sorts of large goals for the organization.

Would you or Ms. Cunningham comment on the same question with respect to the second amendment, which is the duty to take measures to prevent the discharge of a substance capable of degrading the national environment? You said it was too broad as worded and needs to be defined. Could that duty be defined in policy and procedures if the amendment passes?

Mine is likely the same response that Andrew just provided with regard to the other issue in that I think that would be narrowing through policy at that point in time.

Regarding the previous senator’s question with regard to the regulatory regime associated with park visitors, there is an expectation that park visitors will follow the regulatory regime of national parks. They are compelled to not destroy the environment when they’re visiting, and the Canada National Parks Act gives the superintendent the powers to impose compliance and enforcement authority around those duties. There is a duty to self. I think this is expanding to a duty to others. Every person takes the duty for a generalized responsibility that’s beyond their own self-responsibility. I think that’s really the question. It is far-reaching.

Further to that, because I have the responsibility for the occupational health and safety of our employees, one of the things that could occur with this — and it is something that happens on a regular basis, just to get back to Senator Arnot’s question — is visitor to visitor conflict. Thus is leading people to say that they are going to enforce or stop you or take proactive measures to not do what you are in the process of doing, as opposed to today, which would be informing somebody else and having an official actually take that action. From that perspective, quite frankly, the most dangerous interactions we have for our employees are visitor to visitor, where the conflict grows and our people have to become involved.

On page 1, when you look at the 24(1) offence, it says “every person” who contravenes this. Who is that “every person” that is different from what is written there? They are guilty of an offence. It’s page 1, right at the bottom. It’s clause 3 that creates new subsection 24(1). So when you’re looking at what Senator Arnot is requesting, would that be offered under there, possibly, or is that “every person has a duty” too big?

Yes. My understanding of Senator Arnot’s proposal is that this is the person who contravenes. I think what you’re proposing is the duty to address other persons who could be contravening as well. I think that’s the expansion of that definition.

I’m not aware of the Auditor General’s report you’re referring to, no.

I don’t have any further questions of the witnesses.