Appendix 1 - Structure of public workshop sessions
The Intersol Group was contracted to assist in the design, facilitate and take notes for the cross-Canada, public workshop sessions. In addition, the Intersol Group was responsible for preparing this summary report highlighting the key issues, options and messages that were heard during these sessions.
Over 1,500 organizations, associations, networks, groups and individuals with an interest in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA 1999) were directly contacted about the engagement opportunities and were given information on how to get involved. In total, approximately 475 individuals attended the regional workshops. These individuals were affiliated with a broad cross-section of interests, including other federal government departments and agencies, Crown corporations, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, aboriginal governments and organizations, industry, business and the natural resource sectors (e.g., farming, fisheries and forestry), environmental non-government organizations, labour, public health and consumer groups, academia, and individual members of the Canadian public. All workshops were open to anyone with an interest in CEPA 1999; there was no registration fee for attendees.
CEPA 1999 is a sizeable, complex Act that addresses a varied and large number of topics. In order to provide some structure and manageability to the workshop discussions, the agenda and the government presentations were structured along four broad themes drawn from the content of the CEPA 1999 Scoping Paper, as follows: Knowledge for Protecting Human Health and the Environment; Tools for Taking Action; Fair and Efficient Compliance Promotion and Enforcement; and, Information for Canadians. The CEPA Registry website provided information on the workshops, including the exact dates, cities and venues, the agenda, and references to background information that might assist in understanding the Act and related policies.
The workshops were held in Halifax (twice, because a snowstorm accounted for low attendance at the first session), Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Yellowknife and Vancouver. With the exception of Yellowknife, all workshops were conducted with two sessions held at each location.
- The daytime session (10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) followed a fairly structured agenda and provided the opportunity for smaller, break-out group discussions of CEPA 1999 issues, specifics of the Act and the various questions posed in the Scoping Paper.
- The evening session (6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.) had a less structured agenda than the daytime session, but still provided for smaller group discussions of issues of interest.
In Yellowknife only one session was held, in the evening. In Halifax the first scheduled evening session was cancelled and the rescheduled session was held during the day.
Regional and Headquarters representatives from Environment Canada and Health Canada were present at all sessions. The Directors General responsible for CEPA 1999 in Environment Canada and Health Canada were both present at all sessions, except in Montreal where the Director General from Health Canada was represented by his Director. These individuals provided opening comments, detailed the reasons for the Parliamentary Review, and proposed issues for consideration. The presentation "slide show" used throughout the sessions is included in this Report in Appendix 2. Opening presentations consistently stressed that the workshops were not part of the Parliamentary Review; rather, their purpose was to provide information to assist participants in developing and sharing their views on CEPA 1999, and to assist the departments in their preparations for the Parliamentary Review. Departmental presentations were intentionally brief in order to maximize the time for participants to provide their views on CEPA 1999. Following the departmental presentations, opportunity was provided to participants to ask questions of clarification relating to CEPA 1999, the departmental preparations for the Review and the Parliamentary Review process itself. This "question and answer" period proved to be most informative and useful in addressing one of the stated objectives of the workshops in helping Canadians understand and develop their views on CEPA 1999. While this Summary Report does not specifically capture these "questions and answers", a great deal of this discussion assisted in the formulation of the messages that were then presented by participants to the departmental representatives for their consideration.
All public notifications and the introductory comments for each of the public workshops stressed that all of the inputs from Canadians would contribute to the preparation of advice that the Ministers of the Environment and Health will provide when the Act is referred to the Parliamentary Committee for review. To assist in this process, Environment Canada and Health Canada undertook to post summaries of comments received from the public workshops on the CEPA 1999 Registry. This report summarizes comments that were heard during the public workshops.
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