| Montreal, 24/12/2004 – On 17 December 2004, pursuant to Article 15(1) of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America (CEC) issued a Notification to the CEC Council recommending development of a factual record in connection with the SEM-04-006 (Ontario Logging II) submission, filed with the Secretariat on 12 October 2004 by Sierra Legal Defence Fund on behalf of several Canadian and U.S. nongovernmental organizations (the "Submitters"). The Submitters allege that Canada is failing to effectively enforce s. 6(a) of the Migratory Birds Regulations adopted pursuant to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 in regard to clearcut logging activities carried out in the Cochrane, Shiningtree, Temagami and Wawa forest management units in Ontario in 2001. Given the close relationship between the submission and submission SEM-02-001 (Ontario Logging), and considering that a factual record has already been ordered for the Ontario Logging submission, the Secretariat recommended that the two submissions be combined for the purpose of developing a factual record.
The CEC Secretariat informed the Council of its determination on 17 December 2004, and now, five business days later, is able to provide public notification of the determination and to present its reasons in the public registry. The Secretariat will prepare a factual record if the Council, by a two-thirds vote, instructs it to do so.
The full text of the submission, Canada's response and the Secretariat's factual record recommendation are available on the CEC web site, at <http://www.cec.org/citizen>.
The CEC was established under the NAAEC to address environmental issues in North America from a continental perspective, with a particular focus on those arising in the context of liberalized trade. The CEC Council, the organization's governing body, is composed of the top environment officials of Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Please visit the Citizen Submissions on Enforcement Matters page for more information.
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