Mr. Chair, we are pleased to be invited here to provide a brief overview of Canadian expertise in mining, particularly in remote areas.
It is really a pleasure to be here with you.
I believe you got a copy of our introductory remarks. I won't go through every line here, to try to give the maximum amount of time for some dialogue, but I would like to highlight a few of the points from this set of opening remarks.
Under the Canadian Constitution, the federal government has broad responsibilities for federal lands, fiscal and monetary policy, international relations and trade, national statistics, and science and technology.
In the north, the federal government manages mineral resources in the Northwest Territories, in Nunavut, and, in the case of the Yukon, this responsibility is in the process of being devolved to the territory itself.
I think it's important to make one point, and this is that in terms of resources, it really is the provinces, the provincial governments, that own and manage the mineral resources within their own jurisdictions, and they're responsible for land use and decision-making.
The other point I'd like to stress right up front is that our department doesn't set the priorities internationally, nor do we develop international policy and undertake that particular responsibility. Certainly, we'll talk about the Canadian context, what we do, and in terms of what might be applicable to the case of Afghanistan, but I just wanted to put the markers there that it really isn't our position to talk about where our priorities and our policies should be in the international arena.
In terms of the provincial and federal jurisdictions, there a number of shared areas as well, and those are on economic development, environmental protection and conservation, health and safety, and aboriginal economic development and consultation. We work in concert with many other federal government departments on this particular file: for example, with Fisheries and Oceans when it comes to impact on fish habitat; with INAC, or Indian and Northern Affairs, on mining regulations in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and on aboriginal consultation; with Transport Canada; with HRSDC on skills; with Statistics Canada on some of the statistics; with Industry Canada on some of the mining company directory, to help connect supply of goods and suppliers and services; and of course with our colleagues at DFAIT.
So at NRCan our mandate is to collect and publish statistics on the mineral exploration, development, and production of the mining and metallurgical industries in Canada. We make full and scientific examination and survey of our geological structure and mineralogy of Canada. We have regard to the sustainable development of Canada's mineral resources and their integrated management. And we seek to enhance the responsible development and use of Canada's mineral resources.
On the geoscience front, we certainly provide geoscience as a public good to all Canadians and to other foreign companies in a very open and transparent way so that we can make sure there's maximum benefit and advantage to Canadians as a result of the exploration and the mining and production. We can certainly talk more about that.
In terms of methodology, we certainly are involved with all the various cycles of the mining process, beginning right from the land acquisitions to exploration to advanced exploration, pre-feasibility, feasibility studies, the development of the actual mining projects, the operations of them, the closure, and even rights to the land ownership that's renounced.
Canada is an expert in the area of mining, and we certainly know within our own remote context some of the unique issues. We certainly talk a little bit about the challenges of infrastructure, challenges with environment, challenges with labour, and challenges with some of the social aspects of mining in remote communities and in areas. In Canada, we have a system of a free market, or a free entry system, whereby anybody can come in and stake a claim to a particular geographical area. In other countries, they have auctions, where the governments get involved with assessing what is the value of a particular plot of land and then looking at how do they get the highest bid. That's just another nuance within Canada's context.
We also have, obviously, technical mining expertise, but we rely very heavily on our private industry and our experts within industry to really provide that mining expertise. Certainly some of our laboratories provide some of the technical expertise in the areas of green mining, for example, where we want to make sure that mining is done in the most responsible way: leaving behind the least footprint, making use of the least amount of energy, having the least amount of impact on water, for example, and so on.
I'll stop there. I would be pleased, with my colleagues, to try to answer as best we can the questions you have.
