Natural Resources committee  Yes. Again, don't quote me—I can get you the numbers—but let's say it's a commission of a couple dozen experts in geophysics, in geology, who form the commission. They are reviewing these cases essentially one at a time. So when will they get to Canada? It could be five years, it could be eight years.

Natural Resources committee  I'll ask Dr. Percival to respond.

Natural Resources committee  I have a copy here from the last presentation we did, but it's very small. We showed you that about 40% of the north had already been mapped to modern standards. That left 60% of the north that had not. We used the best available knowledge at the time to target what I would call the best of the best areas--the areas that were most likely to have a high probability of having energy, oil and gas, minerals, or metals.

Natural Resources committee  My experts can respond, but it would generally be a series of tool boxes. I don't think the entire 40% was geophysics.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. First of all, I want to point out that it's not all their work. We have a Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing, and I'm very proud to say that yesterday we received the William T. Pecora Award in the United States, which is the highest level of recognition for an earth observation unit.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, I thought I was here today to talk about the earth science sector's programs. I'm no longer an official responsible for those areas, Mr. McGuinty--the biodiversity, for example. I'll take the direction of the chair on this.

Natural Resources committee  To be clear, the impacts and adaptation group does two things. One is that periodically it leads the direction of the creation of the climate change impacts report. The last one was released in 2007-08. We take the lead for management purposes, but then you have the areas of expertise: from Environment Canada there'd be a piece on biodiversity, a piece on the climate system.

Natural Resources committee  We're seeing glacial melt in our large northern glaciers. They are contracting, especially the land-based glaciers, as you know, in Greenland. With that melt would come sea-level rise. That's one parameter. The other parameter we're seeing--this is not our domain, per se, but it has an effect--is that we're seeing, generally speaking, less polar ice.

Natural Resources committee  I can speak on the tidal, for example. We are engaged in what's called geohazard research. We are, on the east coast, for example, and the west coast, where companies or provinces are interested in developing tidal energy. Essentially you have generators underwater, sitting either on the bottom of the ocean or suspended in a manner where you're reliant on the substrate.

Natural Resources committee  Our energy sector might be involved in where best to situate it from a tidal-power standpoint. I frankly don't know. But where we would be engaged as a sector would be that if you decide that this is the best possible place to put it because of the current and the maximal use of available natural energy, we'd be the ones, the Geological Survey, who would look at whether it would be a safe place to put it--i.e., would it be something that would exist for 10 or 20 years, or whether there'd be a likelihood of some sort of geological failure that would create a loss of this huge investment.

Natural Resources committee  The geohazard? Yes, we create geohazard maps, so as soon as we are ready, that information is published.

Natural Resources committee  In conjunction with the Geological Survey of Canada, yes.

Natural Resources committee  It's a bit of a moving target, but in general terms, this fiscal year, Mr. McGuinty, it's about $180 million.

Natural Resources committee  Off the top of my head, I can't tell you, but it would be in the neighbourhood of $5 million.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, $5 million to $7 million. Again, I'd be happy, Mr. Chair, to circle back with the actual facts on that. I didn't bring them, so it's top-of-head.