Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would encourage all members, if they have an opportunity, to review Alberta's oil sands opportunity brochure about its vision for responsible development of the oil sands. It refers to many of the questions that have been asked today.
I know the Alberta government has been monitoring the water quality in the oil sands since the early 1970s. In fact, Mr. Scarpaleggia, the reason it's a minimum impact is that they're not allowed to discharge that water into the system. That's why tailings ponds, of course, are the ultimate resource.
I don't know if you're familiar with the economic impact, but my understanding is that Maclean's ran an article recently that said the investment in oil sands will actually be more than $123 billion. But it's going to generate an estimated $885 billion in economic activity, creating 6.6 million person-years of employment, and injecting another $120 billion to $130 billion in federal coffers. That was when oil was at an average price of $32 per barrel. So we're looking at some significant economic impacts.
I know that's not your expertise, but I did want to put that on the record.
I also want to cite this report as well, which indicates that water samples collected since 1990 have shown arsenic levels below provincial guidelines. In fact the report goes on to say that these guidelines and the amounts in this area are consistent with other places throughout the province, and in fact consistent with the average in Alberta.
Is that your information as well? Obviously the water flow is north, into the Northwest Territories, then the Arctic Ocean, and obviously into the ocean and dissipating. But in the southern part, which doesn't have any connection as far as an aquifer, there is the same amount of arsenic in the traditional food supply--moose, deer, elk, etc.--and in the water. It would seem to indicate, to me, that there is no connection between the two. Would that be fair to say?