And the water table isn't affected by all of this activity?
Again, when we listen to Mr. Jean--and I appreciate that he's well informed on this, and he makes interesting and good points--it sounds like a Disney film, quite frankly, where everything is pristine and working wonderfully and everyone is living happily ever after. Maybe that's the case, I don't know, but it doesn't seem to jibe with what I'm hearing and reading in other places. That's why we're having this study, I guess.
Is the water table not affected? First of all, I don't even believe that we've mapped all our aquifers in Canada; I think only 30% are mapped. I can't believe that injecting all this water into the ground is having a negligible impact. That's one point I'd like you to respond to.
With regard to my second question, if the development process of the oil sands is affecting the water table, or even just through the Athabasca River, and those effects are interprovincial, would that trigger another level of federal authority, if you will? Would that give the federal government more right to assess or look into the matter?
I understand that certain things are provincial only, but once you start affecting the groundwater and it's having interprovincial effects, or even if you're just talking about the river systems, would that give us added authority beyond the need to invoke the Fisheries Act or the Navigable Waters Protection Act?
There has to be some point, especially on the prairies, that there are interprovincial effects, especially in the situation of declining water resources. Would that bring the federal environmental assessment power into the process a little more?