My first comment is that in this area SARA itself is somewhat misleading, because in the Government of Canada, any time you're going to introduce a regulation, as part of that you have to take socio-economic considerations into account.
For example, in SARA, if you're going to list an endangered species, there has to be socio-economic consideration. That's the law of Canada. So you're quite right: at the time of going to the council of ministers, there has to be that socio-economic consideration.
Then, I would say, that if in fact you're going through and there's going to be a recovery program or an action plan that's going to entail some form of regulation, here again it's not a question: it must. That's basically one of the overriding rules of the Government of Canada. We went through that about 15 years ago. That's my comment there.
With respect to timeframes, I think you're right. If you look at the list of endangered species, you'll see a wide variety of flora and fauna and so forth. The consultation is basically a responsibility of government; it has to make sure there is that consultation. So I think it was a bit of a mistake to actually have a prescriptive time period. There are groups--industry groups, well-meaning bureaucrats, and very cooperative environmental groups--and the issue is to bring them together and try to move this issue forward. Having legislation that puts in a little timeframe becomes a bit of a magnet.
I remember that in one of the task forces leading up to SARA we brought up the U.S. wildlife people. They basically said not to do what they did, in the sense that all of a sudden they found it was a magnet for litigation when they did such prescriptions. They said they were spending all their money with lawyers trying to fight this off, and they had no money for recovery, no money for this. So follow that advice--except for the nine months type of restriction.