One of the main purposes of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is to make sure that ecological, social, and economic considerations are fully integrated and duly considered at the same time. That's a stated objective of the CEAA. You see it in the purposes of the CEAA. You see it in the preamble. I am not entirely sure the EA track record over the past decade or two really matches that rhetoric.
Unfortunately, these EA processes tend to be fixated on impact mitigation. What are the environmental impacts? Are they likely to occur? Are they significant? Can they be mitigated? That really amounts to an exercise that is asking the question of how we can make a potentially harmful project less impactful or dangerous. Those are important considerations, but it's missing some of the important questions, like how does this project actually contribute to the overall ecological integrity of our natural resource base, the thing we depend on to get by?
I see Mr. Chairman giving me the wave, so I'll end with that. We need to get serious about ecological sustainability. We haven't to this point under the CEAA