It's very clear that the “one project, one assessment” mantra is there. We can take lessons from the U.S. on this point. This notion of co-operative federalism has been bandied around a lot lately.
The point is that if the federal government has a jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court has clearly said it does, then the federal government can set a baseline in terms of what is a strong, rigorous environmental assessment. It can then absolutely invite the provinces to co-operate, harmonize, and collaborate on those impact assessments. It is absolutely true, it is both governments.
In fact, as long ago as 1992, at the time of the Supreme Court's decision in Friends of the Oldman River Society, constitutional law scholars maybe didn't have a ton of sense of what was going on on the environmental side, but they said it seemed plain that there should essentially be these joint agencies—federal and provincial—doing this work in every province. Of course they didn't recognize the long pattern of federal deference to provincial interests, but the case is there.
That's what I see reflected in the impact assessment act, essentially. It is saying we're going to set out a baseline standard in terms of what is good EA. If provinces are prepared to meet us there, then we can work together, ensure efficiency, reduce duplication, and all those kinds of things.