Thank you very much, because obviously that's a critical point. The whole reason we're doing this is that it was a commitment made by our government to Canadians that we would rebuild the trust in the system that was sorely lost under the previous government. There was a sense that decisions were not being made based on science and evidence, but on politics. There wasn't proper consultation with communities, nor engagement with indigenous peoples, which didn't help get projects going ahead.
In our new system, the proposed system, the idea is that you make decisions based on science and indigenous knowledge and facts. That's critically important. We are committed to evidence-based decision-making, so you need to have that as part of it. We've also put forward that only a single agency would do environmental assessment. It would be the impact assessment agency of Canada. We think this is much better because that will make sure a clear process is followed all the time. It will also help with efficiency.
We believe there needs to be earlier public engagement as well as partnership with indigenous people. The early engagement process is critically important. We've moved to a sustainability task, so we're looking at how we can look at a variety of factors, not just environmental factors but factors that would look at the impact on indigenous peoples and also the economic benefits of a project and the health impacts. We think that is how you can rebuild Canadians' trust, how you can show you're listening to Canadians, and how you can provide better certainty for proponents.
In the end we also want to make sure, when we make decisions, that there's transparency, so we will now have reasons for decisions. Previously, a press release would announce the decision, and we believe that Canadians are entitled to understand on what basis the government would make sometimes quite challenging decisions, and what science, evidence, and knowledge they were based on.