In response to the question, I would like to make a couple of comments so you can understand the scale and the visual impact of this.
Between the approved and applied for oil sands mines, the Athabasca River north of Fort McMurray will be lined on both sides for nearly 100 kilometres. The Fort McMurray community is based in Fort McMurray, but it's also important to understand that because of the historical nature of the Métis, there are very dense regional connections. People who live in Willow Lake, Anzac or Fort McMurray regularly travel to visit family in Fort Chipewyan and Fort McKay. They harvest in these areas as well.
Dan mentioned the mental health and cumulative impacts of this. It's not just the mental health effects of knowing your regulator is more concerned about protecting the image of the industry and its investment than it is about protecting the health and rights of the people who live in this area. That has an enormous toll every day—not knowing what you don't know. In our community, over the years we have seen a decline in traditional-use practices and the exercise of these rights, in part because of the loss of confidence in the safety and quality of the resources. Are they healthy? Is the water safe? People used to drink water regularly from the rivers. Almost no one does now.
The loss of these practices has a range of human health, mental health, social and community impacts. Land use was traditionally how families connected across generations, how elders spent time with young people and how knowledge was transmitted about your culture, who you are and your way of life. As those practices get lost, that knowledge gets lost. The senses of identity, self, purpose and place are all compromised and undermined, all of which has enormous health, social and community effects. Then people get pushed into underfunded and overtaxed public services that, moreover, are not designed to deal with indigenous people and the specific issues indigenous people face.
We have to understand that it's not just about this one isolated incident. It's about this one isolated incident within a much wider and interconnected system that is constantly undermining the rights, health and interests of the people who reside in this region, particularly indigenous people.