I welcome the opportunity to reiterate the fact that the changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act are to improve, to strengthen, and to contemporize the abilities of the government and its various agencies to ensure that resource development is conducted in the most responsible way possible, with an eye to protecting the environment.
We have new tools, which I outlined in my remarks, to ensure that proponents who receive clearance to go ahead with a project comply with the mitigation measures, and there are new provisions for significant enforcement of those that don't follow through. For the first time—again, as I mentioned—we are introducing enforceable environmental assessment decision statements under the act, which will enable the issuance of binding environmental assessments on project proponents.