Yes, I certainly can, and thanks for the question.
Let me start by reiterating the point I made in my remarks about global competitiveness. I think it's really important to think about this in the context that we in Canada are competing all the time for markets, for suppliers, and for other dimensions of these projects against other countries and other corporations. We always need to be mindful that we're not doing this in a silo or on an island. We're very much part of an integrated and very competitive system.
In terms of how these projects get advanced, from my standpoint, this is all about integrating—from the point of identifying an opportunity to the point of an investment decision—a whole lot of complex factors that go into whether a decision is made to proceed or not at the end of the day. Largely, that process is about reducing and, where you can, eliminating uncertainty and risk.
The factors that go into these kinds of investment decisions are financing, cost structure, market windows, supplier opportunities, labour availability—a myriad of factors, all of which have bands of uncertainty around them.
The regulatory process is on the critical path in that decision process. So that's one factor that can have a significant bearing on the ability to move these projects forward and to hit market windows or to keep cost structure where it needs to be for the project to be successful.
I think the key point I would make is to say that clarity and predictability in the process—how it's going to work, what it's going to cost to enter into it, when might the party that's proposing the project expect a decision and, importantly, at that point, bring together all of those complex factors that enter into the decision to proceed or not—is extremely important.
So this is a risk management process, and the regulatory process is a key element in that overall process leading to an investment decision.