Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity, and I appreciate the witnesses being here.
Mr. Hazell, I want to go back to some of the questioning, and some of the answers, from my colleagues across the way who talked about a lot of uncertainty with respect to...and obviously some regulations. We've seen the same thing elsewhere. I'm on the fisheries committee, and we know there are a number of consultations that are going to happen after this, and the fisheries minister is going to do some things on the regulatory side.
I'd like to ask some questions about testimony that we've already heard.
When we spoke to Mr. Gratton the other night, from the mining folks, he said:
First of all, for mining projects we fully expect to have mines on the list that will follow in regulations, so we expect the same number of projects to be assessed in the future as have been up to now. In fact, we've even speculated that we might end up having more projects, as some brownfield sites, which are mines that are being developed on already disturbed mining areas, may fall under the new definitions. So we actually may see more projects assessed, but they will be assessed in a more timely manner.
I'm trying to reconcile that, because very clearly Mr. Gratton, and Mr. Prystay also, have read the legislation very thoroughly and they came up with that interpretation. I'd simply like to understand how I can square that circle.