I think first nations consultation is one of the aspects where the timelines really don't make sense.
I appreciate that in your average environmental assessment, things can probably happen within a certain timeframe. What we're looking at here are the unknowns and the variables. Science can be an unknown and a variable.
With aboriginal consultation, every aboriginal group will have different interests that have to be known and examined. I think it's fair to say that probably most aboriginal groups, at least it's the case in B.C., are bombarded, constantly, with multiple, different requests for comment on different projects that are crossing their territories every which way, whether that's for environmental assessment or for people who want to do a partnership deal with them. They don't have the capacity to deal with them. To tell communities that they need to respond to a process, and one in which their government will have no ability to participate in the decision-making, and they have to respond within 30-day timelines for 10 different projects at once, does not make sense. A municipality wouldn't do it, and we're asking first nations governments to do it. I agree with Chief Atleo's and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs' submissions on that. If I were them, I wouldn't be supporting it either.