Thanks, Mr. Dechert.
Yes, the devil is in the details.
The federal government, current and previous governments, have signed harmonization agreements with most of the provinces to try to make these regulations a little more streamlined.
There's a simple thing that could be done, frankly. In British Columbia we have legislated timelines in our environmental assessment process; things have to be done by a certain time. There are opportunities and options to halt the clock, to pull the process back, but generally there is a legislated timeline; you must get through the process by this date.
The federal government, under the current CEA regime, has no timelines associated with it. We think this would be a simple thing. I know CEA is up for review in 2010 and it should be considered.
We're not talking about taking the federal government's statutory authority away. We're not talking about getting the federal government out of this business. What we're talking about is recognizing that a biologist is a biologist is a biologist. For a geologist, an expert on explosives in federal jurisdiction, these processes do not have to be duplicated at every level.
And some of that comes from the federal government simply saying, we recognize the work you've done as a province.