We made some really good strides last year with amendments that were long in coming—amendments made to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that put the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in charge.
Now, this may sound funny. We have had the agency for years, and probably most people thought they ran environmental assessments. Actually, they didn't. If you're a mining company, one of the biggest sources of delay was trying to get the EA started. You'd pound on the door of Fisheries and Oceans Canada or Natural Resources Canada or Environment Canada and say you need an EA and could they please start it.
It would fall on an individual department to put up its hand and say it would do it. None of them wanted to, because it was a big undertaking and a lot of time and resources were involved.
Last year the agency was finally put in charge, and it was given the resources necessary to manage environmental assessment. We have seen the elimination of about 18 months of delay from the federal approval process in Canada as a result, because it was estimated that it took 18 months just to start.
What this also means, and then I'll turn it over to Karina, is that now the federal and provincial governments can actually harmonize, because the feds aren't a year and a half behind. What we're seeing on the ground in B.C. is a much improved process.
Do you want to add to that?