I have to say that everybody did.
The way it's been described is that this project came into the province on cat's feet, meaning it just sort of appeared; that there was some kind of negotiation going on that the citizens were really not privy to prior to its becoming a fait accompli. It was only afterwards, when we made right to information requests, that we began to see how it was that this could have happened.
And really, I think what we're talking about, from the residents' and the fishermen's point of view, is that nobody thinks about atmospheric deposition—that the emissions from a facility could actually fall into the bay and contaminate wildlife or fisheries. It's not in the scope of the imagination of DFO, even though the records of this happening are numerous. Everybody believed in the 99.99% number. People looked at the area and said, they need the jobs, and it was jobs at all cost. That mentality has pervaded the region.
So really, everybody dropped the ball. And when they did try to do something about it, as you perhaps know, when then-minister Minister Anderson intervened and said we're going to get a review and we're going to have a transboundary effect study, it was too late, and it lost on appeal in court.
We're here today, I think, to put DFO on notice that it must broaden, not constrain, its regulatory influence or its regulatory responsibility. It must start looking at these types of issues.
For example, another important issue that is out there—what I call a horizon issue—that is coming is seabed gravel mining and extraction.
What's interesting, Mr. Chairman and members, is that over the years DFO has been transferring responsibility for a lot of its regulatory responsibility to other agencies and associations. For example, DFO signed an MOU in 2004 with the Canadian Electrical Association to deal with those habitat management issues—those fish passages, and all of that. So DFO is not going to look at it.