Mr. Chair, I certainly don't think I contradicted what I said at all. In fact, if we want to go back to some comments I made, we talked about our concern for habitat and protecting habitat and marine conservation areas, etc., but realizing that there is a resource in the ocean from which an awful lot of people benefit and make a living from, as well as the country that benefits from the economy. If we cannot as a country develop our resources, whether it be the private or public sector, and are not allowed to develop these resources to create employment to stimulate the economy, if we don't use our natural resources, where does a country like this get the money to move forward and provide the tremendous social programs that we have?
Can we have the best of both worlds? I think we can. Are we there in all cases? Probably not. That's why I think we're becoming much more habitat conscious. As we move forward, stronger and more stringent requirements will be placed on mines.
In the case of AUR Resources, that company went through an environmental assessment. A compensation plan was put in place to actually enhance the Exploits River, to provide a better enhancement in that very area to make sure any damage of loss of fish or fish habitat was offset. Sometimes you have to make those trade-offs to make sure you can have the best of both.
Mr. Chairman, whenever we make decisions, we have three acts governing us, the Fisheries Act, the Environmental Assessment Act, and the Species at Risk Act. We have legal obligations to make sure we do a good job and that we're not taking a quick cursory look at it, because it's a mining company or some big industry, to tell them to go ahead. No. We need to create jobs, but we also need to protect habitat. We try to do the best to balance both within the legislation under which we operate.