Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming to help us understand this project. We appreciate hearing about the collaboration and cooperation amongst government, academia, and industry. It's important that we share information. Also, scientific understanding is a hugely important goal, especially when it concerns the ecologically fragile Arctic and some of the possible resource exploitation in that area.
The witnesses may be aware that I represent the Liberal Party of Canada, which has made it clear that we're against further leases and further exploration in the Arctic until such time as a full and thorough understanding of the risks has been acquired.
I want to start off with a question to understand something that was in the letter from BP Canada that was received by the committee. It was mentioned that there was a successful seismic program in 2009. I'm interested to hear whether the seismic program took into account the potential disruption of habitat conditions. The witnesses are probably aware of the recent court ruling with the Suzuki case, that it's not just the geophysical boundaries of habitat for endangered species or species of concern, but it's actually the conditions, such as noise and pollution, as well.
Could you tell me, from BP, whether the seismic program took into account noise and other impacts on critical habitat?