If I might draw a comparison, for example, the Australian environmental assessment process just approved the world's largest uranium mine in less than one year. If we look at an environmental assessment process for a uranium project in Canada, we're looking at well over six years. So you can see that when a company is looking at investing, that's a very significant difference. And it's not that the Australians have any lower standards in safety or environmental protection.
Another example of regulatory infrastructure impeding resource development would be the proposed national recovery strategy for woodland caribou, because the model they have would not allow any further development in northern Saskatchewan, and it's a faulty model based on poor science.
Slide 27 shows the business case for investing in remote communities and essentially boils down to this: it's a very positive return on investment for government, for industry, for the communities in the area, and for the taxpayer. We see this by the successes of the Saskatchewan mining industry.
Finally, our recommendations are on the last slide. Our recommendation is to continue looking at investment partnerships with governments and industry, especially with respect to training to employment programs. Reward the successful programs, such as the Northern Career Quest and multi-party training plan. You need good labour market intelligence to do that. We'd certainly look at supporting the national sector human resource councils, MiHR, and encourage the government to look at key sectors that would look at refunding those national sector models.
In looking at investments, partnership investments in road and power infrastructures have been very critical, but a very good return on investment.
Our last recommendation is looking at regulatory reform and the importance that has on return on investment and in investing in northern communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.