Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here today. We had a chance to discuss briefly and beforehand some of the things this committee is looking at.
Ronnie, I appreciate your comments, the important work that you did up until 2009. And I think it was greatly appreciated that we had a chance to read in both speeches today for a better understanding. I think it's important to point out that since 2009 some profound changes have taken place. I know that quite recently we've seen the minister and the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations move beyond conceptual thinking, but very much grounded in some of the words you were using in your speech today.
The joint action plan identifies education, governance, economic development, and we're being more efficient and effective with specific land claims, as an example. That was an agreement they came to.
Similarly, our approach to water and waste water treatment is a great model to think about. It includes three essential components: capacity, which includes reporting, monitoring, and maintenance of these advanced pieces of infrastructure; objectivizing and prioritizing critical infrastructure, which is something that hadn't been done necessarily well in the past; and legislation in some instances, particularly with respect to water and waste water, and certainly we're seeing that with land management.
Gentlemen, these are all important principles, whether we're talking about investment certainty, governance, regimes in specific training. You can see them popping out in all of our collective discourse.
And very recently the ASETS program through HRSDC has done two important things. One, it has taken a look at the broader skilled training that is required for vast regions, particularly up in the great Kenora riding, with more than 25 isolated and remote first nations communities. There is technology support to integrate education and streamline it, so that we have access to those things. And certainly, as we've identified here today, there is real action on dealing with contaminated sites, storage tank systems.
As somebody who has spent more than eight years living in these isolated, remote communities, I have an appreciation for these kinds of things. I also understand some of the challenges that you face.
I'm talking to the environmental folks here today. We run into provincial legislation that effectively makes parks of vast areas of northern Ontario, for example, which has included some reserves. In the crosshairs, of course, we have things like the Ring of Fire, which is the largest chromite deposit in the world, a 200-year potential for sustainability, an east and west corridor that represents significant potential for capacity development. But also cleaner, greener energy forms as the justification for opening these areas up necessarily depends on that kind of certainty.
With all of this read in together, I think my first question is going to be to the Environment Canada officials.
How does Environment Canada see itself in the most practical way, the best way moving forward, where the puck is headed, not necessarily where it's been in terms of effective consultation, accommodation, and real results in the context of some of the big projects? We can talk, for example, about the Ring of Fire and the Whitefeather Forest management initiative out in the most northwesterly part of Ontario. This is a fairly broad question, but it has real impact on how we decide with respect to certain environmental assessment processes from major projects, versus joint panel reviews and the likes.
I'm not sure, John, whether you might want to open the discussion on that.