Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The concern identified in that point in the presentation is that the actual amendment process for a certificate would, by statute, take at least eight months.
We've had experiences in the past when major mining projects have required changes to water licences where the provisions in the water licence were recommended as part of an environmental assessment. So it was a measure that came out of the environmental assessment and was approved by the federal minister, and then, by virtue of section 62 of the act, it's required that the measure end up in the water licence. Subsequently, the companies had to come back and amend that particular measure that came out of the environmental assessment.
Our concern is that if it's a major environmental change, of course it ought to go back and be reviewed carefully, including by the minister. But if we're talking about simply an operational change of some sort that affects the measure, eight or nine months is a long time to get approval for a change that is really not going to have a large impact on the environment. I do want to simply emphasize that the change would take place in the context of a water licensing proceeding, which itself will take almost a year. That's where we came up with the number of 17 months.
The suggestion was simply that if the change to the measure is not going to have any kind of significant environmental effect, why do we need to take so long to do it?