I'll just add a couple of points to that. We've already talked briefly about the geoscience and the need to invest in that area, and we've talked briefly about innovation and the fact that we will be seeking money for the Canadian Mining Innovation Council.
I think in the general tax area the industry is fairly well positioned internationally. We've talked a bit about the flow-through share provisions, the ability to write off development expenses as a project is being brought along. There are some areas that can still be improved upon. We have an ongoing dialogue under way right now with Natural Resources Canada, and hopefully in the near future with Finance officials, to see if we can make some improvements.
These become very technical areas to do with things like the five-year rule and possible accelerated write-off of modernization of facilities, for example. It wouldn't be easy, but if the government could somehow develop a tax incentive for companies, not just in our sector, to invest in modernizing their facilities and somehow tie this to improved performance in greenhouse gas intensity or whatever, that kind of thing would obviously be well received and would help encourage more investment in modernizing facilities. There are many sectors beyond ours that would welcome that kind of movement.
In general, though, the tax situation is reasonably competitive. We have made some comments in the past about the need to improve the regulatory processes. It still takes too long in this country to wind a project through the regulatory approval process. It doesn't mean we want regulators to say, yes, go ahead, necessarily, but it means that we do want some answers and some direction more quickly than four or five years.
So there is a major project management office. It's a bit early to say whether it will be effective or not. It has some good people, but it's too early to tell whether it's going to be able to ride herd and bring some discipline to this whole process. But certainly that's one area to keep in mind.
Finally, on the infrastructure front, we have suggested three particular projects to the government, one of them in northern Quebec. We appreciate the fact that is going to be moving forward. The Quebec government has also stepped in to support that in their most recent budget. There are still projects in Nunavut and Northwest Territories that we think are worth supporting. We're still working on that. All three of these projects would help companies access areas that are felt to be quite promising, both for exploration and eventually to get products out to the marketplace. So I think there are some suggestions that we have in play on the infrastructure front.
There are a couple of other areas, but I'll stop there.