Thank you.
There's so much I'd like to ask all three of you, but I only have five minutes, so I'll get right to it.
Mr. Shrybman, I have a question for you. You've been clear about the danger of the payout made last summer to AbitibiBowater in setting a precedent, both for water rights that AbitibiBowater has and for potentially those of any other company. Do you think the federal government did an appropriate evaluation of what the impacts were of making this decision before they made it?
We've found out so far today--and this is the first hearing--that it's not just the $130 million; it's another $30 million for severance payments, environmental remediation...we're talking about hundreds of millions. So we're probably talking about a gift to AbitibiBowater of anywhere up to half a billion dollars. The government obviously didn't do an evaluation on the financial side. Did they do an evaluation on the legal side?
Mr. Van Harten, thank you for your comments. Given that the arbitrators who make the decisions in the chapter 11 provisions receive money from the companies that they're called upon to judge, and you raised the issue of judicial independence, do you think we've established a type of kangaroo court, for lack of a better word?
Evidence today has shown that AbitibiBowater is a Canadian company headquartered in Montreal that's using an escape clause to get chapter 11. We've seen other companies like Pacific Rim use similar investor-state provisions to change their nationality.
Does the decision on AbitibiBowater encourage any company that wants to file legal papers anywhere else on the planet to use the chapter 11 provisions to sue the Canadian government for decisions made in the public interest? That's a question that I've asked all three of you.
We will start with Mr. Shrybman.