That's right, and the assertion was that the rights you spoke about in the beginning—the natural timber rights, and as well rights to the waterways—were certainly ones that belonged to the public, and they were on loan, we'll say, or used by the company to make a profit. It just bothers me that two groups....
I mean, the province did their thing, and when the NAFTA challenge was made, it seemed as though the federal government had no interest in discussing ways to getting around this. Again, $130 million was paid--for what? We don't know.
Mr. McMahon, this is probably more a philosophical question than anything else. Let's take a look at the oil industry for just a moment, and this relates to timber rights as well. When you make an exploration in a certain area and you have found something, you get what's called a licence to explore, and it expires at a certain period of time. If you make a discovery, according to the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board, you get what's called a “significant discovery licence”, and you can sit on that with exclusive rights for as long as you want.
There's a company for the Hebron Development that sat on it for over 20 years and never did anything. Instead, they wanted to invest in other areas, such as Mexico. To me, this belongs to the people--it's theirs--but really, in effect, it belongs to the oil companies.
I only bring that point up because I think the same can be applied here to timber rights, as well as to waterways. Are we strict enough in how we settle our own resources?