Mr. Coles, thank you for your speech here today. You've cleared up a couple of issues that were brought up earlier about leases. Thank you for that. I'll get to you in just a moment.
Mr. Laurin, here is my opinion on this. I understand where you're coming from about rules-based situations so that everybody is clear about what the rules are when you invest. I have no problem with that whatsoever. You use chapter 11 as a pillar of an example of remedies being in place for expropriation measures, and Mr. Woods, in relation to a case in Alberta, talked about how individuals have a greater ability to do that. That's fine.
Let's look at the other side for a moment. For oil and gas, the North Sea is an incredibly intricate place to invest in. They have a very advanced system; I would even say, in my opinion, that it's the most advanced in the world. They have what is called fallow field legislation. In other words, you have a certain number of years to invest in a certain property. Once you do that, you can have your licence and you can carry on, but if you don't undertake any activity after two or three years, you have to explain why not.
The whole principle is that it doesn't belong to these companies. It's not theirs in perpetuity. It belongs to the people, to whom you have to be responsible. In this case, going back to Mr. Coles' evidence here, quite clearly you can call it perception or whatever, but in 1905 it was operational in the province. They got all these rights based on the simple fact that they had to provide employment, period. Now, you can say that it was over 100 years ago, but the principle was renewed in 1992. That was the whole principle of it.
A lot of us were being accused of expropriating for no apparent reason, and I believe Premier Williams was called “Danny Chavez” at one point. However, the thing about it is that he has a point: it's a two-way street.
I'll start with Mr. Laurin's comment on that. Mr. Coles, I'd like you to comment as well.