Sure.
I guess I'll begin by commenting on your question about whether or not the pace is sustainable from an economic perspective, a social perspective, and environmentally. Certainly, the conclusion we've drawn is no, it is not, because in each of those three dimensions there are significant consequences and significant impacts to Albertans and also more broadly to Canadians.
To provide an example from the social side of things, we've now had the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo pass a unanimous council decision to oppose any new oil sands projects in that region, not on the grounds that they don't want more development to happen, but because there's such a deficit on the infrastructure and the social services side that these projects simply aren't in the interest of their community, which is really the hub of oil sands development.
The regional health authority is running at about half capacity in terms of the number of total medical staff it would require to service the population of Fort McMurray, not including the shadow population that exists in the work camps constructing these facilities. Economically, the province is subject to very significant inflationary pressures right now that are impacting Albertans throughout the province, not only those residing in the oil sands region.
Recently, the provincial government announced that one out of three provincial construction projects would have to be cancelled or deferred because of an increase in construction costs of $3 billion over five years, and they simply didn't have the resources allocated for that. That's compounding this deficit that the province is already facing.
Certainly on the environmental side, not only are there unresolved questions about the environmental impacts, the cumulative impacts, and how much impact that region can withstand, but there is also the simple fact that the technology is not keeping pace with the rate of development. So we're seeing a very rapid increase in the overall net environmental footprint.
This has led a wide variety of organizations and individuals to call for some kind of slowdown or pause, to kind of get the province in order to be able to more sustainably manage this development, and they range from the provincial New Democrats to former Premier Peter Lougheed, environmental groups, and some first nations groups. So the question of pace is not a partisan issue. It's not a question of whether to develop oil sands. Rather, it's a question of how and what is the best way to do so in the public interest.
In terms of the levers that exist, particularly for the federal government, on the topic of environmental assessments, we've seen inconsistent federal engagement in terms of the scope of engagement in environmental assessment. The main trigger for the federal government to be involved has been under the Fisheries Act, subsection 35(2), but under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act there's a fair degree of latitude that allows the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to determine how broadly or narrowly to scope the environmental assessment.
In the past, they have very narrowly scoped it so that the federal government is not actually involved in an environmental assessment process looking at all of the impacts associated with it, including transboundary air pollution, greenhouse gases, etc.