Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My questions are going to be a little bit scattered today, so forgive me. I've got specific interests in specific areas.
But let me commend you first, Mr. Minister, on two things. One thing is that, having sat on the previous committee when natural resources and industry were combined, I understand that the streamlining of regulations is very important. And as someone who has sat in mining camps where the senior geologist has spent most of his time working through regulations--not all with federal natural resources, we can go through 20 different departments to get something done--that is absolutely critical.
The other thing I wish to compliment you on is your emphasis on technology for clean coal and things like that. As has been pointed out before, only 2% of the human-induced greenhouse gases in the world are produced by Canada, so if all of Canada was wiped off the earth--forget just the oil sands, but all of our emissions everywhere--it would really do next to nothing.
But if we can develop technology, not only is it good for our economy and for exporting it, but it could help other countries that have challenges that are by a factor of 10 or 20.
Let me get into a few of my questions here.
First of all, I have a general question on the Geological Survey of Canada, and I believe I asked a similar question last year. For people not totally familiar with the geological sciences, it takes a very long time to get to be a very good geologist. I was wondering, is there a particular strategic plan? There are problems in the overall civil service with replacement, etc., but for some of the occupations in the civil service it is easier to train and attract talent that takes less time to mature than would be the case in the geological trades.
So I'm very curious. Is there any particular plan for renewal in the Geological Survey, not just for personnel, but looking at its vision again to see how it is, because it is really one of the gems of Canada? It cooperates with our provincial geological surveys and it is part of our infrastructure for our mining, which is very important to large portions of the country.