I'm not going to hold my breath, but thank you.
Thank you to all the witnesses for coming here today.
We're talking today just about water and some of the environmental challenges. The thing that I find totally amazing on the question of the oil sands, let alone natural gas, and CO2, is that everyone recognizes there's a problem, but I don't see much in the way of action.
I appreciate that the Pembina Institute is a think tank. The Mackenzie River Basin Board was very clear that it's not a regulator, etc. But the one thing I find surprising is that no one seems to want to touch it. It gets into this area of not wanting a national energy policy type of backlash or not wanting to be seen as anti-Alberta.
But the bitumen will be there forever. The pressures on the costs now are horrendous. There is probably going to be $50 oil for a long time as well. Why can't the federal government sit down with the province and the stakeholders and work out a plan where we can have some measured pace to this, maybe save money in terms of the costs, deal with the social problems, and then work towards the environmental solutions?
We heard again today that the breakthrough technologies on water will be 2030. Well, the last time I checked, the production out of the oil sands is going to quadruple by 2015. We have no water management framework. Why would we, collectively, as a society--forget the jurisdiction for a moment--allow these projects to proceed and expand and quadruple when we don't know the impacts on the water? Who is asleep at the switch? Is this a matter that the province should be regulating or the federal government. What's going on here?
Maybe we could start with you, Ms. Griffiths.