Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Friesen, Mr. Young, and Mr. Carlson, for being here.
You'll have to appreciate that those two presentations are a little overwhelming, even to this committee, which has had an opportunity--I'm speaking on my own behalf--to go up and see the scale of the development.
If I were to try to capture the essence of what has been presented today, it would be that from an environmentally determinist position, there are many questions with respect to the rate of development, the erosion of the capacity of the boreal forest to serve in its natural cycle as a potential for sequestration of carbon, and the potential of the ecosystems and the ground and surface waters to rejuvenate themselves. All of this is related to the rate of extraction and development, either by mining it or in situ. Both are intrusive and invasive to the extent that the rate of development appears to be out of sync, out of rhythm, with the capacity to rejuvenate.
Mr. Friesen, you have concentrated on the reclamation aspect of it, and I certainly respect very much what you have said in terms of your company's commitment. I have a related question. You said twice that if we have no such path, we have no right to start the development. That's the first thing, and you used that with respect to your closure and reclamation model. You also said that successful reclamation is a precondition, that we have no right to start if we can't satisfy the capacity to rejuvenate in the manner that you describe is there.
I guess the question is one of scale. We have a graph that shows the extent to which development has occurred. The amount of reclamation is in the lightly shaded part of the graph. You can see, Mr. Friesen, while you have testified...you admit that you've been a little slow at the beginning, that you could accelerate the reclamation issue.
That said, I have a question. I'd like Mr. Young, Mr. Carlson, and Mr. Friesen to reply, and I think the committee would be interested. We are concerned with respect to the individual development applications that you, Mr. Friesen, have indicated you wouldn't start if you didn't think that you could recoup, and we're also concerned about the cumulative effect.
Are those questions considered when an application under environmental assessment is made for the initial development of a site? Is it mandated that there's a test, Mr. Friesen, with respect to what you have said, that you wouldn't start a development if you didn't think you could place that back into the natural environment? Is that part of the environmental assessment process such that the public good could be protected in terms of both the development of that site and all of the implications with respect to reclamation, water, hydrology, and toxic impacts, and so on?