Thank you very much.
I have a comment as to the participant funding. Being on the other end as president of the Labrador Métis Nation, I would certainly advocate for more participant funding. Most organizations that go through that avenue just cannot participate in a meaningful way in these panel discussions.
We got $13,500 for participant funding. Voisey's Bay Nickel Company spent $17 million or something in that range under environmental assessment down in Labrador trying to compete.
It seems to me—and my friend said it's an advocacy thing—the proponents will try to minimize any negative impacts, and they will bring every expert to the panel, when we are in that stage, to say that it has just about no impact. They will line up their experts. If you have the money, you pay for them and you bring them to the table. Those who say it has an impact then bring their experts. So you have this toing and froing, and somewhere in the mix you come out with something.
But the scoping of projects I think is a fundamental question, because how they're scoped really determines the nature of the assessment--whether it is a screening, whether it is comprehensive study sometimes, or whether the minister decides there's a public interest to going through the panel, so to speak. How do these things in the tar sands get scoped? With all of this activity happening, I would think the least you'd see is a lot of panels, to be quite honest--as least, from what I know about it. It seems that the way the proponents are scoping their projects is a key element.