Thank you for the question.
A lot of the answer to your question I believe is in exactly what you said. There are cost pressures. There are human resource pressures. There are supplier and contractor issues, and it is a tremendous challenge right now addressing many of those issues in the oil sands.
Our association and our members fundamentally believe in market-oriented approaches. Let these cost pressures contain the growth. Let the shortage of skilled people contain the growth.
That's not to say there are not valid and legitimate concerns around climate change issues, GHG emissions from the oil sands, about water use and things like that. Those are absolutely within the purview of governments to address on behalf of the citizens, and we are working with governments and stakeholders on those types of issues. We have members now who are recycling 90% of the water they use. It goes through and through and through again. We are looking at climate change issues, and we have been working with governments on this. We believe strongly that the solution to climate change in the long term has to be driven from a technology perspective. In the short term we need to pursue increasing efficiencies.
Earlier Mr. Bevington referred to the utilization of natural gas. We are looking at alternative energies to provide the energy required to produce the oil sands, from gasification of the bottom of the barrels and other technologies. That will have a benefit of cleaning the air but may result in higher emissions, so there are trade-offs as well that have to be realized in the whole issue.
What's important is that, yes, the discussion and the debate is taking place. Market forces will prevail to a certain extent and contain the rate of growth that we see in the oil sands, and there are legitimate debates that we all need to participate in, and are participating in, on environmental consequences. We firmly believe that it is not a “one or the other” choice, that the oil sands can be developed in an environmentally responsible manner, that we can address water challenges, and that we can address GHG emission challenges. That does require, without a doubt, contributions by my members with respect to the development of technology, working cooperatively through economies of scale, as you mentioned, and working with stakeholders to address those challenges, but it's not either/or.