Alberta, after being persuaded by the wonderful departed and greatly missed Dr. Martha Kostuch, initiated a two-year very intensive review of the oil sands industry. It included the federal government, and it was completed, I believe, in about 2006. This natural resources committee did a review of the oil sands industry in, I believe, 2007. My committee, the parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, did a two-year review, and I and the Liberal Party issued reports.
My question to you is this. We've had review after review, report after report, and all the recommendations are the same: on filling gaps in monitoring and not leaving the discretion by and large to the industry to be doing the monitoring but having more intervention by the government; expanded regulation on very specifically identified contaminants; action on the Mackenzie Basin. In our review, the deputy premier of the Northwest Territories spoke very strongly. He was very upset by the lack of commitment by the federal government to move on the Mackenzie Basin.
We heard lots of evidence, including some from industry, admitting that the ponds are leaking. You say that the results are pretty good. The results that, for example, Dr. Schindler is showing indicate that perhaps the containment of these contaminants, particularly the airborne ones, is not good enough.
So I'm wondering, could you advise us what can be done to move the federal and provincial governments to act on these recommendations, these same recommendations that keep coming forward to both levels of government?