First of all, it's nice to meet a fellow Albertan.
Your questions are numerous, and I'll try to answer them. My colleagues, I can tell, are jumping to get in there too.
First of all, you asked whether there is a set formula for how long a project takes from start to finish. Every project is unique and distinct according to its location. Unfortunately, natural resources occur where they do; and we have to go to them rather than the other way around. If there's plenty of water around, that poses a problem. If there's no water around, that poses a problem. Obviously, we've talked about infrastructure, weather, and availability of energy. All of those things play a unique part in the government's assessment, if you like, and the weighing of the economic potential with all of the various environmental and socio-economic impacts that go into realizing that project.
The way our system works is that the provinces own the resource and make the decision about whether they want to proceed or not. It's when that project hits specific elements of the federal government's responsibility that we get involved. Whether it's navigable waters, fish and fish habitat, or explosives that are going to be part of that particular project, it's when those triggers get hit that a series of processes come into play. Depending upon the impact the project will have, we have three categories of the degree to which we're going to do that assessment: it could be a review; it could be a comprehensive study; or it could be a full panel review. There are three grades of assessment, depending upon—