Well, the project is so far open that we're not sure who is going to be able to communicate on its impact here.
It also allows for endless, limitless extensions on timelines. What does that mean? That means that they could just increase the number of hearings, increase the number of witnesses and allow people who don't have any remotely close interest in the project to testify at these hearings, impacting the decision and delaying the process.
I'm a business guy. I wouldn't make an investment in a piece of equipment if I didn't know when I could put it to work, and have it sit on my yard and collect dust, cost interest, and absorb capital depreciation costs while it hasn't produced one hour's worth of value to anybody.
That's what we're asking our energy resource development companies to do. We're asking them to make an investment in the process. We know that Kinder Morgan spent over a billion dollars already, looking for approvals for the TMX project, and that that billion dollars hasn't generated any income. In fact, it has cost them lots of money. They've lost the ability to use that capital for other projects, because that money was sitting there completely unemployed, other than the fact that it had been spent on all kinds of consultants trying to meet the regulations in place so they could proceed with this project.
We know that lots of other companies have had the same experience. We know that whether it's Energy East or Northern Gateway, these projects have experienced the same amount of frustration and delay. Bill C-69 will exacerbate that, with limitless numbers of hearings and consultations. That's one area that is going to be very problematic if this bill actually sees royal assent.
Another thing it does is establish a new set of vague and ill-defined criteria against which projects will be assessed, and that's including social impact. Social impact hasn't been properly defined. In the absence of that, we could see a host and variety of concerns that really have nothing to do with building a safe, environmentally economical pipeline, because somebody has some kind of social issue they think is going to be impacted or that they may want to present.
There are some definitions there that really need to be tightened up and defined properly, regarding what those criteria will be when considering a resource development project like this.
The other aspect that concerns me is that there are major implications, as a result of what is going to be written into the regulations that have yet to be developed. We don't have a full and comprehensive set of regulations that are accompanying this bill. Those could be written in after the fact, which will make it virtually impossible for resource development companies to meet the threshold of those criteria. Without the ability to know what those regulations are ahead of time, I think it's ill-advised to pass this bill. However, it did go through the House and it did find its way to the Senate, but hopefully, the Senate will have the light turned on and will see some of the very problematic areas of this bill, as it relates only, in this particular situation, to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. There are lots of other areas where this bill will have very negative impacts, especially in my home province of Manitoba, where I know that municipal drainage is a problem. Bill C-69 will even affect simple things like municipal drainage projects. They're going to have to go through all kinds of consultations and hearings, and it's going to take years, if it is at all possible, for some of these projects to happen, even simple projects that benefit agriculture and that benefit employment. It's going to actually create a situation where nothing happens. There are lots of concerns.
Yesterday, I was reading Bloomberg and I was really intrigued with what Robert Tuttle reported there.