Thanks for the question.
The difficulty is that governments structure markets. If you want a different set of outcomes, you need to restructure markets. This is not an easy thing to do. It's obviously very controversial.
The idea that we're just going to let the free market rip, and automatically from that, we're going to have lower greenhouse gas emissions, get aboriginal participation and approval for these projects, and maximize the economic benefit is just wrong. It's not going to happen.
We deregulated our approach to energy in the late 1980s. It was the Mulroney government, primarily, through the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and we've been closing refineries as if it's our job. For every refinery we close, we become more dependent on export-oriented pipelines, and we're sending good jobs elsewhere. We need a new approach to our national energy development.
Norway offers a very promising model. Norway is very similar to Alberta demographically. There's a similar number of people and similar energy resources, but there's a very different approach to energy development. Obviously, it doesn't have the same challenges. We have a federal government where provinces are in charge of natural resource development. That obviously poses a challenge.
Regarding the aboriginal people, incorporating aboriginal people into this process is huge, but I don't have answers on that latter question about how to do that. That is something we have to seriously think about. I have all the questions this committee has. What does it mean now that we've signed on to the UN declaration? What does free, prior, and informed consent mean? These are all huge question marks.
The status quo does not seem sustainable, in the fullest sense of the word, sociologically and ecologically. As I said, we're still in the early stage of trying to work out a coherent policy.