Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to echo the comments of my colleagues, and thank you for being here. I found your testimony to be quite moving and inspiring. You're the kind of person who makes me proud to be Canadian, and I probably speak for all the people around the table on that front.
I also want to congratulate you on your grassroots initiative to make Canadians and politicians aware of how these important resource projects will impact your local community and B.C. and how they can benefit all of Canada. There are many similarities between Fort St. John and the experiences of the people in the riding that I represent, Lakeland, which is in northern Alberta.
The northern part of my riding is just 200 kilometres south of Fort McMurray, so the vast majority of the people in my constituency work in the oil sands or in heavy oil or in conventional oil and gas right across my riding. They're struggling with the same experience where barely over a year and a half ago you couldn't find enough people to fill the jobs that were available and now many of the people in many of the communities are struggling in serious ways they've never struggled before. Thank you for being a voice on these issues that are important to the whole country.
I want to ask you your view on what the federal government's role may be in championing our resource development in Canada, particularly when it comes to the approval process. I think people in all parties and all levels of government, just like Canadians, absolutely want to see a balance in environmental stewardship, with economic growth and industrial development, given all the incredible benefits in jobs that responsible natural resource development provides.
I was in B.C. in mid-March and some LNG proponents, as well as some other natural resources developers, were talking about, for example, the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, which has been in the approval process for more than three years, and has been delayed by the government yet again. You might be familiar with the interim measures the federal government has announced, which include measures that are already done and have been for years in the approval of energy projects like public and community and first nations consultation, which you've alluded to.
I was a little surprised to learn both through testimony from proponents and also from the regulator that this will be an add-on process at the end of the already independent, expert-based, and scientifically thorough assessment and including all that consultation, which will already be done by the NEB before it then goes into this political decision-making process.
I wonder if you have any comments on the impact of these kinds of projects on communities and on people when these sorts of delays are caused by government.