What's happened with the regulatory reforms is that we went from having 6,000 or so projects subject to environmental assessments to fewer than 100, and they're almost all mining projects. Mining is pretty well the only sector left that's reviewed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
When they look at cumulative effects, they only look at them from the perspective of what effect that mine might have on the cumulative effects in the region. They don't look at the other contributions to significant effects taking place. We now have three examples—and the Sisson mine is one—of the federal government concluding that this project can have a significant adverse effect on the region, even though, to our point, it's a tiny dot in a broader landscape. There's a lot of other activity going on around it. Whether it's natural gas exploration, forestry, or logging, these have impacts that are much greater with respect to the land base.
The federal government doesn't look at any of that. It only looks at mining. Because we're the only ones left under CEAA, we're the ones who potentially face a “no” decision, even though what we should really be looking at is what's good for the region overall and what the necessary trade-offs are.
It may be that a mine should not proceed, but you can't just look at the mine; you have to look at the broader issues. That's the problem we're now facing under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, which is a pretty significant one.
There are other issues too. It's a more rigid act. Coordination with the provinces is much more difficult now, leading to new delays. It has not turned out to be a happy experience for us at all.