Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to our witnesses for being here and for providing some great information.
Mr. Rae, you were talking during your presentation about the process for engagement and the responsibility for consultation. In your own legal opinion and from your experience, what is the difference between consultation, engagement with first nations, and receiving consent? I look at Northern Gateway, and 28 first nations have signed on to that agreement. For the Pacific Northwest LNG, four to five first nations have signed agreements. But these projects haven't proceeded.
When we have multinational companies who are providing a lot of the capital for these projects, those multinationals have their fingers in a lot of pies around the world. I would think that they would be looking for jurisdictions where there's some sort of reality and they know the process. They know what the potential would be—maybe not the result, but they know that there is a defined process in place.
Certainly some of the feedback we're getting is that there is a lot of uncertainty right now because of this consultation process. In your opinion and your experience, when we talk about the duty to consult, is there a duty also to have unanimous consent? Where can we say that we've done our due diligence and we now have the support to proceed? We're talking about four to five on Pacific Northwest LNG, and 28 first nations on Northern Gateway, but we're still having trouble getting to the finish line with these.
I'd really appreciate your input on how you see that.