Our union is supportive of mining. As I said in my testimony, we represent over 24,000 workers across the country. As I also said, because of exploration not every mine meets the test, and I laid out some of those things that are required with respect to aboriginal involvement, so many elements need to be done.
There need to be strong regulations with respect to making sure that the environment is protected. We also come across many cases of foreign company takeovers in which sometimes the experience has not been that good for the communities or for the workers or, needless to say, for Canada in terms of the net benefit to Canada. When we have companies coming in, I think there has to be a very strong standard.
We've been pushing the federal government to make sure that there has to be a net benefit for Canada. We don't want foreign corporations to come here and then try to bring us down to the lowest common denominator. I could share some examples with you. We want a vibrant mining community that is going to look after the interests of its workers in the communities and also be a net benefit to this great country of ours.