Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for your presentations.
I want to continue with the PDAC folks on the aboriginal affairs component of mining. It's difficult to have an industry-wide standard. I think some companies are very good at it, and some are learning, I would say. We've seen in British Columbia some great examples of companies that get it, that understand the key to working in the traditional territories of aboriginal communities is partnerships and relationships. We've seen for others that it's simply a line item. They have to tick a box, and they put a dollar value on how much they're willing to spend to fulfill their legal obligations. I think the challenge you have and that governments have as well is to help industry see that engagement with aboriginal communities shouldn't be seen as an obligation but as an opportunity. We're trying to figure out the best way to encourage that from the regulatory side.
We had Bob Rae here on the Ring of Fire project, and we talked about the duty to consult. We've heard from some companies that very much believe that they should be engaging directly with the proponent. We've seen from court cases in British Columbia very recently on the northern gateway pipeline, for instance, that the courts have said that the crown has the duty to consult and you can't simply delegate it.
Perhaps, Ms. Williams, Mr. Fox, you can talk about the challenges and what you believe the industry standards should be in terms of fulfilling that duty to consult. How do we get around the different approaches of different communities and different companies? I don't think it's clearly defined. The courts have introduced the duty to consult and accommodate where necessary, but governments, companies, and aboriginal communities are still trying to figure out what it actually means. You deal with this every day, so what is your recommendation to, in this case, the government? How does the government do a better job of equipping both aboriginal communities and industry to meet that duty, which the courts have continually upheld?