The answer to the first question is yes, the funding that was announced will be maintained. The answer to the second question is the government has confidence in the chair of the National Energy Board.
We also understand that we have a mandate from Canadians to reform the National Energy Board. That's something we have started to do already in two phases. The transition phase will include those five principles that you know very well.
When it comes time for the energy east pipeline to be assessed by the National Energy Board, we have agreed we will appoint a number of temporary commissioners to help the board in its work to assess that very long and complicated project.
I must say, Mr. Chair, just before question period today the member from Grande Prairie—Mackenzie in his member statement asked the government to approve the energy east pipeline. This is before the application has been lodged with the regulator, and that is part of our problem. If there are members of Parliament who want the government to make decisions on major energy projects even before those projects have been assessed by the regulator, it's no wonder Canadians have lost confidence in the regulatory process.
Our ambition is the same as the ambition for the member from Portage—Lisgar and the same as the ambitions of members of her caucus, and that is to move our natural resources to tidewater and to market sustainably. This is what we all want, but to assume that decision can be made by government before the regulator has even looked at the application is part of the reason we're having to reform the regulatory process.
That is how we will reform the NEB in the short term. In the long term we have a mandate to reform the environmental assessment process in Canada. That will be a responsibility of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Natural Resources. We will be working together; we will be consulting Canadians; and very importantly we will be consulting members of this committee.
We will be posing the question: if you had to create a Canadian regulator from scratch, what would it look like? What would the principles be that would determine the structure? What would the legislation we would ask Parliament to pass consist of? What would the values be? What is the relationship ultimately between the government and the regulator?
That is the longer-term reform of the NEB. The process we have introduced now seeks to establish a broader consensus across the country.