Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Cape Breton—Canso is absolutely correct.
The project we are talking about, the Donkin coal seams, is under the ocean. It is not land based. Even though it is underground, it is certainly not within the jurisdiction of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island.
We have always considered the coal seams an offshore jurisdiction. That is why this unique piece of legislation has been put in place because quite frankly, Nova Scotia was claiming jurisdiction for the Donkin coal seams along with the federal government. This was a cooperative way of getting beyond that.
I would like to make this point, and in no way am I trying to step on provincial jurisdiction here in Point Aconi or the Prince Colliery or any of the other mines that still have some potential in Cape Breton Island. Let us be clear, these are for undersea resources. They are not for land based resources.
The other debate is a Nova Scotia provincial debate. The other debate about open pit mining is strictly in the purview of provincial jurisdiction.
However, I would ask people who are listening to this discussion to take a look at some of the examples in Nova Scotia where there has been a cleanup of a lot of these old mine sites, and they have been open pit.
The Trenton-New Glasgow area is a prime example of that where a local company came in, Chisholm's, I believe was the company name, and it did have an open pit mine. It certainly was dusty and caused a problem for a few years. However, it did an extremely good job and reclaimed a bunch of old mine sites that were frankly a personal hazard for all the local children in the area who were playing in some of these mines. Some of these mines went back 150 years. It is not as simple as one versus the other.
To the member's first and original question, there are two totally different jurisdictions and two totally different subjects.