Mr. Speaker, it is indeed very complex, because of ice and snow. No guarantees can be given with regard to a cleanup plan.
For example, two weeks ago, Fisheries and Oceans Canada was considering spilling 1,200 litres of oil in Lancaster Sound, in the Northeast Passage, just to assess how, in the future, we might have to clean up an oil spill in northern Canada following an environmental disaster.
We have a government that grants rights to companies through tender offer. Four years away from a potential drilling project, all the Government of Canada finds to do is to spill 1,200 litres of oil in northern Canada to see how, over the next few years, we will manage to clean up that environmental disaster. That is a case in point. Rights are being granted, yet we do not know how a disaster would be cleaned up. That is totally unacceptable.
In fact, Inuit communities in the North have opposed such a move by the government. It takes some gall to put forward that kind of plan just one, two or three weeks after the April 20 oil spill.
I think that goes to show that the government is in the process of approving such a project without having a monitoring plan or a cleanup plan in place.