Madam Chair, once again I thank my colleague for his question.
Improving the regulatory system is a priority for our government and we are doing several things to make it better. There is the Major Projects Management Office. Federal departments and regulatory agencies work closely together to identify basic ways of improving the environmental assessment process and our methods of consulting aboriginals. This will improve the results thanks to changes to various aspects of the way in which projects are reviewed.
As a first key step, the 2010 budget introduced some targeted changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that will improve environmental assessments in Canada by letting them start earlier, reducing delay and duplication, and getting better assessments in general.
The budget also announced the participant funding program for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the National Energy Board to support the more active, selective participation of all Canadians, the intent being to build on these activities while the Government of Canada explores other ways of heading toward a process of reviewing every project.
The government obviously cannot do it all on its own, and in order to achieve the mutual objective of providing regulatory assessments in a foreseeable way, the federal framework must work as effectively as possible with the processes of the provinces and territories. I am looking forward to working with my counterparts to advance our common commitment to making basic improvements to the regulatory framework for major mining and energy projects in Canada. I want to emphasize, though, that we will not allow our efforts to improve effectiveness to compromise environmental protection. Quite to the contrary, environmental protection will be improved under the new process.