Madam Chair, that is simply not the case. When a company under Canadian law goes to do an exploratory well, just like the Deepwater Horizon, there is no regulatory requirement for an environmental assessment. There is no regulatory requirement for a cleanup plan. There are no specific regulatory requirements for any of these things. This is in fact the matter. This, in 2005, was given over by the NEB to say that these are objective based.
In 2009, the government moved to goal-based regulations from prescriptive ones. The terminology is important. In the U.S. the government requires the “best available and safety technology”, while in Canada the rules require that it be “adequate” and “reliably operating”. These are guidelines, not regulations. There are no regulations guiding this. Is the minister concerned at all about that fact?