Natural Resources committee  We both went down to Washington and we met with very senior officials from the Department of the Interior and other senior officials. Right now they're going through the lessons of Deepwater Horizon. One of the things they were surprised at, and this is a policy issue I shouldn't

Natural Resources committee  I may have a couple, but I certainly think this would again be an area where the committee may want to invite officials. But one I would say just off the top of my head. We've said that, for example, first responders paid for by the private sector in offshore spills from ships

Natural Resources committee  We certainly met with private sector officials, but at the end of the day, just to be absolutely clear, what we were auditing was only the two offshore boards as well as the federal system. I don't think it would be appropriate for us to then go and audit the private sector compa

Natural Resources committee  Just to say it again, particularly on the offshore oil and gas sector, our colleagues put their heart and soul into this over two years: given the importance if something goes wrong, what are the consequences? I think when we were going through the course of this, when the gaps a

Natural Resources committee  No, I think that would be right. We did talk to them when the bill was introduced with the proposed changes, and that would have been back in the spring. That's when they both called me, and we've spoken to them subsequently, obviously, since the passage of the bill in July 2012.

Natural Resources committee  That is why we made a recommendation. As you said, the purpose of a strategic environmental assessment is to identify general potential risks before establishing a process, for example, for authorizations or specific project assessment. In this respect, we found a problem with ti

Natural Resources committee  I think I would probably leave that for you to decide. What I would say is that my understanding behind the precautionary principle is that if there is a risk of irreversible or serious damage, you actually don't proceed at all until you have sufficient information in order to

Natural Resources committee  I think in the report on the Fukushima disaster the Japanese government estimated that the full cleanup costs are anywhere from $15 billion up to I think as much as $200 billion from that tragedy. That is the full cost of all, not just within the site itself, but all the widespre

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, sir. I don't think we were trying to be critical. I think we were trying to present a portrait of the current situation. First, I'll go through your questions. Regarding the map, it isn't to scale, and I think you're quite right. This fracking is now goin

Natural Resources committee  What we asked Environment Canada and Health Canada was this: what are you doing in terms of identifying the chemicals used and then assessing the potential risks of those chemicals, which have been deemed toxic in other applications? Their answer is—up to now—almost little or no

Natural Resources committee  I'll ask Mr. Sloan to please elaborate on this.

Natural Resources committee  I'll defer to Ms. Leach on that, but first, just very briefly, what we've said in chapter 1 is that with the changes to CEAA, the previous obligations that had been there in CEAA to evaluate every phase of offshore oil and gas exploration changed quite considerably. One of thos

Natural Resources committee  No, no, both presidents and CEOs had called me and said they were surprised. I mean, to be fair, it was in a budget bill. I believe they were informed the day of, or the day before. But I think the reason they phoned me to express their surprise was that this was part of their

Natural Resources committee  Yes, absolutely. I'll ask Mr. Ferguson to comment further.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's almost 100%. The classification that the government has in its budget bill is under the rubric of cleaner technologies. The bulk—I think it's over 95%—is cleaner technologies from NRCan programs.