Environment committee  I should clarify that there were triggers. Assessments were conducted, but they focused on components of the projects, and not necessarily on the projects in their entirety.

Environment committee  That's right.

Environment committee  I'm not sure if you've received a copy of the deck, but in the presentation there's an outline of the review process, which starts, really, at the formal stage of a review panel.

Environment committee  It's page 10. Obviously, a project such as this doesn't come together overnight. A proponent does quite a bit of planning ahead of time, before even submitting an application to the regulators. Usually what will happen is that there will be communication between the proponent, t

Environment committee  Yes, normally they'll produce that report.

Environment committee  I should point out that our staff and not the agency did the assessments.

Environment committee  The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act came into force in 1995.

Environment committee  And I should add, too, that these tailings are very often contaminated with heavy metals and other contaminants that are exposed and released as a result of the crushing process and so forth.

Environment committee  From a process perspective?

Environment committee  Certainly the main regulator with respect to uranium mining and the nuclear industry generally is the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. They have a very complete regulatory process that would apply not just to nuclear power projects, but also to uranium mining projects.

Environment committee  At the same time, though, before the CNSC issues certain permits with respect to uranium mines, for example, they first have to do an environmental assessment to deal with the environmental effects. I can't speak to specifics, but normally the Nuclear Safety Commission would unde

Environment committee  I can speak to the generalities, and Steve might be able to give you some details on the numbers of projects. The way that works is that the vast majority of projects that are assessed undergo screening-type assessments, probably in the order of 6,000 to 7,000 projects a year a

Environment committee  Perhaps I should say that our role in that would be really more of an advisory nature. Our specific jurisdiction, if you will, relates to the oversight and administration of the Environmental Assessment Act, so our job is to make sure that departments respect the requirements of

Environment committee  Those are key. Our experience is that the in situ projects have fewer environmental effects. In fact, they very often don't trigger the federal environmental assessment, because no federal decisions related to those projects are required. But in the case of oil sands mines, very

Environment committee  I could answer that question generically, and perhaps Steve can answer it more specifically. I should stress that for oil sands projects in particular, but in many other situations as well where both a provincial and a federal process applies, we work very closely with our provi