Natural Resources committee  No.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly I focus a lot of my attention on regulatory constructs, and not so much on fiscal and broader government policy issues. I know that Australia has done quite a bit of work in trying to understand and pick apart the competitiveness of their upstream regulatory model. I think that work was completed a year or so ago.

Natural Resources committee  It's international as a name. It is certainly centred and founded in the United States. It is a formally recognized organization of all the state regulatory agencies. They appoint people to it. We and several of the provinces in Canada are associate members--we're certainly not full members.

Natural Resources committee  My apologies, but as a regulatory agency I'd have to pass you over to the Ministry of Energy in our province to talk more about those kinds of long-term predictions and value gains. I just quoted the numbers they gave us that are published on their websites. As far as ultimate value to the crown over time, the only thing I would offer is my knowledge that those are direct revenues only.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. We do, as a matter of course, with our fellow regulatory agencies across Canada and the United States, share a lot of information. So we're quite familiar with and understand what each jurisdiction is struggling with and tackling in terms of issues and opportunities.

Natural Resources committee  It's not--

Natural Resources committee  As a regulator, no, we don't.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly the big year was an interest in the shale gas basins that were up there. I do want to clarify that those land sales are done by the Ministry of Energy now, not by us as a commission.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. I would suggest it's more in the form of soft, indirect language related to an optimization, given all the other issues that we have in front of us.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  In land sales.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  None that I know of, although we do have one board member who is a retired industry executive from a drilling company. I don't know if that would be an interest area. From my experience, I haven't seen him talk about an industry emphasis.

Natural Resources committee  British Columbia, like most of Canada, has a split estate model. The crown has reserved the subsurface mineral resources. In the process that government has for administering tenure, selling tenure, is giving those certain rights for that subsurface resource. Our job is to enable the surface access as well as the method of functioning to get that subsurface resource.

Natural Resources committee  It's not in my jurisdiction to mediate any of the commercial issues between the leaseholder and the oil and gas operator. My understanding is that it's very much more of a free market type of approach. The landowners--certainly in my area, and I used to live up there--gather together and share information on what some of the lease values have been and what other kinds of compensation are available.