Natural Resources committee  I would just make a very quick comment. First of all, one of the other elements that one could look at is, for example, research in the area of deep mining. As years go by, we may have to look deeper and deeper for deposits. So deep-mining technology is one area where Canada can remain competitive.

Natural Resources committee  I happen to have brought someone with me who can comment on water. Tom, where are you?

Natural Resources committee  I'll do it as quickly as I can.

Natural Resources committee  Very quickly, number one, there is very significant growing evidence that chrysotile is hardly associated with mesothelioma and there's a lot of science to demonstrate what I'm saying. Number two, Jacques Siemiatycki and Michel Camus and a number of others from Health Canada just finished a study looking at the female population issue.

Natural Resources committee  I said before that the fact that something is carcinogenic does not say anything about risk.

Natural Resources committee  I would just add one comment on the importance of that horizontal industry. In an analysis done by the OECD and by the Export Development Corporation here in Canada, they say that every dollar invested abroad by a mining company brings a minimum of $2 back. Why? Because of all the services and supplies from these other companies.

Natural Resources committee  I can try to answer part of it. With regard to the question of value-added, I think there are two ways to look at it. There's the downstream approach, where you look at the processing of the material and convert it into various products. Another form of value-added, as I was saying earlier in my presentation, stimulates a lot of companies that feed into the mining industry.

Natural Resources committee  I have just a very quick statement. Recently we've worked with the Ontario government, and a few months ago we produced a video about geology, mining, the whole process, for the benefit of aboriginal communities to stimulate some of the younger people's interest in the field. It's in six languages, not only English and French but Cree, among others.

Natural Resources committee  A tax shelter? I'm not sure I can answer that. Gord, can you?

Natural Resources committee  Ever since the concept evolved, many mining companies have moved into the field of trying to develop guidelines for their own behaviour. They have policies in place now. They have environmental audits. They have what I would call occasional external people doing audits of their environmental performance.

Natural Resources committee  With regard to the latter point, while International Trade Canada does indeed take care of the trade aspects in general, and while Industry Canada has the legal responsibility or statutory responsibility, shall we say, for the manufacturing industry, the actual on-the-ground practice has been--certainly in our group, and I'm talking only about the mining sector--that we have been fairly involved in promoting the area of equipment and supplies internationally.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I can't sit here and let some of the assertions go by. Let me address one or two quickly. With regard to opposing the regulation of the behaviour of Canadian mining companies abroad, as far as I know we've never opposed it, but we would argue that there is a legal issue of the extraterritorial application of domestic law.

Natural Resources committee  First of all, does everybody have a copy of this deck that was circulated? Good. I'll go through this as best I can. As you can see from the first chart, the value of production is about $60 billion. It's one of the largest industries in Canada when you work it all out. If you were to compare it, say, dollar for dollar with the forestry sector....