Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I find it strange that CBC has been running clips from the proceedings of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry from the mid-1970s. Call it their 20th anniversary if you want, but there must be a better reason for reminding us of the inquiry than just plain nostalgia.
Is there concern that we have another boom that is proceeding too rapidly? Is there concern that development is proceeding unchecked and with too little concern for impact on people and on the environment? This can hardly be the case, Mr. Speaker, since there are intensive negotiations and consultation taking place between mining people and the various aboriginal organizations and governments. The difference between now and the 1970s is that development is not the huge media event in the way that it was then. This causes the media some concerns and frustration and some nostalgia for the days when the north was in the news almost every day.
A gas or oil pipeline was viewed as a threat to the huge Mackenzie River valley. It's difficult to generate similar anxieties about mining. We've had mines for more than 50 years. Today it's not pipelines that seem to be causing anxiety, but mining roads that seem to be provoking debate. I find it very difficult, however deeply I think about it, to compare roads and pipelines. Hopefully CBC is only innocently marking an anniversary.
I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that media circus like the one we had in the 1970s is enough of a show for one man's lifetime. Thank you.
---Applause