Mr. Chairman, it has been a number of years since the federal government owned that land. It would be very difficult, in fact impossible, for the department to now prove when the spill actually started and who the liability rests with.

While we do not want to give up on the possibility, I am very sceptical that we would get any assistance from the federal government because, one, we cannot prove when the spill started and second, they may argue that when we took the transfer of the land, then we accepted it as is. It would be a long, long argument, but the main difficulty is just to prove that the spill is actually that old.