Honourable senators, I rise again today to speak in support of Motion No. 12 introduced by Senator McCallum requesting that the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources be authorized to examine and report on the cumulative positive and negative impacts of resource extraction and development, and their effects on environmental, economic and social considerations.

In the last parliamentary session I also spoke in favour of this motion, and I thank Senator McCallum for bringing this study proposal to the floor of the Senate. Her continued passionate work on community impacts, especially on Indigenous communities, is admirable and needs to be supported.

I believe this study could bring great value in understanding the overall impacts of resource extraction and development in Canada. I say “overall impacts,” because Canadians — and especially parliamentarians — are often bombarded by the one‑sided promotion of the positive contributions of resource extraction on Canada’s GDP, employment and government revenues. Next to these amplified voices, communities, NGOs, academics and scientists can barely pierce through the noise to present other aspects — positive or negative — and have to resort to protests to get media attention.

I have been teaching engineering students how to conduct and complete environmental impact assessments for almost 30 years. A project that considers and integrates the needs of a host community from its early conception and design will result in a project that is technically sound, cost-efficient, safe, prosperous for all and healthy for the community and the environment. On the contrary, a project that is conceived independently without considering community issues puts at risk the implementation of the entire project and will most certainly create irritants and opposition which can lead to wasting important and valuable investments. Nobody wants this, yet it still happens so often.

Effective and successful decision making requires in-depth analysis.

Okay.