As a scientist, naturalist,…

As a scientist, naturalist, and explorer (including of swathes of northern and southern Ontario), I feel the need for balance. Yes, we need jobs. Yes, we need the kinds of things I have spent much of my geological career chasing (gold, copper, zinc, nickel, platinum, etc). But we also need to protect the natural environment, and hand on a rich and diverse environment to our children, grandchildren, posterity. So while we are "open for business", we should not go back to the rapacious Gilded Age and before, and we should look around before we take natural resources. This is why any substantive resource development project needs a credible, muscular environmental assessment of some kind, backed by the government responsible (in this country, the provincial or territorial government, where the buck stops, not that the feds get a pass on responsibility). We need balance, and sustainability, not slogans. Thank you,