Its principal advice - that there should be no more new shale-gas drilling except to collect information for environmental-impact studies, expected to take about two years - is close to the moratorium that environmentalists along with the political opposition have been calling for since shale gas became a burning issue over the past year. At the same time, however, it extends a lifeline to the industry in that it does not bring development of the resource to an entire standstill. Nor does it preclude future commercial exploitation of what could be a significant resource boon to the province.