Thank you very much.
Thanks to all of you, again, for very informative presentations.
I'm going to do something I very rarely do and take the first seven-minute round for our party—and there may be some time left for Mr. Anderson. I'll be followed by Mr. Julian, and then by Mr. Garneau.
I just came back yesterday from a meeting of the NATO parliamentarians. If you wonder what that has to do with this meeting and the issues we're dealing with here today, I chair one of the committees, the economics and security committee, and at my encouragement, one of the issues we're dealing with is strategic oil and gas and how that's changing the world, especially shale gas production and tight oil/shale oil production. The name of the study we just started to look at is, “The Economic and Strategic Implications of the Unconventional Oil and Gas Revolution”. They call it a revolution—and when you look at the numbers, you can see why.
Looking at the United States alone, they have increased their natural gas production just in the last few years by 50%. As some of you have mentioned, electricity is being imported, but so is natural gas into Canada right now.
Australia, within the next year probably, will become the biggest producer of natural gas in the world, surpassing Qatar. So there's a huge change there.
In terms of oil, the United States, as of about a year ago, is producing about seven million barrels a day, and Canada about four million. The United States last year increased its oil production, due to tight oil, by 800,000 barrels. That's going to continue in the years ahead. It means that right now, in fact, they only import about 18% of their oil from the Persian Gulf.
So things are changing.
I have a couple of concerns resulting from this background information that this report laid out. The first is, what is Canada losing right now by the fact that we simply can't export more oil and gas?
Just last week the former Premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, said at a Bloomberg conference in Toronto: ...[The] economy is being damaged by the delays in getting new pipelines built, yet the people who would benefit from higher investments in health care and transportation are “not part of the debate at all.”
He went on to say that “The value destruction in Canada is staggering” due to delays in pipelines.
Three of you have made comments that tie into this.
To the gentleman from the Montreal-East Industrial Association, you talked about the importance of the west-east pipeline, so we can have lower priced Canadian oil feeding your needs. So, first of all, what are your comments and thoughts on the importance of getting at this, getting these pipelines built so that we can get Canadian oil to market, and specifically to meet your needs?