Natural Resources committee  You are saying specifically the U.S. I'm not that familiar with what their action has been.

Natural Resources committee  The Irving refinery in New Brunswick was meeting higher standards at one time, before the rest of them came up. We believe that Canada should meet the highest standards—phased in over a reasonable time because you don't want to disrupt the industry. But that should be our goal, to have the best standards.

Natural Resources committee  I would add that—

Natural Resources committee  Actually, it has more to do with engineering. I do not really know what it would take specifically to make our refineries more environmentally efficient. I believe that we should certainly apply the best regulations in the world. Furthermore, if we import products from countries with less stringent regulations or if we export our oil to those countries, we contribute to environmental pollution at the global level.

Natural Resources committee  Could I add to that? You make your options as well. If we don't do lots of upgrading.... We need a lot of upgraders to feed a petrochemical industry. If we don't have the feedstock—and the petrochemical industry, by the way, has been complaining about lack of feedstock for natural gas for a long time because they can't get it; we're shipping it to the United States, again.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Lapointe, let's look at Quebec. Twenty-eight percent of that province's oil comes from Algeria and about twenty percent comes from Kazakhstan. That means that nearly 50% of its oil comes from countries that have had quite serious problems. The other main source is the North Sea, with the oil coming from England or Norway.

Natural Resources committee  I think Mr. Gargiso could answer that.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, thank you. You mentioned an integrated strategy. Our union developed one about 10 years ago, and we updated it a few years ago again because of all the changes going on in the area. We definitely believe there has to be an integrated view of all our energy sources, but underlying that we have two main things.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I would like to thank you for inviting us here this morning. My name is Keith Newman, and I am the director of research for the union. We have some notes, but we will provide the committee with a translation later. Once again, thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you, Dave. I'm going to make a few comments relating in particular to the $1 billion the government has granted, in a somewhat strange way, as Mr. Chevrette mentioned. For example, we're talking about something like $250 million for Quebec. For the entire manufacturing sector, that is not even a drop in the bucket.

Natural Resources committee  So the question is, why now? Why are these things falling off the edge of the cliff today rather than a few years ago? That is where the value of the Canadian dollar comes in. When the dollar was 60-something cents, these mills could survive. They could do fairly well. If they had had these prices five years ago, they'd be doing great.

Natural Resources committee  It will come as no surprise to you, Mr. Lemay, that I do not agree with you as far as the summit is concerned. The solutions are indeed widely known: added value, research and development, etc. We've been aware of this for 20 years. I recall that when I started at the union, there was talk of added value and people wondered why we could not produce some.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. I believe Mr. Rigoto talked about restructuring the entire industry, and that is why the amounts are laughable. Our industry was outdated, and now it is beginning to be more forward-looking. We need a considerable amount of money in order to rethink the entire industry, to make up for the time that we have lost over the past 20 to 30 years, and to face the challenges represented by international markets and new products.

Natural Resources committee  We would need many billions of dollars for the forest industry alone. It would take $3, $4, or $5 billion to revamp the industry.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Ouellet. I will respond on behalf of the union and of President Coles. The billion dollars that were supposedly allocated to all of the industries is far from adequate. In no way does this amount meet the needs of the forest industry. Because of the huge scope of the problem, the tens of thousands of jobs that have been lost in this industry, not to mention the hundred of thousands of jobs that have been lost Canada-wide in other manufacturing industries, these amounts are essentially laughable.