Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  It's complicated. First of all, 99.9% of all contracts are never delivered. They're settled off, so there is no delivery taking place. That's why there is a paper market and there is a real market. And at different times there can be different forces in the paper market. I've already pointed out that some guys....

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I'd love to take a shot at that. Under the peak oil thesis, which is not my thesis but a thesis of petrophysicists who study these things, if you go out 20 years, they would suggest we'll be producing 65 million barrels in the world, not 85 million barrels. Well, where do we all think the price is going to be?

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  There is no doubt that the consumer, if the price goes up—and personally I think the price is just fine--on a world-wide analysis, then everyone suffers. Everyone who is a consumer suffers. If you want to ask me if, as a country, we benefit, yes, I think we benefit more than almost anybody.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  Right. Well, let's just imagine that it does cost $80—and I mean cost $80. Now, the federal government has to get something, the provincial government has to get something—there are taxes and royalties. So what are you going to sell it for if it actually cost you $80 to produce it, if it really did?

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I would love to answer one of Mr. McTeague's other questions: what we can do about it. All that went through my mind was the Glass-Steagall Act. The Glass-Steagall Act came out in the 1930s, because the banks and the brokers used to work together and then they realized, boy, we can't work together any more because this is going to kill people.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  How much we have or how much we produce?

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I don't know each day, but I'm pretty certain that we know exactly what the country produces every month, and the data is available.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  Absolutely.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  That's exactly what I was suggesting here recently in response to Ms. Nash's question. Yes, there are other sustainable options that obviously every government in the world should look at. It's not as critical to Canada as to almost every other country, quite frankly. But yes, I would encourage....

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  Absolutely. There are many countries that realize the problem--particularly countries who've never had hardly any oil production. They sense the problem more than anybody. We probably don't sense it as much because we've always had our own supply of oil and we're oversupplied with oil.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  Oh, I see, yes. But, you know, there's one thing I would suggest. For example, the U.K. government came out and said they were going to put a tax on oil companies, and all I could say was, “Please.” It's just less money.... And they have a serious problem in the U.K. now; their production is plunging like crazy.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  Well, there's nothing you can do. You cannot do anything about the price of oil in the world. We're a small part of world oil. Forget it, it's not going to happen in Canada. I find it incredibly ironic that we are the one country in the world that benefits the most per capita from the price of oil being where it is.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  Yes, but it won't be up 2%, and it depends on whether you're using the U.S. dollar or the Canadian dollar and what you are comparing it with.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I'm not familiar with the causality equation, if you will, and I'm not going to say it's just the U.S. dollar. I think it's many things. For example, with tropical storm Gustav coming into the gulf, the dollar, I think, was down today, but the price of oil was up two bucks. So it didn't work today.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I would totally agree with that. Obviously in the short term the paper markets have a view and move the price around based on some data point. In the long run they can't win the day, because supply and demand will win the day in the long run. But yes, definitely in the short run, and the sentiment can last for six or eight weeks at a time.