Finance committee  The private sector is doing a lot, too. We have buyer-seller forums in Alberta, where companies from Ontario and Quebec come to look for opportunities to sell products to Alberta-based companies.

Finance committee  Thanks, Mr. Chairman. You know flow-through shares are an issue that we promote as best we can. We had two specific recommendations on improving the flow-through share regime. One is that the annual Canadian development expense conversion limit to Canadian exploration expense t

Finance committee  Yes. These numbers vary considerably. You can see how much the amount of equity collapsed from a year ago—again, a lot of it due to commodity prices and things like that. But 2%, 3%, 4%, probably, is about how much the flow-through share program is of the total amount of equity r

Finance committee  I would just say that it's maybe not well understood across Canada, but Alberta was a leader in introducing a tax on large emitters. I think that program has been a success. Whether it would work in other jurisdictions, I don't know. But I think Alberta was the first jurisdiction

Finance committee  I just want to point out that Canada makes its living as a resource extraction country, and I think it's widely misunderstood, the view that the resource extraction industries are not full of high-tech jobs. Our industry is full of well-paid engineering, scientific research jobs.

Finance committee  All right. I spoke about flow-through shares. The finance department has recognized flow-through shares as an important financing mechanism for small oil and gas companies. We have two recommendations: increase the annual Canadian development expense conversion limit to $4 mi

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Rajotte. Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting our association to speak with you. My name is Gary Leach. I am executive director of the Small Explorers and Producers Association of Canada. On January 1, by the way, we'll simplify our

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Are you asking about alternative energies?

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  My first response would be to never forget that natural gas is probably the cleanest and most benign fuel we have, and I include nuclear and hydro. Natural gas has the least environmental impact, and we have some tremendous natural gas resources that will last us many decades in

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  There are a lot of opportunities. I would argue that the Canadian government could be doing more to fund that kind of specific research, as opposed to funding alternative fuels outside the oil and gas sector. We know of all the interest in biofuels and that sort of thing, but a t

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  I think the depth of the current slump in our industry caught a lot of us by surprise. We weren't anticipating it. However, the expected labour shortage we're facing as an industry means that our industry won't let up in its efforts to encourage universities and colleges to turn

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Well, there's no substitute for petroleum for transportation fuel. As far as we can see into the rest of the century, motor vehicles will be fuelled largely by petroleum products. As I mentioned earlier, we cannot control the global price of crude oil. It's often established by

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  From our perspective in the upstream exploration and development industry, the key workforce is engineering, geoscience, and financial people. Most Canadians understand that our workforce is aging. We're going to be losing far more of that kind of professional expertise and talen

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Our industry associations are collaborating through a national council called the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada on long-term career development issues by getting information out to young Canadians about careers in the oil and gas industry in Canada, what kinds of ca

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Sure, I'd be happy to do that. The largest part of the workforce, actually, is in construction, drilling, and the service sector. I wonder if I might first defer to Mr. Herring on labour issues.