Natural Resources committee  I first want to go back to what you said about prices in Canada really being international market prices. During the 1980s, Canada decided not to operate in an isolated system. In other words, we are really exporters of crude oil, and working with international markets benefits u

Natural Resources committee  I can start out by saying that in terms of involvement by the Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada does not have a lot of levers in this area. Most of the levers would be related to tax policy, which is finance. I think the Minister of Finance has been very clear that o

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, pipelines are currently the safest way to transport oil. Therefore, they are the safest and cheapest way to transport large quantities of oil over long distances, for instance. Just to give you some statistics on spills, because you were asking about statistics, petro

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely. When a new pipeline needs to be built, the National Energy Board studies the project. That is often done in consultation with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency during project assessment.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, again, the graph basically shows that from the 1960s up until the late 1970s we were ramping up. We had the price shocks in the late 1970s. From that point, cars have become more efficient, houses have become more efficient, Canada has become more efficient, and demand

Natural Resources committee  I believe it's about $3 billion. The $7 billion I think was actually for a refinery.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, again, I think this is something that Alberta has been going through in the recent past. Something they're obviously quite focused on is making sure they do have the labour skills. The good news is that they're generating good, high-paying jobs in the resource industry

Natural Resources committee  The way it works right now is that we do have pipeline capacity all the way to Montreal. Again, line 9 from Montreal moves from east to west. Some have been speculating that Enbridge may eventually apply to have that reversed. They haven't yet. I can't really comment on whether o

Natural Resources committee  The way the oil markets work right now is that you have to look at two prices: West Texas Intermediate, which is really the price in Cushing, Oklahoma, which is sort of the central hub for North America, and then Brent, which is the North Sea price, which is sort of considered, t

Natural Resources committee  It's about $13 today. Recently it was down to $9. So it fluctuates. The principal reason for that differential is that there's a bottleneck in Cushing—from Cushing, for example, to the gulf coast. We can get lots of crude to Cushing, and then moving it beyond that there's a bit

Natural Resources committee  The Alberta objective is to upgrade two-thirds by 2020. Just to give you an idea of what that means in terms of big numbers, we have seven upgraders right now. We estimate that would require an additional four upgraders to meet that requirement. It's in that ballpark.

Natural Resources committee  I'm not sure, but we could check and see what numbers we could get for you on that. I don't have that with me today.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, as was mentioned, the government does have a target. It is to reduce to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Environment Canada is, of course, the lead on the specific strategy itself. A number of things have happened. The principal consideration is to harmonize with the U

Natural Resources committee  That becomes more complex because you will have a number of products coming out of a barrel of oil, but we will see what we can do on that as well, Mr. Chair.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, it's a very good question. Our view is that all levels of government have a key role to play in setting energy policies for the country. In fact, last summer, in July, at Kananaskis, federal, provincial, and territorial ministers agreed to collaborate on a number of