Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I certainly welcome our guests and thank them for their testimony here today.
Recent polling has shown that Canadians' number one priority is a clean, healthy environment, but just after that, Canadians want a strong economy. I guess our job here as legislators and your job as business is trying to find that medium ground where we can have both.
The oil sands certainly have received a lot of attention lately, creating an immense amount of employment opportunities, but in some corners of the world, creating some concerns with the environment. We have had official opposition members threaten to close them down. But then on the other side of that, last January, we had the former government engage in secret meetings with the United States looking to expand the production by four to five times.
I'll pose the question to Mr. Lambert first. We're trying to find the common ground so that we can have a healthy environment, but also have the strong economy we need to have in order.... I find it difficult to understand how we're going to correct the concerns we have in the environment unless we have a strong economy behind that. So my question to you is this. What do you believe are the keys to creating that environmentally sustainable economy in Canada?