I was really hoping to use the time for other things.
We have a strong stance. I think everyone knows the logic of that, and the problems with that have been described by others. Dr. Lilly is an honorary westerner, so I could attribute this to her to some degree, but yes: Time and time again, we hear from allies in the region that Canada claims it wants to help and Canada claims it wants to be involved in the region and Canada claims to want to contribute, so why, then, are we hoarding the one thing they need the most? Why are we hoarding energy?
We're trying to explain to folks that we're not hoarding it, that there are just these political difficulties. Folks say, “We're getting your gas from Mexico. Costa Azul has come online in Baja California in Mexico. If Mexico can send us your gas, why can't you?”
It's a really difficult position to try to defend. We worry about it from the security perspective and we worry about it from the competitive perspective. Once again, we see the Americans eating our lunch. They're taking it from us off the table and eating it. If we don't produce it, someone else will.
We're going to make greenhouse gas emissions worse by having places like Senegal, which has just discovered 11 trillion cubic feet of gas, exporting gas, rather than having it come from Canada. We're doing no one any favours with this. We're probably harming the environment.
How's that for excoriating, even though I didn't want to?