Thank you.
RBC is the world's largest financier of the oil sands. RBC has provided about $13.4 billion in financing for the oil sands. The oil sands in Canada is the largest-emitting sector in the energy industry or at all, accounting for over 12% of our country's total emissions, more than the entire province and all the activities in British Columbia. It's also important to note that for a lot of the products that come from the oil sands, it would be a stretch to describe them as energy. Bitumen is often used as tar for shingles and roads. Calling it an energy product is perhaps a bit of a stretch.
Despite that, research recently revealed that emissions from the oil sands were possibly 6,300% even more polluting than they reported.
Last week we had the oil executives here, and I asked the CEO of Suncor about that. I asked him how it's possible, with all the funding that's coming from Canadian banks delivered to the oil sands sector, that the carbon required to produce a barrel of oil sands bitumen has actually increased over the last 20 years. You'd think all that investment could inspire a bit of innovation.
Do you feel like it's a good investment, regardless of whether they're profiting—we know that they continue to make record profits—if the carbon intensity of a barrel of oil is increasing? Is that a good outcome and a good use of $13.4 billion of Canadians' hard-earned and invested dollars?