Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's an addition to paragraph (a), where it says that the committee should “invite the CEO of Imperial Oil and the Alberta Energy Regulator for a two-hour meeting in October 2023” and so on. I propose amending that part to also invite the Government of Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Protected Areas and the Government of Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
I'll explain briefly why I am proposing this amendment, which I consider a friendly amendment.
The reason is simple. Companies and government regulators have responsibilities, but we live in a democratic system where ministerial responsibility also comes into play. Political leaders also have to answer for appalling incidents like these. We need to find out what measures were taken and what else needs to be done. Without accountability from political leaders, it's too easy to hide behind statutes and regulations, under the pretext that they don't allow this or that, or that they make no mention of the issue. At the end of the day, the ministerial responsibility falls on the provincial and federal governments. We think the two ministers should appear so they can't push the responsibility onto the other. We are not interested in a game of ping-pong. We want both of them to answer the committee's questions to help us get to the bottom of things. Each of them has a political responsibility for the decisions that were made and the actions that were taken or still need to be taken.
As I see it, this is a friendly amendment that is in keeping with our institutions and the manner in which they work. Ministers are always invited to appear before committees to answer members' questions, so it would be really helpful to hear from the two ministers on this issue.
Thank you.