Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I've never been with a panel that has stayed on time so ruthlessly, so I've cut mine back. I hope the results are coherent. Congratulations to my colleagues.
I'd like to begin very quickly by giving you an overview of the size and scope of the industry I represent here today. Canada is currently the third largest natural gas producer in the world and the eighth largest crude oil producer. In 2006, direct payments to government in the form of royalties, taxes, and land payments will exceed $27 billion, $7 billion of which flows directly to the federal government. Capital investment this year will exceed $45 billion, with another $30 billion in operating costs. Environmental spending by the industry on the capital side will exceed $1.2 billion, which makes us the largest single spender in the economy. Finally, the total employment impact this year, direct, indirect, and induced, will exceed half a million Canadians, making us among the largest employers and contractors of first nations and rural people and businesses.
Let me put these numbers into some perspective. By 2015, Canada will be the number four oil producer in the world, and it is the only OECD country with a growing energy sector. The industry now represents 30% of the value of the Toronto Stock Exchange, which is an awful lot of stocks, units, trusts, dividends, and other interest-bearing securities. We represent 25% of the total private sector investment in Canada and we are active in 12 of the 13 jurisdictions. British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, all significant producers, are have provinces paying into equalization, and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have made dramatic improvements in their fiscal position over the last number of years. In other words, Canada continues to benefit hugely from its natural resource base, and the time is right to focus on how to continue this winning streak.
CAPP strongly supports the finance committee's focus on ways to ensure Canada's place in a competitive world. The major concerns for our sector are the availability of skilled labour, international tax competitiveness, public infrastructure development in areas of growth, and promoting energy research and development. As we have already submitted a detailed brief, Mr. Chairman, I won't go through it; I will simply jump to the recommendations we make to the federal government.
The first is that with the provinces, the federal government needs to promote more trade, technical, and professional training and insist on identifying, coordinating, and implementing multi-stakeholder strategies to address existing and forecast human resource shortages. Priorities for us here at home include non-traditional workers in areas outside of where we have traditionally been, in addition to women, first nations, and disabled people, and foreign workers in key areas, which have been identified. To that end, we want to thank the government for the opening of the immigration office in Calgary. We hope it will be a big assistance with our foreign worker program.
Second, we urge the government to continue to complete the business tax reduction measures introduced in the spring 2006 budget.
Third, we encourage the government to adjust business taxes as necessary to maintain and improve Canada's international tax competitiveness. Once again, we are strong supporters of the elimination of the large corporation tax and look forward to the upcoming changes to the dividend tax credit in the current session of Parliament.
Fourth, we urge the federal government to continue to work with the provinces to ensure that public infrastructure is not a constraint to continued economic growth. I point to where the federal government contributed in excess of $150 million to do an expansion of Highway 63, which leads from Edmonton to Fort McMurray, as an excellent example of federal-provincial cooperation on key infrastructure.
Lastly, we'd ask that the federal government ensure research and development as highlighted in the forthcoming federal science and technology strategy. We are not running out of resources in this country, but there is no question that the resources we are seeking are further, deeper, and more costly to develop. And it's ideas that will hold the key, not the availability of resources.
Taken together, these measures will improve Canada's overall competitive position, and I would be delighted to answer any questions you or the committee may have, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.