Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for coming today, both of you.
First of all, I have to say thank you, Mr. Carney, for all your hard work and for what you've done for the Canadian people and the Canadian economy over the last few years. I wanted to tell you that I've been very impressed with that, and this might be my last opportunity to do so.
I want to talk about two risks to the Canadian economy. I think there's a significant connection and correlation between them. Most of these issues I think are primarily in Alberta, but they affect the whole country.
First, I'd like to talk about labour and the CIBC's December report. It was talking about high-demand positions and how they're going unfilled, and it said that lower-skilled workers continue to be unemployed. I think the saying from the report was “people without jobs and jobs without people”. What is that in terms of a threat to the Canadian economy?
Second is pipeline capacity. I've brought this up to you before, but I want to know what you believe at this stage, given what's happening with our crude. In essence, obviously, we have one customer. We ship a lot of oil to the United States. Because of the pipeline capacity constraint, we have, as a result, a discount of 20% to 30% and sometimes even 40% on our oil, compared to Saudi oil, Venezuelan oil, or North Sea crude.
Obviously, that has a significant impact today. I'd like you to talk about how that spread is impacting our economy today and also about how it's going to impact the Canadian economy over the long term. Also, what's the single biggest thing that we, as the federal government, and the provincial governments can do to end this discount in price? What is the threat, what is it costing us, and what can we do as a country to fix it?