Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate Ms. May's trying to clarify the comments.
However, Mr. Kmiec has done a fair bit of research on which projects have been approved, and among them are pipeline projects in Asia. I would encourage all members of the House of Commons to familiarize themselves with it.
When we had officials here, we asked whether or not these projects were financially feasible. Unfortunately, the officials said they were not feasible if they were to be done on their own without some sort of government backing which would encourage investors to put in money to see those projects go forward.
We have energy east. The government likes to say it made a business decision and decided not to go forward. Canadians would be quite alarmed to hear that we are actually fortifying investors in Asia to do pipeline projects and we are not doing the same in Canada. It seems the government has been playing footsie with a slow, inevitable march toward realignment.
I don't think there's been a proper debate in either House of whether or not we want to turn our back on multilateral relationships which have created a lot of stability in the world. I think there should be a debate as to whether or not we should be proceeding. When you have these small developments go bit by bit, we are actually inching toward that without having a proper discussion.
Last, again referencing our multilateral past, Mr. Chair, you of all people should know, in your capacity as member of the Canada-U.S. Parliamentary Group, it may end up being quite provocative to be investing this kind of money when we have allies, such as the United States and Japan, which probably would not look kindly upon this, particularly at this time when we're trying to close the gap with NAFTA negotiations, or trying to close the gap with the trans-Pacific partnership.