Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to all of the witnesses, I'm sorry that this has broken out. However, this crisis in confidence resulted in an emergency debate on Tuesday. Although Mr. Sorbara mentioned that that was the appropriate venue for it, the unfortunate part about it is that it came to nothing.
We know that last Sunday there were four people in the room: the Prime Minister, the Premier of Alberta, the Premier of British Columbia, and the finance minister. Now the finance minister obviously has been tasked by the Prime Minister with coming up with for some sort of package. I'm not going to bear onto that end of it. I have some particular thoughts that I don't think are germane to this, and as I said, I will try to keep it to the subject. However, everything that is referred to here has a direct effect on Canada's GDP and the revenue of the Government of Canada. Given this crisis of confidence, where we see $80 billion fleeing out of that sector, I think we need to start making the case.
Now the Senate, the other place, has been discussing S-245, I believe, which is sponsored by the elected independent Senator Doug Black. They are talking about what should be the appropriate role from a legal sense. What this committee can do that no other committee in the House of Commons can do is to make that public case. More than $20 billion coming to the Government of Canada has an enormous impact and bears some scrutiny, and four meetings by us would be helpful in making that case.
There still are some places where they may not know of the nation-building potential for this project. That case has to be pursued, Mr. Chair, and I think we would actually have some recommendations to the Minister of Finance and to the general public that would have good public value.
Ms. O'Connell opened her comments by saying the opposition can't take yes for an answer. I'm just letting her know that on this motion, MP O'Connell, we will take yes for an answer.