I think you heard from my Alberta colleague Jim Saunderson on this question of potential oil price declines and oil price impact.
Essentially, the biggest impact for the country as a whole would be a decline in the spread that oil exported from Alberta faces relative to a world benchmark. Right now there's a pretty large spread, although it's smaller than it used to be. A pipeline to tidewater in either direction would have a pretty major impact on shrinking that spread, so the value of exports would go up quite considerably even without a volume increase in exports. That would translate into a major economic benefit for Canada's GNP as a whole.
In addition, the construction of a pipeline would have some pretty major economic impacts for communities all along the route. Pipeline infrastructure is what we call linear infrastructure, because it's a point-to-point affair, has an impact on a great many people along the way. One of the areas where we have focused some effort is on the potential opportunities for first nations communities associated with pipeline projects and other major energy projects.
As I mentioned in my remarks, there are some capacity constraints that sometimes block a community's ability to access those opportunities. We've done some work in co-operation with the Province of British Columbia and with other federal government departments on establishing a workable inventory of business development programs for aboriginal entrepreneurs with businesses. Often they're unincorporated businesses. In order to do business with a major corporation that's building a pipeline, you're better off being incorporated. Just explaining some of the basics of business development can often be a contributor to unblocking some of that capacity in first nations communities.