Understood.
Those programs that you just spoke of, which have been implemented, have been invaluable to many industries. I'm very active in the hospitality industry. I own hotels, restaurants and gymnasiums for training and exercise. In businesses like that, these supplemental programs have been and are looked at very favourably, and so I have to express my appreciation, but they become irrelevant to industries that rely on major capital reinvestment, and that's really the essence of the Canadian oil and gas industry.
For the last 20 years, on average, the junior, mid-cap and small-cap public oil and gas companies have reinvested more than 100% of their cash flow. The distribution of cash flow by way of dividends we sometimes jokingly describe as simply giving shareholders a choice of where they might like to invest, but the oil and gas industry has historically required the opportunity to grow, and sometimes the opportunity simply to maintain its production has required significant reinvestment. Programs that subsidize wages for employees don't have an impact in any way, shape or form on the material issue, which is capital reinvestment, and capital reinvestment is where jobs are created. Distributing cash flow is not a job-creating business. A couple of payroll clerks would be required to write dividend cheques. That's not what we're about here. This is about the need to reinvest capital, partly to grow our production and partly to stabilize the production we have, and of course in all of this to participate in the growing global economy.
Leaving aside COVID and the collapse created by the Russians and the Saudis, in the last 15 years we saw world production grow from around 95 to close to 110 million barrels a day, so those who object to the growth of the hydrocarbon industry in Canada do so without knowledge of what's happening on a global basis.
To participate in that global economy simply makes sense on two levels. One is crude oil, and then there's liquefied natural gas. To the extent we participate in crude oil, we're bringing oil to a global market that is, first of all, responsible in terms of environmental compliance; responsible in terms of indigenous relationships; and responsible in terms of paying municipal, provincial, federal, property, operating and income taxes, and withholding taxes. All of that in Canada is organized in a thoughtful, responsible way.
With regard to respect for the dignity of women and children, something Canada exhibits, I wouldn't say that of the seven of the other top 10 countries in the world that have large reserves. We are third in the world in terms of our reserve base, so participating on a global basis for crude oil makes the world a better place.
In terms of participating with LNG, we've struggled in Canada to get LNG projects off the ground—