We are, very much so. I mean, that's what I was alluding to in my opening statement. If you look at the U.S., they were able to regard what's happened over the last 10 years as an opportunity. It was an opportunity to increase oil and gas production and at the same time lower their emissions. It was not one or the other. At the same time, they were in a position such that when a fellow G7 member came and asked for help....
Europe was in desperate need of help last winter. I was there. When you walked into buildings in Paris, it was cold. The temperature was turned way down. These people had a serious shortage of natural gas. We should have been in a position to help fill it. Instead, we ended up exporting our cheap natural gas to the U.S., which was more than happy to pay nothing for it while they exported the expensive stuff to Europe and reaped...and then we wonder, “Gee, why are incomes there higher?”
I was reading a paper recently by Pierre Fortin. He was comparing per capita incomes in New York and Quebec. On a purchasing power-converted basis, per capita incomes in New York are almost twice as high as in Quebec.