Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, madam and gentlemen. I appreciate the fact that you're here. At one point I was afraid you might not be that interested in appearing before us, in view of the letter that Mr. Peacock and Ms. Perry sent to the chair. I would have found it unfortunate not to see each other face to face, not to debate but rather to obtain more information.
I only want to point out to you that the purpose of the motion I have submitted is to inquire and then obviously to take a position. I have no interest in imputing motives in any way, and that's not my style.
Having said that, I would say that your reputation unfortunately precedes you—and here I'm talking about the reputation of oil companies in general. As a result of the incidents in the Gulf of Mexico not so long ago, you will readily understand that, without necessarily putting you in the prisoner's dock, we have a lot of questions about your interests, motivation and way of doing things. We wonder whether economic interests take precedence over everything else.
In fact, the introduction of this motion is somewhat tainted. It's important to know what is actually going on and, at the same time, to verify all that with the people concerned by enabling them to appear before us to give us their version of things. Sometimes there's one version, but the idea behind that is to seek the truth as much as possible.
Ultimately, I know this can be a matter of interpretation. However, first of all—and I would like to have a relatively clear answer from you; I hope my question will be clear as well—I want to understand your motivation and your interest in cooperating.
I have no problem with ArcticNet. My idea is to verify your degree of motivation and interest in providing money so that we can eventually have scientific data on what is going on in the Canadian north.
Depending on the kind of answer I get, some questions may follow on the same topic. If not, I have others.