Minister, when I was attending the Arctic Council meeting in Russia, we looked at some geological formations in a museum. We all understand the deep criticism of Canada's oil sands, yet we do not hear much about the oil sands development in other parts of the world, so the noise from some of our misguided environmentalists and politicians comes through very loud and masks the reality around the world.
The reality is that there are oil sands deposits all over the world—in Russia and Ukraine, I understand. We know all too well that the pipeline that comes from Russia through Ukraine delivers much of Europe's oil. My understanding is that the oil sands have not yet been developed as they have in Alberta, but it is almost certain that they will be
The European Parliament has been negative about Alberta oil sands. I think it would be good to remind them—and you mentioned you were attending an OSCE function—that they will soon be receiving oil sands oil down that same pipeline. At that point, they will have to choose whether to park their cars or take the oil sands oil.
Would it be good to put a balance into the conversation, to remind our European friends that many countries around the world have oil sands, and that they will be mined and developed under controlled environmental conditions, so that the topic of conversation isn't all negativity toward Alberta's oil sands?