Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to talk about something that you mentioned in your opening remarks. As you reiterated, the government has done a pivot on its foreign policy. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have indicated that the government's number one foreign policy priority is defence and security. The second priority is economic resilience, part of which is diversifying trade and ensuring that Canada is a reliable trading partner, which is something you referenced in your opening remarks.
Building on that second pillar, the Prime Minister said about three weeks ago that the government is working to expedite the export of Canadian energy, particularly oil and gas. He indicated that Canada is an unabashed “energy superpower”. He said, “We have the third-largest reserves of oil [and] we have the fourth-largest reserves of LNG.” He also added, “We've just started our first LNG shipments”.
Africa, as you know, is a continent of 1.3 billion people. They use as much oil as we do on any given day—about four million barrels of oil a day, which is a bit more than we do—but we're a country of 40 million people. They desperately need energy—oil and gas—to expand.
Is there now a whole-of-government focus, particularly within the Department of Foreign Affairs, to build on the Prime Minister's commitment to expedite Canadian exports of oil and gas to the African continent, where they are in need of energy? What is being done through the whole of government, particularly foreign affairs, to do that?