Thank you, honourable member.
Madam Chair, I've never been very good at, as some people call it, blowing my own horn, so I'll have to do my best here.
I was born on a farm in Alberta with what you might call a very low start in terms of economic position, but, I believe, a high start in terms of ethical standards that I was taught by my parents. Through my whole life I have believed in principles, and I have loved my country.
I took engineering and ended up in the oil and gas industry. I was able to join a company in 1975 that was Canadian headquartered. That was in fact very important to me, and the reason that I left a non-Canadian-headquartered company was to do so.
One of my greatest pleasures, having built that company to the point of being one of the largest energy companies in the country and also internationally, was to combine it with another very large company to create EnCana in the year 2002.
My wife and I actually came up with the name EnCana to represent energy Canada, to show our pride in this country. One of the reasons I brought that company together and created EnCana was that we were losing head offices in this country, and I believed very strongly that Canadian head offices are very important to the country.
I'm very humbled to say that I was recognized by 250 CEOs across the country as the most respected chief executive in the country last year, and also by another group as chief executive of the year.
All of these things are far beyond what I could ever have dreamed of in pursuing my career, and now that I have stepped down, I'm willing to put whatever I can and whatever abilities and effort and enthusiasm I have into this role.