Mr. Boles, in 2007-2008, and again this year, Natural Resources Canada's oil division, in its annual survey of refiners, made the following comment:
Refinery utilization rates close to 100 per cent, along with growth in demand for petroleum products, have created a need for significant additions to refinery capacity in Canada. Without investment in new refining capacity, supply interruptions could become more frequent and increasingly difficult to manage.
They further stated:
Due to the high demand for petroleum products in the Northeastern United States, refiners in Atlantic Canada export considerable volumes of petroleum products to that region.
If Shell Canada, representing 13% of all eastern Canada's capacity, were taken out of the matrix, what would that do in terms of creating vulnerability and access to supply, not just in Canada but also in the northeastern parts of the United States? Could you comment on that?