Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
First of all, I'd like to speak to Mr. Toma from the Alberta Chambers of Commerce.
I'm from Red Deer, and I know that its chamber of commerce has done a lot of work in a lot of different areas. It has basic groups that are getting together and looking at agriculture, innovation, and so on. They've really put a lot into this. When you talked about some of the concerns that we have in Alberta in terms of recession, your first point was to do no harm to business growth, by making sure that there isn't any additional cost to doing business. Second was to support smaller manufacturers or capacity knowledge competitiveness. Third—and I think that's what we're interested in as far as looking to the future goes—was broadening policy mindsets so that we're able to move forward.
Just to go back to the “do no harm” part, one of the things in your presentation is making sure one recognizes where the tax burden is and the types of things that are taking place. We recognize that there's going to be a carbon tax in Alberta provincially, and we have no idea of what is going to be happening federally. There is a difference from the recession that took place in 2008, when all credit throughout the world was disrupted. Right now, there is money and there are venture dollars, but it's not going to go to places where there's uncertainty. I think that's one of the key things. Positive messaging in that regard is important.
When we look at that and we try to work our way through some of the issues that are taking place, one of the important messages to get through is about the value chain of the manufacturing that is there for Alberta's oil and gas industry.
However, there are other things that can be done, and one of the things that we had talked about a while back was abandoned well reclamation and being able to move that forward. We have people who are experts in the field and we will still be able to tap into some of the resources from the rest of Canada.
Do you have any comment that you could add to that type of a program? Do you have other thoughts that you could discuss as far as broadening the policy mindsets of provincial and federal politicians, as well as those of small and medium businesses?