Mr. Chairman, I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Bagnell.
First of all, thank you very much.
Thank you very much for coming to meet with us today. We appreciate it very much.
You talked about the operator being fully accountable and responsible for spills and damage. That's an important principle. Of course, in the case of the Gulf of Mexico and what's happening there, I'm sure that's not much comfort to people who are worried about what's happening in the marshlands and wetlands and in the vast area affected by this, whether it's the shrimp boat captains--kind of a Forrest Gump thing--or whoever it may be. People are being affected by this. Wildlife is being affected. The long-term impact is enormous.
We have a situation in which BP apparently had blowout preventers that obviously didn't work. So why should we feel any more comfort in our case than they did? The fact that they're accountable and responsible for paying for it is good, but I think Canadians want to see that this kind of thing is prevented, not cleaned up over years afterwards.