I think you were here during our previous testimony from Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association. They brought forward figures—and this is for both our witnesses—that showed that for the GDP derived from two million barrels per day, $25 billion of value would come from the actual mining of raw bitumen, a further $50 billion would be added if you upgraded to synthetic crude, and a further $75 billion would be added to the GDP economy if you advanced up the supply chain to petrochemicals.
It seems to me that whether we're talking about the Alberta region's economy or the national economy, if a government were interested in the Canadian economy, they would encourage as much value-added production as possible.
We also heard that the Canadian government actually funded studies to arrive at these figures and to understand the value to Canada's economy. What confuses me is that the Canadian and Alberta governments are both promoting the export of raw materials, thereby forgoing the lion's share of the potential economic benefit in jobs.
Mr. Howard, you folks do research into energy. Is it sound energy security policy for Canada to be pursuing more raw bitumen exports?