Mr. Chair, maybe I should make an observation that is more personal. I hope it reflects the policy of the government.
The government obviously has a role in energy and in federal-provincial relationships, but the market seems to have been operating fairly well in Canada since the 1980s. It serves most provinces, most areas, and most sectors well. The last time the government got involved excessively in the energy sector, it almost destroyed the entire industry and our country, so we need to be aware of that.
You talked about semantics this morning, but it's obvious that when people talk, they are working around the words “national energy policy” or “national energy program”, as Mr. McGuinty mentioned, for a reason. Those of us from western Canada are still sensitive to that, and we need to remember we are a long way from there right now.
I'd like to talk a little bit about the refining capacity in Canada. You talked about these super refineries being set up in other parts of the world. I'd like to ask you about what happens when one of our refineries is shut down. We only have nine now. There seems to be consolidation, and last summer in western Canada we had some issues with diesel supply and petroleum supply. I'd like to talk a little bit about that. We only have 15 or 18 refineries left, so are we consolidated too much already in Canada? We have issues as soon as we have a problem with one of those refineries.