Typically, it's shipped as crude to the point where it's processed, and it's processed closest to where it's used and consumed. That's the way the marketplace is set up. I understand that.
As an Alberta MP, of course, I'm greatly concerned about the price differential when it comes to energy products. I'm very concerned about being able to diversify the market access for those products. With regard to pipelines, I maintain that building pipelines from my province with capacity to the east is good, to the south is great, and to the west is best in terms of our getting the best price we can for the companies that work in my province and for the citizens that I represent and the royalty regime that would benefit not only Albertans but all Canadians.
So I'm a little concerned about being able to have that market diversification. We've had significant feigned complaints today—and I'm being political here—about Canada's current situation with trade deficits. We know that trade deficits are a bit of a misnomer, because it wasn't all that long ago that we were in a multibillion-dollar trade surplus situation—in 2012—so these things oscillate as economies go.
Canada's economy is incredibly strong. We see that stronger economies are in trade deficits, because we have more buying power than do the countries that typically buy our products. But that not withstanding, how would you juxtapose a situation in which you would block a pipeline or support a tanker ban on tankers off the west coast and yet complain about a trade deficit? It seems like a bit of an odd juxtaposition to me.
But would a pipeline to the west coast that would allow energy products off the west coast improve Canada's trade deficit situation?