Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all our witnesses. I'd love to ask you all questions, but it'll come through the course of the meeting, I'm sure.
I just want to thank CAW and CEP for being here. CAW workers, of course, are very hard-working people in my community in Burnaby—New Westminster, as are the CEP workers up in the oil sands. As an NDP group, we've been up a number of times over the past few months. The CEP workers know their business. They're very talented and they've been very open and accessible in answering our questions. I'd like to thank both of you and your unions for being here today.
I want to get back to the issue of value-added, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Stanford. You both raised it.
Starting with you, Mr. Wilson, what we've seen under both the federal Conservatives and the provincial Conservatives in Alberta is a downgrading of upgrade and refining capacity. You mentioned it going from 60% of Alberta product being upgraded and refined down to 35%. What we're looking at is a loss of jobs. We've seen across the country the loss of family-sustaining jobs. Good full-time jobs are being replaced by part-time jobs, temporary jobs, and temporary foreign workers. So the economics of the current government simply don't make a lot of sense.
I'd like to have you answer the question of how many jobs we're losing by this focus on exporting raw resources rather than looking at and putting in place policies that bring upgrading and refining capacity here to Canada.