If we do nothing, essentially we strand the resource. We lose the profits, the revenues, the byproducts, and the labour that are all associated with that activity. As we lose that economic activity in the country, our GDP, of course, moves backwards. When you're talking about something that contributes 4% or more to GDP—I think it's actually closer to 7% or 8%. If your growth slows by 2% or 3%, you're in a recession. If it slows more than that, you're in a depression.
The consequences are very severe if we choose not to do anything, and those are only the direct consequences of not being able to sell our product. The indirect consequences are that we're less attractive as a place for manufacturing. If we don't produce at higher levels, we also don't have the energy at the prices that perhaps the United States is going to have for natural gas, which makes us less competitive against our competitors and trading partners. There are competitiveness elements as well.
Then there's a global perspective. There's a moral perspective, in my opinion. There are two billion people in the world who live in energy poverty. They have virtually no access whatsoever to energy. Canada plays a positive role in world trade and it can play a positive role in world energy trade. I think there's a moral obligation to do that. So we would have moral losses as well as economic.