First, I'd like to tell Mr. Brown that an Angus Reid poll done in February 2013 said that 60% of people in the Lower Mainland disagreed with seeing increased tanker traffic off the coast. That's just to correct the record.
I'd like to zoom out a little, to sort of take us out of the immediate moment and look at a more long-term view and the idea of structuring our economy for the future, not for the electoral cycle of the next two or five years, but more for the next 50 years.
The model of continuous economic growth implies that it will bring progress or happiness. I think a lot of people question that idea. We're the natural resources committee, and yet too often we act like these resources are infinite, which they're not. They're finite. As oil supplies get less and less, the price will go up. That's an economic fact.
Rather than making decisions based on short-term commodity prices, we should look towards long-term structuring rather than pretending that we have these resources that will never run out. We need a balance of things.
Mr. Rubin, in view of this long-term view of looking at the next 50 years, should we be trying to rush to export our oil resources as quickly as possible, or should we be adding value here for the long term?
Do you agree with the fact that going to export will basically ramp up production and therefore use the resource quicker, rather than going towards a more value-added in Canada approach, which would have the effect of slowing down production?