A number of my fellow citizens who are in favour of using Alberta's oil and refining it in order to have value added in Montreal are not convinced that the government is responsible enough to manage this project along with the National Energy Board. They have questions about the project's safety. In this respect, I don't think that the government has paved the way for marketing this project to the population. I do hope however that someone will come out and say that the rules will be respected.
My next question is for Mr. Burpee and it's about the smart grid. You said that implementing the smart grid would take a dialogue with the provinces, but it really goes far beyond that doesn't it?
The federal government does have a role to play. Different agencies of the government— CMHC, NRCan, NEB, and different R and D programs—could help lift up this idea of smart grid and promote it. In my riding alone we had something called the net zero energy home. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but one of the studies on this home said that regulations can act as a catalyst to create new market sectors. So right now something like the net energy home would be too expensive for most people to build, but it could open up all these different sectors in the market, and the end result would be greater job creation, greater market products linked to energy efficiency in the electricity sector.
Could you address both the smart grid question and the idea of energy efficiency as a market driver and job creator.