Thank you so much for that question. As I said earlier, I know many people in Alberta who have been struggling for the last number of years, starting with the downturn in oil prices that started in 2014 and has led to thousands of layoffs, families struggling and people worrying about their future and the future of their kids.
We started taking action immediately upon coming into office. We extended stabilization funding of $250 million to the Province of Alberta. We extended EI benefits, beyond regular EI benefits that Canadians qualify for, to 22 weeks, which has led to additional support of $1.3 billion for struggling families during those difficult times.
Now we are taking action on pipeline capacity. Also, Alberta is a province that exports many commodities, including oil and gas, to other countries, so the conclusion of NAFTA is absolutely a benefit to the oil and gas sector. Through those negotiations, we were able to eliminate unnecessary tariffs and fees, resulting in a saving of $60 million per year for the oil and gas sector, particularly the oil sands sector.
We will continue to work to improve our regulatory process. What we have in place has led to failure—a lack of pipeline capacity that we're seeing today, which is causing so much pain and grief and costing billions of dollars that we are losing. That's why Bill C-69 is a very important piece of legislation that will fix the broken system we currently have. It creates a balance between the environment and the obligation to consult with indigenous peoples, at the same time allowing us to grow our economy.
This is a good example of how economic growth and environmental sustainability can go hand in hand. That's exactly what we are focused on, moving forward: to fix the flaws of a regulatory process that we inherited.