To come to the point, yes, renewables are heavily subsidized in the U.S., but that can create situations where you're getting cents on the dollar. It also can create situations when you have storage in which you are getting paid to store someone else's power.
In the British Columbia perspective, you have the same thing, but we are getting paid up to $500 per megawatt hour not to use power at night, so you get the benefit of being able to store that power behind a dam and you are getting paid.
It really depends. There is no silver bullet that is going to solve this problem. An intertie is not one of them, but it's a tool in your tool box, and it needs to be deployed in places where markets will help support it.
I've talked about B.C. and Alberta, but we also have to be very cognizant that the markets across the border are significantly different. You have BC Hydro, which is a vertically integrated crown utility, and you have an energy-only market. Trying to connect those two does have some sensitivities that need to be accounted for.
In terms of what it does for the resilience of our system and our interdependence from our dependency on the U.S., the point has been made that across the country we have the recurring pattern of hydro-dominated province, fossil fuel-dominated province, hydro-dominated province, fossil fuel-dominated province. If we can connect those two more closely, we will have a greater diversity of resources, we will have a greater diversity of when our load peaks out in the time of the day, and we will be able to manage it better. Then we will be somewhat less dependent on our neighbour while still being able to take advantage of that as a market.