Minister, I appreciate that. Maybe there's a disconnect between you as minister and who our Prime Minister is today. We're seeing quotes about the clean fuel standard. We already heard the announcement this morning of the potential increases in cost to Canadians, where it even adds gaseous fuels into the capture.
In northern B.C., and I'm sure it's the same in Newfoundland, heating is not an option for us in our homes. Therefore, to me, when we see a tax that gets applied to folks just to simply keep warm in the winter, there's something wrong. Plus, not to have a full understanding of the potential positive impacts to the environment by getting our natural gas to places in Asia to reduce their emissions doesn't seem right. Why wouldn't we be promoting the best production standards, the best exploration standards and the best human rights standards in the world, and that's Canada? We should be selling more of our resources, not less.
I'll mention a quote. This is from the same Financial Post article that I mentioned before.
There is a wide range of estimates on how the CFS will affect gasoline and diesel prices, with some estimates as low as 2 cents per litre for fuel all the way up to 15 cents per litre. “If it’s not done right, we’re going to lose existing infrastructure,” Laracque said, adding that could include refinery closures in Canada. “If we’re not doing this right, we miss a huge opportunity for existing infrastructure, which will increase the cost of compliance.”
To me, this goes back to what we were saying. Even the Green Party has said before that we need more refining capacity in Canada. Rather than sending the raw product somewhere else to get refined, we should be doing that here.
Again, why would we be doing something that puts our refining capacity in Canada at risk?