Thank you, Chair.
As a follow-up to my colleague, who worries that we're putting out all these reports, it is the role of the committee to get testimony, to get witnesses across the different points of view and to come forward with recommendations to present to Parliament and then to the Canadian people so that they can make informed decisions.
In terms of our work schedule now, I believe we have finished the electricity grid study, on which we had really interesting testimony, which I hope will help move government policy forward. We are finishing TMX now. I believe what's outstanding is that we've asked to hear from the environment minister; Mr. Wilkinson, the natural resources minister; Deputy Prime Minister Freeland; and my colleague Mr. Simard has asked for the PBO.
I think that puts us in a good position to make recommendations, and one thing about committees is that we don't all have to agree on the recommendations. We can have minority reports, contradictory information. However, those reports are essential. That's what we do.
I'm hearing from my Alberta colleague that she's more than willing to have a debate. I don't know what the debate's about. If all the evidence she has is that good, I'm up to having the witnesses. Let's look at this issue, because the issue of abandoned wells has been something that has been of concern, so we need to get numbers.
The numbers are all over the map. I've crunched numbers on abandoned wells and federal liability, provincial liability and corporate liability, and it's incumbent upon us to get witnesses to come forward. Then we can explain to Canadians where we're at.
I had agreed in the previous meeting that I felt it was important to get where the abandoned wells are across Canada, because we can compare jurisdictions. Certainly the first oil wells ever drilled were in southern Ontario in Petrolia. What is the situation there? We know that Saskatchewan, according to my colleague Ms. Dabrusin, had spent the money and had dealt with theirs. Was there a difference between what Saskatchewan did and what Alberta did?
At the end of the day, coming from mining country, it is for me fundamental. You have to clean up your mess. No community has mess in mining like my community, because we were one of the first, although I would point out to my honourable colleague Ms. Lapointe that her industry, for decades, was poisoning our lakes. We were pretty good-natured about it, but we fortunately brought in changes that cut the sulfuric acid emissions coming out of the Sudbury stack, and now I believe the big stack is coming down, and they are actually more efficient than ever. All that pollution that used to go up in the air for free is now captured and sold.
There are lessons to be learned. In the mining sector, we set rules for cleanup and rules for liability so that industries couldn't walk away, because that was a standard thing that used to always happen. They would construct a mine and make the money, and then they would pitch it off to a junior company or a shell company and then walk away. The hills of northern Ontario are full of those sites.
You can't do that anymore. The issue of what the liability situations that we as taxpayers are on the hook for is pretty straightforward.
Given what I've heard from my colleague Ms. Stubbs, I believe we should be ready to go ahead and vote on this. We are pretty much done the one study. We have three or four witnesses in the next one. We can debate this forever, but I actually think it would be good if Ms. Stubbs, who is really raring to go and ready for a fight—which she always is—would bring her witnesses. We'll get the witnesses. We'll get a cross-section. We'll hear testimony and then we'll make recommendations, and yes, we will create another report. That's what committees do. They create reports to Parliament and the people of Canada.
I'm ready to vote on this and move ahead, Mr. Chair.