Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. It's wonderful to be here at the natural resources committee.
It's a shame that although we had Alberta witnesses here talking about how TMX impacted my home province of Alberta as well as some of the impacts on jobs in Ontario and Quebec, their testimony was cut short so that we could bring forward this motion and discuss it.
The part that frustrates me as an Albertan—Mr. Chair, you're also an Albertan, so I'm not sure how you feel about this—is that this government continually attacks Alberta and singles Alberta out as if somehow everything would be fine if only Alberta did this or if only Alberta did that. There are actually abandoned wells right across the country. There are abandoned wells in most provinces that have had oil, yet we're not even talking about that. This motion is only looking at Alberta.
This process that was brought forward in the $1.7-billion program that was brought in during COVID was as much about job creation—as per an Auditor General's report from the Province of Alberta—as it was about cleaning up orphaned wells.
There were some unique challenges in the energy industry as a direct result of struggles around COVID. This was an innovative way of changing things up and doing things a bit differently.
I was actually an MLA at that point. This is where this becomes really interesting, because we had all kinds of conversations, and one of the things that Alberta did that was really interesting—although it wasn't as simple as, perhaps, Saskatchewan's solution to this—was working with the first nations and having the first nations site rehabilitation program. The program really involved first nations. It did things in a very innovative way, allowing them to be partners in prosperity. There were direct impacts to indigenous communities.
It's interesting: I know that at the government operations committee is currently looking at indigenous procurement. The program that the Government of Alberta put forward met all of the indigenous procurement requirements and exceeded them, and there were many benefits to communities as a result of this. There were environmental benefits, but there were also benefits to many communities.
I'm going to read off some of the community benefits here. This wasn't something the Government of Alberta had to do; this was something the Government of Alberta chose to do because it was the right thing to do. It wasn't within its jurisdiction; it was actually within the jurisdiction of the federal government. The federal government didn't require this, but the Government of Alberta knew that it was the right thing to do, so it chose to do it.
In the Cold Lake First Nations, they utilized several nations—