Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all of the witnesses, first of all. I want to thank Mr. Bragdon, too, because he hit on a theme I was going to start with.
I agree with virtually everything he said, with the exception of the part when he said we're trying to move away from Canadian energy. I disagree with that. I have said this at this committee before: The challenge we are trying to deal with is not production. One of our witnesses talked about putting a cap on production, which I don't agree with. The challenge is fighting emissions.
A lot of words and rhetoric get bandied around when we're having these discussions. We do have to look at this through a realistic lens, because if we're talking about a transition, the “just” part means people have to have jobs. They have to get paid. They have to be able to pay their bills. They have to have a house to live in.
With no disrespect to any of the witnesses' testimony today, I wrote down some remarks: We need worker buy-in; we need decent pay and “well-paid, unionized jobs”; we need to move to a “new economy”, and so on. I didn't hear anybody tell me where those new jobs are or what this training is going to be for.
I agree that all of these people who are losing their jobs need to be retrained. I agree that all of these people need to have good, high-paying jobs that last forever, but what are they? That's my first question.
Sir, you said we need a blueprint and you said you need to be included in the discussion. Well, that's why you're here today, so tell me what the blueprint is. Tell me where these jobs are and how we get there.