Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Scholz and Mr. Strickland, I'm going to explain the slight problem I see, and I'm not acting in bad faith by saying this.
I believe that what the federal government announced, by signing the agreement with Alberta, is a way of passing the responsibility on to the Alberta government and the oil and gas companies. What I'm seeing right now is that few big companies are willing to raise their hands to build infrastructure. That was seen again last week, when people said that the regulations were still too burdensome even though the government was prepared to ease off. That's what is happening with Bill C‑5.
I get the impression that the cost of building this infrastructure makes it difficult to turn a profit, so big oil and gas companies are reluctant to make these investments, unless there's a very strong signal from the government that public funds will be injected. I don't want to act in bad faith by saying this, but I'd like to hear you talk about it.
Mr. Scholz, I know you emphasized that members of your association work in the oil and gas sector and would benefit from infrastructure development. The same goes for Mr. Strickland.
However, I want to look at this in a very realistic way. I wonder if there's a business case for building oil and gas infrastructure without public funds. The signal I'm seeing from the big companies is that they themselves don't seem to believe in that. Beyond the political issue, big companies would have to believe in the model for building oil and gas infrastructure.
I'd like to hear from each of you about that.