Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the intent of my colleague's motion. I agree with the observations in both the motion and much—but not all—of the commentary she provided.
With regard to improving regulatory speed, I point to our recent discussion paper on this topic. The pipeline project she refers to in her motion.... The northern gateway, energy east, KXL and Trans Mountain are all projects I've worked on, so I am mindful and appreciative of much of her commentary there.
It's my firm belief that, if you're going to move oil and gas, pipelines are the cheapest, safest and most environmentally friendly way to do so. It's also my firm belief that we should do what we can to reduce reliance on the United States, the current destination for 90% of Canada's oil exports. Declaring a pipeline that is consistent with the Building Canada Act and the national interest is already the intention of the federal government, as was committed to in the implementation agreement for the Canada-Alberta MOU.
Therefore, the opposition is pushing on a bit of an open door there, twisting a rubber arm, but we also have witnesses here. Energy security is a very important topic. We're also getting a bit ahead of ourselves, as Alberta hasn't submitted a proposal. It's going to by July 1. We are on the timeline agreed to with the Alberta government, and sticking to a timeline and sticking to a plan agreed to with Alberta is how we bring the stability that Ms. Stubbs mentioned. That's important.
There are also ongoing negotiations involving Alberta, Canada and other parties that we do not want to unbalance. We also need to acknowledge that opinions we've heard presented publicly are presented in that context. It is the choice of those parties to do so, but the Government of Canada does not want to negotiate in public, so let's find time for this later. We would love to revisit this motion once a proposal is submitted and we can properly schedule a discussion.
For today, I move to adjourn debate on the motion.