Madam Speaker, in my speech I actually mentioned that we would certainly give some thought to making sure that any revenues generated from the sale of Petro-Canada go back to the Canadian taxpayer specifically. That would be our first choice.
The other part of the hon. member's question is a much more general question. We need to ask ourselves if we want government in the private sector in this country. We have to be very clear. I think the answer is no, we do not want government in business. We want government to do other things.
We have a windfall of profit right now in Petro-Canada. We do have high oil and gas prices, without question, but there are other ways in which the government can influence the oil and gas sector without being directly in the business. Quite frankly, there is no place for government in the oil and gas business, in retail, either upstream or downstream. The industry is working well.
It has not always worked well. I can give a prime example of that. I worked in the offshore oil fields on the east coast. In 1985 or 1986 we drilled a well off Sable Island. It was 85 miles farther out in the ocean than we had ever drilled before. It was a Canadian government supplied well, so there was a lot of money flowing. We drilled to about 17,000 feet. We had never drilled that deep on the east coast before. Yet the Petro-Canada engineers, the government people involved in that well, insisted that we drill another 2,100 feet. We drilled another 2,100 feet of dust. We never hit any gas reserves. We never hit any oil reserves. What we did do was break the record and drilled the deepest offshore well ever drilled in Canada.
That is what happens when we start putting public money into private business. Quite frankly, I do not think that would have happened with a privately owned corporation.