Mr. Chair, I would love to comment on that. My riding understands full well the relationship with the United States in regard to oil and gas and that industry. My constituents also understand that we do not threaten by way of countervails on something that would not be legitimate and legal with regard to NAFTA. We cannot say the United States need to respect it if we are not going to.
What we really need to do is something more tangible that will catch the attention of the Americans. That is the message given to them when we talked to them here at the interparliamentary meeting a couple of or three weeks ago.
That message was that they are in jeopardy of losing 25% of a 1.4 trillion barrel reserve of oil, the second largest in the world. The Chinese government is looking at securing 25% of that. That is right now. Who knows what will happen two or three years from now? This catches the Americans' attention more than anything else.
Not only do I think it catches their attention, I know it has. Since that meeting, one of the congressmen sent me a speech that he delivered in Congress of the United States, in their House, on this exact same thing with the tar sands. He was trying to educate people into understanding exactly what is there. Not only that, also after that conference, I had notification from one of the senators who was asking how they could get up to the tar sands to visit because they needed to do that with as large a delegation as they possibly could.
We initiated that and now that will be an invitation coming through the parliamentary association. We will have them up to the tar sands. That is how to do it. We educate them and have them understand the importance of what they are losing. We also have them understand that to have the mentality of closing the border around them and to shrink and become protectionist is not in their long term future best interests, because they are competing not only with the Asian market but also with the European market.
What the Americans need to do is make sure that they have good relationships with all of North America. That means Mexico and Canada. That is really what NAFTA is all about. To compromise NAFTA is not in their best interests. That is what they understand. That is what will catch their attention.
I do not believe that my hon. colleague understands exactly what he is asking for when he says that we do it by threatening the Americans on oil and gas. What really catches their attention is having them understand that we are serious about trade with partners other than the United States on something as important as fossil fuels into the future. That has caught their attention in a very significant way. I believe that is a much more professional, aggressive and productive approach than what the NDP has put out. I still say their idea is a wacky idea and I think Canadians would agree.