Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary actually put a quote out there that exactly made my case when he said that Hillary Clinton asked who was going to clean up an oil spill. That is the question, when Canada will not invest in the research to clean up those oil spills.
Right now it is not technically possible to clean up an oil spill under ice. Maybe 25% of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons are in the north. The Conservative government would love to access those, but by refusing to put enough money into research to stop something like the environmental disaster that is occurring right now in the gulf near Louisiana, the projects will not be approved by any environmental assessment agency worth its salt.
This was a lost opportunity. The government could have announced major research in that area. It could have announced that it is finally putting search and rescue planes north of 60 so they can meaningfully participate in Arctic research with other northern nations.