Mr. Speaker, I agree with a lot of the remarks the member made. In fact, I see this particular budget as quite a work of fiction, which gives us nothing to deal with, really, in terms of numbers in the House of Commons. We cannot compare department to department or anything at all.
My NDP colleagues talked about economic development and prospects, and I quote from the document. It says:
Indeed, lower prices for Canadian crude oil, as well as for natural gas, relative to global benchmarks are reducing gross domestic product (GDP) by about $28 billion per year, translating into over $4 billion annually in potential federal government revenues.
I agree. We have probably become too dependent on energy and have not looked after the manufacturing sector enough. However, what worries me in this particular statement is that we really do not have an outlet for bitumen from the oil sands, and it is impacting our economy to the tune of $4 billion in revenues for the government and $28 billion per year in GDP. That is serious.
I wonder where the member stands on that, relative to attempting to get the Keystone pipeline opened up so that we can, in fact, move more product out.