Mr. Speaker, those are two big topics. On the first one about electricity and selling to the United States, this was raised with the head of our local chamber of commerce in Saanich—Gulf Islands who said that when Quebec sells to another province it counts in the equalization payments, but revenues achieved out of the province do not.
The energy east as a pipeline project is often promoted as though it was taking Alberta product to refineries in eastern Canada. At the moment, there are no refineries in New Brunswick that can process raw bitumen. Therefore, part of the energy east product line will be Bakken shale and that portion can be refined in New Brunswick. However, the bulk, 70% of what energy east is proposed to carry, is the solid material bitumen mixed with diluent so it will flow and it would flow past the refineries and onto tankers. It would not displace foreign oil. We are getting about 0.7 million barrels a day of foreign oil into eastern Canada, while we are shipping out about two million barrels a day from Alberta to other countries.
As I mentioned earlier, we used to have 40 refineries in Canada in the 1970s. We were not closer to markets in the 1970s. We were not an oil-producing country in the 1970s. What has happened is that the people who make decisions about building refineries in the private sector have no interest in creating Canadian jobs or Albertan jobs. We, as elected officials, should care about creating the jobs that Peter Lougheed had in his original plans for how the oil sands should be developed.