Mr. Speaker, every time Liberal members stand and take shots at Canadian natural resources developers and suggest that Canadian regulators have not done a sufficient job, it damages Canada's reputation on the world stage. Our regulators are experts in the field. They are renowned and recognized by everybody else except the Liberals and maybe their friends in the NDP. It is alarming that policymakers and legislators do not know the facts.
Canada's mining industry is also a world leader. I was pretty shocked at natural resources committee when the minister talked about five or six different measures by which the Canadian mining industry led the rest of the world with respect to consultation, environmental stewardship, regulation and compliance, and enforcement. I asked him a very clear question. Did the minister believe that Canada produced the most environmentally and socially responsible oil and gas in the world? He started stumbling and equivocating. He said that he was not really sure what I meant or what metrics I was referring to, so he did not know how to answer the question.
If the Liberals want to have a conversation about how we can improve environmental stewardship and enforcement, even beyond our already exceptional performance, which is the best in the world, then we should debate on that. However, this crude oil tanker ban is not about that.