Mr. Chair, I want to start by thanking the member for Chilliwack—Hope for accompanying us to Mexico City last week. There was a delegation of 37 business leaders and four indigenous leaders, so that we could engage in a constructive dialogue with our Mexican friends on energy and on mine development. His participation was productive, and I welcomed it.
The member knows that we are all adjusting to the new administration, and a very productive use of our time is to expand our network, to deepen our contacts, to talk to congressional leaders, to those who will be serving. We all know that Governor Perry has not yet been confirmed as the American cabinet secretary, but as soon as he is, we will be requesting a meeting, and I am confident that will happen at an early moment.
We believe that the key to a relationship with the future administration is to find those areas of convergence where the American interest and the Canadian interest can be aligned. We think that energy is one place where that is possible and even likely. We were encouraged by one of the first executive orders of President Trump, giving his approval of the Keystone XL project, which we have supported all along. We will watch that very carefully.
We also understand that competitiveness is very important. We know that there are literally trillions of dollars of international investment looking for a place to land on renewable sources of energy, on clean technology. We want to position Canada to be a leader to attract that investment, because the objective is to use the energy we have today to finance the transition to tomorrow.