Mr. Speaker, I particularly appreciate my Conservative colleague raising the issue of the rising liabilities from abandoned wells. We had 43 years of Conservative rule that essentially cared only for building an economy for the benefit of the oil industry, including small producers, many of whom then declared bankruptcy and landed this multi-billion liability on Albertans.
Could the member comment on whether he shares my concern that in this budget bill there was an opportunity to resolve this matter and change the priorities so that environmental reclamation would be given a higher priority in bankruptcy proceedings, rather than simply giving the money back to creditors, including banks?