Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the work he does in his riding and here in this place. We certainly appreciate his very significant contribution as a member of Parliament.
I want to ask for his perspective on this whole issue of the government buying out pipelines. We have seen the failure of pipeline projects under the current government. There were a number of projects pursued and proposed by the private sector. First, we had the failure of the northern gateway project, which was the intention of the government. It is legislating to prevent that pipeline from going forward in the future, unless someone repeals that legislation, which of course we will do. Then it piled on all sorts of additional conditions to prevent energy east from going forward. Now it is using taxpayers' money to buy another pipeline.
Does the member think there is any logic or consistency to, on the one hand, trying to kill pipelines and, on the other hand, trying to exclude the private sector while effectively putting taxpayers on the hook for something the private sector, under any other conditions, would have been prepared to invest in?