Mr. Speaker, first of all, just to be clear, in case the Liberals do not know, the energy sector is the number one private sector investor in the Canadian economy. It is Canada's biggest export. He is quoting oil sands jobs, but that is not the totality of the energy sector; in fact, the total job numbers are close to a million.
The Liberals are doing everything they can to vaporize those jobs and businesses. There are probably more than 200,000 job losses under their government alone, but contractors and self-employers cannot be included in the statistics.
However, the fact is this. Of private sector investors in alternative and renewable energy technologies, the number one investor right now and for decades, aside from the public sector or public utilities, has been oil sands and pipeline companies. They are major multi-energy integrated companies. They are the innovators and companies that will lead the long-term transition and technological development to alternative and renewable energies in the future.
That is why it makes no sense for the Liberals to keep going down their path of stepping on the throats of oil sands and conventional oil developers and destroying the oil and gas sector. Those are the private sector risk-takers and inventors that can also achieve their long-term transition goals.
What very much worries me every time these Liberals stand up and say something like that is that they seem to have no clue about how the energy sector actually works or where this technology and innovation comes from.