Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to congratulate you on taking on the role of chair occupant, as well as to extend my best wishes to the new member.
I suspect the hon. member and I may agree on some things and disagree on some others, coming from a riding that is very dependent on the energy sector. I would make the case for my province as well as for her province that the Canadian energy economy is very important.
For the foreseeable future, the world is going to be using hydrocarbon. Right now people in New Brunswick have jobs that involve the importation of foreign oil at world prices. It seems to be logical that as long as there is refining happening in her province, would it not be better if we could connect the country from coast to coast with pipelines so that western Canadian oil could be feeding jobs and opportunity in New Brunswick and in other parts of eastern Canada?
Given the reality that the energy sector exists and that right now we are importing foreign oil into eastern Canada, why not seize this opportunity for more Canadian innovation as we continue to grow and develop and try to improve our environmental performance?