Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in this House, virtually of course, and talk on this important topic.
Before I start, there is about a half-hour left in the day here in Nova Scotia, and it is Robbie Burns day in Scotland. My family has deep Scottish ties, as I know the member for Foothills does, as well. This is the MacDonell ancient tartan, and certainly we are thinking of all those celebrating Robbie Burns today into the wee hours of the morning and want to highlight the important connection that Canada has with Scotland and its place in the world.
The member for Foothills and the member for Battle River—Crowfoot before him spoke quite passionately and quite intensely about the human impact of what this means to workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I have some statistics here, and I thought the Minister of Natural Resources spoke quite well earlier in this debate about what this sector means, particularly to the western economy but indeed to the Canadian economy also.
We as parliamentarians cannot get around the fact that this is our largest industry in the country. I do not have the statistics right in front of me, but it is about 10%—