Mr. Chair, the most important role that Canada can play is to bring members of the NATO alliance more closely together. The single biggest threat that has created gaps between the positions of the various members of the alliance is energy. Russia has used energy as a weapon, as a hard power tool, to cow and intimidate central European democracies, particularly democracies like Italy and Germany, into not taking certain positions in defence of our collective security and our collective defence with the threat of cutting off the 40% of natural gas that Europe uses to heat homes, power industry, produce fertilizer for agriculture and so many other things.
If we in this country can understand that energy is essential not only to the economy but also to our security and get pipelines built to Atlantic tidewater, we can help replace Russian gas in western Europe with Canadian natural gas and bring the alliance more closely together. That is one of the two most significant things we can do to strengthen our collective defence and security.