Natural Resources committee  Yes. I would say first of all that we have to be careful here between the political question of dealing with the political situation and dealing with promising help from an industry on a commercial basis. I think there is a risk that we can over-promise if we start converting political statements of solidarity into a commitment that we're actually going to deliver gas.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I am.

Natural Resources committee  The short answer is yes. There is clearly an opportunity there because there is a need, but I think from my conversations from Europe this week there is also a caution that they will only go where they're wanted. There needs to be not only an opportunity but the business structure around it to make it happen, and a willingness on the part of that state to change the way things are being done at the moment.

Natural Resources committee  The creation of fuel poverty is obviously a concern to everyone. I would argue, along the lines of what the previous speaker said, that you can segment the problem into dealing first with the big consumers, who should really be on a market basis, and then deal with the social implications of what's happening programmatically.

Natural Resources committee  I agree with that, absolutely.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Perhaps another way of answering your question is, how do we actually stimulate a market for energy efficiency, energy conservation? To go to back to a comment that was made on the other side, it seems that the most effective way of getting energy efficiency off the ground is to send a price signal through the market.

Natural Resources committee  Very quickly, yes we do. The practitioners are within the NEB. They're within the offshore boards. In fact, when Australia was working on a new regulatory regime, they went around the world looking for best practices. They modelled their offshore regulatory environment off ours to some extent.

Natural Resources committee  Well, that's true, but we are moving more to a global market in LNG. As more infrastructure is in place, we can expect to see more reference to a global price, and that will definitely be higher. One of the arguments, part of the debate in the U.S. at the moment, is the impact of exports on domestic prices.

Natural Resources committee  Canada is just getting into the game and I think it's significant that the first LNG export project is on the west coast. It's the logical route to the market you've just described.

Natural Resources committee  I would say so, yes.

Natural Resources committee  That's correct.

Natural Resources committee  There's a lot in that question. I might dodge it simply by saying we need to get the world price. Shareholders need to get the highest price for their product, so they will take their product to the market that will provide that price. The question really comes back to the thread that has been going through the questions and the answers this morning, which is that there's a certain amount of dysfunctionality in the Ukrainian market, so that would have to be addressed first.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, and honourable members, thank you for your invitation to contribute to your study. I'm an independent policy analyst, and I focus on energy. I've been following the energy sector now for about three decades. The opinions I express today are my own. The current political crisis unfolding within Ukraine, and between Ukraine and Russia has raised the question: can Canada play a role in Europe's energy security?

Natural Resources committee  I'll take two aspects of that question. First, going back to the bad old days of the national energy program, we did have a program called the petroleum incentives program. I think that was responsible for.... Of the 275,000 barrels a day of production right now, plus the Hebron project that is under development, all those finds were through the risk sharing that took place through the petroleum incentives program.

Natural Resources committee  I can't comment on it.