International Trade committee  On the matter of producing gas by drilling and developing a resource responsibly and producing it, we will compete head-to-head with anywhere in the world. Now, he is correct that Russia does not have high environmental and safety standards. They do not worry about the venting and flaring like Canada does.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the opportunity. Unfortunately, I find Mr. Roche's comments very troubling. He is comparing natural gas in Russia to Canadian Athabasca oil sands, and I believe, or I understand, that he was thinking that the natural gas that would be flowing through the Quebec facility would be coming from the Athabasca oil sands.

International Trade committee  That's a great question. There have been multiple LNG facilities proposed for the east coast. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec have all had projects. The limit is not on the resource; Canada has hundreds of years of supply. It is safely available and developable. The infrastructure is really the only limiting factor.

International Trade committee  No, it most certainly would have been. The compression would have been done with hydro power. The carbon footprint of that facility and the natural gas flowing through it would be almost infinitesimal compared to the natural gas coming out of Russia, coming out of the Middle East or out of north Africa, but the political environment or the regulatory environment in Canada did not allow that project to get through the BAPE process.

International Trade committee  Canadian producers are world class. Even compared to our friends and neighbours to the south, Canada has extremely rigorous regulations around methane emissions. We have venting and flaring regulations that are second to none. The carbon footprint of a Canadian gigajoule of gas is better than any gas coming out of Russia, the Middle East or the United States, for that matter.

International Trade committee  It's not the resource, because ours is world class and cost effective. It is the Canadian regulatory process that is not as transparent as we would expect a democracy like Canada to have. It changed a few years ago with Bill C-69, which made that more difficult, and I think large global investors look at Canada today as a place where it is very difficult to get major infrastructure built, energy infrastructure or otherwise.

International Trade committee  For Ukraine, like any country, it's fundamental. It is the basis of modern life. It heats our homes, it provides the food that we eat, it's the fertilizer for our crops. Ukraine has worked very hard over the last decade to become more self-sufficient, but the insecurity of the current political situation leaves them very vulnerable and it leaves their allies very vulnerable at the same time.

International Trade committee  Absolutely. We have world-class energy resources. What we lack is infrastructure. I am sad to say that over the last decade, we have had several large infrastructure projects on our east coast—some that were directly linked to European utilities—that needed federal and provincial approvals.

International Trade committee  I would thank the committee for including energy in this discussion. It is fundamental to the dynamics that we're currently seeing play out in Europe and around the world. Canada has an opportunity to build LNG facilities to be a reliable partner for our allies and friends around the world, including in Europe and in Ukraine, but it's going to take policy change here in Canada for us to play that very important role.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for including CAPP in this important discussion. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers produces about 80% of Canada's oil and gas. We're proud to be one of Canada's largest employers and Canada's largest private sector investor.

Natural Resources committee  In some countries there are subsidies for oil and gas, but as far as Canada is concerned, we are net contributors to provinces, municipalities and the federal government. There are some initiatives that the federal government is trying to initiate that are for all industries, carbon capture and storage being one of them.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Angus, obviously March 2020 was at the height of the COVID crisis. It was a time when all of Canadians were stopping going to their offices and trying to avoid working there.

Natural Resources committee  We were putting forward to governments a model that we thought would enable us to continue to produce natural gas and oil—

Natural Resources committee  —for Canadian customers and get it shipped out. As far as the—

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Angus, just for clarity, again, I think it's important we recognize that what we were looking for was some flexibility on when we reported. This was a time where people stopped going to the office. The workers who would be submitting that from our side—