Natural Resources committee  I think it should be taken as a significant boost in confidence in Canada's ability to develop those resources. I would think that would be first and foremost. In terms of the departure of some of the companies, they will tell you before I could that their reasons for leaving are many and varied.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's very company specific. Certainly, the people I know who work in those companies that are reducing their exposure in Canada are all really passionate, hard-working Canadians, so it's really a corporate perspective that's driving it.

Natural Resources committee  I made a reference in my talk to some of the geopolitical changes in our bigger environment. The reality is that some of those issues, whether it's the Middle East conflicts or India's drive in terms of what its trying to do with its economy, those are huge, effective pieces that set the Canadian direction much more than a lot of what we can do in our own country.

Natural Resources committee  It's an accounting procedure, a tax procedure, if you're familiar with that. Conceptually, if you are at the front end of the risk spectrum, finding new things, new plays, you take on quite a bit more significant risk in terms of finding something or not finding something. If you go around the world, generally speaking, in the absence of a lot of historical data, it is high risk.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, exactly. In order to continue the drive to get people to invest in that high-risk area, the government has set up.... It's very similar in a lot of other jurisdictions. The model is pretty clear. In order to incent or drive that kind of behaviour, you want to provide the ability for those who run into that situation, who have a dry hole or are in that high-risk area, to write that off more quickly in terms of a depreciation schedule.

Natural Resources committee  Right. Well, be careful about what drives investment. It isn't just tax. It's many other considerations that companies would have. But that certainly provided a safer landing spot to more quickly drive investment into that part of our business. It is a necessary part of our business as we go forward, so we were somewhat disappointed in the budget language around that.

Natural Resources committee  That's a good question. I did want to comment right up front that long-term storage of CO2 is one of the tools available. We also have a good, healthy opportunity, and we do this significantly, to use CO2 to drive more oil production out of a certain oil place. I think both provide, or one provides certainly, an opportunity to get more value out of CO2 that's pumped underground.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly on the carbon side, it is a continuing challenge, but when you look at the institutions that are investing, there is certainly a pathway there. I would say the other side of that coin is around our ability to develop our resources and to attract the investment we need in the country to really breathe life into both sides of that equation.

Natural Resources committee  I would say the industry is pretty spread out in the province of Alberta, but in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, a lot of the challenges we have, certainly, as you point out, are the ability to collect and transport, given the way the industry is laid out. We have some insulations that have been used pretty successfully, proving out some of the technologies.

Natural Resources committee  I think that's my point around finding the right competent reservoirs. Most of the regulatory jurisdictions we have in Canada have specific rules set out for long-term monitoring of the competency of reservoirs to make sure there isn't leakage somewhere. There's also a lot of effort, as we heard a few times today, on the upfront planning side as well, making sure that we have reservoirs that are competent before we start pumping.

Natural Resources committee  Sure. I'll just add a few points. I'm sure everyone is aware of the COSIA story, but there are a few points that I want to emphasize. I want to remind everyone yet again about the effort we've put through the XPRIZE at COSIA, looking for commercial installations for getting some value out of a carbon stream.

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely, and we already have a lot of alliances and a lot of efforts that we share with the forest sector broadly speaking, in many areas of developing and using the forest land base. That's just the normal extension of a lot of the work that's already in place and of those relationships that are in place between the oil and gas sector and the forest sector.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly for our sector, first of all, for most of where we operate, we've been operating under some form of carbon pricing mechanism already, but also, there's a lot of drive that our sector has had. You can look at Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. It was not driven by a carbon pricing mechanism.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, we are, but of course some of them are interactions or specific companies in our membership that are involved in some of those investments. From a broad association perspective, we're pretty preoccupied with many other things, so we haven't gone directly into the space of looking at policy options or promoting anything related to government or investments in that area directly other than through our individual members.

Natural Resources committee  I can say personally that I'm originally a forester by trade, so I know that sector quite well. I have had experience in a previous time in that part of the sector, and on biomass in particular. I wouldn't say that we've done a lot of interactions in that space. Most of our members focus on other sides of the renewables in terms of what our interaction is with the shift towards more renewables for electricity generation and how we fit natural gas into that story.