Finance committee  Good afternoon. My name is Mark Scholz. I'm the president of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors. Joining me today in the gallery are Mr. Doug Strong, president of completion and production services at Precision Drilling Corp., and Mr. Kevin Krausert, busin

Finance committee  In conclusion, Canada is in an enviable economic position. Much of the developed world is in economic crisis. With strong leadership Canada can certainly position itself to prosper. Thank you very much. I appreciate the discussion and look forward to your questions, particularl

Finance committee  Yes, sure, and thank you for the question. I would like to maybe go back to the experience that we had in 2008, particularly in Alberta, where we had the provincial government make some changes in the royalty structures for oil and gas producers. This directly affected the amou

Finance committee  At the end of the day, we support stable and competitive taxation rates.

Finance committee  I think we're moving in the right direction, which is making sure that we're competitive vis-à-vis other jurisdictions.

Finance committee  At the end of the day, we have to ensure that we are competitive vis-à-vis other jurisdictions.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. McGuinty, for allowing me to talk a little bit about this. I think we have a huge opportunity here within Canada. Right now we have an abundance of natural gas, which is one of the cleanest-burning fossil fuels. The price point for this fossil fuel is t

Finance committee  That's a tremendous point, Mr. McGuinty. In fact, our association is extremely supportive of a national energy strategy. I think we need to look at what our energy mix looks like 10, 20 years down the road. Natural gas, from our perspective, is a tremendous alternative to be

Finance committee  Certainly we're extremely supportive of the government's plans to streamline some of these major projects. I think everyone, including our industry and our association, is cognizant of the fact that we have to ensure that we're building these projects bearing in mind the environm

Finance committee  Unfortunately, I'm going to decline to comment on that. I'm not the expert.

Finance committee  I'm not an expert on that particular question, so I'll leave that up to another witness.

Finance committee  Sure. Thanks, Mr. Adler, for the question. Certainly, what I will say is that we have to look at this as an overall competitive equation here. Corporate taxes are important, along with personal taxes, royalties, and fuel taxes. All of these issues add up to an overall investment

Finance committee  I would say, from a competitiveness standpoint, it's a huge benefit for our industry, for representing tens of thousands of workers, that we go to work when investors see a competitive tax climate in the country.

Finance committee  We have 45 drilling rig contractors and 76 services we're contracting out.

Finance committee  I do not consider the oil sands to be a disease. I see it as an opportunity for all Canadians. If we can do it in an environmentally and sustainable way, I think all Canadians, from coast to coast, can benefit from that tremendous resource. In our industry alone, we do a lot of