Natural Resources committee  If you look back to the map that Ms. Tolmie-Thompson provided with all the land holdings, it goes back to what we call the gold rush days back in our areas, where we were cost-advantaged and all this was going to happen. Because of a number of different factors—the rising Canadian dollar, inflationary costs, and whatever—a lot of companies are proposing to go to the United States.

Natural Resources committee  We believe that there actually needs to be a long-term vision. As we said earlier, we've been given this huge national advantage in Canada, and across western Canada, specifically. We have it, and it's almost like we don't know what to do with it. There are a lot of aspects to energy security.

Natural Resources committee  That's correct. One of the differences between bitumen and synthetic crude oil is called the light-heavy differential, and this number actually bounces around quite a bit on market factors. The numbers you see there were done back in about 2008 based upon market prices. Since then the differential has narrowed down, but it's widening back out again, so these numbers depend upon market factors that are there.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Jana. That gives you an overview. In our area, in addition to Sarnia, are some of the major hydrocarbon processing areas. There's been a lot of discussion lately regarding the development of Canada's oil sands resources and their future, but extracting the material from the ground is just part of the story.

Natural Resources committee  Great. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to speak before the committee here today. What we'd like to talk about with you today is regarding a very important aspect of our resource development, and that is, adding value to the resources themselves. While we have this tremendous natural resource here in Canada, recent trends are towards exporting our resources out in a raw form and bypassing the economic opportunities for Canada.