Hon. Seamus O’Regan, P.C., M.P., Minister of Labour: I cannot speak directly to the quote, but I could just say that we’ve never produced more oil than we are right now. That is a fact. The prosperity that it brings to every corner of this country is a fact. Climate change is also a fact, and the future competitiveness in the industry is a fact.

Alex Pourbaix — I deal with Mr. Pourbaix, the Chief Executive Officer of Cenovus in Calgary. I would not call him a tree hugger, but he sees the competitive sense in this. He came out and said there is huge opportunity in lowering emissions, working with the government on lowering emissions and increasing renewables.

By the way, it is worth noting too that the province of Alberta by a country mile leads this country in wind and solar — by a country mile. The thing that we also have to make sure that we are going to do, and this came out in the federal Economic Statement, is make sure — just because they are producing winds and solar does not necessarily mean that they embrace workers. Some of them don’t. Some of them are looking for non-union workers.

We want to make sure that any tax credit we give to companies that are building up renewables are worker-friendly, much as the Biden Administration has done. I still cannot get over it. Dealing with the Trump Administration in my two years as natural resources minister, they were not worker-friendly either. Now we have an administration, a trading partner and a great friend and ally that is challenging us — and our biggest customer by far of oil and gas — to match them on lowering emissions, building up renewables and looking after workers. Good problem to have.