Number one, you're quite right in observing that, ultimately, energy is all about the provision of a service. Energy is not the end. The end deliverable is the service that people expect. Whether it's mobility for people or goods, or for home heating or electricity, those are services that ultimately Canadians expect and demand and that underpin our economy and our standard of living. It's very good for you to recognize that.
On the pipelines: where oil is found and produced isn't necessarily where it's needed. We need to have some form of energy infrastructure to take and transport that raw energy product, which for our industry is crude oil in its various forms, and get it to facilities that can transform it into the useful product that people need. In our industry, it's primarily transportation fuels that ultimately underpin that mobility, the importance of which you have so eloquently spoken to.
For us, pipelines are a critical part of the overall oil and gas value chain, providing that essential linkage between the location where the raw material is found, the processing facility, and beyond the processing facility. What most people probably don't understand is there is actually—particularly here in Eastern Canada and Ontario and Quebec—a substantial network of pipelines that deliver finished product to market. The gasoline or the diesel fuel you buy at your local station here in Ottawa has most likely come via pipeline from Montreal. The terminus of that pipeline is in the southwest part of the city, where there's a large terminal, and from there, it's delivered by truck to facilities.
Pipelines are an integral component of the overall oil and gas value chain. In industry terminology, they often get called the “midstream” component of the industry, which connects the upstream to the downstream, but in a context of product pipelines, they connect that product almost directly to consumers as well.
Pipelines are a big part of our industry. As we continue to increase our crude oil production, we're now coming up against the limits of the existing infrastructure. Clearly, the infrastructure I spoke about in my prepared remarks, which would enable bringing crude oil from western Canada all the way to Montreal and refineries in Quebec and ultimately to refineries in Atlantic Canada, is a key part of what will help to maintain competitive refining infrastructure in Canada, which will continue to provide those fuels so essential to our Canadian mobility.