It's a very excellent question and thank you because I have the same question. Why is eastern Canada dependent on foreign imports when Canada has vast resources? It goes back to if we do not upgrade bitumen in Alberta and turn it into SCO so it can be used in eastern refineries, we will continue that dependence, and when we're dependent on foreign imports, they determine our prices. They determine our prices for inputs and they determine our prices for petroleum products. So Canadians across the country are paying world prices for petroleum products while refineries in western Canada are experiencing very high profits because we're paying prices in Canada as if we bought all our oil based on Brent.
So now we have a country where Canadians and non-oil producing businesses have huge costs for resources, and if those prices could come down we would stimulate the entire Canadian economy. We would not have the problems we have inter-regionally. Every single country in the world protects its economy. In China they have price controls for their consumers. OPEC nations have price controls for their consumers because they know that the costs people bear for energy have a tremendous impact on economic growth and stability. But in Canada we continue to pretend that exporting raw bitumen will stimulate this economy and it won't. It will increase our importation of condensate and it will get us the lowest possible value for our vast resources that we can't renew.
So I have the same question you do.
Thank you.