Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Benoit. The simple answer is this. Our port is geographically positioned better than any other port in the country to supply our allies in Europe, to supply India, and we're exactly 100 nautical miles further away than New York City is from Brazil. So if we want to service the entire world from Canada, Saint John is the place to do it.

Natural Resources committee  Fortunately, we've had very good partnerships both with the provincial and the federal government on some of our major infrastructure needs so funding is now in place for a new drinking water treatment system, which Saint John hasn't had until now, and then the cleanup of all our waste water will be completed this year.

Natural Resources committee  Well, certainly in the Saint John context, the flexibility in the gas tax and the ability to allocate that to recreation is vital because most of our recreation infrastructure dates from the mid-1960s and is in need of significant replacement or repair in the next number of years.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Our new municipal plan just allocated a significant portion of east Saint John as a super heavy industry area and it's specifically zoned to accommodate significant expansion of existing refinery capacity. We know, also, that the economics of building on to that are significantly more favourable in Atlantic Canada where we can bring large components in for the upgrader or cokers or expansion to the refinery by sea water versus overland to inland provinces like Alberta.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Another excellent challenge we would love to face is that kind of increase. What you're talking about is an opportunity for us to start planning for that right now. For example, the west-east pipeline is expected to be in production in 2018, so we have between now and 2018 to have that planning phase.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of the overall picture in Canada, we know that even in recent years we've seen a number of refineries close in eastern Canada. Mr. Regan's hometown is no exception. A refinery was closed there recently. So we know just for the viability of existing industries the west-east pipeline is an imperative.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Leef, thank you for the question. We simply want what the rest of Canada in many ways already has, and that's the opportunity to pull ourselves up and be self-sustaining. We want to be a “have” place. We see what it has done in Saskatchewan, what it has done in Alberta, in Newfoundland, in British Columbia.

Natural Resources committee  It's very difficult. It's very difficult for families who are in Saint John, not only for the parents and the children who are separated from their spouses for weeks at a time but also difficult for the grandparents. What we see increasingly happen—I have seen countless stories of this—is that parents who have worked in Alberta, for example, for a couple of years will finally decide to leave and go to Alberta.

Natural Resources committee  In terms of opportunity, this is the top one. We see the opportunity for everything, from expansion of our refinery to just the tax base that would come from having a pumping station from the west-to-east pipeline running through our city, as just vital factors in ensuring the viability of our community.

Natural Resources committee  You've asked several great questions. As many will know, about a year or more ago the Irving oil refinery put in place rail capacity to bring in 100,000 barrels per day of crude product from western Canada. Certainly there were conversations about the impact of that. The community consultations are really driven by the reputation and the track record of Irving Oil.

Natural Resources committee  I apologize; I don't have the exact average home price. But I can tell you that you can easily buy an average family home, a three-bedroom home, in Saint John for $200,000 or less.

Natural Resources committee  Historically what we've seen in Saint John is that when there has been some optimism for large growth, there has been some increase in property values. But generally, the property values in our city have remained relatively flat since approximately 2008. I would expect and I suspect that individual homeowners and property owners would benefit from some increase in property value, but certainly we have never experienced the kind of rapid inflation in home prices or property values that other places in Canada have seen.

Natural Resources committee  The city was originally planned to have, at this point in history, a quarter of a million people living in it, and we have 70,000 people.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The simple answer to the question, from a Saint John perspective and especially from a New Brunswick perspective, is that our unemployment rate in New Brunswick—and in Saint John specifically and across Atlantic Canada—is constantly much higher than that in the rest of Canada.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the question. Pardon me for not being able to respond completely en français. I would do disservice to your question if I tried to do that. You are certainly touching on an important point. There are social, environmental, and economic impacts to any rapid expansion of industry or of job creation.