Hon. Paula Simons: Minister, in January, the Parliamentary Budget Officer tabled a report that examined the probable cost of cleaning up orphan wells in Western Canada and whether the government had allotted enough funds for the cleanup. The PBO found that $556 million in federal funds had been allocated to Alberta but that those funds had gone primarily to 10 large oil and gas companies, all of which were quite solvent and able to do their own cleanup. In fact, almost one fifth of the monies — more than $102 million — went to one oil giant, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, a company that just posted net earnings of $7.7 billion and dividends of $2.2 billion.

I asked the Parliamentary Budget Office whether the subsidy had led to the accelerated cleanup of any inactive wells, and the answer appeared to be that no one knew. Then I asked whether any of that $556 million had actually gone to cleaning up orphan wells, and I was told that not one single orphan well in Alberta had been cleaned up with this grant money.

I will ask you what I asked Senator Gold the other day: What exactly did we get for the $102.5 million we gave to CNRL?