Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the invitation to speak today about our Trans Mountain expansion project.

Today, I represent the employees and contractors of Trans Mountain, as well as the 35,000 Canadians who worked on the project over the last decade.

The original Trans Mountain pipeline, line 1, along with the expansion project, comprises one of the most important, nation-building pieces of infrastructure in Canada. The pipeline was built to conform to the high standards of Canada. While appropriate, those standards at times were difficult.

When the Trans Mountain project was first proposed, there were three fundamental things we were trying to accomplish. The first was to provide greater pipeline capacity out of the producing region in western Canada. The second was to provide enhanced access to markets for Canadian production. The third was to increase the price realized by Canadians for their crude oil.

Let me move to the performance of the system since the expansion began its operation in May. In the five months since we began operation in May, the pipeline has performed very well. We're very happy with it, and it is meeting the three objectives I just talked about.

The system's nominal capacity has increased from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels a day. The system is performing very consistently. We expect volumes to increase here in the fourth quarter, and more importantly, to increase over the next couple of years in stages. The system will be full, we think, by 2028.

So far, the markets that are being accessed by Canadian oil are as follows: the west coast of the United States, Korea, India, Japan and China. As a reminder, Trans Mountain is the only sovereign pipeline route to the Pacific Rim and the markets that are attached to it.

As a reminder as well, 80% of the pipeline's capacity is contracted under long-term contracts. In most instances, they are approaching 20 years and undertaken by some of the best companies in Canada and other global players.

Over my nearly 40-year career in the pipeline space, Canada has sold its oil into the markets at a discount. This has been a substantial transfer of wealth from Canada to other countries, especially the United States. With the start-up of the expansion, the discount on Canadian crude oil has improved. When you look at the fourth-quarter differential now versus what it has been historically and what it would normally be, it's about $10 a barrel better. That's a substantial increase in wealth for Canada—greater tax revenue, greater royalties—and it helps all levels of government.

I also want to highlight the benefit of Trans Mountain in terms of the construction jobs. My colleagues on either side have talked a little about this already. We prioritized hiring Canadian resources wherever possible.

Over its duration, 35,000 people worked on this project. About 10% of those were indigenous—3,500 people. Much of the construction work was undertaken by either indigenous companies or indigenous partnerships for about 20% of the contract value, or just north of $6 billion.

We also took great care with respect to the execution of this project, especially as it relates to the indigenous heritage resources that were encountered during construction. In total, our engagement involved over 140 nations or indigenous groups. We're very proud of that.

We facilitated the investment of more than $150 million of capital in the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, hereafter called WCMRC, which resulted in six new bases being developed, 43 new vessels, new equipment and more than 100 emergency responders basically being added to WCMRC's resources. What this means is that it halved the response time to an incident and doubled the resources available to respond to any incident in the harbour. That benefits every ship that transits, not just oil tankers—container ships, cargo ships, cruise ships, etc.

I'll switch gears. There have been comments about writedowns in value and toll levels in these hearings. I suspect we'll get into that in the Q and A. In my time in the pipeline sector, there's one thing that has really stuck with me, and that is the importance of being both a disciplined buyer and a disciplined seller. When the time is right, Canada can sell. The outcome that they should expect is the recovery of the taxpayer's capital. That's the only thing the Trans Mountain leadership team is interested in—that the taxpayer gets back their value.

Briefly, I want to talk about the company's ESG commitments. We are a believer in the net-zero target by 2050. Trans Mountain will work to achieve that outcome.

In closing, I want to comment on Trans Mountain again. Trans Mountain increases the access to world markets for responsibly produced Canadian oil at a competitive toll. We do it in a way that puts safety, the environment and the public at the forefront. This project was worth the cost, and it will continue to demonstrate its benefits to Canadians for decades to come.

We appreciate the opportunity to speak to this group today and welcome the questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.