chucky, your mindset is all wrong. Canadian oil assets are cheap because we don't value them like the foreigners do.  What cnooc and petronas do is return nxy and prq to their correct price point. This way, the remaining of oil and gas companies value will rise to its book value and maybe beyond, making less incentive for any future takeover.  If nxy were trading 25$ before the takeover, would u think nxy shareholder ok a $ 27.5 or a measly 10% premium? i say hell no, it won't get pass the first door.  Let the free market do its job, the solution is always better than what a gov't can come up with. We keep our oil assets cheap by suppressing takeover and merger, canada oil assets will priced incorrectly low indefinitely.  This make it hard to raise funds to develop resources. Yes, u can feel contented the oil/gas stay canadian owned underground but it is worthless if they can't be produced and sold to the consumer, and less royalty to pay for all those nice social programs