Is it better to buy an etf acknowledging the MER, because you want a specific stock or just pay the conversion fee to get the us stocks?

Would it be better to let’s say buy $ISHARES S&P/TSX CAPPED ENRG IND ETF UNIT (XEG.CA)$ , because I want to buy $Clean Teq Water Ltd (CNQ.AU)$ , and XEG has a holding of 24.5% of CNQ. Or pay the conversion fees to get the desired stocks? Thanks!