Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests for taking the time to be here today.
I actually wanted to start on the issue of energy, the environment, and the economy. It's a different triple-e than the one we're used to hearing around here. I think it's one that is welcome. Certainly if you look at the approach that we put forward—not in this past election, but in the election before, and the election before that—it was one that looked at the environment and embraced the idea of a cap and trade system.
I'll be posing my question to you, Mr. Plourde, to start.
The reasons we put forward the cap and trade model for the environment were threefold. One, it was being used in Europe, though we're still working out some of the kinks. Secondly, it acknowledges the nature of the problem of climate change, which doesn't have passports, as you are dealing with a continent. The third one was that when you're looking at greenhouse gas emissions and at how you deal with climate change, it seemed to us that there was a similar phenomenon before between Canada and the U.S., and that was the one dealing with acid rain. When you put hard caps on acid rain and you say, “This is it; if you don't meet this threshold, then we'll fine you....” Of course, we know what happened in due course.
I must say, it was through a lot of political pressure. I remember standing outside as a university student protesting against Bill Davis at the time, saying he should do something about acid rain. It wasn't something they embraced. At first they said, “Go away and leave us alone.” Businesses didn't really embrace it initially either. They said, “You're going to bankrupt us.” That's why we looked at cap and trade, because it makes sense.
We're now facing a bit of a dilemma. With all due respect to the success of the trip—and I agree with the comments made about Mr. Obama being here, and the fact that it was his first visit and was good news—the problem I'm finding is that we're a little bit behind in embracing this.
I wanted your take on this, because I read your comments here. You think it is right to have a continental approach, but when it comes to a cap and trade system, if you think that's the way to go—and certainly that's the direction we're going—what are the component parts that we need to catch up on, number one?
Number two, who should be leading this within government? Maybe you don't have an opinion on this, and I appreciate it if you don't. What department should lead? Or is there a model you can put forward that indicates it's maybe not a departmental approach?