Mr. Speaker, let me thank the member for his question. It is most appropriate when the world celebrates earth day today. It is also five years since Rio.
The international community, including Canada, has come to recognize that we have to redouble our efforts if we are to keep the promise that was made five years ago in Rio with respect to stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions by 2000.
We have tried to redouble those efforts. Last December with my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, at a joint federal-provincial energy and environmental ministerial conference, 45 new
initiatives were set out with which to combat growing greenhouse gas emissions.
We are also committed to improving the voluntary challenge program. We also said in the last budget that we were prepared to put $45 million into a commercial retrofit which would reduce the energy component and make it efficient by more than 20 per cent.
Ultimately, the conference in December in Kyoto, Japan this year is very important. Canada leaves for that conference assured and confident that we can reach those stabilizations.