The hon. leader of the Conservative Party is heckling, but I hope he will think well of this quote, which is as follows:
We will play...our full part as the nations of the world come to grips, or try to, with the infinite complexity of climatic change. We will continue to provide leadership within the international community in the world-wide effort to develop international laws and legal principles to protect that atmosphere, the common heritage of all mankind.
That is a quote from the former prime minister of Canada. The hon. member who is heckling now actually served in his cabinet as the minister of foreign affairs year after year, yet he now apparently is disowning the position of his previous leader.
Let me comment about the science again. Of course there are dissenters in the science. That is expected. That is the way science works. And yes, one of those minority positions, because these minority positions in science differ one from the other as much as they differ with the consensus position, one of those might be right, but probability analysis tells us that the chances of the majority being wrong are about one in ten. That is a pretty conservative estimate.
That means the chances of one of the dissenting views being right, whichever one it might be, are also one in ten, so those who would have us depart from basing policy on the views of the great majority of experts in the field are essentially asking us to play Russian roulette with our children's future at nine to one odds. Those odds do not suggest to me that we should follow the advice of the Alliance Party or the leader of the Conservative Party, whatever might be said in certain areas of the business sector.
Then, of course, we have the science of another plan that is being put forward in Canada, the made in Alberta or the made in Houston and Alberta plan.
Here is a quote from the Calgary Herald of October 17:
Alberta's energy minister says climate science took a back seat during the creation of the province's global-warming action plan.
Murray Smith said the government didn't conduct any scientific studies of the potential environmental benefits--if any--of the “made-in-Alberta” plan during its formulation.
“We cannot tell you what the effect would be to the climate, either in Alberta or globally.”
“No, we never studied the effects on climate,” Smith said of the “made-in-Alberta” plan.
There is a science of the alternative plan being put forward as a substitute for the Canadian plan, the made in Canada plan, which has of course been worked on over five full years, in fact more than that, but at least five full years since Kyoto, by the provinces, the territories and the federal government, including of course the industry sectors that took part in the tables, and I would remind those who are once again--