Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Yukon for his tireless work not only for the people of his constituency but also for the people of the north. He, more than just about anybody else in the House, knows full well the impact of global warming on the territory he represents. He sees it in his day to day life and he sees the impact it has upon individuals.
The point I was driving forward is that the government has a chance to think clearly and to innovate during this time of a changing financial architecture by adding energy policy and trade policy together. They can and must go together. That will require international co-operation on how we can change the WTO, how we can change the IMF and how we can ensure the WTO and the IMF work together to deal with the issues of labour rights, health care and the environment.
I want to expand upon what my friend said.
The issue of feedback loops is not something on which we can go back. These feedback loops, if they are set in motion, will cause a cascade of events that we cannot stop. The elimination of the carbon sinks, wetlands and forests and the increasing temperature, which causes the melting of the ice and the release of methane, which is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, will result in these feedback loops and we cannot turn them off.
It also has an impact upon the very countries with which we are signing a trade agreement. That will result in a change in the currents in the North Atlantic which will result in cataclysmic changes for agriculture and for the economies in the region, most of all our country and our economy.