Finance committee  I'm going to say I'll agree...and I would love to have a conversation about this afterwards.

Finance committee  The coalition has always focused merely on utility-scale power. It's never been involved in renewable fuels or anything of that sort. Going back to the original question, what you're fundamentally talking about is the whole question of externalization and internalization of cost from an environmental perspective.

Finance committee  But the reality is that there has been no government who's ever had the political will to change. And until such time as everyone changes, no one will change.

Finance committee  I would submit to you that if we had a competitive environment industry in Canada, we would have technologies that we could ship to China and India or anywhere else you wanted to go.

Finance committee  No, we aren't. In fact, if I may, let me just read you something. You've heard from us as a coalition; you've heard from an industry group, CanWEA; you've heard from some environment groups. Let me read you this. It just deals with wind, but it applies to all renewables: While the rest of the world's governments plunge ahead in developing more wind energy, Canada is dithering.

Finance committee  Our industry is not strong enough today, sir, because we haven't had sufficient support by the government to make it strong and able to compete on a global scale.

Finance committee  It's been wildly successful. Indeed, leading up to last year's budget, we were lobbying the government to put more money into the pot. We knew it would run out.

Finance committee  You have to realize that the industry is made up of some large players and a lot of smaller players. For smaller players looking for financing from a bank, it's a very bankable proposition to have a piece of paper from the federal government saying they're going to give you 1¢ for each kilowatt hour you produce over 10 years.

Finance committee  Exactly.

Finance committee  Correct. It also provides certainty for the provinces who have set targets for the levels of renewables they'd like to see in their mix. Moreover, the public is more secure in their understanding of how the new mix of electricity is going to better their health and environmental outcomes.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, I just want to check, did everyone get a copy of the slides?

Finance committee  Great. Thank you. My name is Mark Rudolph, and I'm the coordinator for the Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition. With me is Tim Weis, the director of renewable energy and energy efficiency at the Pembina Institute. In the interests of time, I'm going to skip through the slides, especially the first two, just to point out a few quick things.