Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  As concerns manufacturing, let me start. The advantage to respecting Kyoto as an international agreement is that it sends a signal of earnestness and good faith to the rest of the world. If the rest of the world doesn't reduce their emissions, there's no point in reducing ours.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Tree Canada is great. We should all support it, from both sides.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Sure. Planting urban trees is like any other climate change measure. You get two types of benefits: you get the greenhouse gas reduction—in this case, very modest storage, because there are only so many trees you can fit in a city—but you get the co-benefits of green spaces, eros

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Let me add one quick word. In terms of volume, the availability of biomass as a renewable fuel is massively larger than all the others, such as wind or solar. Right now we're six times all the others combined, and we could probably double our capacity. In terms of renewable possi

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  The overall forest cover in Canada is now 91%, or what it was at the time of Champlain. We've lost 9% because of cities and farming. The rate of deforestation in Canada, according to the latest UN figures, is zero because we replant for everything we take out--usually two or thre

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Absolutely. Kyoto is an international agreement that is an instrument to address climate change, a profoundly flawed instrument, the only international instrument we have. So Kyoto was shorthand for addressing climate change. I know you guys have greater sensitivities to the wo

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I think my answer was clear: our forests are mature, and mature forests are CO2 emitters. It is not rocket science. However, there is another option. If we plant new forests, we plant trees on land that is unsuitable for agriculture, we can capture CO2.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  You haven't said that to me before.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  That's a good question. Thank you. The Canadian forest is mature. It's extremely mature. In fact, most of Canada's forests are older than nature would let them be because of fire suppression. A mature forest tends to be a net emitter rather than an absorber of carbon dioxide.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, and I thank the committee for allowing us to speak today. I know that you hear a lot of witnesses and that we must occasionally bore you, but I have to tell you that for us, it is really important to have a chance to be heard. There's really only one policy issue we'r

Finance committee  I'd like to comment on your first question, if I may.

Finance committee  Let me use my 30 seconds. It's a false dichotomy to say that we can have social values without having a competitive business climate. If you've ever gone to a mill town where we've shut the mill--

Finance committee  Please, let me finish. I just want to make it clear for the whole committee that if you ever went to a town where we've shut the mills, you'd realize that investment in Canada has a social impact beyond anything any government program can do. And a second thing--

Finance committee  Let me finish, please.

Finance committee  I'd be grateful.