Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses, both here and abroad.
One of the issues we have been dealing with and discussing, and which certainly has been brought up by Sir Nicholas Stern and others, is the cost of not doing anything. And a lot of what we're discussing here are real costs, and that's what we're grappling with.
I'm going to turn my question to you, Mr. Bertrand, and I want to ask you about the costs of not acting. We've heard different numbers around that.
Yesterday we heard that Governor Schwarzenegger announced--and I think we heard it in one of the testimonies--that five western U.S. states were signing on to an MOU for a regional cap-and-trade system. And we also have the carbon exchanges that are already up and running. We've heard about Europe and London. And we're hearing that the U.S. government is moving.
I'd like to hear from you, your perspective on the cost to Canada and what Canada and Canadian companies stand to lose if we are left behind. In other words, if we don't engage in this system that's emerging everywhere else, both in North America and in Europe and indeed around the world, what's the cost to us?