Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will try not to take as much time as the member who introduced the amendment.
This type of amendment has been a long time coming. Canadians have been waiting for an international greenhouse gas emissions trading system. Business people, environmentalists and investors have been anxious to have this type of system in place. The Montreal Stock Exchange has already signed a derivative products agreement with the Chicago Stock Exchange.
We have everything we need, and all of the stakeholders are ready to commit to a greenhouse gas emissions trading system. It is interesting to note that the motion ties the greenhouse gas emissions trading system to international systems as provided for in paragraph 94.1(2)(c). This would give our companies access to foreign markets. Already, Europe has estimated the potential of a future hot air credit market at $70 billion. This motion would allow our companies to have access to foreign markets while, at the same time, allowing us to meet our Kyoto objectives and as I said earlier, it would minimize the implementation costs.
The European estimate of the impact of applying Kyoto is 0.1%, precisely because the carbon market represents a powerful tool to meet the Kyoto objectives while minimizing the financial impact on the economy.
The government will probably also be happy with paragraph 94.1(3)(a), which would prohibit the use of hot air credits designated by the regulation to reduce individual carbon deficits of large industrial emitters. This week, when the minister appeared before the committee, he accused the opposition of wanting to buy foreign hot air credits. In my opinion, the amendment shows that it is not and has never been the intention of the opposition to use these hot air credits to reduce the carbon deficit.
Through this amendment, we will ensure that not more than 25% of the individual carbon deficit of a large industrial emitter is offset by using credits from foreign and international greenhouse gas emissions trading systems. So, through this amendment, large industrial emitters will have to put mechanisms in place to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at source.
I think that this bank, where companies and large emitters can open an account, will ensure that companies will not have to go abroad to meet their carbon deficit requirements, but, from time to time, they will also have to ensure that they reduce greenhouse gas emissions at source, by, of course, using available technologies. The large industrial emitters told us that they didn't have the funding that they needed. So we are creating an account, or a fund, that they will be able to use to a limited extent, for the purposes of the carbon market, to deal with the carbon deficit, while ensuring that there will be reductions at the source.