Let me take those in sequence.
Let me begin with the fact that we accept the NDP's friendly amendment.
Secondly, the question raised by Mr. Cullen about how this would fit in with a cap and trade system is answered to a degree in our amendment L-20, which anticipates the creation of a greenhouse gas emissions trading system. Obviously, by setting a price for the carbon budget, you are in effect putting in place a cap. It is anticipated in L-20 that a company may choose to participate in a carbon emissions scheme so that it reduces the amount of money it would have to invest in the green investment bank. In other words, the first thing it might wish to do is some domestic carbon trading or some domestic offsets. It's only after it has done that that it will move into the position where it might be liable to make some of these investments in the green investment bank.
Regarding the question about the two-year period, it is simply that during that two-year period the company would have to designate how it was proposing to spend the money on its investment. It would not have to have completed the investment or to necessarily have made the investment. It just has to say what it intends to allocate—I think the word is “allocate”—to an approved project.
Mr. Jean asked about the 80%. Quite simply, the criticism has often been raised in various parts of the country that there would be a wholesale transfer of money from one part of the country, by whatever mechanism, to another part. We recognize that that was a valid criticism, and in order to allay that criticism, we would want money reinvested in the province of origin, in anticipation of the argument that one part of the country was financing the rest of the country. That would seem unfair to that part of the country. So we anticipated that.
The final argument was made by the parliamentary secretary, who described this as a “carbon tax” and a “tax grab” and “buying your way out”. I don't understand how the principle of what we're doing here varies in any way from what Premier Stelmach himself has proposed in the province of Alberta.
So every criticism you make of this plan, that Mr. Warawa makes of the plan, could equally be applied to Premier Stelmach. What we're talking about here is not the principle, but the degree. So I would caution him, in his criticism, to take that into consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.