Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good evening to the witnesses, to the ladies and gentlemen in the room, and to the Canadians who might be watching.
I'd like to begin, Mr. Chair, by sharing some information with the witnesses. This is an information book that was sent to me as a parliamentarian and it is available to all Canadians. It's about Canada's Clean Air Act, the new bill that the government has put forward, which we're debating.
I've gone through the bill with a fine-toothed comb. I have looked at the backgrounders. There are two backgrounders. One backgrounder speaks about greenhouse gas emissions. One even goes as far as talking about international standards established by the International Maritime Organization, for example. Another one cites the Minister of Health, the Honourable Tony Clement; the then Minister of the Environment, the Honourable Rona Ambrose; the Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Gary Lunn; and the Honourable Lawrence Cannon, the Minister of Transport.
There's another backgrounder on why we need the Clean Air Act. There's yet another backgrounder on the need for immediate action. We just heard from you and saw a presentation that is 34 pages in length. Furthermore, the bill itself is 37 pages in length.
In all of this material—in all of these backgrounders, in the bill, in your briefing—there isn't a single reference to the Kyoto Protocol. There was no mention of the Kyoto Protocol in your presentation. There's no mention of domestic or international targets, no mention for Canadians as to when we ratified the protocol, when it entered into force, whether or not the bill addresses directly, for example, the Kyoto Protocol clean development mechanisms or the joint implementation structure in that bill.
The question I have for each of you, representing different departments, is a simple one. Have any of you been explicitly told by your departmental senior officials or your ministers not to include the Kyoto Protocol in any of your discussions about this bill?
That's my first question, Mr. Chair.