My point is that it's nice the government has asked us to comment on this, as it has asked the entire public to comment on it. That's fine. I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't hear about this thing on the doorstep once. We could go out knocking on doors this afternoon and find out yet again no one knows what this thing is. Many people working in government don't know what it is, and that's a problem that we should identify and fix, absolutely. Wonderful.
There's one central question: why don't you use it, and how would it be effective? Great. I can see a panel of witnesses, former PCO and current people leading the federal bureaucracy, who could help answer that question.
My suggestion is that the elephant walking around the room for the federal government, and for the Environment Minister...her mandate letter emphasizes and clearly states that climate change is the issue. Trying to mush that into this sustainable development review is a square peg in a round hole.
Coming out of this and saying this thing will have teeth is not a climate strategy. It is not an opportunity and a look at the economic side of things. I'm going to continue to argue that we should take on climate change this session, before the summer. The fall is an unknown beast. We will have CEPA to continue and to finish, which is great. I have no idea why we'd want to spend that kind of time on FSDS. The government can ask for it whenever it wants. The committee, being the master of its own fate, chooses how to allocate its time. I'm suggesting that a tool that has gone underutilized for three decades creates an interesting question. Why doesn't it get used? We can answer that.
I'm saying what Canadians want to know from this committee, and from this government, is what are we doing about climate change? What kinds of opportunities are out there in the clean tech sector? Why did our investment drop 50% last year while it went up globally? Those are good questions to ask that are relevant to people's lives.
I've made a suggestion in terms of timing. If the committee or chair want to refuse it, or adapt it, or whatever, that's fine. To go over it one more time, it's that we'd hear from the commissioner of the environment. We'd hear from the minister, who will also speak to the estimates. There would be five meetings on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, five on protected areas, five on clean tech and climate change, and two potentially longer meetings on the federal sustainable development strategy, with an emphasis on why no one uses this act and how we can put teeth in it.