I asked the department early on to brief me on the opportunities for us to meet our targets and what that would mean. It would mean that we would have to shut down the majority of industry in Canada to be able to make that commitment, if we made that commitment here at home. The other opportunity would be to spend billions of dollars on international credits. Our government made a decision early on that we will not send money overseas to purchase international credits because of the increasing question around the lack of accountability for those projects and the real question of whether or not they're even achieving real reductions overseas.
I also asked the department to put together the economic costs of achieving our Kyoto targets through regulation only, which is exactly what Bill C-288 would entail. As you know, Bill C-288 does not have any monetary or funding attached to it, so it would have to be implemented through regulatory means alone. What that would entail, just to give you a specific example, is that would mean that electricity prices in British Columbia would increase by 40%, electricity prices in Ontario would increase by 65%, and natural gas prices would increase by over 300% in Alberta and over $130% in Ontario. These are the kinds of impacts of forcing the 6% target on Canada's industry today through a regulatory framework, which is exactly what Bill C-288 that was passed in the House last night entails.