Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our panellists for appearing today.
Mr. Godfrey said clearly we can't go it alone. I think the government agrees with that perspective. That's why we're participating in the Kyoto dialogue and what the future looks like.
One of our panellists said we have to clean up our house first. I guess this is where I want to focus on something specific. Bill C-288, of course, the idea of enshrining Kyoto's target and timeline in law, I would submit--since we've all agreed that we can't really meet that target and timeline--makes it difficult for us to clean up our house first, at least in the short term.
I want to turn for a moment here specifically to emissions trading. I'd like some comments on the concept of emissions trading. It seems to me that in the short term, with the types of quantities, to trade emissions would lead to an exodus of capital that would be necessary for long-term investment in this country--in other words, cleaning up our house first. It would lead to sending that to other jurisdictions, including international jurisdictions, with no measurable immediate environmental impact. It's just a transfer of capital, in the short term. I'm not talking about the medium to long term.
What are your thoughts on that? Am I on the right track with that?