Thank you very much to all the witnesses. Those were very interesting presentations.
If I were to try to summarize the purposes of the bill we're looking at today, I think, first of all, it is attempting to focus on short-term targets, and it also focuses on the issue of...if your first targets don't work, that doesn't mean you throw out the targets; you try to establish another target.
Secondly, it deals, again in the spirit of the Commissioner of the Environment's recommendations, with accountability. How do you link what your efforts are with what the results are?
Thirdly, it recognizes that we have to be part of an international solution. Unless we're talking to each other about what we mean and working on common solutions.... We can't go it alone.
I was very much struck by Professor Jaccard's unmistakable message that very strong policies have to start immediately.
In fact, if I may quote Professor Jaccard from an article that appeared in the Calgary Herald on October 7, I think you said, sir:
You have to start immediately, and then over four or five decades we might make it. If Stephen Harper says 'I'm going to start a two-year dialogue process to discuss policy,' then he is a traitor to this issue.
I guess what I'd like to know--I hope it's true--in terms of starting tomorrow with a regulatory regime, is what is the connection between starting tomorrow and issues of short-term target setting, accountability when we start tomorrow, and playing our part in an international process?