Thank you. Good afternoon.
As a bit of context, I run a small business here in Toronto. We provide services to a utility sector here in Canada and in the United States. We work with Manitoba Hydro and B.C. Hydro. We have 30 utilities in Ontario and in the United States developing conservation-demand management programs, and we also do consulting for large corporations such as Home Depot, General Motors, Winners, and HomeSense. I employ, on a full-time basis, about 40 people here in Toronto and another 300 contractors across the country.
Formerly, before running my own business, I used to work with Pollution Probe.
I will just turn it over to the committee. My comments would parallel those of Pierre Marc. My role when in Bali was to provide advice to the minister. We were given daily access to the minister. We usually had an hour-long briefing meeting in the morning. I attended bilateral meetings with the minister and his staff whereby we'd hear positions from other countries and share Canada's position. Along with my other advisers, I had the chance to meet with our negotiators. I would comment on how proud I was as a Canadian to see the dedication, the expertise, and the passion that our negotiators had on this issue. Matt Jones and Jennifer Kerr, in particular, and Ian Shugart and David McGovern were very impressive and dedicated people who worked extremely long hours over there.
I attended many of the sessions, when I wasn't in bilateral meetings, looking at policy development and related processes that would inform Canada's position. I attended evening sessions that were either hosted by other countries or were put on by not-for-profit organizations. I did reach out a number of times to environmental groups that were attending from Canada to seek their counsel and advice and bring that back to the minister and his staff. I tried to make myself, along with our other advisers, available to both the negotiators and political staff on an as-needed basis and I participated and contributed my expertise wherever possible.