Thank you.
So, Chair, I'm looking at the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, and, again, this is our guidance. We have Marleau and Montpetit for process and the Standing Orders.
The Standing Orders, on page 90, say
In a standing, special or legislative committee...
—and this is a legislative committee—
...the Standing Orders shall apply so far as may be applicable, except the Standing Orders as to the election of a Speaker, seconding of motions, limiting the number of times of speaking and the length of speeches.
Chair, that's what I have brought: the Standing Orders and Marleau and Montpetit. The point of privilege I'm speaking to is the privilege that was taken away from me to speak on a very important topic, the freedom to speak on the environment.
Chair, as I in all sincerity shared what the commissioner was recommending to Parliament—many of us have met with the commissioner, many of us have listened intently to her previous critique, and I believe Thursday of this week the commissioner will be providing a new critique—there has been a legacy of inaction.
We heard from one of the witnesses, and it was a very concerning comment. This was from the advisors to the government at the Bali conference—no, I'm sorry, it was one of the witness groups. We heard that Canada has been embarrassed over the last 10 or 15 years by inaction of government and a lot of promises made, a lot of proclamations made. The commissioner has recommended some really clear guidelines that we go from rhetoric to action.
She, at that time, gave us a very, very clear recommendation of how important it is to conduct the economic, the social, the environmental, and risk analyses, the impact analysis, of any legislation that would guide Canada or that would even bind Canada, Chair, and I wasn't given the opportunity to share that. I was cut off.
That point of privilege I'm making is that it's important that we give everyone on this committee an opportunity to present what they believe is really important on Bill C-377, because that's the topic.
Regarding Bill C-377, as we have it before us today, Chair, we had a number of quotations from a number of people who raised concern.
Ms. Vicki Pollard was one of those, and she said,
Our own analysis shows that investing in a low-carbon economy would reduce global GDP growth by 0.19% per year up to 2030.
That is just a fraction of the expected projected annual GDP growth rate, which is 2.8%. It is 0.19% related to 2.8%, and this is without taking into account the associated health benefits, greater energy efficiency and security, and reduced damage from avoiding climate change.
Mr. James Hughes went on to share—