It seems to me we're giving money to a province that is admittedly going to work against federal targets. If you read Geoffrey Simpson in The Globe and Mail of March 22, he says we should do the math, that it's impossible, that the federal government cannot reach its national greenhouse gas reduction targets with the plan Alberta has in place now. He says that Alberta accounts for 35% of Canada's emissions. Premier Ed Stelmach's government plans to allow emissions to increase by 15% to 20% to 2020.
If the largest polluting province's emissions are rising, the rest of the country can't take that many emissions out of the economy to reach the Harper target. You must be aware of this as officials. Is the minister aware of this?