I understand what the minister is saying, but he has been working on this long enough to know that the viability of the carbon market depends on establishing emission caps.
Without emission caps, the Canadian carbon market is compromised. This means that Montreal will probably never see its carbon exchange come to be, because the minister is irresponsible and refuses to establish binding absolute targets, and refuses to show strong leadership internationally. He is compromising not only the potential existence of a carbon exchange in Montreal and in Canada, but what is worse, he is contributing to creating uncertainty, undermining confidence and compromising the strongest tool we have available, a tool that was established through significant compromise.
Environmentalists were naturally not very keen on a carbon market, but we succeeded in setting it up because we made compromises. Is the minister aware that the government is jeopardizing, one by one, all the tools and instruments that were set up under the Kyoto Protocol, the carbon market and the clean development mechanism, all because the government is being stubborn and believes Kyoto is a mistake?