I have used these specific examples in the past, and I will use them again. I think it is more than just hoping that other countries will do their best. If we want to obtain genuine environmental benefits, we need to have everyone on board.
My premier is closing the coal-fired plants in Ontario. We're providing more than half a billion dollars to help them do it. We can close the Lambton coal-fired generating station in southwestern Ontario--it has four units--but if we simply import electricity from Michigan, across the river, we won't have accomplished anything. So we don't want to see any perverse environmental impact. What we could see is that we pay twice the price for imported electricity and then have Canadian manufacturing jobs simply move across the river and locate there. We won't have accomplished anything for the environment.
The growth in the Chinese economy, whether it's the steel sector or even cement.... If we simply move production from Canada and Europe to the United States or China or India, we won't have accomplished anything for the environment. That's why it's absolutely essential that we get everyone on board.
That doesn't mean that we all have to carry the same weight. We can have a common but differentiated approach by which we would recognize countries, whether it's poverty eradication, whether it's those countries with a growing population versus those.... It's exciting, the growth in the Chinese economy, but it's awfully hard to convince folks in other countries to be closing coal-fired plants while new ones are being opened there every five weeks. It simply doesn't make sense.
So what we need to do is get everyone on board. And if you have the developing world--China and India--and our major trading partner, the United States, on board, I think we'll all be able to go farther faster in terms of effort. We haven't seen that. I think that was the mistake made over the last 10 years.
If we look at the success of the Montreal Protocol, everyone acts together. National circumstances are part of that equation, and there are different timetables for different countries, which is interesting.