One minute?
First, I'm glad that Mr. Martin has graduated from my “employee“ to my “official”. I'm sure he'll continue that upward trajectory.
Reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere is largely about coal; 41% of the carbon in the atmosphere came from burning coal. Canada actually burns much less coal than anybody else. One of the achievements we have as a country is that 73% of our electricity stock is non-emitting. This is a Canadian achievement about which not enough is said. To be clear, a lot of credit goes to those provinces that have developed extensive hydro and nuclear systems.
All in all, some provinces are still very dependent on coal. In our country, about 16% of our electricity system is dependent on coal burning--in contrast, I would emphasize, to the United States, where over 50% of their electricity stock continues to burn coal.
If one examines the capital stock in the Canadian electricity sector—I'll close with this, Mr. Chairman—you will find that many of the existing coal-burning units reach the end of their useful life in the time around 2020 to 2025. This provides a public policy opportunity for Canada to continue to clean up our electricity system, I hope to achieve a 90% non-emitting status.