Thank you, Mr. Bezan.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for coming. We were advised that you would not be available. I very much appreciate you adjusting your schedule to accede to our request.
Mr. Minister, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions together, and then you can give me a fulsome reply.
Do you support the principle that federal environmental standards should be founded in science? I'd like just a yes or no to that, but I have a couple of questions that go with that.
We heard from a number of senior scientists, Canadian scientists, including scientists working for your own department. Overall, probably 100%, their testimony was that they stood by the international panel targets and the need to address those. We also heard from quite a number of scientists, including the scientist who prepared the report commissioned by the federal government, talking about the impacts we're already seeing in Canada, the impacts we may in the future see from climate change, and specific impacts to agriculture, the north, and so forth. Given that, it's all the more necessary that we stick to the international targets.
You've spoken a lot about the need to harmonize. I know this common refrain from Alberta, because I hear this all the time from the Alberta government, that they need to balance the environment and the economy. Given my first question about making sure that our standards are founded in solid science, I wonder where the environment is in these targets.
Coupled with that, as a minister of the crown and as an officer of the Government of Canada, you take your responsibilities very seriously, I know, and I appreciate that, but I wonder how you would rationalize your clear intent to violate the internationally binding targets under Kyoto. I wonder if the blockage in meeting the more necessary science-founded targets is the insistence by Alberta to stabilize at 58% above the 1990 levels.