Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's nice to see you, Mr. Prentice.
I find myself quite frustrated in the questions to put to you. While you are the minister considered to be responsible for climate change and you are the signator for a number of agreements, including the U.S.-Canada clean energy dialogue, one does not find anything in your budget related to that.
If one looks extremely closely at it with a magnifying glass, one might be able to find it in Natural Resources. Nonetheless, I'm going to ask you some questions and I'm hoping you can answer to the best of your ability. Time after time, when questions are put to you, you speak about some of these technologies, which you're proud the government is financing. Among those is carbon capture sequestration. Almost half of your government's five-year, $1 billion clean energy fund has already been allocated to three carbon sequestration projects, as far as I can tell from the budget document you've tabled. Those moneys have been gifted to one coal-fired power company in Alberta and two oil companies.
Coal-fired power remains the largest source of greenhouse gases emitted in Alberta, as far as I've looked at the figures.
Last year, Michael Martin provided the committee with Canada's climate change strategy, tabled presumably at the Copenhagen negotiations. That strategy reported that Canada is phasing out its coal-fired power industry. If that is the case, why the massive subsidy in the form of almost $1 billion for CCS? If it is not being phased out, could you also speak to the issue of how much additional money the government is planning to expend this year from that fund? More than half of it is already gone, and it's supposed to be for five years. One of the facilities--coal-fired power is being expanded in Alberta, as we sit here; two new facilities are about to be commissioned. One of those undertook that they would be commissioned on the condition that they would operate equivalent to a natural gas combined cycle, therefore substantially reducing greenhouse gases. They have now filed an application to the Government of Alberta to renege on that, seeking to amend their licence and no longer reduce to that level.
Are we putting money for naught? Why are we subsidizing the dirtiest source of electricity in Canada if it is being phased out, according to your officials?