Let me start at the beginning of your intervention, and you won't be surprised if I disagree wholeheartedly with your characterization. After 13 years of Liberal lip service to climate change and international remediation efforts, our government stands in stark contrast in the actions we have taken and the commitment we have made and continue to make.
With regard to your characterization that the 65-megatonne reduction is all that will happen between now and 2020, I would return to the fact that we have started with the transportation sector. Last year it was with automobiles and light trucks, and with renewable fuels to gasoline and to diesel. I'm about to bring in new regulations for heavy trucks on the road. Eventually--in the not-too-distant future, not too many months down the road--there will be regulations for off-road new heavy vehicles.
With regard to vehicle greenhouse gas reduction and emission controls, the first round will end in 2014 for automobiles and light trucks. There will be even more stringent requirements in those last five years. But if you take a look at that 65 megatonnes, that is what is now forecast to be achieved by 2020. That does not take into account the significant reductions that we will achieve in the coal-fired electricity generating sector, in other heavy emitting sectors, or the reduction, for example, of private and commercial and governmental residences across the country, which are in themselves large contributors to greenhouse gases and where remedial action is taking place and will take place.
The “retire your ride” program was a largely successful program, which was not intended, as some have suggested, as a stimulus to the automotive industry but as an environmental targeted program to reduce the number of pre-1995 polluting vehicles on the road. In that sense, the retire your ride program provided a modest incentive, $300, which was enough of an incentive to remove more than 126,000 vehicles from the road, and prevent the emission of some 4,000 tonnes of noxious fumes into the atmosphere. Newer vehicles of course meet higher standards now, and will meet even higher standards under our new regulations, and there are incentives from a number of quarters to move to electrical vehicles. I've talked to some of the scientists in my department, as well as to those in Hydro-Québec, which, for example, has a world-leading initiative in lithium battery storage, for more efficient storage of electricity, which will enable and encourage the auto sector to move into that area.
A couple of weeks ago I met with ambassadors from the United States and Canada, who met with the automotive sector, with the major manufacturers here in Canada, who are themselves committed to cleaner and leaner vehicles, including all hybrids and electrical vehicles. We are already considering the sorts of common standards that will be required for the charging and the electrical standards to be met by those vehicles.