Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Minister.
I want to thank you for your recent willingness to come to our committee fairly often. We look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks as well for the report on plans and priorities.
I'm going to jump right in. On page 7 there's a little sidebar talking about our international reputation. It says that the federal sustainable development strategy “is helping to advance Canada's international trade agenda by providing a comprehensive expression of Canada's commitments to the environment and sustainable development to our trading partners.”
I want to ask you a question about this. I've raised this issue in the House and publicly about the damage to our international reputation, because Canada isn't being perceived as really holding up our end of the bargain on the environment. I'm thinking in particular of the fact that we no longer protect fish habitat in this country, and that we have a completely new environmental assessment regime. Perhaps the most problematic point for our international partners is the fact that we continue to subsidize the oil and gas industry with $1.3 billion per year.
Why do these oil and gas subsidies still exist, and how do they fit into the government's sustainable development strategy?