Thank you, Minister, for being here.
I want to read from the proposed offset credit regulations that were released last week. It says, “Several provincial governments...are in the process of establishing...offset systems to support their carbon pollution pricing programs.... The federal offset system is intended to complement these systems.” It gives the example of Saskatchewan.
In Saskatchewan, agriculture is obviously foundational to our province. It seems like the regulations establish time periods of 30 years for forestry products, 20 years for other biological projects and eight years for other projects. Under this framework a crop has to be in the ground for 20 years to claim a carbon credit. Of course, that's impossible if a crop has a four- to six-month turnaround time.
How do you say, on one hand, that this is part of the pan-Canadian framework and recognize the offset system that Saskatchewan is putting place, and on the other hand not recognize agricultural crops?