Mr. Barbe, before going any further, I would like to mention that there is a direct connection with what you do. I'll tell you why. This is about taxation. The committee is studying taxation and corporate financing, as well as the choices financial institutions have to make. Canada needs to adopt environmental policies, but we still need to know how to ensure that those policies are effective.
However, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development tells us in his report that the targets and figures provided are due, not to measures taken by governments, but to changes in calculation methods. That's where the problem lies.
No one is against virtue. We all want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, but we have to take the right approach. That said, we feel that the approach taken over the past nine years is not the right one, as the commissioner's report shows. It states that the reason some people think things are going better is the change in the calculation method. That's not exactly the right approach.
Mr. Barbe, I also want to talk to you about transparency and disclosure of information. That concerns the department as a whole. The commissioner wrote, “This lack of transparency meant that accountabilities for reducing emissions remained unclear.” Elsewhere in the report, he stated, “The federal government had not established a consistent government-wide approach to assess value for money for all types of emissions reduction measures.”
How is it that after nine years, the government has not been able to transparently and consistently tell Canadians the truth about reducing greenhouse gas emissions?