That's a bit hard to follow up on.
I was going to speak, generally, to my support of this letter, to the work that Madame Pauzé has done and to the incredible expert witness testimony we received throughout the study.
Quickly, to follow up on Mr. Leslie's comments, this letter does not, in any way, talk about gutting public pension funds. In fact, I would like to read point three, which says, “Managers of federally regulated public pension funds, in particular the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, be required to fully disclose their investments in private equity funds.”
It's important that, at this table, we speak honestly and truthfully and we are accurate in the information we're providing to citizens. This is a very reasonable letter, and there are other pieces I would like to see in it. There are other pieces I want to see in the report. I have some pretty deep criticisms of the recent announcement the government made on the taxonomy and the fact that they're handing the decision-making over to a third party without making a firm commitment that fossil fuels won't be considered under the umbrella of sustainable finance. I would really like to see firm commitments around mandatory disclosures. I'm glad that, in this letter, it does talk a bit about transition plans and annual progress reports.
There are a number of pieces around the conflict of interest that exists when the people on fossil fuel—big oil and gas—boards sit on the same boards as our big banks. That's not outlined in the letter, but Madame Pauzé has taken a really reasonable approach to presenting a letter I hope we can all get behind, and then we'll do the work of digging into the final report.
I want to make sure that when people are listening in—there are people who tune in to our environment committee meetings—they know that not all the things Mr. Leslie just said are accurate. I encourage them to look at the motion itself.
I hope we can listen to the vast majority of the expert testimony that was presented here at committee and urge the government to move forward on sustainable finance and become a leader. Canada has been falling behind, so it is urgent that we tackle this issue. We are facing a climate emergency. We need to take every opportunity to move the needle when it comes to reducing our emissions.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.