Thank you.
I sat and listened to Mr. Leslie across the way while he debated this very motion, and I would expect that the same respect be given to me. You can clip me later and misinterpret what I say all you want, Mr. Leslie, as is your wont, but I would hope that you would listen to what Ms. Collins said and try to be honest and truthful when you clip people and not put words in their mouths.
This is a very important issue. We have this forum coming up for two days. As my colleague Madame Chatel said, there are going to be thousands of people here in Ottawa for this. Canadians are concerned.
We were interrupted many times in this study that Madame Pauzé put forward, by Conservative motions and by other things that came up that they deemed to be more important when we had witnesses sitting here.
I don't think it's unreasonable to put forward a letter like this. We have a number of reasons. I mentioned affordability as one of them, but there are others.
We know right now that our financial institutions fund the main source of climate disruption. Again, words can be put in my mouth, but I think what we all are interested in here is bringing down pollution from the oil and gas sector, not ending it. We want to see a Canadian economy that's vibrant. We want to see power generated in a way that is sustainable, and we want to see a transition in Canada to those things. I don't think that means shutting down our energy sector; it just means transitioning. This is what we have to do. The rest of the world is moving in this direction.
I know sometimes it's hard for people to leave the past and look forward, especially when they're regressive, but there are ways of moving forward, transitioning and keeping our economy going. We've shown that over the last few years. We have to stop clinging to the past and hoping that the climate crisis will go away or that the rest of the world will ignore what we're doing in Canada and start taking action. Sending a letter now to the Minister of Environment is one way we can do that. Let's move forward. The rest of the recommendations will come.
I agree with everything that was said about our clerks. They do an excellent job. We can have that report done. It will supplement what's already been sent, and we can definitely incorporate much more of the witness testimony that we had. We had some great witnesses come forward. Some were perhaps dabblers or TikTok experts, but we also had some credible witnesses come forward who based their comments on science and fact. I think we need to look at those to see what else we can do.
Our competitive position is at risk right now. We're jeopardizing it by dragging our feet on major climate-related financial policies. For anybody who says that they're worried about our economy and moving forward, this should be of great concern.
We need to ensure that Canada is not left behind and that investors feel that they can continue to invest in Canada knowing that their money is going into projects, companies and funds that are transparent about what they are doing and are telling the truth. We need this. We need the regulation that will future-proof our economy.
I do feel, Madame Pauzé, that having a letter go out now followed by a full report that we can also debate is a good way to move forward on this. Once again, thank you for putting this forward.
I would just say that there are many reasons. When it comes to emergencies, I would say that the climate crisis is more of an emergency than scheduling meetings, so I'd hope that you would give it the same urgency that you did to other things.
Thank you.