I think your question is in part getting at the concept of co-operative federalism. As I indicated in my previous testimony, it's a shared jurisdiction. It's a challenge that affects all of us, from the individual to the community to the municipal government to territorial, provincial, federal and even international bodies. Ultimately, Canada made this commitment through initially signing the climate convention in 1992 and then adopting the more specific agreements under it, the most recent one being Paris. Just because Canada is a federal state, it can't wash its hands of the responsibility it has as a federal government to lead on the file. The two key levers that it has, regulation and pricing, have great effect. Both of those have been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, as I indicated earlier.
The federal government is not unable to act in this case. It's not the same shared jurisdiction where it has only, for example, a fiscal tool to use. It does have a regulatory tool under the criminal law power for CEPA and under the national concern power for carbon pricing. It could do more at the federal level if it were seeing that it was not getting co-operation from other levels of jurisdiction. Sure, a few years ago, we had the pan-Canadian framework, and there was more of a consensus on the need for climate action. That's preferable in a federal state like Canada, but when there isn't consensus, then the federal government does have quite a bit of room to take the lead on it. It isn't just a case that its work is at the mercy of other levels of government.