I will be talking in French, so I encourage you to use the translation if you don't understand French.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to meet with our committee. I can appreciate how very frustrating it must be for you to have only five minutes to make your point, but you have to understand that it is equally frustrating for committee members to have so little time to put questions to witnesses.
I'd like to discuss the subject of climate change with you. More than likely, there are two or three organizations here who could speak to this topic. When discussion arose in the House about meeting Kyoto targets, the Minister of the Environment stated that meeting our commitments would be far too costly, that Canada did not have the means to meet its targets, that it would lead to economic disaster, that it would spell the demise of the transportation industry, and so on and so forth. I found it all rather amusing, this coming from the Conservatives who are a sympathetic lot and always manage to make MPs smile a little.
What's not funny, however, is thinking about the rather devastating impact of climate change in the North, where the initial effects are now being felt. My question is for Ms. Baltgailis from the Yukon Conservation Society. However, it is also directed to the representatives of the Yukon Tourism Industry Association and the Yukon Council of First Nations.
Does global warming have some concrete repercussions for northern communities, from both a social and an economic standpoint, and if so, will the impact be so significant to warrant action?