Thank you for that clear answer.
Since these rounds go so quickly, I'm going to start on another issue I would like to discuss with you. It might seem a bit far from the immediate subject of the economy, but I think you might be convinced that it has something to do with the value of the Canadian dollar. There's a basic principle of sustainable development that's called “the internalization of costs”. When you want people to understand it, you tell them that the extra $3 they pay on a tire is fair if the cost of recycling that tire is about $3 and that the people who drive cars should pay that $3 rather than have it come out of general tax revenues. That's a basic principle of sustainable development.
With regard to the tar sands--or to please our friends from Alberta, the oil sands--there's an argument that could be made that we're not internalizing the entire cost in what is being sold, both environmentally and to future generations. That influx of dollars that has not been pared down by the internalization of cost is one of the drivers for the increased value of our loonie, which of course is having the side effect of making our exports even more difficult, and hurting the manufacturing and forestry sectors even further.
Is it part of your job, under the division of labour you described to us earlier, to look at these issues? I think it is. Even though the subject of the oil sands might seem a bit far from your normal day-to-day preoccupations, I honestly believe that if we're going to take a sustainable development approach--in other words, every time the government has a decision to make, to look at the environmental, social, and of course economic aspects to determine what course of action is best to take....
Right now we're spending $60 billion extra this year on the backs of future generations, but we're not leaving them anything in terms of a sustainable green renewable energy future, as we could have done with that money, and as the Americans are doing. We're leaving them an inheritance, a succession that will require them to spend even more to clean it up.
I would like you to talk bit about that notion of sustainable development, internalization of costs, and the oil sands as one of the drivers of the higher Canadian dollar, and whether under your division of labour it's part of your reflection.