Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests. It has been very compelling testimony, and I appreciate the fact that you had to combine a lot of your presentation into a short time. I understand that. We go through a lot around this table, and one day we'll actually be able to have a committee approach that will give us more time to discuss these ideas.
I want to start with solar. We believe we should go with what has worked in the recent past, and we have recently come out with a proposal to the government, which I hope it takes, and that is to go back to the ecoENERGY program and invest in it substantially, at the same time reducing the costs for those who are going to see their energy bills go up. We saw it as a balance, because right now we have consumers right across the country who are going to be paying a lot more on their hydro and heating bills. Our proposal is to reduce the amount paid for that through the HST/GST, but at the same time to bring back the ecoENERGY program.
I am interested in what I've heard around the table on multipliers. If we're going to look at investment, I want to make sure we're going to have a multiplier on our investment. The recession in 2008 wasn't just about the capital markets tumbling. We're in a transition in our economy. I'm afraid we haven't really woken up to that.
Can you share with us, if we were able to support through the government's budget, what the multiplier effect would be in terms of jobs with regard to ecoENERGY?