Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here. Thank you for the work you're doing. In the riding of London North Centre, which I represent in the House of Commons, 19,000 children have benefited from the CCB. That is tremendously important in a community that has struggled economically since 2008 but is now pivoting. This very program is putting money into the pockets of hard-working parents so they can go and spend.
We're seeing tremendous growth in London, with the lowest unemployment rate, now under 5%, that we've seen since 2004. Our government isn't completely responsible for that, but when people have greater purchasing power, I think it speaks volumes.
I want to ask you something different, though. I want to shift from the CCB and talk about the environment. On matters of national priority, I don't think there should be room for partisanship. We've heard my friend today engage in a very partisan attack. My interest here is to get down to the facts and to understand issues of national priority from that perspective.
When it comes to the environment.... I want to read a quote here. It comes from Preston Manning, so that's how non-partisan I am being. He said:
“Conservation” and “conservative” come from the same root.... You can't demand more out of natural systems than you are prepared to put into sustaining them. And so I argue with conservatives, let's extend the concept of living within our means financially to living within our means ecologically.... Conservatives profess to believe in markets.... So why don't conservatives major on how to harness markets to the environmental conversation, and make that their signature contribution.
All of that says to me that there is room for a reasonable dialogue among all parties on this issue.
You alluded to this today in your opening remarks, and you've spoken about it before, but can you touch on how our government's move toward putting a price on pollution actually rests on free market principles?