Ah, is that what it is? Okay.
Mr. Poilievre says that the concept of sustainable finance is “vague”. Admittedly, it is a relatively new concept in economic circles and other circles, including policy-making circles, but it has been defined. It's been defined by the expert panel on sustainable finance. They define it as “capital flows, risk management and financial processes that assimilate environmental and social factors as a means of promoting sustainable economic growth and the long-term stability of the financial system”.
There's a lot of policy wonk talk there, but I think we can understand it as a view that takes the economy seriously. It looks at how an economy can function in an era when sustainability has been brought up as a major concern, not just in Canada but beyond. We should embrace the policy language sometimes, because if we look at it seriously, there is a lot to it.
Beyond that, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada—not a very radical organization by any means—is very interested in subjects like this. The definition I read actually came from their website. They cited the expert panel on sustainable finance. I know that my friends in the Conservative Party take the CPA very seriously and take the accounting profession very seriously, and even the accountants are calling on us to look into these matters.
When the Insurance Bureau came here, they raised in their testimony some matters around risk. We can link risk to environmental risk, and we can link environmental risk to economic risk. The CPA says this: “Sustainability is a priority area for CPA Canada and CPAs in all sectors play a crucial role in integrating environmental and social factors into financial decision-making to promote sustainable long-term economic growth.”
The point is that there is a view on sustainable finance. It has been raised by environmentalists. It has been raised by the business community. It has been raised by the insurance community and even by accountants. I think we can find, as a committee here, that it engages the business community. It engages the environmental community, activists and otherwise, and those of us in the moderate middle who think to look at both sides. I think there is something to be said for looking at this in a study.
The other thing is that Mr. Poilievre wants to do a study on, as he puts it, “corporate welfare”. Well, I wonder what period he'd like to look at. I know that he has brought up points against the government and our record, or what he deems to be our record. Before I am accused of bias, the following that I'm about to read, Mr. Chair, comes from the Fraser Institute. It's an article from 2013, entitled “The Harper government's crony capitalism”. I will read this from the Fraser Institute:
You might think the federal Conservatives, who added $125-billion to the federal debt since 2008 and will add another $21-billion by the end of March, might be shy about unnecessary expenditures. Alas, that's not the case, as it appears Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his colleagues would rather hand out cash to corporate Canada instead.
In just the first two weeks of January [2013], the prime minister announced another $250-million for the Automotive Innovation Fund—a federal subsidy program that provides the auto sector with taxpayer cash for research and development.
Then the prime minister announced $400-million for venture capital, mystifying those of us who thought it was fine to let private-sector angel investors risk their own cash, not that of taxpayers, on high-risk start-ups.
I won't continue to read from the Fraser Institute report, Mr. Chair, but I think you take the point, which is that if the Conservatives want to look at what they deem to be corporate welfare, then I think we ought to put it to them that we can look at corporate welfare from a variety of perspectives in a variety of time periods.
Let's be serious as a finance committee: What are we here to do? We have a climate emergency that has galvanized discussion across the world and certainly in this country. We have a responsibility to come up with recommendations for the Government of Canada on how we can move forward meaningfully in economic terms in a way that respects the fact that sustainability is a real challenge in this country. I think this motion speaks to that very need.