Good morning, everyone.
I'm taking part in this consultation today as a citizen, and more particularly as a father and grandfather.
There is a fundamental choice to be made in this next budget, and that is whether to combat climate change. The budget must absolutely afford future generations, our grandchildren, a chance to live on a healthy, clean and tolerable planet. In the short term, that means a stop to partisan battles over issues like the carbon tax. You must absolutely present a budget that will enable you to say, in 10 or 20 years, that you were there and that you did what had to be done to meet the objectives in the fight against climate change. Those objectives are essential, and not only for Quebec and Canada.
I would like to make one final point: we have to stop arguing that other people elsewhere in the world aren't doing their part. If your house is on fire, you don't look to see if the person in the living room is doing his job. You reach for a fire extinguisher and put out the fire in the room you're in.