Thank you.
First, I would identify that we have made two recommendations regarding subsidies.
The first is about subsidies as we've committed to under the G20. We made a commitment in 2009 to reduce and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. We also have a recommendation about public finance that's provided for fossil fuels. Currently, Export Development Canada provides about $13 billion a year in public finance for fossil fuels. The report put out last year by the International Energy Agency stresses that if we're going to meet the 1.5°C target and reach our 2050 targets, we cannot provide public finance to fossil fuels any longer past this year. A key objective is that the government build on its commitments that it made in Glasgow at the United Nations climate change conference this year in terms of phasing out international public finance, but that we also phase out domestic public finance.
On the subsidy front, the term “inefficient fossil fuel subsidy” is something that crops up a lot. The reality is that this commitment was made in 2009, and the evidence in terms of how quickly we're hurtling towards a climate cliff is even clearer today. Subsidies have become mainstream. When we talk about subsidies, we can debate about the word “inefficiency”, but the reality is that even subsidies for affordable energy distort the market against clean energy.
Our recommendation essentially asks government to look at every single situation where there's forgone revenue or money being spent on fossil fuels, no matter the situation, to identify if that's actually the best use of public money.
I'll leave it there.
Thanks.