Mr. Chair, I guess there are two questions there. I'll make a brief comment on the first. On the second, I guess I can say I'm a little surprised at this committee to get asked that question, but I'm happy to talk about climate change.
In terms of the issue...and I don't think I put it as emptying a province in favour of looking at employment solutions in other provinces, emptying one province to the benefit of another. What I am concerned about, though, is making sure we have a labour market that has the flexibility built into it, and an absence of government-sanctioned rigidity, so we can get people into the jobs they want to be in. We're not talking about forcing people to do this; we're talking about creating opportunity for people to do it, and not disincenting people from having the opportunity to go where work is.
This is not a new concept. Labour mobility is alive and well in Canada today. The question is, is there enough of it? It's alive and well in the United States. It's alive and well in many economies, and it's alive and well globally. We will rely, as Shirley just mentioned, on labour mobility from other countries, labour coming into our country to meet our labour needs over the next very few years, given the current demographic realities we face in Canada.
So our position, and my comment on the EI situation, is very much focused on the idea that what we can't have are two things. First, clearly we don't want a situation where we don't incent people to think about going where the work is today, where we have jobs begging in our own country. So rather than looking at provincial boundaries as barriers, you want to eliminate that. You want to eliminate it for credential reasons, you want to eliminate it for regulatory reasons, you want to eliminate all those boundaries that you possibly can.
What we don't do in EI is eliminate the barriers. So this pilot project I just mentioned is an example, and it's one example because it's recent. It just happened earlier this month that this trial ended. I won't get into the details of it today, unless you want to pursue it, but from the standpoint of good public policy, I would not rate that very highly.
From the standpoint of dealing with climate change and the development of green energy solutions, if I could take a minute, Mr. Chair, I'll talk about that. The chamber is very much interested in the climate change file and has been for many years, because it's so vital, not only from an environmental standpoint, but also to the economy of Canada. I think that's been our position for many years.
In terms of buying foreign credits as one example of a potential solution, that's not something that from the standpoint of the chamber.... It has been advocating for many years now that it doesn't make much sense to think about buying Russian hot air or other credits that are out there to meet our Kyoto obligations. I think what we have seen more recently is much more potential for a rational approach coming out of both the December meeting that occurred in Montreal, in terms of the most recent conference of the parties, and the follow-up to that. We're starting to think about climate change now in the right way.
I'll make two quick points.
One is that technology is the answer to deal with the issue. We need to incent more technology development in the economy.
The other is to get it right in terms of time. This is a global phenomenon that we're going to have to deal with, not just a problem that we can address in Canada. We don't have a system today under the Kyoto Protocol that allows for all the major emitters of greenhouse gas to play the significant role they're going to need to play. I think there's an opportunity with some of the new international developments that are occurring for us to participate in them from a Canadian perspective. I would look forward to our role in that.
I'll stop there, Mr. Chair.