Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us this afternoon.
I just want to build on some comments that you made earlier, Mr. Christie, when it came to the inclusion of the carbon tax. What we see is that it's included in this free trade agreement, but we can't find it in any other free trade agreement, be it CUSMA, the CPTPP or CETA, for example.
The idea for its inclusion must have been from a government mandate to have these provisions put in. We're looking at article 13.10, which deals specifically with climate change. Specifically, not only does paragraph 8(h) talk about the carbon tax and “carbon leakage”, but, earlier, paragraph 8(d) talks about the “rapid transition from unabated coal power to clean energy sources”.
If we're going to put in a provision such as 8(h), would you not think that the government would then talk about provisions and put in discussions about energy sources and energy security, so that both nations can work to assist Ukraine to move to the clean energy sources it has? Was it the mandate of the government that it did not want to see that included in this agreement?