Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister.
Mr. Minister, the Minister of Finance has stood up to the oil and gas companies, as you mentioned, with regard to income trusts.
As Minister of Natural Resources Canada, do you intend to do your best so that the 100 per cent accelerated capital cost allowance tax incentive given to the oil and gas companies that are developing the oil sands is removed? This would help unlock some fiscal flexibility that could be invested in various ways in the renewable energy sector.
Don't you think that this incentive, which was implemented at a time when the sector probably needed it, is no longer appropriate, and that this measure, given the current cost of the barrel of oil, is a tax incentive that is very costly for Quebec and Canadian taxpayers? Don't you think that it's time for this preferential treatment to end, and for you to use your fiscal flexibility to invest more money in the renewable energy sector? For example, the forest industry wants to produce biomass and is facing a 50 per cent accelerated capital cost allowance, as for wind energy.
Mr. Minister, I think that the taxpayers from Quebec and across Canada who are watching us on television, have every right to wonder why your government is giving these oil and gas companies preferential treatment.
My second question is about the WPPI program. I've asked some questions to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. I was told that the program had been suspended, frozen, put on the back burner, that you were reviewing it, and that maybe, one day, it might be reinstated.
There are repercussions; you've seen them, as I have, or you may have read about them in the papers. Among others, one particular case in the Gaspé Peninsula has been going on for a year, and I will name one Gaspesian company, 3Ci. Murdochville was a single-industry mining town that has readjusted by creating jobs in windmill parks. According to this company:
This is an emergency. We have been waiting for nearly a year for a signal from Ottawa to continue the Wind Power Production Incentive Program. In our project preparation plan at 3Ci, we were supposed to be ready to go in the fall. It's now early November. Winter is on its way (...) If the program is not extended, it will imply a major overhaul of the third project's financing package.
Mr. Minister, our jobs and our economic environment are uncertain. The Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, which is a region that needs to be revitalized, is a perfect example. Can you please tell me why you are delaying the re-establishment of the WPPI program? So I am asking you to tell the members of Parliament here when you plan on reinstating it.