Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations today. We've heard over the last several weeks various presentations from experts like you. If I may, I'd like to summarize some of the highlights.
First, with some embarrassment or at least bemusement as a Canadian citizen, I learned that with respect to solar energy, the village of Gleisdorf in Austria, 35,000 strong, has as much solar capacity as all of Canada. We're way behind, it seems, with respect to solar.
I was also surprised at the amount of revenue generated for oil companies in Alberta. Billions and billions of dollars--a surprising amount.
Last, and I guess most relevant for our purposes today, I am concerned that seemingly nothing done or nothing proposed by government to date is seriously tackling the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.
I'm triggered to comment on that, Dr. Keith, by your presentation particularly. I'll just parse together snippets of what you said earlier:
Tools to manage CO2 emission from the oil sands are available today....Canada had an early lead in CO2 capture and storage technologies. In my judgment, we have now lost that lead, and without decisive action, we will soon lose any chance to regain it. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the U.S. wind power program.
Perhaps this has already been asked in a somewhat different fashion, but Mr. Henuset talked about a tax on carbon. Can I ask each of you, if there were one single decisive step the federal government should take as soon as possible, what would that significant step be?