Thank you, Chair.
I agree with Mr. Regan in terms of where this topic could go. I said earlier to some community members we had in front of us that we need to move you folks from being the exception to being the rule. That is, I think, something we need to engage in as a committee. We're looking at some of the best examples across the country of how to do this. I almost want to drag in front of us the communities that are at the other end of the scale and find out what's going on with them and what's stopping them.
I'm picking up on a few comments that were made today about the vision component. I suspect, whether it was Victoria, Okotoks, Vancouver, or Guelph, that there was some political vision involved with this, that there was some mandate given to the political leadership by the voters, or an assumed mandate, that these risks would be taken over time. You're talking about a 10- or 15-year payback or realization with people who are elected for three years and who then reach the re-election point again and again. Maybe the federal government has to slide into that place.
I want to focus in a little bit. There was a comment, and I'm trying to recall who it was from. It might have been on the Victoria side. There was a comment that having to pay for the energy and assume the carbon costs of that energy--you folks had made some commitments to Victoria--made you become more efficient, become more diligent, in the actual structures that you built. Would Canada having a price for carbon, for greenhouse gas emissions, facilitate some of the discussion that we're having here?