Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to thank everyone for coming this morning.
One thing I'm very pleased to hear about with respect to the discussion this morning is that there is a clear understanding that the environment, energy, and the economy cannot be treated independently, that they're strongly linked. That's very important, because that's taking place now in the public domain in terms of educating people. When we talk about the environment, it's not simply to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is a connection to our energy mix, which connects to our economy as well. And that was interwoven in everyone's comments, which was encouraging to hear.
My questions pertain to some of the comments made by our earlier witness, Mr. Whittaker. He's a representative from the Canadian Wind Energy Association and he indicated that in his discussions with the department and the minister's office he heard very loud and clear that there is a change in direction. Post March 2011 no new projects will be accepted for the ecoENERGY program, and the government is moving toward regulation and carbon capture and storage to deal with some of the initiatives we discussed this morning.
I want to speak specifically to how this will impact the solar industry, because I know from your remarks that this change in the government's direction, especially when the ecoENERGY program and the fact that there will be no new projects post March 2011.... How will this impact the solar industry in terms of jobs? As I said in my earlier remarks, it's not simply about the environment; it's also about jobs. How will it impact investments in terms of our competitiveness and how we compete with the U.S. and other jurisdictions? Also, how do you think this will impact our overall solar targets in the overall mix of our energy portfolio?