Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you very much, Minister and Deputy Minister, for being here today. We really appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple of questions.
In the ministry's planning and priorities document, there are repeated references to renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency programs, all of which are geared, or at least in part geared, to decreasing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. As you can imagine, I fully agree with that goal and, as wouldn't surprise you, would love to see much more on that in the budget.
But when I look at the estimates, the government is cutting the very programs that we need to even begin to take steps to fighting climate change. I'm looking specifically at cuts of $9.4 million from the clean energy fund, $5.4 million taken from the wind power production incentive program, and $7.2 million taken from the eco-energy innovation initiative.
Minister, when I look at that, I guess I want to know what I should take away from those numbers. Are you at a point where you're saying we're done, we don't need to fight climate change anymore, or are you saying that you've actually just given up?