Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in to speak to us today. Your testimony is really helpful.
We've certainly heard from a lot of witnesses who have talked to us about the data gaps that exist overall, either in specific jurisdictions or nationally. I think about the purpose of why it is that we're doing this study. We're trying to learn and understand how and what the benefit of a national data strategy could look like because we want to be able to have data that will help inform evidence-based...or data that actually informs good policy-making and good decision-making. That data would exist in multiple places, but it isn't coming together, it isn't being collected, or it isn't being analyzed in a way that also helps not only that good decision-making, but also good decision-making with respect to how this country will meet its climate goals.
At a very macro level, that is what we're trying to understand and that's what we're trying to get some advice on from the many people who have come to talk to us, so that we can learn where those gaps might be, and what the purpose of a single place might be and what they might need to do to gather, analyze, and put out data for decision-making, but also for Canadians, for people to understand and learn what contributes to their carbon footprint and how that data might be relevant to them so that they can make choices. There's that broad spectrum.
I'm interested to learn from you. What you do is about real-time, day-to-day trades and settlement. That data isn't going to be helpful in the purpose that I just talked about, which is really evidence-based decision-making so that consumers can understand patterns and behaviours so that they can change, or so that governments and businesses can make good investment decisions or good policy decisions on the basis of the data.
I know that you touched on our maybe being able to use that information, or the central body maybe being able to use that historical information for the purposes of decision-making, but where could that collaboration be most useful, given the macro of what we're trying to understand here around a national data strategy for energy use, and, therefore, climate reduction goals?