Thank you very much.
It's deeply disappointing and a bit disturbing to me that something as serious as climate change and the crisis that faces Canadians in drier conditions.... Well, it's all over the globe, but the fact that we're now experiencing it means we're truly in the age of consequence.
As a young person, I experienced a wildfire, and I know how devastating that can be for rural people, for indigenous people and for those who succumb to its smoke. It's pretty devastating, and it leads to lifelong impacts, both to one's psychology and also to one's own feeling of safety and security, which is why I find these audits so difficult. They enable us to understand the grave severity of the consequences of not acting sooner. I think this act, which is intended to provide some kind of clarity, speaks more of an agenda of political theatre than it does of actually reducing emissions.
One part of the act, for example, does not require the minister to achieve targets, but simply explains why targets were not met. To me, the fact that we had to write in the act that the minister would have these powers speaks to the lack of genuine nature that I think the act provides a framework for.
Deputy Minister, what explanation do you have for young people in my riding and across Canada for the audit that you see here today and what is, I think, a pretty glaring litmus test for how far away we actually are from achieving this reality for Canadians, most particularly for young Canadians who have to deal with these facts and hear that the audit has failed them?