It's $20 billion for sure, just right now. Those are billions of dollars. Where's the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions? How come we're only 50% of the way to meeting Canada's greenhouse gas emissions targets? If spending is the metric, how come we're not all the way there? If Canadians are being asked to pay all of this money, how come we're not 100% of the way in meeting our targets?
That is a question. Maybe this amendment is right. Maybe this is an inconvenient truth that the government needs to look at. We're spending a lot of money and we're not even 50% of the way to making our greenhouse gas emissions targets. We have people who are paying for all these, and we have one part of the country that gets an exemption on heating fuels. Well, what about the people in my riding? You had the minister in Edmonton saying that people should convert from natural gas to heat pumps. Again, seriously, colleagues....
I come out of an academic administration where we were asking questions about how to research and develop technologies and deploy them. If all the Liberal government can do after eight years is list tens, twenties, hundreds of billions of dollars being spent and if we don't have those technologies on the table, if they're not being developed and they're not being deployed for Canadians, if Canadians are having to pay all this money in carbon tax and if that behaviour's not shifting, then maybe something's not working. Maybe we as a committee should ask, at least when we know there's a “sponsorship-scandal level” of scandal on this stuff, if this is the best way to use this money. Maybe there's a more effective way to support research. I would argue, I think, that in the case of SDTC, there probably is. I think that's pretty clear, at least.
Again, we can talk about solutions, but the government should not be so dogmatically attached to something that's not working when the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This government has failed. They're not even 50% of the way to meeting greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. The reality is that the only time greenhouse gas emissions materially decreased in Canada was under a Conservative government—yet another inconvenient truth.
We're talking about climate change and the fact that this government has failed to deliver. They're going to block a motion, I guess, to study $1.5 billion of tax dollars that are supposed to fight climate change and research.
I don't know; let's talk about science some more, and climate change. Let's keep doing that in the House of Commons. I'm happy to stand there all day if these Liberals vote against it.
Thank you.