I find it pretty rich that the party that has not supported any one of the policies or programs that our government has put forward to fight climate change is now using them as a way of blocking witnesses in a study that, I think, is really valuable for this committee, not to mention that we have already made it very clear—and you know very well—that other committees are studying this. Your intention is now to have four committees studying the same topic that the Auditor General is doing an audit of. What could possibly be the motivation for that? What could we possibly get out of doing it four times over?
The other thing is that the Conservatives have said that this is somehow the only fund that our government has, which is absolutely not true. It's not even close to the truth. It's absolutely so far from the truth that it almost surprises me and shocks me how little they know about what our government is doing to help fight climate change.
For example, in the last budget, budget 2023, there was a list of the key investments in programs that our government has made since 2015. There was $15 billion for the Canada growth fund, $8 billion for the net zero accelerator initiative and $4.2 billion for the low carbon economy fund. We have the critical minerals strategy, the zero emission vehicle infrastructure program, the clean fuels fund and the national trade corridors fund. The list goes on and on.
Also, there's the Canada Infrastructure Bank, etc. There are a significant number of other investments that we've made.
The case they're trying to make that says that somehow this fund, which is an arm's-length organization that has been running for quite some time.... I'm not saying that there isn't merit to looking into this organization; I'm just saying that it's happening already with the most appropriate committees looking into that situation. I don't think that this committee needs to do duplicate work.
If you're really about efficiency and the use of resources, then why would you have four committees studying exactly the same topic at the same time? We certainly have limited time in this committee, and we have important work to get on to. Let's move on with it.
I'm really sorry that the witnesses had to suffer. It was a waste of their time here today. Now they've all gone, so we've missed the opportunity.