Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to this point.
I commend the member for taking the issue of climate change and the emission of greenhouse gasses as serious. It behoves all of us as members of parliament and as responsible citizens of this country, indeed responsible citizens of the world, to convey the message to our colleagues and fellow citizens that this is a serious issue. It does demand a serious response not just from us in Canada but from the global community. It is a global issue and an issue that cannot be fully resolved without concerted global action.
Canada generates only about 2% of the world's global emissions, but on a per capita basis we rank much higher on the list in terms of global emitters, so we must do our part to deal with the issue.
Beginning with the Kyoto protocol, we have put together a process that has engaged 450 Canadians in more than 16 issue tables to examine every dimension of the greenhouse gas issue vertically by sector and horizontally by the cross-cutting theme to make sure that we had before us at various levels of government a complete menu of well thought out, well researched, factually based policy options from which to choose.
That work is now virtually complete. The ministers of energy and the environment federally, provincially and territorially are meeting throughout this year to select from that menu the policy options that we will pursue in the future. Canadians can be very assured that the Government of Canada is very serious about the issue. We intend to perform to international standards.