Mr. Chairman, I will try to be brief. There is a point that I want to try to get across to the member for Windsor—St. Clair. I am not in disagreement with him that we need to seek alternatives to fossil fuels and the finite resources of energy. We know fossil fuels are a finite resource. There is a certain amount of it and some day it will be gone. We continue to find more.
I take exception to his comments about Europe. Quite often we look at Europe as somehow being a warmer, fuzzier, cleaner, more environmentally friendly region of the world. I fundamentally disagree with that.
Germany may be able to say that it invests more money into wind energy or alternative energy resources but it buys natural gas from Russia and does not care how Russia gets that gas. It does not care about the political or social costs which come with that gas. It does not care about the technologies that the Russians use. Fracting a single zone in Russia, which they have developed in that zone, has never been done. They develop something deeper or something higher up the well bore. They just do not have the technology to do good work. As well, they make the rules and bend the rules to suit themselves.
We can have Europe or the European Union talking about being green and clean, but they will use uranium powered energy from France. They do not mind importing that energy. They do not mind importing Russian natural gas. They do not mind setting special levels for Norway. There is some danger in looking at Europe as the pristine example.
I am not saying that we should not head in that direction, but I am concerned that we should not put it on too high a pedestal.