Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, I tried to understand the moral of the tale of when he was an environment minister. As I understood it, he was happy and wished to imitate Ralph Klein as a tough environment minister in producing higher standards in an industry which was polluting: pulp and paper. He was sad that it did not go through.
The first question would be, how did it work out? Did all of those companies in Alberta go broke or did they do okay? If they did okay, that is the same thing we are trying to do in Kyoto. We are trying to make industrial processes more efficient and less energy consuming. What is wrong with that? I would like a response to that.
The second thing I would like an answer on is the reference to transport. There was the implication that people taking their kids to hockey games would take two hours longer because they could not get a bus.
There are really two components to that. Why is it not possible for this society of ours in North America to make more efficient vehicles in terms of fuel consumption? We found out when we had an energy crisis in the late 1970s that we could do so. We had huge improvements in passenger vehicles. Why can we not continue to do that?
As the member comes from British Columbia, this would be a good question for the former minister. Why is it that we cannot indeed support on the other side of the equation more efficient buses of the sort that would be powered by Ballard fuel cells, whose fuel cells are made in Burnaby, British Columbia? What is it about the hon. member that prevents him from seeing both the economic benefits and the innovation opportunities and why does he not join the parade?