Mr. Speaker, I put that very question to the minister yesterday. I was concerned that there had been a lot of discussion about us signing the accord and if we did not meet our commitments, would be some wiggle room. I wanted him to clarify that for me.
As I understand it, if there is some shortfall in the megatonne reduction, those megatonnes would be somehow factored into the next phase. There would not be a financial penalty but there would be a penalty of megatonnes. I was also told by the minister that there would be a negotiated approach. If the targets were too ambitious in the first phase, that would tell us something about the second phase, and those would be negotiated at the time.
I come back to the view that if we sign the accord, we should commit to those results and should not count on failure. I know our government is not counting on failure but I just hope we have the wherewithal.
With all the stakeholders involved, another concern I have is how we effect change when we have this state of play in Canada, where major stakeholders, many provinces and many industrial sectors are not on side? Once the accord is signed, the really tough job will be to implement it. We need to have people on side.
I have cited certain examples of corporations where the CEO has said “here is your target and you tell me how to get there”. That is a good aggressive management style and it is appropriate. However it starts out with a premise that the original target is within the realm of feasibility, possibility or achievement. At this point in time I am not sure that we have the facts or the information to make those conclusions.