Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments. He mentioned that because of the ratification of the Kyoto protocol there already has been a chill on investment in parts of the country. Just the other day I was talking to a friend of mine who works in the oil patch. He told me the same thing, that things are on hold because of that. That was at a time when it had not been ratified. Now that it has it certainly will have some effect.
With some of the promises in the throne speech and some of the things we have heard since then, people have projected over the next five to eight years that it will cost the government $37 billion to implement some of those issues. That is not counting Kyoto and that is not counting what we have heard recently from the Romanow report on health care.
How does my colleague feel that some of these issues should be handled? How will we ever stay with a balanced budget, pay down our debt and do all the things that need to be done when some of these things are looming over the taxpayers of this country?