Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question is a very good one. It is one thing that I did not mention in my address, but it is absolutely true.
We trade 80% to 90%, depending on the numbers one uses, with our largest trading partner which happens to be the United States. It is not signing the accord. It is not that it is not for the environment; many of the states are doing much more aggressive things than where the Kyoto accord will actually go, but they are doing them in their own way. It is a made in the United States approach.
We are suggesting that we need a made in Canada approach so that we do not unduly destroy certain industries and opportunities that we have as a nation as we move forward. For us to sign on to an accord where the repercussions are so devastating puts us in a trading deficit and disadvantage with the United States, our largest trading partner, in a significant way that we may never come out of. It may spin us into a much different recession than that of the United States. If that were to happen, we may lose our currency. We as a nation are already upset about our 64¢ dollar. It was 63¢ and 62¢ less than a year ago and it could go down to 52¢ or 42¢. It could destroy the economy to that degree.
It is something we should look at very soberly. When we see the repercussions of signing on to an accord, the costs become unbelievable, but maybe that would not be all that bad. Maybe Canadians would say it is worth the price if we could really clean up the air. But when 95% of the CO
2
in Canada is emitted naturally and we are talking about only 2% to 3% that is human made and we are going to reduce that by only 6%, even if we eliminated all our CO
2
, it would have no effect on the world's climate.
Is that really going to achieve the goal? I would suggest the answer is no. That is why the cost does not match the gain.