Mr. Speaker, I could only wish they were my own oil companies. As far as the proverb is concerned any journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step but it ends very shortly if the first step is on a precipice. I am afraid perhaps that is where this first step is taking us.
I fully intended in my presentation to talk about those very companies that the member referred to. There are wonderful things that the energy industry is doing and has done under the voluntary challenge program. The energy industry itself has already under the voluntary challenge program reduced greenhouse gas emissions by some 15% with all kinds of new and innovative ideas on the horizon that it is working on.
That has been the benefit of this whole Kyoto debate. It has awakened Canadians to this whole issue of environment and emissions and has produced some wonderful results and technologies that are on the horizon that will take us far past Kyoto. It will take us to where Environment Canada says we must get to to mitigate climate change and that is a 75% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
We can get there but we cannot get there by the year 2010 and we cannot get there by committing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars funnelled into the developed world on projects that allow us to continue business as usual. That would be an idiotic way to go in my opinion.