Mr. Speaker, while I thank my hon. colleague for her comments, I do have some confusion with respect to coming at this from the perspective of a young Canadian and being worried about the debt and deficit. That seemed to be the focus of the member's speech.
I have with me a report by the Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition. Its members call themselves a collection of strange bedfellows. In the coalition there are groups like Pollution Probe, the Pembina Institute, Shell Canada, Suncor, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Friends of the Earth, all calling on the government to put forward a viable and strong Kyoto plan which will lead to the creation of thousands of jobs, with 26,000 jobs in the wind energy sector alone.
If the member is interested in economic viability and, I would imagine, a strong environment for future generations, why has her party has been so opposed to moving forward on the Kyoto file when there is such opportunity available on the economic front, clearly supported by people who have seen the light, as it were? Organizations like Shell, which at one point may have opposed it, are now seeing their way clear to both strong economic and strong environmental performance. Why would her party not be considering pushing the government to get on with it and actually put down a concrete program in the future budget?
I sat in on the budgetary hearings when the environmental groups presented some very concrete numbers and ideas, yet the report that came out had just two lines devoted to the environmental concepts that would also lead to strong economic performances.
Why the resistance? Why not invest in the future? Why not invest in renewables in a serious way and also meet our international obligations, which we have signed on to?