Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments of my hon. colleague from the great Dartmouth—Cole Harbour area. He talks about what light bulbs will do to reduce energy, but since 1993, under the Liberal government, emissions in this country have risen. They have not gone down. They have risen. I wonder what he is talking about when he talks about better things for the environment while emissions in this country have gone up under the Liberal watch of 12 years.
Plus, as my colleague from Alberta said, many people will not be assisted by this program. The problem is that an awful lot of people do not even participate in terms of energy purchases because they cannot afford their own homes. They are either renting or in social housing, where a lot of their costs are already taken care of, but what about those people who are just on the cusp, on the margin, those seniors and the working people who will not see a dime of this assistance?
This is why we have been encouraging the government to take the tax off energy. If it really wants to help people in terms of an energy rebate, it can just take the tax off energy in terms of electricity, home heating oil, natural gas, wood or whatever. That gives everybody an immediate break when they purchase energy.
My fear is that we are going to end up with the same dilemma we did a few years ago, and deceased people, students and people who do not even own homes or anything of that nature will get a cheque from the government and spend it on other aspects of the economy that have nothing to do with energy.