Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the member opposite. He has been working on the environment file for some time. I would like to ask him about transit subsidies, but before doing so, I would like to put two points on the record.
As I said earlier, the great thing about this debate is we can get out on the table a lot of the things we are doing relating to Kyoto, which members in the House and people across the country apparently are not aware of. The loyal opposition member suggested in his speech that we were not doing anything on CO
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sequestration and that we should.
I am happy to announce that on January 17 we provided $10.8 million to Anadarko Canada, Apache Canada Limited, Penn West Petroleum and Suncor for CO
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sequestration. Just so everyone knows, the next round of proposals for $4.2 million is available and people can apply before April 2005.
The NDP complimented us earlier that the next budget would be the greenest in history. However, we already have the largest environment program in history by any government in Canada, including NDP governments, of $3.5 billion for contaminated site cleanup. I am delighted that 60% of that is going to the north.
My question for the member is related to transit, which of course we support. The government has put hundreds of millions of dollars toward transit and continues to do so. Why would the member suggest that we put it into transit fare subsidies, which is what I think he said, as opposed to the contributions we are making directly to transit systems, which have proven to have even more effect? That would expand the system so it reached more riders and more people could use it, rather than rebating money to people who already use it, which may have some effect but not as much effect.