Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments for the member.
With regard to the gas tax rebate and the details of how the provinces will distribute the money among the various communities, we can speculate all we want but the one thing we do know, and I am sure the member will agree, is that no matter how it is done the provinces will be in control because we cannot give the rebate directly to the municipalities.
The provinces constantly play this game of offsetting. If they receive a bit of money there, they will deal with communities. The communities will have an important role to play in the negotiations with the provinces. The federal government will not really be able to drive that resolution very easily.
However the equitable starting point would be on the basis of the gas utilization per community. Those statistics are available.
I found it interesting that the member was referring to bridge and road work, et cetera. That is infrastructure and there is infrastructure money.
I want to ask him a question about Kyoto which is certainly an important issue. Canadians have already told us that they agree with the objectives of reducing greenhouse gases and the attendant health impacts. In the last election the Conservative Party ran on a platform which opposed the Kyoto protocol and I think it is important to get an update.
Does the Conservative Party support the Kyoto protocol to meet our emission targets, along with the other partners around the world, or does it feel we simply have to do some other things ourselves and not make any commitments by any year?