Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments concerning rural areas. I happen to live in the rural area of the city of St. Catharines. I would ask him to please understand that in communities like mine many people drive an hour to an hour and 20 minutes every day to go to work because of jobs in other areas depending on the various fields. The people in my riding are not any different than people in total rural areas.
I understand the comments by the minister about having some short relief and that it requires some time and some work with the cabinet and the minister. He has only been in the job for seven hours, or I guess a little longer now that it is almost 10 o'clock, but I would hope that following his comments there will be work done in that area.
However I also strongly believe that we need to talk about those things that can conserve energy. We do this only when there is a crisis it seems but we should be doing it more often. I would hope that the chairman of the industry committee would take on that responsibility. I have had some discussions with him that we should continue on these discussions on how we use our energy and how we can conserve our energy. I will go through the blues for tonight to see how much time we spent on badgering on data rather than on ideas on how we should move forward.
I believe strongly that all the members in this House, government and opposition, working together should be able to come up with ideas from their ridings on how we could still make energy efficient improvements for our country.
It is a known fact that we North Americans drive a lot, we depend on our cars a lot and we do a lot as far as moving around. We need to take a look at ourselves to see how we can do that more effectively.