Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of serving on a committee with the hon. member until recently. We got to know one another quite well. I think we are friends. I realize those are the rules and I will certainly follow the same rule, but I want to make it clear that I am not offended in any way by that.
I may not agree with his comments, and I do not, but if he looked at the record he would see something quite different from what he suggested. In fact, there was a whole series of measures that the Liberal government brought in, which the Conservative government over the past year cancelled. It has brought in a few weak facsimiles of some of those programs.
For instance, the EnerGuide program was cancelled by the Conservatives. They also cancelled the one tonne challenge program. On the Thursday before Easter last year the Conservatives cancelled 17 different initiatives all at the same time. They are going to claim that the programs were all terrible and not one of them was any good. That is a little rich. It is like the suggestion that none of these measures that were in place had any impact whatsoever or ever could have any impact.
If the Conservatives want to say the programs were not perfect and point out concerns or problems, that is fine, but it is not credible to suggest that there was nothing there at all. The fact of the matter is the Conservative Party is not credible on this issue.
Look at what the Prime Minister said in his fundraising letter in 2002. He said, “Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations”.