Mr. Speaker, I think it is very apparent to Canadians, certainly the people who watch the debates in House of Commons, that the commitment Canada has to the Kyoto protocol clearly is absent in the government.
The initiatives that the Liberals took while in government, in particular the Montreal conference for which our now leader was responsible, showed that Canada was a leader in the world's environment.
I will take one program about which I have some knowledge from a previous life. It is the EnerGuide for houses program and specifically the part of the program that went to the lowest income families. It was gutted by the government last year. The Conservatives have reintroduced some of these programs and they re-gifted them as new Conservative initiatives. However, the EnerGuide for low income houses was a program in which I was involved when I worked at Nova Scotia Power. In fact, we were the delivery agent for that program.
Nova Scotia Power provided that program free of charge to Nova Scotians. Those who spent a lot of money on fuel and polluted the environment would have the corporation go in, do an assessment and make recommendations to them. These people were the lowest income Canadians, the people who could least afford $2,000 or $3,000 to renovate their homes in order to save money and help the environment. The program helped those people the most.
When it gutted the program, that was an example of the kind of narrow social exclusionary practices of the government. It was not helpful to individual Canadians. Nor was it helpful to the collective of Canada or to the entire world, as we went about the job of trying to ensure we had an environment that was sustainable for generations to come.