Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his excellent question.
Indeed, people—even academics—have met with us to argue that the oil sands are something extraordinary for the Canadian economy. I am sure they were not talking about the Quebec economy, because it is something negative in Quebec. As they see it, the economy should take precedence over everything else, even the health of the planet. For them it was the most important thing in the world.
Certain people are in the process of forever ruining the land in Alberta. We are trying to see how it might be possible to plant again on this land, but we do not know how it can be done. Over the last three years, one third of the increase in greenhouse gases has been due to the oil sands. Where are we at? We are at one million gallons per day. We were not supposed to be reaching that level until 2015. We are at one million gallons per day. And the government is now entertaining the idea of going up to 5 million gallons per day. Imagine. Greenhouse gases will increase fivefold.
However, it is possible to capture greenhouse gases, or CO2. Research is ongoing at the moment, and certain companies have told us that they are ready. However, the companies do not want to invest in this. They want the government to invest. We think it unfair that Quebeckers should pay 25% of their income tax to capture the greenhouse gases of the very rich western oil companies that are making phenomenal profits.
We know it, and it was said last week. We are talking about billions of dollars in profits. Even if from now until 2010 it would cost only $7.5 billion to capture all the CO2, they want the government to pay. We hope that the government will find some backbone and say that the polluter has to pay, and the party doing the paying will have to be the oil companies.