Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to my colleague who has just spoken. I sat with him on the environment committee and have a great deal of respect, as I am sure the House does, for his insights into matters related to Kyoto and in particular what he has spoken to, which is the matter of setting up an emissions credit trading system that would be effective in meeting the objectives of Kyoto.
I am drawn to the point he has made with respect to the location of an emissions credit system that would be administered through the Montreal Exchange as opposed to Toronto's. I do not want this debate to descend into one of city versus city. That is not the intent or the objective of my question. The objective of my question is to establish clearly what would be the best regime and where a commodities type of trading regime would be most effective.
When we were discussing the emissions credit system, there were concerns raised about investing in credits that would simply be buying hot air, in particular from former Soviet countries and Russia, which are much behind with respect to their industrial and technology applications to reduce carbon.
Given that our economy, as Europe is finding, is so integrated with that of the United States and given that we should be closely cooperating, not setting competitive mechanisms in place, does the member feel that the Montreal location would be better suited to working in the North American context as to setting a price for carbon and as to making it most effective as the administrative tool for meeting our Kyoto objectives?
Does he feel that Toronto's exchange or other exchanges across the country would have no role to play in that? We are talking about a matter of national policy, not establishing one mechanism in one particular geographic or regional part of the country. What would be the most effective approach to that?