Mr. Speaker, for years I have been calling for a national energy examination in this country, not a national energy policy program of the kind that is often referred to from the 1970s, and intelligent jurisdictions, wealthy, leading industrialized jurisdictions, have already performed these analyses. It was done by the United Kingdom. It was done by Germany. It was done by France. It has been done by Australia. It has even been done by the United States, but not by Canada.
The government is not coming clean with Canadians and talking about how we are going to have to reconcile, obviously, our need to continue to do good business in the fossil fuel sector and our need and our imperative to reduce our greenhouse gases.
One thing is for sure, though, in that it is astonishing for most Canadians to think that the Conservative Party of Canada, now forming this minority government, would rule out the use of market mechanisms. It is supposed to be the party of the free market.
It is now deliberately ruling out the use of international trading mechanisms, which were brought into the Kyoto protocol largely through the demand of American, Canadian and global multinationals that want to harness the use of a free market mechanism to reduce the costs of compliance. They want to take action. They want to move forward. They want to become more energy efficient. They want to sell their environmental technologies that are forthcoming.
The oil sands are filled with environmental technologies that we ought to be selling all over the planet, yet the government is telling the free market in this country that it is not prepared and will not allow them to join the ranks of the international community, 168 countries that signed on to participate, and use this tool more efficiently. It is astonishing for those of us who are trying to understand this. It makes no sense. It is seriously disadvantaging Canada.