Madam Speaker, my colleague asked why New Democrats have consistently forced this issue with the previous government and now again in this Parliament. The answer is that the consequences of unmitigated climate change are disastrous for the global community and for Canada in particular. The government is sitting on a number of reports from natural resources that talk about the effect of climate change particularly on our far north. As the sea ice melts in the Antarctic, the effects are felt the strongest in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the Arctic.
My colleague talked about results on the ground. We know that the fund the government set up to enable wind energy has been completely exhausted. There was a small brief period of wind energy investment across Canada. The investment climate was not as good as what the U.S. and Europe were offering, but Canada was starting to move closer to what those countries were offering. The Canadian wind industry was moving forward on a huge suite of announcements. Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and that member's own province of Alberta were moving forward as well. We have now come to realize that the fund has been completely exhausted well before the intended date and there are no more dollars in the fund.
Does he understand as a businessman himself the uncertainty his own government has created in that critical industry will be anathema to Canada matching the other countries that are moving forward? Every critical number shows this. Every way we cut and slice this, the developed countries are far surpassing Canada's own investment ratio. They are far surpassing Canada in terms of the renewable energy we are putting on line.
On the specific topic of the funds available to the wind industry to allow it to build the generation capacity this country requires, would the member agree that the funds have been depleted at the federal level, or can he reassure us otherwise?