Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, for his great intervention.
Members may know that I have the honour of chairing the environment committee, but the environment committee is called the environment committee and sustainable development committee. It has both of those obligations.
Yesterday officials from Environment Canada came before our committee. I was really encouraged to hear about the great work our government is doing on the environment. For example, our greenhouse emissions between 2005 and 2012 decreased by over 5%, while the economy grew by 10%. In fact, our per capita greenhouse emissions are lower than at any point since records have been kept, so Canada is certainly doing its job.
However, as I mentioned, the committee is called the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
We all know that the NDP sometimes uses the acronym for the “no development party”, but just recently, in a 2012 speech at the Canadian Club of Toronto, the Leader of the Opposition called the shipment of western oil to eastern Canada a pro-business, common sense solution. Maybe there is hope.
However, I want to ask my colleague why the NDP is putting this motion before us to reject this project before it has even been submitted to the National Energy Board.