Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment, but I could not disagree more strongly. I believe that setting the price of carbon is the way to go to achieve these reductions in emissions, and using the power of free markets and the private sector to achieve these outcomes has been proven in the past to work.
If the government were to set a price on carbon, allowing free markets to achieve these outcomes, that is the way to go, but what is critical in setting that price is ensuring the revenue neutrality of any revenues to the taxpayer. As I pointed out earlier in my remarks, if we do not do that, we are about to embark on one of the biggest tax grabs in Canadian history, and mark my words, this will have major political repercussions.
This is on a scale that makes the Green Energy Act in Ontario look Mickey Mouse. This is something that, at $50 a tonne, will cost the equivalent of 2% of GDP, some $38 billion a year. This is a huge shift in tax policy, and the fact that the government did not insist on revenue neutrality will hammer consumers and companies across this country.