Mr. Speaker, we do believe that under the Constitution there is a strong role for the federal government to show the leadership that Canadians have been demanding. We have seen local governments take the lead. The City of Nelson has a program for the installation of solar panels, whereby the individual consumers who install them will receive a lower price on that utility and save as a result. In the city of Hinton, Alberta, geothermal is taking off.
I do believe that the clean energy future we are talking about will start at the federal level, through its leadership. However, it also has to be acknowledged that is happening in the provinces and at the local level.
If the government is serious, the provinces should be able to make this a revenue neutral initiative. I think it is important that the revenues levied are not seen as a mere tax—they should not be, and were not seen as such in the British Columbian context, and need not be in this one either—and the provinces need to be allowed to retain the revenues, but only as a step to do what needs to be done, and much more aggressively than the Liberals are talking about with their initial $10 a tonne price, which will of course do nothing.