Mr. Speaker, many folks maybe would not appreciate this, seeing the member's policies and my very different set of ideas for the country, but he and I enjoy each other's company.
We agree with the principle that the Liberals ran on, which was “open by default”, that information should be available and understandable, in terms of government policies. We think that was a laudable promise the Liberals made when they were running for office. The idea of having this information about a government policy be open is a laudable one.
Earlier today we tried to modify the Conservatives' motion to suggest that the government should also be open on the cost of inaction. We have known for many years, going all the way back to the Nicholas Stern report of 2006, when the member's party formed government, that the costs of inaction on climate change to our economy and to the communities we represent were far in excess of anything anyone was proposing around the world.
In fact, there is the benefit side that often gets overlooked when carbon is priced, especially if that pricing is able to be diverted into the solutions, making life more affordable for Canadians, whether it is home heating, as the member talked about, transportation for families, or the cost of producing energy generally.
If it is reasonable to ask the government what the cost of carbon pricing across the country is for individual families, is it not also reasonable to ask the government to come forward with the cost of inaction on those same families? Those costs are real. They affect the natural resource sector, which the member is well familiar with, the fishing sector, and people's daily lives. Things become more expensive because of inaction on the part of successive governments to properly address climate change.