Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the natural resources committee for his speech. I was very happy to hear him speak so enthusiastically about the clean-tech industry we have here in Canada that we need to nurture.
I just wanted to set the record straight about what the NDP thinks of the oil and gas industry. We have never said that we wanted to shut it down. We have never said that we wanted to shut it down now. We know that we will be using oil and gas for years to come. However, we think the government should be giving incentives and subsidies to the industries that will carry us into the future, the clean-tech industries the member talked about, as well as for energy efficiency.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I want to bring up the eco-energy retrofit program the Conservative government brought out in 2007. It was one of the most successful programs Canada has ever had to tackle energy efficiency. It invested, over a number of years, almost $1 billion and leveraged $5 billion in expenses the people across Canada spent. It had a huge effect on our carbon footprint and on the pocketbooks of Canadians.
Could the member comment, first, on why he thinks the Conservatives cancelled it, and second, on why the Liberals have not brought it back and instead have punted it off to the provinces, where nobody has picked it up?