Mr. Speaker, having had the opportunity to capture the essence of Bill C-262, this is very difficult. In fact, I would not recommend members support the bill. I am not too sure if the sponsoring member thought of the legislation, as I suspect he did, prior to the reversal of the Conservative Party of Canada's positioning on the need for a price on pollution.
The essence of the bill that is being proposed is the idea to provide a tax credit in certain situations with respect to carbon output. There is no doubt that it would put it into potential conflict with the idea of having an equitable, fair price on pollution that we currently have in place. That is why I make the suggestion to my colleague across the way that I suspect there might be some discomfort within his own caucus in regard to this bill, given that the Conservative Party, at least its leadership, has made the decision to support a price on pollution, although its plan does not necessarily achieve what it thinks it will achieve. It is nowhere near the type of plan that we have put into place, which I think is far more equitable and fairer for all Canadians.
The government has, in fact, invested significantly in the idea that we have a climate plan that has been strengthened through multiple incentives for large emitters to lower their carbon output. To cite a couple of examples, members will recall the launching of the net-zero challenge for large emitters to support Canadian industries in developing and implementing plans to transition their facilities to net-zero emissions. Members will recall that we have that target date of 2050.
We have also been making significant investments to support decarbonization through the strategic innovation funds and the net-zero accelerator fund. In this area, we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars over a five-year period. I think we are going to see significant positive results from that program.
We take a look at those two programs, but we can also look at the over a billion dollars in the low-carbon and zero-emissions fuels fund. The idea behind that is to increase the production and use of low-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen, biocrude, renewable natural gas, diesel and ethanol. These are the types of programs that are going to help us, but there is no doubt that the price on pollution is one of those things to which all Canadians can relate.
More and more every year we seem to see Canadians wanting the government to be more proactive on the climate file. If we review the things that we have been able to put into place over the last number of years, I think we are doing a reasonably good job. Any government in the world should always look for ways to improve, as I am sure we are.
I am personally a very big fan of the commitment to plant two billion trees that the Government of Canada has made. This summer I hope to contribute personally to that plan. One of the things that we can do is plant more trees. There are other consumer-related issues, such as the single-use plastic ban and plastic bags; there are all sorts of things that are out there.
I look forward to more debate about the environment and things that we can all do in the coming months and years ahead.