Environment committee  Thank you. I've been a professor at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, since 1986. My specialty is sustainable energy systems and energy system modelling, especially energy economy models that try to assess the costs of mitigating or reducing various externalities or other d

Environment committee  First of all, just for the record, I think I was misquoted on that one. I guess you must be used to being misquoted by the press sometimes too--I don't know. But I would have used strong language in the sense of what I've already said, that if we're serious about this issue we h

Environment committee  So in terms of the year 2010 or 2012, from the view of an energy economy modeller who feels he understands the inertia in these systems, today, in 2006, a year like 2010 or 2012 is meaningless to me in terms of targets. The uncertainty in trying to do anything between now and the

Environment committee  Yes. In terms of policy, I laid this out fairly carefully in a C.D. Howe study I did two years ago called The Morning After, and again in another work I just did for the national round table. If I hear you correctly, it's not good enough to say, “Here's what we're going to have a

Environment committee  I don't understand your calculation.

Environment committee  I didn't do the calculation, but, in the book, I calculated the change in energy prices. That's often easier for people to understand. In the calculations that we did for the national process, we saw that the price of gasoline had virtually doubled and that the price of electrici

Environment committee  I didn't propose that.

Environment committee  No. I said that if a change had to be made over a 10-year period, then a high tax would be necessary as well. Over a period of 50 years, the maximum tax would perhaps be, within 40 years, $75 or $100 a tonne. Every Canadian's emissions would then be reduced considerably because o

Environment committee  Before saying no, I just want to say that the next time you come to Simon Fraser University with a cheque, let me know and I'll meet you. That wouldn't influence my answer to this question, which is no.

Environment committee  Yes, it is. That's because there was a lot of very good expert advice around, and it was being used by other countries, about the kinds of policies that you actually needed. When someone said, “This is a good bill for 1999”, I would say, “No, it still doesn't give you enough time

Environment committee  Very briefly, I often hear this point that any kind of constraint on your domestic economy, a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system--and I don't say tradeable, it has to be a cap, otherwise nothing is going on--will lead to flight of capital. I think it's too late now to be making

Environment committee  May I add something? At the international level, based on the technological changes already made by other governments, we can say — and virtually everyone agrees — that we have the technology. We wonder whether we'll be using nuclear energy, renewable energy or fossil fuels to c

Environment committee  As Mr. Page said, it would take two years. We're currently making the investments.

Environment committee  Once again, it's linked to the growth curve. When we look back, 20 or 40 years ago, we see that, since energy has a cost, businesses and even household appliances should become increasingly efficient. That's a natural phenomenon. But at the same time, with economic growth and gr

Environment committee  Briefly, the experience I've had was when I was part of an expert panel that was asked to advise the Chinese government in 1990. During the first seven years, we suggested a reduction in subsidies to coal-fired plants, a renewable electricity policy and a greenhouse gas emissions