Natural Resources committee  There are various sources of funding in universities. There's government funding. There's private sector funding. I could argue, although I won't be very popular with my colleagues for doing this, that perhaps the funding wouldn't need to be more targeted at universities. Perhaps

Natural Resources committee  There I would probably disagree with you, because historically, when you look at those stories, you see that they often come from sectors that are completely different from the one in which they ended up having an impact. You never know where these new ideas will come from. What

Natural Resources committee  Well, as you know, government has subsidized so many things that of course a few things will have succeeded, but I would argue that in the cases I showed you there, the funding was entirely private. Again, I have no doubt that if things really are more efficient, if new technolog

Natural Resources committee  That's my problem, if I may say, with people who advocate carbon taxes. They operate on the premise that there was no intelligent life before 1960. I mean, all these ideas have been around for a very long time. Why did business spontaneously behave in a green way in the past? W

Natural Resources committee  Well, you know, we're human beings. We breathe, we exhale, we do all sorts of things. There can be no such thing as a clean technology. There can, however, be a cleaner technology. I would argue that the criteria for progress should be creating fewer problems than those that exis

Natural Resources committee  There is material, and I did my best. I tried to present accessible material, and the material is available for free online.

Natural Resources committee  I need 20 seconds. Carbon taxes—

Natural Resources committee  The only problem I would have with that characterization is that governments are not subsidizing the moonshot; they're subsidizing sailboats. You have to ask yourself, why, when the wind was there all along and we had sailboats, did coal and diesel and other fuels come along and

Natural Resources committee  I would need to consult the documents for certain projects. I think, in general, it's not as bad as the Europeans, although I feel a shift toward the European approach. People are so afraid of the risks that they ignore the fact that stalling also creates long-term problems. Th

Natural Resources committee  It's strange. Often, people from California tell us how terrible we are because we develop oil sands. However, many deposits in California leave a larger carbon footprint than the oil sands. There's a notion that easily accessible oil resources exist, and that we're scraping th

Natural Resources committee  I have done my best for a number of years. Can we explain things to people who don't want to listen to us? In this case, I think the facts speak for themselves. Canada has made significant progress. The deposits may be of lower quality and less accessible than in other economies

Natural Resources committee  I've written documents on this subject for the general public. Many things are available online, but how do we explain them? I've been giving energy policy courses for a number of years. When facts are presented, reasonable people will recognize that there may have been some ex

Natural Resources committee  In any case—

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I'm done in 30 seconds. Two slides following the Newton slide, the Porter hypothesis is discussed in context. I would argue that the idea has been around for a century and a half. There is no evidence for it. Government has never been able to force business to become greene

Natural Resources committee  Okay. Thank you for having me. As mentioned, my name is Pierre Desrochers. I'm here to present remarks that reflect only my opinion and those of my co-author Joanna Szurmak, who is also from U of T. I usually don't begin my talks like this, but I would like to point out that