Environment committee  I'm going to switch gears. I could go for a long time on that. I would like to switch gears, if I can. In the context of the government's overall approach on the environment, taking a look at the top 10 exporting countries for oil around the world: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Ca

Environment committee  For the Environmental Assessment Agency folks, maybe you could speak to transparency in other countries, comparisons that have been made with Canada, with specifically those nine other countries in terms of transparency. I know that we have a regulatory process right now. We're

Environment committee  As we pursue an impact on the global level of emissions under the Paris Agreement and the mechanisms available to us, would it be safe to say that Canada probably has standards above and beyond each of those nine countries that are measured in terms of implementing technology to

Environment committee  Is the comparative level of emissions even taken into account when assessing Canada's strategy in reducing the global level of greenhouse gas emissions? For example, we have $54 billion in export dollars that we bring in through exporting oil. If we're able to maintain that or ev

Environment committee  Thank you.

Environment committee  Since we're discussing the budget, I'm going to start with the big-picture question that gives some context. Does anybody at the table know exactly what the projected budget deficit is for this year?

Environment committee  No one. That's interesting. Does anyone know what the current government promised the budget deficit would be by 2019?

Environment committee  It's zero. That was the promise that was made during the election campaign. Was there any conversation, as it relates to the planning for a meeting like this, that centred around saving money, saving taxpayer dollars, in the context of being $20 billion short of the overall budg

Environment committee  To that point, then, would there have been communication received at the departmental level from the folks having the conversation at the whole-of-government level that would have given instruction to take a look at your budgets with a target of keeping the balanced budget promis

Environment committee  It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that a burning forest is much more damaging in terms of emissions than a forest that's naturally dying. Would that be accurate?

Environment committee  As we're trying to rapidly make an impact on global emissions, it seems that if we could develop an expertise to stop the forests from burning and throwing 200 megatonnes of emissions into the air in a year, that would buy us some time to tackle all of the other things that we're

Environment committee  I think this is where I'm going: I'd love to see us tackle this question as a country. As we look at the time frame from here to 2030, it seems that there would be an enormous opportunity, and a win-win.... Obviously there's a danger associated with forest fires, there's pollutio

Environment committee  To that point, I know the minister's schedule is very busy, so I would suggest that as a committee we make ourselves available at basically any time the minister happens to be available.

Environment committee  I can probably use a little bit more time.

Environment committee  Could you explain the process? I do want to get back to the forest fire process, because I think there is a huge potential there, but I may be missing something. I'm not a scientist. So maybe, Greg, you'd be the guy to speak to this a little bit. You talk about it being complet