Environment committee  Sure. We got into a lot of it in the course of the discussion, which is divestiture. All of these issues about greater disclosures almost certainly lead back to the divestiture question. People would end up divesting from those dirtier industries, and that's not going to solve things.

Environment committee  Canadian pensioners do not solve the crisis by divesting.

Environment committee  I applaud every member of this committee and all Canadians who are trying to do their part to create a greener world. As I tried to state in my opening remarks, I feel it's fairly logical. We should continue to expect that temperatures are going higher. When it comes to prioritizing public assets and public expenditures, the approach of adaptation would be far better than mitigation.

Environment committee  Do I have time or not?

Environment committee  The answer is no.

Environment committee  Right now, the Canada pension plan, if I understand it, is worth about $650 billion Canadian. You can take 2.5% of that per year and subtract it from what it would otherwise be, if you continue in the ESG strategies. That, of course, amounts to tens of billions of dollars in less than a decade.

Environment committee  Thankfully, no.... There has been a renewed focus on fiduciary rules. I was asking one of my Canadian friends whether or not Canada has the same fiduciary rule as they do in the United States. Fiduciary rules, largely speaking, preclude investment strategies that are suboptimal—that is to say, achieve poor risk-adjusted returns.

Environment committee  It almost certainly would be counterproductive in the extreme. That is to say, if you want to create a greener world—which I do—you need to turn brown companies green. You need to stop consuming fossil fuels and switch to a much cleaner energy mix. In Canada's case, that would be more nuclear.

Environment committee  I do not know who said it. Disclosure is a good thing. I think that was directed towards me. Disclosures are a good thing. They're not equated with divestment. I wanted to make that point.

Environment committee  He's very much so. He endorsed my book, by the way, on the cover.

Environment committee  I don't know what good any of those would do, but we should all be examining our carbon footprints, individually, if that's the question.

Environment committee  I think that debate is now raging on college campuses across the United States. As we all know, everybody's calling for the divestiture of Amazon and of companies, which they think will somehow end fighting in Gaza. We have to understand how limited divestiture is as a tool for solving our problems.

Environment committee  Thank you for reading my book. At least somebody has. It's very clear that we don't know what these divestiture movements will actually create. That $45 trillion I spoke about is largely based upon divestiture, and many individuals have adopted these ESG indices that MSCI and others are coming out with.

Environment committee  Clearly not—a green portfolio does not create a green world. If it did, we would have gotten rid of smoking, gambling, alcohol, tobacco and firearms. All of these have been divested from over decades, yet you can still grab a pack of cigarettes and have a beer. Divestiture has not worked to solve the underlying problems.

Environment committee  I think Bill Gates just summarized, as we have been discussing, the limited efficacy of divestiture as a tool for changing the world and changing industry. That's what Bill Gates was referring to in that quote. I obviously agree with him. I quoted him in my book.