ENSU Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DURABLE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 5, 1997

• 1904

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): We of the Canadian delegation welcome you again, this time in the Parliament of Canada in the Centre Block, as we call it. Behind you, Mr. Lin and Mr. Zhang, is the Chamber of the House of Commons, and behind us is the Chamber of the Senate. The two together, plus the monarchy, constitute the Parliament of Canada.

We welcome you here tonight. If I remember correctly what you said when we parted yesterday, you would like to discuss this evening the division of work between Parliament and government, the division of work between the federal and the provincial governments, and the work of the committee. Would you please indicate if my recollection is correct, and if not, could you please indicate what your wishes are?

• 1905

Welcome.

Mr. Lin Zongtang (Vice-Chairman and Leader of the Delegation, Environment and Natural Resources Protection Committee, National People's Congress, Republic of China): [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Luo Jianhua (Research Department, Environment and Natural Resources Protection Committee, National People's Congress, Republic of China): [Witness speaks in Chinese].

The Chairman: Thank you.

This evening a few of our colleagues were not able to come, and they asked me to express their regrets to you because they are not able to join this meeting and be present. They asked to be remembered and to express their regrets. However, we have a member of our committee who was unable to attend yesterday, in the person of Mr. Charbonneau, who perhaps would like briefly to introduce himself so that you get to know him better.

Mr. Charbonneau.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): I am very pleased to take part in this meeting with you and your delegation. I know very little about the domestic situation in China, but I do know that there are problems related to environmental management, just as we have similar problems in our own country.

I am a new member of Parliament, and was elected to the House of Commons last June. This is my first term. Beforehand, I was a member of the Quebec National Assembly. Before that, I worked as an environmental consultant, and for many years, I worked within the education sector and the union movement in the province of Quebec.

I am the only one of the members here who is from the province of Quebec, which has a French-speaking majority, while the majority in the rest of Canada is English-speaking. We can describe Canada in a variety of ways, saying for instance that it is the coming together of 10 provinces and territories. We could also say that Canada was first founded by two peoples, the francophones and the anglophones. Of course, before their arrival, there were the first inhabitants of Canada, the native peoples.

• 1910

So, Mr. Chairman, that was just a short presentation.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

[English]

You have asked us four questions. One was on the legislative procedure in the federal jurisdiction. The second one was, what happens when laws passed by the provinces are in conflict with federal laws? Thirdly, how does the federal government coordinate provincial with federal legislation? And fourthly, how do we persuade people to accept nuclear power stations? Is that correct?

Mr. Lin Zongtang: Yes.

The Chairman: In that case, we will try to tackle the first question, namely, how does the legislative procedure evolve? I will call on my colleague, Mr. Jordan, to see whether he would be willing to give you an insight on that question.

I will then ask Mr. Knutson to prepare some thoughts on what happens when there is a contradiction between provincial and federal legislation; then I will ask Mr. Charbonneau to deal with the question of coordination between federal and provincial legislation; and finally, I will try to deal with the question of nuclear power stations.

Mr. Jordan, would you like to start?

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): I don't know how well positioned I am to answer this question, but in terms of the evolution of legislation, legislation starts at a number of different sources. Certainly public will can lead governments to policy decisions. In some cases legislation is debated within the government caucus and sometimes it is debated simply in the cabinet, but generally it's in response to an identified need of some sort. Once that need or the objective of the legislation is determined and identified, then pen goes to paper and a draft of the legislation is put forward.

Without getting into all the details, essentially what happens then is that the relative merits and pitfalls of the legislation are debated, both in the committee that has responsibility in terms of the ministry and then on the floor of the House, where a general debate will take place concerning the content of the legislation. Amendments to it may be proposed at any one of those levels, and it goes through a series of both committee and House of Commons debates.

Getting through those stages, it then goes to the Senate, where a similar process takes place. In recent Canadian history, that particular process hasn't been as extensive as in the House of Commons, although we're starting to see the Senate play a more active role.

Essentially, it's the identification of some objective. If legislation is called for, it's drafted, it's debated by the government, and then it's debated by all parties. It just evolves through that process.

I don't think I can get any more specific than that.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Lin and Mr. Zhang, we have been joined by another distinguished member of our committee, Mr. Lincoln, who would like to introduce himself to you.

Mr. Lincoln.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.): Good evening. I'm a member of Parliament for an electoral district riding on the West Island of Montreal. It's very close to the Ontario border, about an hour and a half from here. I am the chairman of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which looks after cultural problems, communications, broadcasting and publishing, all of our cultural heritage, and also the national parks in Canada.

• 1915

Right now we have something very interesting going on. There's a whole reorganization of our parks program in Canada. Our committee is going to be looking at the reorganization of the administration of the national parks. And right now we are just in the process of creating a marine park in Quebec province, on the estuary of the St. Lawrence River. The park will permit us to protect the beluga whale, which has been slowly dying.

I'm a member of Charles Caccia's committee here, which I really enjoy because we look at all the issues of sustainable development in our legislation.

It's very nice to meet with you and to work with you, and I appreciate that you came all the way here to see us. Thank you.

The Chairman: In his usual modesty, Mr. Lin and Mr. Zhang, Mr. Lincoln forgot to tell you that for three years he was the Minister of Environment in the province of Quebec.

We'll now move to your second question, namely how contradictions in legislation between the provincial and federal governments are resolved. Mr. Knutson I'm sure will be glad to give you a satisfactory answer.

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): When Canada was founded in 1867, the original authors of our Constitution divided authority up. Some authority went to the provinces and some authority went to the federal government. For example, the federal government had jurisdiction over the Criminal Code, over what was a crime. They had the right to make treaties with other governments. They had jurisdiction over fish, the Great Lakes, the oceans. The provinces had jurisdiction over what were considered more local issues. The main one would be education. Because we had francophones living in one province and anglophones living in the rest of the country, education was given to the provinces. They had jurisdiction over another category that is called property and civil rights, and that's an important one too, so I'll come back to it in a second.

But 130 years ago, when the country was founded, the people didn't know about the environment. It wasn't a concern legally, so it wasn't included in the list of what was provincial authority and what was federal authority. What has therefore developed is what is called overlapping jurisdiction, where the provinces have jurisdiction and the federal government has jurisdiction.

Just recently, in an important case, the Supreme Court of Canada has said that because the environment is so important, to violate the environment is similar to committing a crime. As an extension of the criminal law power, the federal government has authority over the environment.

There was a case involving a utility in Quebec called Hydro-Québec, which is in charge of their electricity and generating the hydro for all of the province, and involving what are called PCBs. Do you know what PCBs are?

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Polychlorinated biphenyls.

• 1920

Mr. Gar Knutson: They're toxic chemical substances used in transformers, so you find them a lot around electrical sites.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: They're coolants.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Hydro-Québec was charged under the Canadian environmental law, the federal environmental law. The governor of Hydro-Québec said to the federal government that the federal government didn't have jurisdiction, and it was fought out in court. At the end of the day, the federal government won. We said that we do have jurisdiction over this, and the court said that the federal government has jurisdiction and that the employees of the federal government had the right to inspect and the right to prosecute and charge Hydro-Québec under the law. Hydro-Québec is an agency of the provincial government, but the federal government had the right to convict these people for violation of the environmental law.

On the question of what happens when laws don't correspond, the courts ultimately would decide whether the federal government is acting within its jurisdiction. When it comes.... I should back up here.

The issue comes up when a company is charged and is taken to court. The courts will then decide whether or not the federal government is acting within its jurisdiction. I'll give you an example. There's an endangered species law in Ontario. Do you know what “endangered species” means? In the province of Ontario, there's a law to prevent the destruction of habitat for endangered species. There will be a similar law—

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Gar Knutson: —in the federal government that may cover different lists of animals. The federal one may cover birds and may cover fish, and the provincial one may just cover animals that don't cross borders. But if the pollution is crossing a border, whether it's air pollution or water pollution, or whether it's a grizzly bear that goes from one province to another province and may wander into the United States all in one day, then those types of issues are generally the proper jurisdiction of the federal government.

The big issue for the administration of environmental law in Canada, though, is not sorting out the jurisdictional problems. That's a small issue. The big issue is making sure that we have enough inspectors, that the departments have enough money to inspect, and that we have enough money to prosecute. If we prosecute one company, then all the other companies will notice, and they will clean up their environmental problem as well.

So that's really where the test is: to see whether or not our words have any meaning. The amount of money we put into the departments has to be sufficient so that they can do their prosecutions and so that they have enough people on staff to do the inspections. Sadly, when things fail, it's because we don't have enough resources to be doing the proper inspections.

I'm not sure if you have any questions on what I just said.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Knutson.

On your next question, which has to do with how does the federal government co-ordinate legislation, Mr. Charbonneau will attempt to answer. It's a very broad question.

[Translation]

Mr. Charbonneau, please.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: First of all, I would like to stress to our guests that I was elected to the House of Commons only a few months ago. So I don't have a great deal of experience with the federal government and how it deals with the provinces on environmental matters. I do not have as much practical experience in these matters as some of my colleagues here at the table do. I will just make a few preliminary remarks and then ask them to complement them.

• 1925

You have understood from my colleague, Mr. Knutson's presentation on the environment, that we are gradually assessing the situation and that the areas of jurisdiction are constantly being defined or adjusted. At the time of Confederation, the environment did not exist as an area of jurisdiction, and was not mentioned in the Constitution. Some areas are clearly defined: for example, Education is a provincial area of jurisdiction, while Defence is a federal area. Gradually, as needs became apparent and realities changed, the environment became an area of jurisdiction shared by the federal government and the provinces.

Depending on the issues at stake and the matters to be settled, some areas of jurisdiction have been clearly set out, while others have not been set so clearly. For instance, when problems affect several provinces, the federal government has greater authority to intervene and show leadership. The same thing holds true for international issues, international dealings, our relationship with the United States, our main neighbour to the south, as well as with other countries, in addition to issues relating to our oceans to the east, the west and the north. All these matters fall pretty much or almost exclusively in federal areas of jurisdiction.

A few years ago, an institution was created within Canada that we call the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. This council brings together the federal minister of the Environment and his or her provincial counterparts. The council has been meeting for several years now and allows ministers to exchange views, information, work together and to some extent harmonize provincial policies, either among the provinces or with those policies of the federal government.

For example, the council discusses the rules of the game for carrying out environmental assessments of major projects, industrial projects or dams in the Canadian North. These projects require an assessment of their environmental impact. At times, harmonization or an agreement is necessary between the Canadian government and the native peoples or their organizations, or with representatives from Quebec, Ontario or other provinces. Agreements may be needed regarding environmental assessments, standards for airborne emissions, standards for industrial effluents, etc. A certain amount of harmonization is also required within the country.

• 1930

To my knowledge, the meetings of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment are the venue for harmonization and negotiation, so as to attain a certain level of harmony within the country.

This is just a preamble to the remarks that my colleagues will make. My colleague, Clifford Lincoln, was the Quebec minister of the Environment, while our other colleague, the chairman, was the federal minister of the Environment for a number of years in the 1980s. I believe that both of them will be able to explain how everything works, on the basis of their own practical experience as ministers.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

Now let's move on to the fourth question to finish off. We could write a whole book on this.

[English]

We'll believe it perhaps toward the end of this challenge, so to speak.

Moving on to your fourth question, which was how to persuade people when you want to establish a nuclear power station, Mr. Lincoln will attempt to give you an answer.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: I really think that nuclear power will always be a very controversial issue. As you know, different countries have taken different stands. For example, France has gone nuclear to a great extent. On the other side, you have Sweden, which had nuclear power, but has now decided to withdraw from nuclear power.

In our own country, the provinces decide what type of energy they'll use. My own province, Quebec, which is where I live, decided a few years ago—this has gone from one government to another—to put a moratorium on nuclear power. So we have one nuclear reactor that works on standby, but all the rest of the power is hydroelectric, mostly. So there is no new construction of nuclear power. By government policy, it's not allowed.

But Quebec's next-door province, Ontario, which is where we are today—it's our biggest province by a long shot, with 10 million people—of course has a large segment of its power that's nuclear.

There are obvious advantages to nuclear power. The first one is that you can locate it where you want. Second, it's clean energy. On the other side of the equation, you have two very significant and huge disadvantages. One is to make sure that the safety of the plant is maintained almost 100% at all times, because the least little failure can cause huge damage, as we saw in Chernobyl. The second part is the waste, which can last a thousand years, and we don't know where to put it.

So how do we get nuclear power accepted? I'm giving you the benefit of what happens in our country. It's to have a system of regulations that's extremely tight with regard to safety and to the transportation and storage of waste. If people are satisfied that these three elements have been met, then they are much more likely to accept nuclear power than not, of course.

In Canada, we have a board called the Atomic Energy Control Board, which regulates, under government jurisdiction, the safety, transportation, and storage of atomic residue and waste, and the safety of plants.

• 1935

I can tell you that just a few years ago, our own committee looked at the whole question. The Auditor General published a very important report on our nuclear industry and nuclear energy plants, which said that the Atomic Energy Control Board was not supervising and enforcing its regulations well enough. In fact, we had them appear before our committee. We made a study of it ourselves.

Recently, in the province of Ontario, where we have the greatest amount of nuclear energy in Canada, there's been a tremendous amount of public concern. I wouldn't say there has been an outcry, but there has certainly been public concern. It has been found out that Ontario Hydro, which runs the plants, is not running them or managing them maybe as well as they could be.

The big problem is in Quebec. In Quebec, we decided to have a moratorium on nuclear plants. But we already have one, Gentilly, which operates today. If we wanted to decommission the plant, what do we do? How do we decommission a plant that's there? That's a problem in itself. Before you can decommission, you've got to make sure that all the radioactivity has left the area and you can seal it permanently. That is a problem in itself. This is a third disadvantage that I should have mentioned.

So I would suggest to you that in regard to the fact that China is moving, in some ways, from coal to nuclear, in part, the way to get it accepted by people is to make sure that you ensure the safety of the plants in terms of watertightness safety, environmental controls, and safety controls. Also, handle the transportation and the storage of waste in a safe way.

Canada has been carrying on a search for the last 15 years in our landscape for a catchment area or a place where we could bury the waste safely for 100, 200, 300, or 400 years. This is a study that has been carried out by one of the atomic energy corporations, and it's still going on. They still haven't found this out because nobody wants to bury the waste on their soil. Nobody wants it, so it's a real problem.

So I would suggest that the tighter the controls, the more you will get acceptance from the population. If there is the least suspicion or perception that the plants are not maintained properly or that there are problems with the transportation or storage of waste, you're going to have public opinion start to get very frisky and upset.

The Chairman: All right, thank you, Mr. Lincoln.

You probably have other questions. Please, feel free to go ahead.

Mr. Luo Jianhua: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Zhang Fengxiang (Member, Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources Protection Committee, National People's Congress, Republic of China): [Witness speaks in Chinese].

• 1940

The Chairman: Yes, it is.

Mr. Zhang Fengxiang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Is the question whether it's the responsibility of the government to administer the law once it's passed?

Mr. Zhang Fenzxiang: Yes.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: It's the responsibility of the government to administer the law. Each law is handled by a particular department or ministry which is in charge of that law. If it's an environmental law, it usually is introduced by the Department of the Environment and that department will be charged with enforcing the law. Sometimes departments have agencies or corporations that are specialized in handling specific matters, so the law could delegate to a corporation or to a particular agency of that department to implement the law and enforce it. But usually it's always under the aegis of the department itself, therefore the government, yes.

Mr. Zang Fengxiang: Thank you.

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

The Chairman: The enforcement of the law is the responsibility of the officers of the department, who then report to their minister, who then is responsible to Parliament at the time of the estimates. The estimates are the expenditures of the department over the next 12 months. When those estimates are published, the committee, for example our committee, calls the minister and the officials, and the members of the committee can ask questions on anything that comes under the jurisdiction of that department, including the enforcement.

• 1945

The questions may also be on inspections. The questions may be on monetary aspects. The questions may be on whether the money was spent or not spent, and why. The questions may be, do you have enough inspectors? How many cases did you take to the courts? How many cases did you win? How many cases did you lose before the judge? And so on.

The opportunity is there for the committee every year. All parties, all party members, can then investigate the enforcement of the law if they wish to do so.

In addition to that, the department publishes every year a report. That report is distributed for everybody to read and to comment upon.

Finally, there is the press. Almost every day the press publishes articles where the law has not been enforced well or where the law has not been enforced at all. That information, of course, comes back to the department. That information comes also to the opposition parties. Maybe the next day the question is asked in the House of Commons, “Why did you not enforce the law?”, to which the minister has to reply.

As you can see, we have a system that goes into a full circle because of the accountability to the parliamentary committee but also because of the media and the accountability of the government to Parliament every day in the House of Commons and in the Senate.

That's how it is done.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: May I add something, Charles?

The Chairman: Please.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: For example, today in my committee we are 16. There are government members and opposition members from different parties. Today we invited the minister of the department to appear before our committee to answer questions from us about the estimates of the ministry. She came with a full staff—the deputy minister, the management people of the department. There must have been six or seven of them. She answered all kinds of questions about the management of her ministry.

One other system of supervision as well is the Office of the Auditor General. We have an Auditor General who is independent and who answers and reports to Parliament only. He is at arm's length from the ministers and the ministries. Every so often he can report on anything he wants. He can go and investigate one department and tell them they're spending too much money, or they're not looking after their work. Every year he makes a report, touching on every department of government.

The Chairman: The enforcement of the law in a free, open society such as Canada's relies very much on the free press. The enforcement of the law in the Canadian system relies very much on the opposition parties. The enforcement of the law, in other words, relies on an open, democratic system. That is how we function.

We do not have enough inspectors out there to do the job fully. We do not have the means, or the budgets, to do that, but we can correct that shortcoming with the help of the media and with the help of the opposition parties.

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

• 1950

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: We've just been going through a very difficult time, as many people have told you, because we had a huge budgetary deficit we had to bring it down. There were a lot of cutbacks in the budgets of the various departments, including the Department of the Environment, which got cut back substantially by more than 35%.

If you ask us on this side, the people who are on this committee, we would want to see the Department of the Environment get much more funding. Once we have restored our fiscal balance and the money in the treasury is there, we would like to see much more money go to the Department of the Environment.

I agree with you: you have to have a critical mass of money to be able to do proper science, proper administration, proper enforcement and inspection and research, and administration of the laws. What that is, we haven't worked on, but maybe that is an exercise we should do, as you have done—to have it as a fixed percentage of the GDP. I think that's a very interesting point.

Mr. Gar Knutson: Very interesting.

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: We'll ask Charles to tell you.

• 1955

The Chairman: Excuse me, Mr. Lin. There has been a problem with the translation. Would you please repeat your question?

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Luo Jianhua: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Zhang Fengxiang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: There's a big debate going on right now in Canada over the whole question of energy and energy use because of the climate change conference in Kyoto. Here in our country, as I mentioned to you, every province has a different model for energy. Quebec is very heavily involved in hydro power and Ontario is big in nuclear power and hydro as well. Alberta is using a lot of thermal power, oil, and.... So this debate is going on here.

• 2000

The big advantage of hydro power on a large scale is, of course, that it's clean power and the water keeps on flowing. But the disadvantages, as you've pointed out, are the huge cost of the installations—billions of dollars—and the fact that it causes tremendous environmental upheaval with population displacement and ecosystem damage and so forth.

We are going over this whole debate right now and see that the future lies more and more in renewable energies like wind energy, solar energy, and biomass transformation, which in your country and our country is there.

For instance, we have estimated that by turning biomass into ethanol fuel, which is clean fuel.... Biomass can be turned into ethanol from willow clones or from buffalo grass. An experimental plant has experimented with it. If we planted a stretch of just one kilometre on the side of our border, to give you an idea, we could fuel the whole of our automobile system in Canada, all our vehicles, with ethanol.

And we haven't even started to scratch the surface of what we can do with wind energy.

I was reading that in India they are using more solar energy now. They've started to use solar energy in a very big way. Although India is a poor country, it's invested $400 million in solar energy. It's using wind energy with turbines supplied by the Germans and the Danes to a great degree. They are now starting with 900 megawatts, but they have all kinds of projects.

And from talking to people in Canada about wind energy, I know that we could. For instance, in one big area of the Quebec province, Hydro-Québec is now going to install a turbine that will produce 100 megawatts, but the Danes have told me that in the same area where that turbine will go, there's enough wind to fuel enough turbines to fuel the total energy supply of that region, which is 1,500 megawatts.

I think the long-term future is in wind, solar, biomass and hydrogen transformation and that there will be far less of a long-term future in the big dams and the other energies that cause environmental problems.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Lin, Ms Gagnon would also like to respond to your question.

Ms Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): I won't answer in detail. I am from Quebec, and I represent a sovereigntist political party that is here in Ottawa to represent Quebec's interests. Quebec does very well in this particular area, thanks to its energy resources and its hydro-electric system. In light of the commitments that Canada made at the Rio Conference and the commitments that it will make in Kyoto, we are here to keep the government accountable and force them to remember that they made promises and that they made a commitment, though each province that belongs to Canada must respect the Rio commitments and introduce incentives to reduce greenhouse gases. Action must be taken. Quebec is very concerned about this issue, and will make sure it meets the requirements of various countries to offset the emissions of greenhouse gases.

I would like to quote a few figures, which vary quite a bit from province to province. In Quebec, carbon dioxide emissions are 9 tons per capita, while the Canadian average is 18 tons per capita.

• 2005

In one very stubborn province—I believe it's Alberta—that figure is 56 tons per capita. So, only two provinces have respected the commitment that was made in Rio: British Columbia and Quebec. The coal and oil used in other provinces certainly produce more carbon dioxide.

Consequently, with this conference coming up in Kyoto, we have asked the federal government how it is going to ensure that provinces also introduce measures to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

In Quebec, we have a vehicle tax that penalizes people who use their car regularly. When we collect registration fees for car licenses, we pay $30 to an agency that develops and promotes mass transit. These are the kinds of measures that Quebec has taken, and the other provinces should follow suit in order to respect the commitments that have already been made.

At present, the Government of Canada has no position; it is the only G-7 nation that does not yet have expressed a very clear position. We are here to urge the government to respect its commitment and to tell us how much it will be able to do so. It is running a 10% deficit in terms of the promises it made in Rio.

We remind the government, as it prepares to go to Kyoto, that it already has a 10% deficit, and we are asking the government what commitment it will make. We are here to remind the government of its commitments.

Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Lin, you were asking about a strategic plan for China. May I perhaps make this analogy: Energy is like a big tiger, a very hungry tiger. The more you feed the energy tiger the more that tiger wants to be fed. You will never know how to feed that tiger to complete satisfaction.

So you have basically two policy options for your strategic plan. You either plan for your maximum need of energy, or you plan for your minimum need of energy. If you go for the minimum need of energy, you may be wiser because you will have not engaged all your resources and your investments in the production of the energy that the tiger needs to be happy, and therefore you can always in the future decide on how to build on your minimum plan.

If on the other hand you go for your maximum plan, you may find that you have an oversupply one day. Then, in that case, you have a capacity that will not be used and which will be very expensive, and you may therefore regret it.

So keep the tiger hungry rather than well fed, because it is a very expensive business. Do you agree?

• 2010

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

The Chairman: That means our meeting is coming to a conclusion. On behalf of Madame Gagnon, Mr. Knutson, Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Jordan, thank you. We thank you as well.

We would like to present you with a small souvenir of Canada, which we will do across the table before we break up. We will certainly be glad to accept your invitation to visit you in China one of these days.

Madame Gagnon wants to say something.

[Translation]

Ms Christiane Gagnon: I know that you are very interested in hydro-electric power plants. I would be pleased if you could come to Quebec and visit our hydro-electric plants because you would like to develop this form of energy in China. If you need any contacts, I will be pleased to give you the names of the ministers responsible for this matter in Quebec.

[English]

Mr. Zhang Fengxiang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Lin Zongtang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

Mr. Zhang Fengxiang: [Witness speaks in Chinese].

[Translation]

Ms Christiane Gagnon: Good.

[English]

Mr. Lin Zongtang: Thank you very much.

The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned.