Mr. Speaker, I do not consider myself the conscience of the government simply because I think it is every parliamentarian's job regardless of political party to hold the government to account for failing to live up to promises where the government fails to do so.
If I failed to answer the Conservative member's question, allow me to answer it simply. I do not think that the simplest solution or the right solution would have been carved out of any exception for anyone, frankly. The answer to competitive worries is a border tax adjustment to ensure that incoming goods face a carbon price or a price on pollution just as domestic goods would be produced. There is economic research and literature on this as well. In my view, that would be the most appropriate solution to address the competitive concern, which is what the government was addressing by carving out the particular exceptions.
With respect to vehicles, I sat beside the Minister of Transport on a number of occasions to ask for updates on the zero emission vehicle strategy. I fully expect us to introduce one. My call today is to make sure that it is the best of class. If we are introducing something that is a watered-down version of what California introduced, in my view, that is not good enough. It needs to be best of class and I hope that we have waited as long as we have because they are ensuring that it is best of class.
The only other thing I would say is on procurement. Absolutely, we should be using federal procurement to invest in clean energies and to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels. We have adopted this approach with respect to phasing out plastics which is an incredibly important thing. Federal procurement is now going to be central to phasing out plastics and we should do the same thing with all clean energy. There is absolutely no question.