Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very interesting and clearly very sincere speech. However, he did not answer my Conservative colleague's question, which was about why big polluters get a break on the carbon tax. That is an excellent question.
People often describe the NDP as Parliament's conscience, and I can see that the member is the government's conscience. Everything he said sounds great, but the fact is that hardly any of those words are being put into action. About two years ago, a specific portfolio was created for transportation electrification with the generous collaboration of my party's transportation critic. I have been keeping an eye on what has been going on over there for the past two years, but that has not kept me very busy because there is nothing going on.
The Minister of Transport spent a year consulting a bunch of people at Electric Mobility Canada, but nothing came of it. It would have been so easy to promote the only Canadian-made plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Chrysler Pacifica, but that did not happen. We make the nicest electric vehicle, but the government did not even bother to buy any to show off at Canada 150.
With respect to what happened at the G7, my friend is absolutely right. Very little was said about this issue, and much more could have been. The government bought at least 150 police vehicles: Toyota Sienna four-wheel drives and Dodge Chargers. The Toyota Siennas were sold at a loss. If the government had bought plug-in Chrysler Pacificas, it would have had no problem reselling them to the Government of Quebec, which is definitely in the market.