Excerpt from a speech by The Honourable John Gerretsen, Ontario Minister of the Environment at the 3rd Annual Cap-and-Trade Forum held on April 23, 2009

"To achieve our greenhouse gas reduction targets, our response must be broad, decisive and well coordinated. It must involve governments and businesses and other organizations at all levels and in all sectors. The need to move forward now is absolutely necessary.

It appears that North America is moving toward a cap-and-trade approach. However, if cap-and-trade is to be a truly useful and effective strategy to mitigate climate change, it must not only be designed to be equitable and transparent for all — a model where the same rules and pricing schemes are applied consistently and equitably in every jurisdiction — it must be a system which at the end of the day provides certainty and clarity for all its partners — be it industry and the marketplace, or the jurisdictions involved in its operation.

The importance of a harmonized approach is a key finding of the recently released report by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which recommends a broad-based cap-and-trade system to send a clear price signal that provides an incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I am pleased to see that David McLaughlin, President and CEO of NRTEE is here to speak about the report.

The report stresses the need for immediate and agressive greenhouse gas reduction policies and clearly shows that delay will only increase the economic and environmental costs for Canada.

The fact is, Ontario has already taken action by setting ambitious targets for GHG reductions as well as moving forward on a broad-based cap-and-trade system with clear price signals.

The NRTEE report concluded that a national cap-and-trade system needs to be compatible with and link to emerging U.S. and international cap-and-trade regimes that are based on real reductions. We understand that many of the markets and services that give rise to GHG reductions go beyond Ontario's borders and rquire coordinated action. That does not mean that Ontario intends to take a back seat and wait for further action by other North American governments."