Madam Speaker, we all know in the House, as well as in other provincial and municipal governments, decisions have to be made about what we want to focus on, how we want to progress, what we want to spend our resources and then set the conditions for the future.
I know the member for Etobicoke North is from Ontario like myself. We have the highest amount of smog days. Smog days kill people and cause respiratory diseases in people. In my community we have some of the highest birth defects and all kinds of different cancers because of environmental contaminants. There is not enough money available to remedy this.
My private member's motion, which was defeated this week, dealt with creating a trigger to investigate, with an open process, some of the problems we faced because of the use of these energy products. We have decided that we will use them and that is fine, but at the same time we have an almost hopeless situation of the resources that go back.
We know the passage of this legislation is going to cost of $1.25 billion over five years. Would the member rather see that money go to health care and to create clean, renewable energy sources so people in his constituency can breathe, or would he prefer to have a tax cut for oil and gas companies?