Mr. Speaker, maintaining a healthy environment is as sacred a duty as maintaining the health of our bodies.
The 18th century poets continually wrote about man and nature, the harmony that must exist between the two to find inner peace. As a girl growing up in Atlantic Canada in the 1950s, we were very much aware, very directly involved in nature: today, the environment.
As I so fondly remember, nearly every Sunday afternoon was spent cruising timber lands hand selecting each tree that was ready for harvest based on size, age, disease, overgrowth or whatever else of this evidence there was to the eyes and to the touch of the experienced lumbermen, the experienced logger.
My father was a lumberman in rural New Brunswick. My brother carries on the lumbering business today as his sons will in decades to come when he is gone. This is the saga of sustainability, taking enough natural resource today to meet one's needs but leaving enough for the next generation to sustain its needs.
Although it was never called sustainable development, that is exactly what it was and it was practised best by the aboriginal people, the First Nations people of this country. In rural Canada, many lumbermen, many fishermen and farmers did the same thing.
The saying went among the older people: "If you look after the earth, the earth will look after you". Mother nature has paid the bills for Canadians, in particular Atlantic Canadians, for centuries and today we have fished the seas dry. We have cut the forests. It is mother earth that has sustained this Canadian lifestyle through need and then through a period of greed we lost sight of our real basic resource.
Through greed and desire for economic growth we lost the balance, the harmony between man and his environment. Yet those committed environmentalists who have badgered the society for the last two decades are the ones whom we have to thank for creating the public awareness and sensitizing us to the urgency of maintaining the health of the environment. They have urged us to solve the problems through policies and regulations that achieve sustainable resources and sustainable environment. That is the implementation of conservation.
In many instances, we do not agree completely with the purist environmentalists. However we must acknowledge that it was they who through their persistent determination that caused legislatures to focus on a sustainable economy within a sustainable environment.
In the forest sector Canada is a leading example of applying the challenge of sustainable development, of balancing the environment and the economy. We must through this legislation today study the bill and take on the process of doing business and cost of maintaining the environment and the cost of the economy.
Through our national focus, forest strategy and model forests and through research we will demonstrate international leadership.
I do not claim to speak on behalf of the Minister of Natural Resources, but I do believe it is her intent to let the world know that Canada's forestry industry is working in partnership with the environment and that we will be the leaders in sustainable forestry.
We will work through new federal and provincial pulp and paper regulations. There are mills, such as the Scott paper mill in Nova Scotia, that discharge effluent into the waterways. Scott Maritime Limited has been one of those mills. It has been discharging effluent into Boat Harbour.
Stakeholders meetings are scheduled for June. Fishermen, aboriginal representatives and environmental groups will meet to identify and resolve these problems.
We will establish leadership through land use and through resource conflicts, through utilization of technology and research to manage these forests. Through increased demands and through the U.S. legislation of recycled products we are meeting the demands of using recycled paper. We will harmonize legislation to the federal government and the provinces in environmental acts.
Above all we will deal with public concern over the impact of forest practices. For example, clear cutting is not always as bad as it may appear. Cosmetically it does not look good and we are appalled at what we see. But depending on the growth stand, the species diversity, the slope and other variables, it may be the best choice for the ecosystem involved and environmental protection.
Forests are increasingly seen as a global resource. Given time, I personally believe we will have international legislation on global resources such as forestry to protect the global society. Canada can lead the global debate on sustainable development and global resources. Being the sensible nation we are, Canadians are well positioned to emerge as world leaders with environmental technology phasing in sustainable development.
The Canadian forest sector employs more than 730,000. We are the world's largest exporter of forest products and the Canadian forest is a backdrop for more than a $26 billion tourism and recreation industry.
Not only is the forest the key to Canada's economy and trade, it is vital to our health by cleaning the air, specifically by combating global warming. Did you know that use of fossil fuels to power cars, heat homes and produce electricity contributes to global warming? Few Canadians are aware that burning one gallon of gasoline, eight pounds, sucks 12 pounds of oxygen from the air. Then it releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere and we depend on our green plants and our trees to absorb this carbon dioxide and fix it into the woody tissue.
We appreciate the value of our trees. That is why today in Nova Scotia we still practise Arbour Day in the month of May having every elementary school child go out and plant a tree. Sustainability begins with one single person planting one single tree in one single community.
We look at renewable resources such as tidal power in Nova Scotia. The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world in which technology is present whereby we can take those tides and turn turbines as the water churns through and generate electricity. This is a natural phenomena. This puts out no pollution and it costs no money to harness the tide. There is a large capital cost and it will not be done in the immediate future as we have a surplus of energy at the present time. However I look forward in the future to bringing tidal power into the debate of this House as a renewable source of energy.
This government has just introduced an infrastructure program of some $2 billion throughout the provinces. In my riding of Cumberland-Colchester we set up 10 projects through our municipalities. Each and every one of these projects was a pollution abatement project, or a sewage treatment plant, or fresh water.
When we developed a clean water system in the town of Truro, we also made donations from our construction people and our municipal government to CUSO and Watercan to set up a fresh supply of water in a third world country. This was co-operation. This is sustainability for a global society.
In closing, it is the policy of this government coming from the throne speech of January 18 to promote sustainable development as an integral component of decision making at all levels of society. Special emphasis will be placed on pollution prevention and the development of green infrastructures and industries and their associated high technology jobs.
The Canadian environmental assessment act will be proclaimed. We must be vigilant caretakers of this earth to protect the future of our youth. It is their inheritance. The challenge belongs to all of us in this House and as legislators we must be held responsible for our future.
