Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lussier has raised a question that intrigues me also.
In your document, Mr. Peacock, you said that 2.5 million Canadians have asthma and that the rate in children is four times higher than it was 20 years ago. These statistics are cause for concern.
One of the my three children has asthma. Why am I telling you this? It's because at the time I asked the doctor what the cause was: heredity or another cause. The doctor simply told me that it was the disease of the 21st century.
So, you are the experts, and a layman like me would like to hear your opinion on this. What is really happening? Is it really this serious? Is there a correlation between air quality and asthma? We are talking about nearly 1 out of 10 Canadians having asthma. It is not unusual to see children with puffers. When I was younger, puffers were almost exclusively for extraterrestrials. What is really happening?