Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd just like to comment that the social compact in Canada is very clear. The exploitation of resources for the common good and for the creation of jobs and wealth is important. But the compact also includes the protection of an ever healthy and ecologically balanced environment.
Fifty years ago, in communities by the Fraser River, it was normal for pickup trucks to pick up garbage and just load it into the Fraser River to get rid of it. We don't do it that way any more. This is another step in the acknowledgment of this important social compact. We can exploit resources and impact our environment, but we need to do it in a carefully balanced way so that we have a sustainable, healthy ecology.
This is an important statement of that social compact in Canada. It's one that gives citizens a greater sense of involvement and ownership and responsibility and rights around the environment and the impacts on the environment. My experience in British Columbia, working with fish and wildlife groups for almost three years in a very constructive and direct way, is that tens of thousands of residents of rural communities in British Columbia--and I know it's the same across Canada--have a huge investment in maintaining wildlife habitat, maintaining wilderness, and maintaining the capability of the environment to support the very kinds of things the members opposite are talking about: hunting, trapping, fishing, wilderness guiding, and so on. Those are the very people who will also be enabled and empowered and involved in ensuring that the social compact is carried out in a balanced and effective way in Canada.
So I'm supportive of this law as an expression of that evolution of our understanding of the need to have a balanced and ecologically healthy environment for all Canadians and residents.