Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of this committee.
This is the 50th anniversary of the printing of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. That book sparked the modern environmental movement and the ban on DDT, because of DDT's impact on birds.
The concern in 1962 was that species like the peregrine falcon were going to be wiped out in a generation. Populations in the wild had begun to plummet. We solved that problem, but we're now facing a new kind of silent spring. This one is where the sound of children's laughter will be lost from our forests. It's not an exaggeration to say that people who spend time in nature are a species at risk. Like the peregrine falcon in the 1960s, the youth numbers are plummeting. Having a strong connection to an outdoor place is the first step in ensuring any kind of conservation ethic and an essential component of our Canadian identity. We must act decisively to reverse this trend or we will soon find ourselves—