First of all, thank you for your kind words, sir. It is a pleasure to work with you and to have you as minister of the shadow cabinet, or rather, opposition critic, as you so eloquently put it.
To quickly answer your question, I would say that the concept of a vulnerable environment would indeed be difficult to define. However, the concept of a vulnerable population is much easier to define, in our opinion. There is a vast body of scientific literature on the issue of pollution exposure. A great deal of data demonstrates that certain populations, be they in Canada or elsewhere, are more exposed to pollution than the rest of the population, for all kinds of reasons, some geographic, some socioeconomic.
There is therefore a distinction to be made between the concepts of a vulnerable environment and a vulnerable population. I agree with you to say that one of these concepts is harder to define. But the other can be defined a great deal more easily.