Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure once again to speak to such an act. In fact it is one of the few times times since coming to the House of Commons that I have been able to congratulate the government for at least initiating a process that should do Canada so well. In my role I end up critiquing a lot of things that happen in the government and I do not have a lot of good things to say at times. But this time I do.
It is really time to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Many of the things I am going to speak about today will exemplify just what I am talking about.
In looking yesterday at a report from StatsCanada about Canada's environment, which I want to quote from, I would emphasize what the changes to this act could do to help Canadians.
Some of the comments that I get from the StatsCanada report are as follows: Canada is among the top five producers per capita in the world of industrial and household garbage, and among the highest in the production of hazardous waste. That comment speaks for itself. It is so very important that we deal with the issues at hand such as the Environmental Protection Act, and that is what this does in fact.
In 1991 each Canadian generated about 360 kilograms of urban solid waste. That is one heck of a lot of solid waste. This is not just disposed of ad hoc, it has to be controlled, monitored, legislated.
Ontario leads in the production of hazardous waste in Canada. Its total output ranks far above and ahead of some other industrialized nations such as Japan. I believe British Columbia is well up there as well, but Ontario with its large population looks at hazardous waste in a way that must be examined by the Environmental Protection Act.
Canada, Australia and the United States generate between 360 and 828 kilograms of urban solid waste per person each year. That is just astonishing. Much of the waste in Canada consists of plastics, packaging and newspapers, which must be collected and disposed of at municipal facilities. It is just not the Canadian act that is at stake here, there are other environmental agencies in different levels of government that must be examined as well. This emphasizes the importance of the committee discussing, relating and working with all these different layers of government when it examines this act.
Canada is also a major producer of hazardous wastes, which are substances posing a risk to human health or the environment, and requiring special disposal techniques to make them harmless or less dangerous. In 1991 Canada generated about 5,770 kilograms of hazardous waste for each million U.S. of gross domestic product. That again is just an astonishing number when you think about what kind of hazardous waste is coming from our country.
I have a few other comments and then I will get on to my local area in Fraser Valley West. In 1991, about one-half of Canadian households had access to curbside or depot recycling services. This access varied greatly across the country; access to recycling was highest in Ontario, which it should be congratulated for. British Columbia ranked second in paper recycling which is available at 64 per cent of households.
We are doing what we can but there is a lot more to do. I sincerely hope that when the environmental committee meets, as the minister said a little while ago, that she is going to give authority to this committee to investigate, look and discuss all of these issues and report back.
It is important to remember that when this committee reports back to the House and to the minister that the minister take positive action. I could stand here and complain about the input that we have received across the country relative to the Young Offenders Act where we see an act that was designed and is weak, to say the least-I used the word flaccid. I sincerely hope when we get into this act and these changes that we do not cop out like we did in the Young Offenders Act.
We have talked about what the act covered, the regulation of toxic substances, priority substances. My colleague who spoke earlier this morning discussed those in some detail and I do not plan to do that here. Substances new to Canada, export-import toxic substances and waste, regulation, cleaning agents, water conditioners, nutrients, international air pollution, ocean dumping; this is a very sweeping act indeed and it is incumbent upon us to give it very detailed study.
I want to take this opportunity to spend a few minutes and discuss a serious environmental problem in Fraser Valley West. Fraser Valley West is an area nestled against the mountains in British Columbia. It encompasses the communities of Langley, Aldergrove, and Matsqui.
We are also the home of the Abbotsford International Air Show. I can remember in the early eighties standing on the tarmac in Abbotsford and looking up at Mount Baker which is just a pristine beautiful mountain, snow capped all year round. You could see it as clearly as any clear day on the ocean. Today there is this brown haze over our community that is not just disgusting but it is scary. It is scary for most people in our community. We are fearful for our young. We are fearful for those who have asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases.
It is nothing in my community to walk outside after two or three days of not cleaning off your patio furniture, for instance, and getting this black scourge that comes from the air. Washing homes is a common reality in the Fraser Valley. Air pollution is a serious concern there.
If there is any one thing we will be watching from my perspective from the Fraser Valley it will be this air pollution that is a serious problem.
The cause is by and large the air drifting from the ocean over Vancouver and the clouds in the air nestling up against the mountains, dropping back, and dropping the contents in our community. A lot of it is a result of vehicle emissions.
Although the provincial government has done its best to look at vehicle emissions it still remains a significant problem. Therefore on behalf of the parents, the children and everybody else in our community I will be watchdogging this aspect of the environmental act very carefully.
The other thing in our community that is very much a concern is water quality. We have many farms in our beautiful riding. The water quality has been proven in some cases and some areas to be quite deficient and people have been unable to drink it.
What do we want to see out of this? Our vision for the future is inspired by the importance to our well-being of exploring, developing, renewing and conserving-