Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the Minister of the Environment made some very uncalled for remarks with regard to an environmentalist group in Quebec, the "Société pour vaincre la pollution", which she referred to by its acronym, SVP.
SVP has been active in the environmental area for 15 years now. Like many other groups of its kind, it is on somewhat shaky financial ground. For the minister to declare that the restricted financial means of that group is a discrediting factor in the eyes of the public and of the scientific community is totally unspeakable.
Furthermore, the minister's data were inaccurate because, as one can see in the last issue of the prestigious magazine, National Geographic, the SVP group is still very much active. Such unfounded judgments on a Quebec environmentalist organization are unworthy of someone in a ministerial position.