Madam Speaker, my understanding-and I guess it is the best way to state it-is that whenever anything is done to the natural environment, when we decide to intervene in the course of a waterway, when we decide to make changes on the land or if we decide to cut a forest, we have to think of the implications of the action on the seventh generation down the road.
It is not just how it is going to affect us next month or in the next year. We have to think of the seven lifetimes of people who will follow us. When we are dealing with environmental issues they are very complex and often we do not properly extend the time horizon.
One of the reasons I am so supportive of the concept of sustainability is that it takes into consideration ecological aspects, economic aspects and social aspects. Something I firmly believe in is intergenerational equity. Our children inherit what we leave for them, their children and so on to the seventh generation.