Mr. Speaker, in my opinion it is our duty as Canadian members of
Parliament to pay special honour to our country's lead role in environmental protection and promotion.
In 1992, Canada was one of the first industrialized countries to ratify the United Nations convention on biodiversity. Later, the provincial and federal governments joined forces to draw up a Canadian strategy on biodiversity. This was a fine example of federal-provincial collaboration, and one which illustrates how well Canadian federalism works.
Finally, let us recall how proud we all were as Canadians when Montreal was selected, at the second meeting of the signatories of the UN convention on biodiversity on November 13, 1995, to be the site of the permanent secretariat.
For us, the opening of that secretariat is concrete evidence of the great importance Canada assigns to universal environmental challenges.