Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House that, after more than ten years of sustained efforts and investments totalling several billion dollars, the federal-provincial program called St. Lawrence Vision 2000 is starting to yield results.
Indeed, at a press conference held in Montreal, officials representing the Canadian and Quebec governments announced that the discharge of waste by the 50 largest polluters in the St. Lawrence has been reduced by 96 per cent.
Other measures are currently being implemented and will affect about 50 additional businesses located on other affluents of the river.
The cleaning up of the St. Lawrence is not completed, far from it, but given these results, we have every reason to be proud of what we have achieved. This is an incentive to keep up our efforts to eventually give people a clean river they will be able to enjoy safely.