Madam Speaker, before we were interrupted for question period I was about to allude to a letter from a citizen. I wanted to highlight the concerns of citizens across the country, especially the youth. I heard from many students and received many letters. A satellite link-up was created last year as part of the millennium project in Ottawa. Students from coast to coast to coast had an opportunity to converse with the Prime Minister.
The first concern that was raised about the future of our country dealt with the environment. Our children know that we have to take care of the future needs, the water, the soil, the land, the food, the vegetables and the fruits we eat.
Farming is a major industry in terms of agri-food. Family farms and organic farmers are very dependent on economic survival. They have been inundated by an industrial revolution in the area of better produce and better yields, but chemicals have been a mainstay of this research and development.
Science has proven that some of the food life cycles and the ecosystem are in danger. In the long term it is a detriment to our children. Children are nurtured at a young age. They are dependent on their mothers for nutrition and are vulnerable in terms of what we feed them.
The long term effect takes time. As adults we are introduced to new chemicals. Our defence system is well in tact. However, when children are exposed to them toxins can be released into their bodies which affect their organs and neurological system.
The letter highlighted the inability of the government to protect us. It referred to how the government reacted to the issue of MMT as a manganese additive to gasoline last summer. The environment minister and the health minister actually endorsed manganese. The Ethyl Corporation filed a lawsuit. Its country has banned MMT but Canada seems to be a freewheeling region in North America. It engages in scientific research to explore these additives without our being able to protect ourselves. It is actually infringing on our sovereign right to protect our environment and our health.
Bill C-32 concerns the Canadian sovereign right to protect our environmental health and ecosystem. The grouping we are now talking about concerns provincial and federal responsibilities. I highlight for the minister and her cabinet that an example was given to us in the Kyoto protocol. The European Community is not only self-combining its economic source, social and cultural entities and currency. It is also looking at itself as an ecosystem. At Kyoto it brought forward the eco-European bubble concept.
Canada has to look at itself as a bubble. Whatever we do in Ottawa, whatever we do in Ontario, affects Quebec. Quebec affects the maritimes. The maritimes affect Vancouver, the whole Arctic and its vulnerability. The Arctic does not get a direct impact from industrial economic events but it gets the environmental impacts of everything we do in the development of industry.
I ask Canadians and parliamentarians in the House to make sure that Bill C-32 protects the future health of our children and the future of our environment.