We hear quite a bit of chatter coming from the NDP, Mr. Speaker, but I am sure they will get up and make their comments in due course on their own.
At the hearings we had for the trade committee in Winnipeg the International Institute for Sustainable Development talked about some destructive policies that occur especially by the use of subsidies. They said that can hurt our environment and hurt the drive for sustainable development.
They pointed to agricultural practices such as in the Netherlands and even in Canada where subsidies have had the negative effect of hurting the amount of topsoil in the last 100 years. Half of our topsoil has been depleted as a result of practices largely encouraged by subsidies.
They talked about practices in the Amazon, in Holland and in Denmark in terms of how many nitrates go into the ground water as a result of the heavy subsidies that take place. The heavy use of nitrogen especially in agriculture practices because of the subsidies that are used to produce food in those countries is very destructive to our environment.
Does my colleague have any thoughts on how destructive these practices are and the need to get rid of subsidies and get back to a market economy rather than the use of subsidies as a way of dealing with things to help clean up our environment?