Mr. Speaker, the effects of those pollutants are really insidious. They are hard to diagnose. When a person goes to the doctor, the doctor will not be able to say that the person is suffering from heavy metal poisoning because of persistent organic pollutants. It just does not happen. However, I happen to know there are very high rates of cancer, strange tumours, odd infections, people with chronic fatigue and environmental sensitivities.
What I think this legislation does is it sets a standard. How can we expect to go to an international arena and say that we have to phase out these pollutants when we have set a national standard that calls for virtual elimination, or that we will tolerate this much or three-quarters of this level in our environment rather than looking at them as something deadly which we cannot accept at all, period? We have to get them out of production and not allow them to affect our children.
By passing the legislation we set that standard. If we set it for ourselves, how can we hold an international arena to a higher standard?