Mr. Speaker, recently parliamentarians attended an ecological summit and yesterday a forum on aboriginal health.
The summit included a presentation by Dr. Schindler from the University of Alberta who said that considering the importance of water to all life, it is strange that freshwater has been Canada's most mistreated and ignored natural resource. Canadian citizens are paying the price for governments not protecting our water supply and the environment.
The quality of drinking water is a major issue in Ontario. For the north the concentrations of PCBs and other pollutants in fish, caribou and birds are high enough to require human consumption of traditional aboriginal food to be restricted. The government is fully aware that in the north we have PCB levels five times higher than anywhere else.
It is time that the Liberal government changed its cavalier attitude toward the environment and enforced environmental laws and regulations. We demand action and remedies on the cumulative effects of organic pollutants. The government is responsible for the price that northerners are paying due to these pollutants.