Mr. Speaker, I have been following rather closely for the last two years the issues surrounding the Sydney tar ponds and the impact that is having on human health, both from the perspective of my position as environmental critic for the NDP but also, and more important at this time, in regard to the impact that is having on human health.
The statistics that come out of there are just horrendous and bring us back to the issue. What has happened there, I am very afraid, will just be repeated by the government, because it has had in place a committee for going on five or six years, I believe, and there was a preceding committee. The committee really has not accomplished anything. I think everybody agrees with that. It is almost moribund in its lack of activity and has had no effective results at all, so while nothing is going on there, in the meantime we have people literally suffering serious health problems and there have been a number of deaths that I think can safely be attributed to the toxins that exist in the air, the soil and the water in that region.
The hunger strike that Elizabeth May is conducting at this point just highlights the level of frustration that people are feeling in Cape Breton over that issue and over the lack of any serious results being achieved while people are suffering major health problems. We believe that very serious numbers of deaths will ultimately come from that.