Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Ottawa South. Indeed, I had the pleasure of knowing his father and the quote at the end of his speech were wise words that I hope we do all abide by. In fact, my father and his father went to high school together.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the constituents of Ottawa Centre for electing me to this place and I hope to stand in as good a stead as my predecessor, Mr. Broadbent.
I have a question and a concern about the environment. I share the hon. member's concerns about the environment, and about the challenges we all face with clean air and clean water. As the member will know, as he has been a resource on the environment to which others have turned to, we have not met the challenges that were presented to us through the Kyoto accord.
I would like to put aside the partisanship for a minute and talk about real solutions and ideas about how we can tackle the concerns of clean air and clean water. As a school teacher, I have been saddened to see the levels of asthma escalate over the years. If anyone has had the unfortunate opportunity to go into our emergency wards recently, they will see that it affects more and more children every day.
Does the hon. member see the solution for dealing with the problems with our air quality and clean water in the area of legislation? Particularly, one of the solutions our party has put forward and that I strongly advocate is to have a clean water and a clean air act.