Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg for her thoughtful and well presented case in terms of our support for this kind of oversight and her concern about whether the government will actually implement all of it and do the things that will be required to protect us.
As a member of Parliament in Ontario, I will never forget the Walkerton scandal and the scenario that unfolded in front of us in the days of the Mike Harris government. I think the member might have been around in those days. That was as a result of, yes, some human failure but also the fact that over a number of months into the Mike Harris government there was a moving of oversight on the environmental front of laboratories to the private sector. There was also a reduction in the number of people working for the ministry of the environment which all came together to present to us a very tragic circumstance in which people lost their lives.
In bringing this, obviously wanted, needed and important legislation forward, is the member confident that the government, within which there are many from the Mike Harris days, will actually implement it and not, at the first opportunity, shift it all over to the private sector again and/or reduce the number of people in the ministry of the environment in terms of oversight and reporting on this kind of very important public business? Does she believe the government may continue to cut staff to the point where even the best of legislation and oversight will not actually be effective?