Mr. Speaker, knowing your profound sense of equity, my remarks will be as brief as the remarks of the minister.
Mr. Speaker, you correctly hold that the long-standing tradition in Parliament of not using the word “liar” is to be maintained and I respect that. That is why I withdrew the term. But there is a question of equivocation.
It is interesting that the minister referred to his answer of June 1 and not his answer of May 31. He should read both. Furthermore, in both of those answers, no doubt in an élan of enthusiasm, he had the unmitigated gall to tell this House that for 10 years all of the premiers had been asking for these changes.
It is interesting to parse his sentences in the House today. He keeps using conditioning words like “substantially”. He no longer refers to the premiers of the provinces individually. I was indeed one of the ministers of the environment who was there during those 10 years. As you noted in his speech in the House just now, Mr. Speaker, almost everything he referred to happened after that, so it is not true to say that it was during those 10 years that people were asking for it.
Furthermore, no one ever asked him to remove the environmental assessment provisions as they now stand. He is incapable of producing anything. He keeps saying it is substantially this that they were looking for. He keeps saying that this is in the order of what was being sought. No one has ever sought that.
I threw back the keys to the limo on a question of principle with regard to the environment. I will not let one of the Harper-Cons stand in this House and tell me that I or my government ever did anything to request that we reduce the protection of the environment. I am going to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say I did everything I could to protect the environment. He will not be able to.