Mr. Speaker, there absolutely is a war on the environment. Last summer the government announced that 700 positions could be cut; then we had cuts of 43% to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. The government then wanted to cut ozone monitoring. Ozone is critical to life on earth.
The questions should be: Should the government streamline upper atmosphere ozone monitoring a year after the discovery of a two million square kilometre ozone hole over the Arctic? What does streamline actually mean? It means gutting. Will the government maintain the integrity of the ozone monitoring program? Will it maintain Canadian contributions to the global observing system for climate in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change?
Another area where the government is cutting is water. Water is essential to our health, sustaining our ecosystems and growing our economy. On World Water Day the government gave .7% of what is needed to clean up the Great Lakes.