Mr. Speaker, I am extremely honoured to be in the House today for the first time. I would like to congratulate all members of the House on their election and I would like to thank the residents of Sarnia—Lambton for their confidence that is placed in me.
We have heard today already about the tragic events of December 6. Those were my sister engineers. As the first female engineer rising in the House, I respect that and we need to ensure this never happens again.
I heard the hon. member from Sudbury and others talk about the government's commitment to research and development. As the critic for science, I thought that was very absent from the throne speech. There was little emphasis on anything except clean tech. There was no mention of agriculture, mining, fossil fuel sector, genomics, nanophysics or IT big data.
With the billions of dollars that the government is spending in every other area, I would hope the Liberals would commit the billions of dollars that are needed to inspire innovation but also to inspire basic research so Canada does not continue to fall further behind.