Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his speech and recognize him for his work on water issues over many years. He is certainly one of the experts in this House on water, and I want to direct a question on that particular issue that concerns fracking.
A couple of weeks ago at the environment committee, I asked the officials present what they would do if I poured into Lake Ontario, opposite from my riding, a list of chemicals. There was a list of six or seven chemicals, all of which are hazardous to human health. They basically told me they would lock me up quite quickly and that I would be subject to a half-million-dollar fine and potentially two years in jail.
I said, “That is kind of interesting, because that is the kind of stuff that is actually going into fracking holes. What are you doing about that?” They said, “Well, we are monitoring.” I said, “That is interesting. While you are monitoring, there are things that are potentially happening to the environment, because somewhere between a third and a half of the water that is put into a fracking hole comes back up and has to be managed.”
Therefore, I would be interested in the hon. member's views with respect to the scientists' ability to get hold of what is going into these fracking holes.