Madam Speaker, I went through some of the messages I was sent. I actually skipped some. There were quite a few that actually made the exact point the hon. member has made. Why is it that we are sending money overseas and at the same time are taking away the money that was helping improve our local environment? What kind of trade-off is that? Someone asked, “Is this the Government of Canada or the government of some other faraway place?”
People care about their communities. I did not want to quote those things, because I am not going to necessarily dispute that we have a role internationally. I think we have a role to help internationally. However, our very first role is to help our own communities, to get our own house in order, not the environment somewhere else. If we cannot get our own house in order, if we cannot clean up our own lakes and our own lands and focus on them, then we are not doing our job.
That is why I say that it is not words like “sustainable development” that matter but actions that show that we are actually making sustainable development happen.