Mr. Speaker, this is positive legislation, and I congratulate the government for moving forward on this. It is a first step, but I would like to see a quicker step.
Canada did sign onto the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 and here we are talking about this 27 years later. I would like to have seen this go quicker. Of course the previous Conservative government was at 1% of protecting our marine areas. That was a terrible time in Canada's history with respect to advancing our international commitments, as the hon. member just commented.
We cannot just take one piece of this. I would like to see a comprehensive policy from the government in this area. For instance, my hon. colleague brought up the Philippines. Right now, Canada is refusing to support a ban on the dumping of hazardous waste in developing countries. A proposed amendment would strengthen an international treaty called the Basel Convention, which governs the global movement of hazardous waste. Canada, which has been a signatory since 1989, has been under fire recently for allegedly violating that treaty and, in fact, is currently refusing to support an amendment that would strengthen it.
To go back to the Philippines, Canadian businesses cannot be allowed to dump our trash in developing countries that are even less able to deal with recycling and toxicity. Those tankers are coming back here. Canada should take them back right away and we should compensate the Philippines for all of the costs in having to deal with our garbage. We should apologize to the Philippines for having allowed that to happen and ensure it does not happen again.
We all have an obligation as citizens of Canada, in fact all citizens of the world, to ensure we take care of our environment in a way that is sustainable and meets our Paris accord commitments so all future generations can inherit the same planet we all inherited when we were growing up.