Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank my colleague and friend from the Bloc Québécois, the member for Repentigny, for his kind words, on his own behalf and, as I understand it, on behalf of his party.
The political arena can sometimes be very difficult, but it is also a place where we can accomplish great things.
When the United Nations approached us in spring 2022 to ask us to host COP15 in Montreal, a conference that normally takes a year, if not two, to organize, we had only six months to do so. On top of that, we had to work closely with China, which was presiding over the conference, a country with which our diplomatic relations at the time were rather limited. The prime minister at the time, Mr. Trudeau, supported in particular by our former foreign affairs minister and current minister responsible for economic development, did not hesitate to support me in embarking on this adventure with the entire Canadian community, including NGOs, indigenous peoples and many private-sector companies. In the span of two weeks, we succeeded in convincing 196 countries to protect 30% of the planet. Today, this is referred to as the “Paris agreement for nature”, the equivalent of the Paris climate agreement.
People can achieve great things by getting into politics. I urge everyone watching who is wondering whether they should one day take the plunge to go for it, pursue their dreams and do everything they can.