Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I was not part of the government at the time. We need to act now. Maybe something should have been done in 2005, but everyone was surprised by the scope of the problem. We were surprised when some female members of the RCMP reported that they had been sexually harassed.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill to start us off this fall in the House, and I am pleased to participate in this debate. To start, I would like to talk more generally about the actions of police forces by sharing with members an incident I witnessed this summer. I stopped at a Tim Hortons restaurant in my riding to get a coffee and work on my work plan.

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition whereby the signatories ask that the federal government not close down or otherwise transfer the Experimental Lakes Area program outside of government, that it remain within the purview of the federal government.

Protecting Canada's Seniors Act  Madam Speaker, I have one quick question. I am not a lawyer, but there was a point the member raised that raises some questions with me. He mentioned that this bill may in some ways be superfluous, since age is already taken into account when crimes are committed against elderly Canadians.

World Autism Awareness Day Act  Mr. Speaker, first I would like to salute Shawn Murphy, the former member of Parliament for Charlottetown who retired just before the last election. I should add that the current representative for that riding is an excellent member who has obviously taken much inspiration from Mr.

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, on the weekend I was in my community. I was speaking with a Ph.D. in a science area. I will not be too specific because I do not want to compromise this individual. He is a researcher. He is scandalized by the changes the government has made through this budget to the funding of science in Canada.

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  A Trojan elephant.

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, I have to agree that the government is being surreptitious on this. It is using an omnibus bill to essentially undermine environmental regulations in the country. Any change to the Fisheries Act should be studied in-depth by the fisheries committee and calling on expert witnesses to speak to that.

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, this is a scientific issue. A lot of people think that environmental activism is all about public relations stunts and so forth and that it is a kind of soft area. However, it is not. It is one of the most scientifically involved areas of public policy. There are some very good minds on the finance committee who know a lot about the financial ecosystems and the economic ecosystems, but I do not know if the finance committee has the expertise needed to explore the complexities of aquatic ecosystems.

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, I respect the hon. member's comments and his expertise. I know he has much expertise in the area of biology and, therefore, his comments carry a lot of weight. However, the Fisheries Act is meant to protect fish and fish habitat but the reality is that the fish are the canary in the coal mine.

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, I will take us from the United Nations and old age security to the environment. Allow me to delve into Canadian history and go back to the dawn of the great nation of Canada, to 1867, the year of Confederation. At that time, the Fathers of Confederation decided on the division of powers and the jurisdictions of the federal and provincial governments.

Transboundary Waters Protection Act  Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for this legislative initiative intended to better protect Canada's fresh water. The member dares tread where his government has refused to go, namely, toward protecting Canada's fresh water from the future threat of export in bulk.

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, the government is throwing out tools that would allow it to develop and implement a national water strategy. It is sabotaging the Fisheries Act; it is abandoning the Experimental Lakes Area; it is cutting the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne—the only francophone research centre at Fisheries and Oceans Canada; it is eliminating the water resources strategy group at Environment Canada; and it is ending groundwater modelling.

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, the government says it will privatize the Experimental Lakes Area program, if it does not eliminate it altogether. However, the program does large ecosystems-scale research whose findings inform federal public policy. Because of the program, we have an acid rain treaty with the United States and we have taken phosphate out of detergents.

Act to Provide for the Continuation and Resumption of Rail Service Operations  Mr. Speaker, if I heard correctly the hon. member said at the beginning of her speech that railways should never be allowed to go on strike. If that is the case, will the government table legislation to communicate to Canadians that railways should never be allowed to go on strike because they are an important infrastructure in this country?