That, in the opinion of the House, the government, and specifically the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the President of the Treasury Board, has failed to learn the painful lessons from Walkerton which proved that cuts to essential government services protecting the health and safety of Canadians are reckless and can cause Canadians to lose their lives; and further, that the House condemn the government for introducing a budget that will repeat the mistakes of the past and put Canadians in danger by reducing food inspection, search and rescue operations, and slashing environmental protections, and call on the government to reverse these positions.
Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Etobicoke North. I want to say publicly what a pleasure it is to serve with her in the House of Commons. She is consistently well prepared. She works extremely hard, as a former scientist, in bringing that knowledge to us in the House.
My concern with one of the things she mentioned, though, was that we might see fewer environmental assessments take place at the federal level as they get hived off to the provinces.
Now that I read the new definition of what will be examined in a federal review—namely that just fish and just migratory birds are the only things the current Conservative Party believes are federal—I think it is almost better that we have no further federal assessments, because they will have so degraded and destroyed the notion of environmental review.
Kirsty Duncan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague and friend. We have had the privilege of working together for over 20 years.
One of the things we are most concerned about in this budget is the gutting of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. In fact, it is being repealed. Those laws are in place in order to protect the health and safety of Canadians, our environment, our economy and our livelihoods.