Today is Ontario’s fourth annual Day of Action on Litter. The sad reality is that we should never have had to have a Day of Action on Litter, because littering is entirely preventable. Litter doesn’t happen by accident; it only happens because someone chooses to drop a coffee cup along the sidewalk or toss a pop can out the window as they’re travelling along a rural road. It doesn’t happen without the conscious decision by someone to do so.

Speaker, we can start by taking personal responsibility. Littering is one of those things that you might have already guessed I despise deeply. It’s something that as little children we were taught not to do, and something my wife, Vicky, and I have passed on to our children. I recall many times when our children would come home from school with candy wrappers in their pockets, because the last thing they were going to do was drop that wrapper on the ground.

Litter is not only a visible blight on this beautiful land we’ve been blessed with; it is very harmful to our environment and dangerous for pets that may consume it.

However, it is gratifying to see concerted community efforts and litter pickup days all across Ontario at this time of year to remove what has been deposited through the winter months. Having said that, it would be much better if it had never found its way onto our landscape at all.

We should all make a pledge to take our individual and collective responsibility seriously, because Ontario is not only ours to discover; it is ours to keep beautiful.