moved that Bill C-29, an act to regulate interprovincial trade in and the importation for commercial purposes of certain manganese based substances, be read the third time and passed.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased that this House is giving final consideration to Bill C-29, the manganese based fuel additives act, because this is an important piece of legislation that should be dealt with on the basis of both merit and good common sense.
I would ask my colleagues to view this legislation in the larger context. That context is as large as the great Canadian outdoors and as important as the air we all breathe.
This government has made clean air a priority. We have already introduced tougher standards for vehicle emissions for the new model year that will help bring cleaner air to all our cities and towns.
These new tail pipe emission standards for cars and trucks represent reductions over present standards of some 30 per cent of total exhaust hydrocarbons and 60 per cent of nitrogen oxide.
The MMT legislation before us at third reading today is another important stepping stone in the prevention of air pollution. This should not be interpreted as the end of our campaign for cleaner air. We will be making more announcements on this issue in the days and weeks to come.
When all these regulations and standards come into effect, Canadians will see the difference, smell the difference and breathe the difference.
Furthermore, this package of government initiatives will result in billions of dollars in health benefits saved to Canadians and for our health care system. They will help prevent the pain and suffering of choking and gasping attacks on the young and the elderly when bad air days shroud our cities with a dirty blanket of pollution, which happens too often in many of our cities, particularly during the summer.
Right now we have Bill C-29 before us, which I hope and trust will receive third and final reading from the House in a rather expeditious manner.
I think it may be easier to wrap our minds around the common sense of the government's position than it is to wrap our tongues around the pronunciation of what MMT actually stands for. MMT is the commonly used acronym for a more tongue twisting name which simply put is a manganese based fuel additive. This additive is used to increase the octane rating of gasoline.
MMT was first considered an alternative to lead in gasoline. It has been used in Canada since 1977. As the hon. members are aware, lead was gradually phased out of almost all fuels before 1990.
The phase out has brought considerable improvement in our urban air quality. Today, almost every Canadian motorist uses MMT simply because Canadian refiners use MMT. The exact amount of this additive may vary from one batch of gasoline to another. In general, though, premium grade gasoline contains a higher volume of MMT than regular grade gasoline.
However, it should be understood that MMT has always been controversial. In 1978 it was prohibited for use in unleaded gasoline in the United States because it was suspected then that the substance damaged emission control equipment.
MMT is certain to have no place in the higher tech, cleaner fuels of the future. So Canada in a certain sense is compelled to confront the problem of MMT not because of some new environmental threat that has just emerged on the horizon, but because our fuels and monitoring devices used to counter environmental threats are simply getting more sophisticated. Cleaning up our air involves using cleaner fuels as well as having cleaner cars and trucks.
While research has continued on the products that we put in our gas tanks it has also continued on our hardware, the engine that burns the fuel and the control equipment that lowers the emissions. Technological advances have steadily cut the harmful emissions coming out of our tailpipes. In fact, since the early 1970s and the advent of national standards, over 90 per cent of the most noxious tailpipe pollutants have been removed.
Now we have taken another major step forward with the introduction of sophisticated on board diagnostic systems.
These systems are of great environmental significance. They control vehicle emissions and warn the driver of any operating defect so that the necessary repairs can be made.
When used properly, they ensure that cleaner burning engines of today and of tomorrow operate as designed. They will also help warn drivers about proper maintenance needs that will result in decreased tailpipe emissions and improve fuel economy.
This is a very important technology, but even more important is that it work, that it does its job properly as originally designed. That is where the problem arises when we talk about MMT. The automobile industry strongly warns that gasoline containing MMT clogs and jams up the operation of sophisticated on board diagnostic systems.
Like many of us in this House, I have listened to the arguments and the debate from every conceivable side of this equation. I have read the science as well as the reports. The arguments and the debate for this legislation as well as against it, I suppose, would essentially fall into four distinct categories.
First, there is the importance of a healthy environment. Second, there is the issue of Canadian fuels in the larger North American context. Third, there are the issues of consumer protection. Fourth, there is the economic impact of the proposals underlying Bill C-29.
But for me, as Minister of the Environment, the driving force behind this bill is that a fuel additive with the potential to hinder the proper operation of pollution control systems will have indirect negative effects on the health of Canadians.
We cannot take chances with people's health. We cannot take chances with the air we breath. This is a precautionary principle that I and our government stand by strongly. This brings me to the main argument of my first point concerning the need for this legislation, the health of Canadians and a healthy environment.
Transportation, specifically the automobile, is the single leading source of air pollution in our communities. When 21 auto manufacturers are convinced that MMT clogs their pollution monitoring
equipment, including on board diagnostic computers which alert the drivers to problems and pollution dangers, and when those 21 auto makers petition and warn the government and members of Parliament about their concerns, it becomes clear for me and the government that we must heed that message seriously and respond in a responsible manner.
Let us all remember there are some 14 million cars on Canada's roads, each pumping out over four tonnes of pollutants every single year it is on the road.
Do we want to gamble with pollution monitoring devices in the backdrop of those kinds of statistics and facts? I think not. Nor does the government, especially when we realize that air pollution is linked to some health issues that are deadly serious.
As for the additive MMT, we have received support and representations from a wide spectrum of Canadians and organizations, and not only the environmental organizations, legitimately so, that I happen to represent as a constituency. The spectrum has been much more varied than that.
For instance, we have heard and been petitioned by the Canadian Institute of Child Health, the Asthma Information Association, the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, the Ontario Public Health Association and the cities of North York and York public health departments and a litany of environmental organizations across the country.
We have also received international letters of support and requests from south of the border and other origins as well. All of them advocate discontinuing the use of MMT in our gasoline because, simply put, the margins of safety are just too narrow.
What are some of these groups saying? I read one letter from the Canadian Institute of Child Health and I was moved by one paragraph: "It would be both scientifically and morally irresponsible to repeat our country's past experience with lead additives".
The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada noted with apparent anger that the corporation that fought against removing lead additives years ago is the same corporation fighting against removing MMT from gasoline.
The Canadian Automobile Association said that MMT damages catalytic converters and coats oxygen sensors. The list goes on, as does the debate.
We need to ask ourselves one fundamental question: what is the point of pushing for new technology? What is the point of the government pushing for new national emissions standards from our auto makers so that the air that Canadians breathe can be protected, if it is then going to allow the wrong fuel to be put in the tank? This fuel could gum up the technology and not reach the standards that the government has set for the auto makers and that has been set for a modern, dynamic and caring kind of society?
As I have already indicated, any potential health threat is and should be of prime concern to the government. For example in Toronto, the city that I have the honour of representing, in 1994, the last year for which statistics and full figures are available, there were about 40 days when the air condition at the very best was moderate and at the very worst was poor.
As members of Parliament we hear about this. We may also have people in our families who feel these things. During such days asthmatics and especially asthmatic children because they breathe quicker than we adults are especially vulnerable. In fact the public health department in the city of North York said that it is especially concerned about the health of children because it knows from scientific evidence that children take in more manganese oxide than adults and eliminate it more slowly.
Is it any surprise that we were shocked to read news reports this spring which noted a 20-year study by the health department of the Government of Canada had found that in the metropolitan Toronto area when pollution levels are high-for instance one of those 40 days during 1994-two to three more Canadians died from heart and respiratory diseases.
Environmentalists and others who extrapolate figures from government reports have estimated that air pollution, mostly smog, which comes in large measure from our automobiles and trucks, adds and extra $1 billion every year to Canada's health care costs.
We have debates in this House about health care and we talk to Canadians who are worried about the affordability of health care. Are we to be indifferent to air quality when it has such a profound effect on Canadians and then it translates into $1 billion a year on our health care system? I hope not and I believe Canadians feel the same way.
Fifteen per cent of hospital admissions of infants for respiratory conditions are linked to ozone and sulphate pollution. We are living in an age when dangerous atmospheric pollutants, rather than hormones, are poisoning babies.
Consequently, if there is a possibility that MMT can cause problems with the technology that helps prevent pollution and sickness, put quite simply we cannot ignore such a threat. After all it was the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment that agreed on the need for cleaner vehicles and cleaner fuels.
In fact, the CCME, not my department, issued a report on cleaner fuels and cleaner vehicles which recognized that fuels and emission control technologies should be treated as an integrated system to reduce motor vehicle emissions.
I believe very strongly that Bill C-29 is consistent with the approach laid down by all the governments and ministers of the environment. I urge all my provincial counterparts, in the name of positive and progressive harmonization, not blind harmonization, and for the sake of moving toward cleaner fuels and renewable fuels, to follow the lead of Canada's national government.
Clearly this point should be put on the record. The approach represented by MMT legislation, brought forward today at third reading, is in keeping with a policy designed to encourage the development of renewable fuels such as ethanol. I am proud of being in a party that has championed ethanol. I am proud to be in a caucus with colleagues who would not give up the battle until they saw that the alternative became a reality.
It is the government's national public policy and Canada's sovereign right to encourage alternative fuels, renewable fuels and cleaner fuels. It is a policy that the government will pursue aggressively and without any apology to anyone or any corporation.
The second point that should be made concerns the United States situation and putting Canadian fuels and additives in a larger North American context. There has always been an argument that Canada's MMT legislation should be in harmony with the legislation in the United States and that the two should be a level playing field. It makes good economic and trade sense, in addition to common sense, that automobiles and trucks should be built with emission controls that work across the continent.
Let us make no mistake. The trend for cleaner fuels in North America is away from the additive MMT not toward MMT. It is important that everyone understands that despite a recent United States court ruling on a technical procedural point and not one of substance that ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to allow MMT to be marketed as a gasoline additive in the United States, at least 15 of the largest petroleum companies in the United States have said that they do not intend to use MMT. That list includes almost every major petroleum producer: Amoco, Anchor, ARCO, BP, Chevron, Conoco, Exxon, Hess, Marathon, Mobil, Penzoil, Philips, Shell, Sun and Texaco. They will not use MMT.
As well, health tests, as mandated by the United States regulations, will also continue on MMT. Again, on a health basis, the jury, despite the court ruling on a procedural technical aspect, is still out. If we do not believe we have enough evidence, about one-third of the United States market will use what is called reformulated gasoline, especially in areas that suffer from acute air pollution. Under the U.S. clean air act, MMT is not allowed in reformulated gasoline. It is prohibited by law.
Finally, the state of California, a recognized trendsetter when it comes to emission controls, expressly prohibits the use of MMT additives in fuels. What does this mean? It means that the playing field is still not completely levelled. It also means that level playing field is just around the corner. There will be both MMT-laced and MMT-free fuels in the North American market.
When all is said and done, currently the American market is approximately 85 per cent MMT-free. It is very obvious to this side of the House that when we talk about the larger North American context that MMT is going the same way as leaded gasoline. The legislation in Bill C-29 is in keeping with that trend. This is unlike my friends on the other side who want legislation which would somehow buck the trend toward alternative and cleaner fuels for our cars and trucks.
The third point to remember in this debate is consumer protection.
We in Canada are faced with a conflict between two major industrial sectors: the automotive manufacturers and the petroleum industry. The automotive industry claims that MMT damages their products and forces solutions on them which might increase their price to the consumer.
When the onboard diagnostics are gummed up by MMT, it is not the guys producing the automobiles in Windsor or the petroleum industry but the Canadian consumers-our constituents-who would have to carry extra warranty expenses. The auto dealers association spoke very clearly in its expression of similar concerns about MMT and car warranties.
Aside from the cost factor of added trips to the garage for Canadian constituents, there will also be the perception that Canadian autos do not work well because the warning lights will always be blinking, not because of a malfunction, but because of a gasoline additive.
Not only is there a health cost to be paid by Canadians if we continue to use MMT, but car owners will also be dipping into their pockets and into their purses a lot more often because of malfunctioning maintenance systems. Canadians do not need these unnecessary economic burdens foisted on them and this legislation will certainly help to prevent that from occurring.
My fourth point concerns the overall economic impact that Bill C-29 would have on our country and on our refiners. The petroleum industry claims that MMT reduces nitrogen oxide emissions-perhaps the opposition critic will quote that-by up to 20 per cent. I
say quite categorically that this figure is subject to much dispute and much debate. In any case, alternatives to MMT exist.
This legislation will allow the emission monitoring and control equipment to freely operate as it was designed: to prevent unnecessary vehicle maintenance. In this regard, it was not a study from my department but a study commissioned by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment which concluded that the impact on Canada's refining industries would not be overly excessive. The study estimated that the cost for refiners to remove MMT for all of Canada would total $150 million in capital expenditures plus $50 million a year in added operating expenses.
I would be prepared to admit that this will lead to an increase in the cost of gasoline and not a decrease. In pennies this translates to an increase in operating costs of .2 cents a litre for the refiners.
Let us carry on that conversation. If we take an average Canadian motorist, statistics tell us that the motorist will travel 20,000 kilometres in any given year, at a fuel consumption rate of some 10 litres of gasoline for 100 kilometres travelled. The average motorist in a year will use about 2,000 litres of gasoline.
If we apply what the refiners have told us it will cost them, .2 cents a litre, and multiply that by the number of litres that an average Canadian motorist uses in a year, it translates to an extra $5 per motorist per year.
I would submit, with all due respect, without underestimating the costs that Canadians have on all sorts of things, that a $5 increase per year for an average motorist is a reasonable price to pay for doing the right thing for their health and their environment. What does $5 mean?