Bill C-27 (Historical)

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

An Act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste

Pest Control Products Act

[The Speaker]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber, the Deputy Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill C-43, an act to amend certain acts and instruments and to repeal the Fisheries Prices Support Act—Chapter 17.

Bill C-10, an act respecting the national marine conservation areas of Canada—Chapter 18.

Bill C-50, an act to amend certain acts as a result of the accession of the People's Republic of China to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization—Chapter 19.

Bill S-41, an act to re-enact legislative instruments enacted in only one official language—Chapter 20.

Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste—Chapter 22.

Bill C-47, an act respecting the taxation of spirits, wine and tobacco and the treatment of ships' stores—Chapter 22.

Bill C-59, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 2003—Chapter 21.

Nuclear Safety and Control Act

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-57, which was introduced at first reading on May 31, 2002.

It is fair to say that in this House we have seen more comprehensive bills amending a number of acts. However, the bill before us today amends a single section of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. According to the sponsor of the bill, the Minister of Natural Resources, the bill is designed to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. He calls it an administrative amendment or bill, meaning that it is not a complete overhaul of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

However, this amendment, even though this is not obvious yet, will have a serious impact on the way the nuclear industry operates here in Canada. It is significant that the minister has decided to introduce the bill we are debating today. The bill amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

Of course, I will speak about Bill C-57 and the amendments at issue, but I would also like to talk about the long term management of nuclear waste.

Members will recall that there has already been a debate in the House on the disposal of nuclear waste. This debate took place in the context of Bill C-27. This was an interesting bill, as it was introduced and considered in committee. It was also interesting because Canada studied the issue of nuclear waste management for a ten year period with the Seaborn commission, which I will speak about later.

Of course, I will speak to Bill C-57, and I will also refer to Bill C-27 and the whole issue of nuclear waste disposal. I will also speak to the issue of the importance of public consultations in cases where the disposal of such waste is being considered in locations and regions in Quebec and Canada.

As an example, there is a case we asked questions about to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission just this morning in the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. There was even a ruling on this case by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. It is the case of the Bruce complex in Ontario. This is a site where radioactive waste will be stored on the shores of Lake Huron, and the residents would have liked a commission to have been set up, through the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, to consult with residents and to study the projects.

The Bruce complex is located on the shores of Lake Huron and has been designated, first, as a high level complex. Second, it is one of the biggest disposal sites in the world. The residents would therefore have liked to have been consulted.

Finally, I would like to close by outlining to Canadians and Quebecers the impact that nuclear waste and nuclear energy can have on human health. A number of reports have been published on this. These reports conclude that nuclear waste and nuclear energy are significant in the development of certain diseases when workers, residents and more specifically children are near this waste.

So, Bill C-57 amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. Clause 1 would replace a paragraph in the current legislation, which reads as follows: “--any other person with a right to or interest in, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination”.

Bill C-57 would amend paragraph 46(3) of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to read as follows: “--any other person who has the management and control of, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination”.

In fact, only a few words will be changed if this bill is passed. But the impact will be considerable.

In his press release, the minister tells us that these amendments are purely administrative. That may be so from a cosmetic point of view, but the impact will be considerable.

What are the government's true intentions in introducing this amendment? It is good to ask ourselves this question. If the amendment is purely administrative, there should not be any impact. But this bill amends the act significantly and will have a considerable impact on the development of the nuclear industry here in Canada.

Basically, the government wants this amendment to exempt one group from decontamination obligations. Third parties should no longer be responsible for decontamination.

In this connection, we know what the government's intentions are. Its true intentions are to ensure, for example, that a bank making a loan to a nuclear plant could—under the existing legislation, if we succeed in defeating this bill—be taken to court and would inevitably incur very high costs.

It is primarily to exempt these third parties, the banks, those able to finance the nuclear industry, that this bill was introduced.

The government wants to arrange it so that those parties—be they banks or other interests—who have helped developed the nuclear industry in Canada are exempt from their decontamination obligation.

This runs counter to a fundamental principle recognized in Quebec which is that the polluter pays. Anyone who contributed to the contamination of a site must share the costs of decontamination.

We on this side of the House are of the opinion that to the extent that a citizen, a third party, but more importantly a citizen, whether a corporate entity or not, has contributed to contamination by nuclear wastes, he must assume the costs thereof. This is what the government is trying to take away with this bill and this is basically what we are opposed to.

There have been some significant debates on this in the past. As my colleague from Sherbrooke has indicated, a commission was set up here in Canada because the storage of nuclear waste needed to be given some thought. There are 20,000 metric tonnes of waste—or 18,000 to be more precise—in Canada at the present time.

This represents 1.3 million bundles, as we know, and we also know that there are three types of waste: nuclear fuel waste, low level radioactive waste and uranium mine and mill tailings.

It is worthwhile taking the time to look at the nuclear waste situation in Canada. It must be pointed out that, of these 20,000 tonnes of waste, the bulk of it comes from spent nuclear fuel bundles. We are talking here of the 22 Candu reactors, most of which date back to the 1970s. Ontario Power Generation Inc. is currently operating 20 reactors. At the present time, 90% of the nuclear waste is in Ontario.

Hydro Québec produces some at its Gentilly plant, of course, but the nuclear waste produced in Quebec accounts for only 3% of the total of 20,000 tonnes currently available, if I may use such a term.

An energy company in New Brunswick accounts for another 5%. Atomic Energy of Canada' experimental reactors produce 2%, of the total of 1.3 million bundles.

We have trouble understanding how certain obligations can be taken away, how steps can be taken so that third parties will no longer be responsible for decontamination, when we can see what the problem is like in Canada at this time as far as the management of nuclear waste storage is concerned. How can bills get passed in this House that will facilitate the development of the Canadian nuclear industry while we are having such trouble managing the present 18,000 tonnes? This makes no sense whatsoever.

Why, as a matter of public policy, are we not focusing on the development of clean renewable energies, as my colleague from Jonquière suggested about ten minutes ago? How can we adopt measures like the one in front of us, which benefits this industry, while we are still waiting for financial incentives to develop renewable energies?

I am glad to see that the Minister of Environment is present to hear what I have to say. How can he feel comfortable in a debate on this issue? How can we reject that proposal and apply the polluter pay principle? This bill raises some questions.

I will summarize the Seaborn commission findings. For one thing, what we are expecting from the government in terms of a nuclear fuel waste management plan is that the technical aspects of the storage program be taken into consideration at the planning stage.

Public consultation has to be at the basis of the Canadian policy on waste management. Canadians livre right beside the waste storage complexes. The best solution cannot be only technical. It has to include a sociological approach to management. We would have liked to see the government focus on green energy instead of making social choices that favour the Canadian nuclear industry.

The government is again being called to account for its refusal to hold public consultations, which were called for by the Seaborn commission.

On May 30, 2002, Normand de la Chevrotière appeared as a witness before the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, on the issue of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Bill C-19. He told us that his group, which includes 300 families, had asked the government to establish an environmental assessment board to examine the Bruce complex, which is designed to store radioactive nuclear waste near his community.

This complex on the shore of Huron Lake and the waste storage site are considered among the biggest in the world and are termed high level facilities, and experts will understand what I mean. People from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission told us this morning that they are certainly the biggest in North America.

I was reading some papers this morning, particularly an article from the September 1996 issue of Québec Science . Six years ago, the possibility of storing weapons grade plutonium from Russia and the U.S. at the Bruce complex was being examined . Six years ago, papers in the scientific community were considering this possibility.

The Department of Environment deemed that it was not appropriate to consult the public. It does not matter that 300 families will be living close to this site.

I want to go back to what I was saying two minutes ago when I was referring to the conclusions of the Seaborn panel. Sure, it is necessary to evaluate storage techniques but, more importantly, the public must be consulted.

I am under the impression that this bill is providing oxygen to the Canadian nuclear industry. The government is promoting the establishment in Canada of places to store nuclear waste, while ensuring that third parties, who may not necessarily have the responsibility to manage these sites, cannot be required to decontaminate them.

If a bank decides to fund the Bruce complex storage project, will it be responsible for decontaminating the site if this bill is passed? The answer is no. Those who will have provided the necessary funding to establish this complex on the shores of Lake Huron will have no environmental responsibility.

We want this government to send to the nuclear industry a clear message that its members must behave like good corporate citizens. The legislation already provides for the funding of storage projects by banks. However, it is totally unacceptable on the part of the government to remove the banks' responsibilities by condoning this.

So, this bill must be examined from a different perspective, not from the perspective of the government, which is trying to fool us with mere administrative and cosmetic arguments, because it wants to ram this legislation through the House. This shows how, sometimes, bills that amend only one section may have a major impact.

This is why we are opposed to the bill's only clause. It will have a major impact on the development of Canada's nuclear industry.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I listened closely to the comments of my colleague on the particular change to the act proposed by Bill C-57.

My colleagues from Athabasca, Sherbrooke, and although he did not speak yet, my colleague from Windsor--St. Clair, have spoken at length on a number of government nuclear policies and the importance of various pieces of legislation affecting the nuclear industry. We have agreed with many of the policies. I take no exception to the thoughtful comments made by my colleague from Sherbrooke although I expect that at the end of the day on this vote we will probably not be in complete agreement. That does not take away from the importance of what my colleague from Sherbrooke said.

Bill C-57, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, is almost a piece of housekeeping legislation. The difficulty, as has been mentioned already, with housekeeping legislation introduced by the government is that one has to go back and check the entire bill again because there is always something hidden.

In this case I do not think there is anything hidden. It is a pretty straightforward, uncomplicated change contained in a few words in subsection 46(3) of the bill.

The government House leader rose earlier and asked that we pass all stages of the bill. The Progressive Conservative Party is in agreement with that. However, it has been said, and needs to be said again, that this is not timely. The government had an opportunity to bring it forward and did not bring it forward. All of a sudden we have a bill on the table in the dying days of this sitting of the House.

Once again there is an unprecedented urgency that all stages of the bill be passed in unison. Because of the subject matter, I agree, but the point needs to be made that it is not the way legislation or changes to legislation should be brought to the House. We should be more thorough in the original legislation. Part of the problem is the absolute sloppiness of the legislation the government has been passing, and its absolute refusal to make amendments to poorly worded legislation.

Under proposed subsection 46(3) in the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, that measure can be interpreted to extend liability for nuclear site remediation, as it is worded now, to an owner, operator or any other person with a right to, or an interest in, the affected land or place.

Obviously that was a mistake in the original act that should have been picked up. Unfortunately it was not picked up and as a result of that clause banks or other financial institutions are reluctant to lend money to nuclear operators because of potential liability. The cost of the liability could exceed the initial financing to the operator and negatively affect the financial situation of the lending institution. This is unprecedented in any other section of Canadian law or legislation.

Even with the changes it is conceivable that a lending institution could still be liable if it owns the property. If for some reason the original owner forecloses then the lending institution could be held liable. That is a different situation and it is not unforeseen with the changes.

Under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is the nuclear control agency, is authorized to conduct investigations to see if nuclear contamination exists onsite if and when any site has been decommissioned. Under subsection 46(3) the commission can order that measures be taken to minimize or eliminate the contamination and that those measures be carried out in a prompt manner, as it should be. However, who is liable for the cost of that clean up?

It was mentioned earlier by my colleague from Athabasca that subsection 46(3) in the original legislation was a section carried over from the mining sector. It was not really meant to affect the operation and control of nuclear reactors. It was meant to deal with mine site reclamation, acid mine drainage and possible tailing ponds contamination to any area surrounding a mine or a smelter. There are ways to deal with that. It was not meant to hinder or control financiers of the nuclear sector.

This is not about whether one supports nuclear energy or not. This is not about all of the correct things said earlier about our responsibility as legislators to seek more avenues and opportunities for green power, hydroelectricity, wind energy, solar energy and thermal energy. That is not what this is about.

This is about taking away the liability of a lending institution from the responsibility for nuclear onsite contamination. That does not exist if, for example a lending institution suddenly became a service station with onsite gas or diesel contamination which needed to be cleaned up. The lending institution is not responsible for that, nor should it be. This change that has been asked for is not a complicated change.

The amendment to the Nuclear Safety and Control Act addresses a number of issues. The possibility of liability for lending institutions for site remediation impedes nuclear facilities from accessing debt financing. Barriers to financing place nuclear operators at a competitive disadvantage compared to non-nuclear operators where barriers do not exist. The amendment also addresses nuclear facilities able to produce electricity with minimal greenhouse gas emissions.

This is not about whether we are supporters or non-supporters of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is a fact of life. Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The government is trying to get public opinion on its side to sign Kyoto. There are good reasons to look at the agreements under Kyoto and it is the government's responsibility to look at those agreements. As Canada attempts to meet its commitments under Kyoto there is no question that we will have to turn to alternative sources of energy, namely nuclear energy.

It is not the job of government to stifle the nuclear sector or to prevent it from being a supplier of clean energy. Nuclear waste is still problematic and has not been dealt with. All opposition parties in the House voted against Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste, because it was a poorly worded, poorly crafted and sloppy piece of legislation. The government has not dealt with the long term storage problems inherent in the nuclear energy sector. However, that does not mean that we should not approve a small change to the legislation which would allow nuclear operators to access debt financing.

It is not apparent to me that there is the legislative intent in the original wording of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to extend site remediation liability to parties without management or control of operations. I certainly believe that statement. What has happened here is exactly what happened with regard to the storage of nuclear waste in Bill C-27. What happened was that a piece of legislation that was supposed to be housekeeping legislation, just a matter of tying a few loose ends together, became legislation because the government has a huge majority and a huge ego. It could not bear the fact that well-meaning amendments were needed to make that piece of legislation better and to make this piece of legislation better. The government simply voted down the amendments.

It is not about whether the amendments are good or bad, quite frankly. It is about whether or not the Liberals put their majority in place in the committee and vote down amendments because they come from an opposition party. I have made amendments to Liberal government legislation which were voted down at committee and then the government brought back to the House the exact same amendments with the exact same wording and passed them. This is not about passing good legislation. It is all about the ego of a huge majority government that has not done its job.

The next government to come to power will have to go back through all the legislation that the government has passed and improve it. It will not have to change every detail and every word of it but it will have to improve it.

The amendment to the Nuclear Safety and Control Act which we are dealing with today will change the wording of subsection 46(3) to limit liability to those with “management and control” of the affected sites. This will replace the reference to anyone “with a right to or an interest in”, which clearly puts the liability of any nuclear contamination upon the person with management or control of that site. There has been some opposition to the idea: that somehow we are helping out the big banks or the big financiers of the world. It does not exclude them from responsibility if in fact they have management or control of that site.

If there were a private nuclear institution, nuclear producers who actually found themselves in financial difficulty and went bankrupt, and the financiers loaning the money to that institution suddenly became the owners or were in management of or control of that institution, they would assume the liability, which they should. That is a different situation and that situation is covered.

However, for a regular institution loaning money, why should the government hamper and burden the nuclear sector under what is really a very strange clause that never should have been there to begin with and is there only because the government side of the House has not passed clear, consistent, well thought out legislation in this piece of legislation or in any other piece of legislation?

The PC Party will support this change to the legislation because it will provide operators of nuclear facilities with the opportunity to access debt financing from private investors. Clearly that is needed. It is important for a number of reasons. It is important to allow nuclear operators to compete equally with other electricity generators and operators and it is important to be consistent with other environmental legislation. We should not be singling out the nuclear sector as one that is somehow different from other sectors. We have a certain amount of and, I think, a very clear environmental responsibility, which should sit evenly on all sectors. The amendment clarifies the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and limits the liability of banks and other financial institutions providing funding to nuclear facilities, as I believe it should.

In closing, let me say again that this is not about nuclear energy or non-nuclear energy. This is about an amendment that should have been made in the original act, a change that should have taken place in the wording of the original act and never did. It is not about supporting or not supporting alternative sectors. I believe everyone in the House supports more clean energy, more green energy, wherever that green energy is from, including ways of improving the so-called dirty energy sectors, the oil generation, certainly even any hydrocarbon electricity generating stations and coal-fired electricity generating stations. There are many areas where we can do a better job and where we have a responsibility to do a better job. There are all kinds of tidal, wind and deep sea current energy that has yet to be harnessed or utilized in Canada. We can spend $66 billion, as has been mentioned earlier, to improve our capacity to burn oil. We spent somewhere around $296 million, which I think was the quote, on types of alternative energy. Something is seriously wrong. It is a completely lopsided agenda that the government has.

Let us take a look at the alternatives, but let us not stifle the nuclear energy sector while we are doing that. This does not take away the government's responsibility to deal with nuclear waste, which it has not done. This does not take away the responsibility of the nuclear sector to be a very good guardian of the planet, to prevent nuclear contamination and to prevent any form of radioactive contamination. However, for the purposes of the bill, for a very simple change in the wording, we support the piece of legislation. It is not timely, being brought in at the end of the session, but it is needed and the PC Party will support it.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

The question is therefore on the main motion for third reading of Bill C-27.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the recorded division on the previous question at the third reading stage of Bill C-27.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties. There is agreement pursuant to Standing Order 45(7) to further defer the recorded division requested on the motion proposed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons concerning third reading of Bill C-27 until the end of government orders on Tuesday, February 26.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, we have come to the end of the third reading debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

We cannot address this topic without being concerned, since this reality bluntly raises the issue of our collective responsibility toward the safety of our environment and our planet. Indeed, we are talking about our planet, about the future of life on this planet, and about the health of generations to come.

If, for a while, nuclear research held out the hope of a wonderful source of energy for humanity, this false hope has faded since, and the problem of waste management that it has created illustrates in a concrete way the difficulty of maintaining security and development and of respecting and protecting the environment. Developed countries are among those largely responsible for political decisions in connection with the proliferation of this waste. People who are listening to us will agree with me when I say that Canada cannot evade its responsibilities or underestimate the consequences of its decisions. Yet, the very essence of Bill C-27 suggests that this government is ignoring willingly this worldwide problem.

In good faith and no doubt very naively, the Bloc Québécois supported Bill C-27 at second reading. At that time, we were hopeful that it could be improved at committee stage, ensuring some damage control. But the Liberals rejected all our amendments. Therefore, we will vote against Bill C-27 and we are not reluctant in describing the government's attitude as anti-environment.

I will not be able to list all the objections we raised, to which the government did not listen. But the House will no doubt allow me to outline important amendments that were rejected indifferently.

Everyone recognizes that Bill C-27 is far from responding to the recommendations of the Seaborn panel. For nine years, this independent panel held consultations, carried out environmental impact studies and asked the public for input. The report findings particularly emphasized the fact that Canadians and Quebecers' support is essential for accepting the principle of nuclear fuel waste management, and that the safety of the management system is only one of the essential criteria for acceptability.

One of the suggestions made in the Seaborn report was to develop a comprehensive public consultation plan and to establish a reliable nuclear waste management agency. Another one was that the federal regulatory control with respect to the scientific-technical work and the adequacy of the financial guarantees be subject to regular public review.

Pursuant to clause 6(1), the Minister of Natural Resources will be solely responsible for establishing the waste management organization that will be asked to propose to the Government of Canada approaches for the management of nuclear fuel waste. The problem is that the energy corporations who produce the waste, like Atomic Energy Canada, will be part of the waste management organization.

Everyone knows that Atomic Energy Canada is a crown corporation reporting to the natural resources minister. So, obviously, the minister and the waste management organization will not be having an arms' length relationship. The Minister of Natural Resources will be judge and jury in the decision making process. If that is not a conflict of interest, what is?

To make the decision process more transparent and independent, the Bloc Québécois suggested that clause 2 be amended so that the environment minister be responsible for the act, instead of the natural resources minister. We do not accept the lack of transparency in this bill nor the chummy relationship between the minister and the energy corporations.

The Bloc Québécois believes that the members of the waste management organization should be designated by the governor in council on the recommendation of the House of Commons standing committee. Under Bill C-27, it would be up to the energy corporations to establish the waste management organization that will have to propose to the minister a long term management approach.

We condemn this decision and the Bloc Québécois supports the recommendations of the Seaborn panel that energy companies be excluded from the management organization.

How can we have any confidence in a management system with no new body independent from current producers and owners of waste, and one whose overall mandate is geared toward safety?

By refusing to amend clause 6(2) to ensure that no nuclear energy corporation can be part of the waste management organization, the government is clearly saying that public safety is not its primary concern.

Real public consultations are needed; in fact, they are essential. We deeply deplore the fact that the decision to use the Canadian Shield as a long term burial site for waste was not the discussed through any public consultation, and that the federal government decided to bulldoze any public consultation by limiting impact studies to three years for the future management organization.

We think that our amendment, to the effect that this organization should have ten years instead of just three, would indeed have allowed for an intelligent and thorough consultation. As members surely know, our proposal was ignored. The government is not only acting irresponsibly, it is also showing contempt for the public.

Moreover, Bill C-27 does not guarantee that the public will be consulted. Indeed, the bill provides that the minister may consult the public, the provinces and the aboriginals. The minister has the right, but not the obligation, to do so. Again, this contradicts the Seaborn report. The Bloc Quebecois, and the public, will not settle for bogus consultations like those that lasted 28 days on MOX.

In fact, the Bloc Québécois vainly tried to have Bill C-27 amended to ban imports of nuclear waste or MOX in Canada. Our amendment was defeated. The Liberals rejected our proposal. Bill C-27 ignores the indispensable support of Canadians and Quebecers in the whole issue of nuclear fuel waste management.

The amendment proposed by the Bloc Québécois regarding clause 15 was also ignored. We firmly believe that the House of Commons should imperatively be consulted on the management method chosen.

To whom does clause 15 give the final say in the selection of the nuclear waste management approach? How surprising: the winner is the governor in council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Natural Resources. Clause 15 of the bill should have been amended, so that the management approach would be chosen on the recommendation of the standing committee of the House of Commons.

The impact of Bill C-27 is all the more a cause for concern, since the management organization provided for in the bill will not come under the Access to Information Act. Openness was an essential condition clearly recommended in the Seaborn report. The Bloc Quebecois thinks all the documents created by the management organization, including environmental impact assessments, should be made publicly available if need be.

This is the reason why we have asked that the Access to Information Act apply to the management organization. But the Liberals rejected our amendment. Do they have something else to hide, besides their Canada Deuterium Uranium containers, also called CANDUs?

Quebec could very well be the first victim here. The geological formation chosen for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste is the Canadian Shield. As my colleague from Jonquière indicated, the Canadian Shield includes 90% of the Quebec territory.

I would like to conclude by saying that Bill C-27 is proof that for the federal government, a Liberal government to boot, the environment is a very low priority.

The Bloc Québécois thinks that the environmental challenge concerns all mankind. We will vote against Bill C-27 because of our concern for quality of life. We will continue to fight for and on behalf of future generations.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before question period in my debate on Bill C-27, I mentioned a local experience in the constituency of Surrey Central where radioactive material had been stored in the heart of the city of Surrey for 25 years. The government called it temporary storage. That was one local example. Another example in British Columbia is the 8,600 tonnes of dioxin laced hazardous toxic material which is moving into British Columbia from Oregon in the United States.

Those examples show that the government does not care how radioactive hazardous material is stored or that it is moving into Canada.

I asked a question about this situation of the Minister of Natural Resources during question period. He is the political minister responsible for British Columbia and even the environment minister was the former political minister for British Columbia. I asked the minister why hazardous material which is too toxic for the people of Oregon would be safe for British Columbia. I could not understand the answer.

It is important that nuclear waste, which has a lot of radioactive material, or hazardous waste is taken care of properly and stored in a way which is efficient, cost effective and safe.

In conclusion, Canadians are very sensitive when it comes to the nuclear industry. The safety, health and welfare of Canadians are of utmost importance. I stress that the Minister of Natural Resources must take every possible measure to ensure that the waste management organizations focus on results, not just on the process, the bureaucracy part of it or patronage when committees are set up. Focus on the results.

While I register my support for the trust funds created under the bill, I do so with some warnings to the government. Waste management organizations are long overdue. We must ensure that the waste management organizations act responsibly in the disposal of nuclear waste as it could be a potential threat to our security and could lead to terrorism in the future. To do this, they need to keep in mind the security lessons afforded by Russia's experience.

While I support the bill, I give fair warning to the government to act efficiently and effectively.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House again on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to take part in the third reading debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. Members of the House no doubt recall the provisions of the bill from previous stages, therefore I will keep my comments about the bill's contents very brief.

The bill requires the creation of a long term management strategy to make sure that the disposal of nuclear fuel waste is done in a complete, integrated and cost effective manner. To do this, it directs the major owners of nuclear waste, which are Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Ontario Power Generation Inc., Hydro-Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation, to create waste management organizations to implement these long term strategies.

It also directs these organizations to establish trust funds and make regular payments into them to finance efforts toward long term waste management. These nuclear waste management organizations have a responsibility to come up with a number of fiscally responsible and realistic options for managing these byproducts. Once these options are identified, it becomes the responsibility of the governor in council to choose which one will be used.

It would not be fair to treat the nuclear waste issue as only a domestic one. As a member of the foreign affairs committee studying nuclear proliferation a few years ago, I heard many harrowing tales of how nuclear material was stolen in many of the former Soviet republics and exported by criminal elements. For example, we heard how in Russia the raw material for thousands of Hiroshima bombs was in lightly guarded stockpiles. One observer gave the chilling commentary that “unless something is done or something changes, the next truck bomb could be a nuclear bomb”.

Obviously it is quite important to look at these incidents. There are many. I have examples of 73 different incidents of smuggling of nuclear material from 1993 to 1996. For example, Romanian police had in their possession 82 kilograms of radioactive material, enriched uranium. In another incident, Lithuanian officials seized 100 kilograms of radioactive material, uranium 238. In another incident, the Belarus committee for state security seized five kilograms of cesium 133.

The list goes on. The German parliament discussed how three smugglers offered it 11 kilograms of Russian weapons grade plutonium. Similarly, Greenpeace was offered 800 kilograms of scarred warheads for public display in Berlin. The Czech police seized 2.72 kilograms of this material. Hungarian border guards seized 1.7 kilograms of uranium. The list goes on. As I said, there were 73 different incidents just from 1993 to 1996.

Obviously if Canada is not to become the weak link in nuclear proliferation, Canada's waste management organizations will need to examine security procedures, particularly when we are fighting the war against terrorism.

I also heard that nuclear material and technology is transferred from certain rogue states to countries around the globe that have nuclear ambitions. Both Iran and North Korea are examples of countries that are believed to have transferred nuclear technology and materials to the highest bidder.

Obviously the issue of security and the storage of nuclear waste is not just a Canadian issue. The lesson from these examples is that the Canadian waste management organizations established under Bill C-27 need to have full security procedures in place to ensure that this material does not fall into the wrong hands. This is essential if we are to protect the safety of Canadians.

I have a good example in my constituency. The residents of Surrey Central know a great deal about dealing with radioactive waste. In my constituency of Surrey Central, radioactive material was in temporary storage for 25 years. That 4,000 tonnes of radioactive waste was lying in the open until the federal government realized its carelessness. A company was given a licence in 1972 to import radioactive ore that contained thorium, then the federal government forgot about it. In 1989 the government woke up and created a volunteer based organization called the Surrey sitting task force to look into the disposal and storage of that radioactive material.

When I was on the foreign affairs committee I accidentally found out about that radioactive material being stored in Surrey under unsafe conditions. When I came across this--

Business of the House

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with report stage debate of Bill C-5 respecting species at risk.

Tomorrow we will consider report stage and third reading of Bill C-30, the courts administration legislation, and return to third reading of Bill C-27 respecting nuclear safety. Bill C-48, the copyright bill, will be our backup work for tomorrow afternoon if we have time.

Next week, we will return to Bill C-5. We are now in the third day of the report stage of that bill and I should think that the House would want to complete consideration of this bill without much further delay. As early as we can, depending on when Bill C-49, the Budget Implementation Act, 2001, is reported from committee, we will want to try to deal with it at the report and third reading stages.

Thursday of next week, February 28, will be an allotted day.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following with great interest the debate on Bill C-27, the nuclear fuel waste act. It is important legislation for the whole country, but I regret it has been drawn out to the point that we will not reach Bill C-15B, the cruelty to animals legislation, before Christmas.

The hon. member and his colleagues are obviously interested in and well informed on this issue. They have been talking about nuclear power and nuclear fission. One of the solutions to the waste problem, and in the long run to the problems that face our nuclear power industry, is nuclear fusion, not fission.

Where do the hon. member and his colleagues and perhaps Quebec Hydro stand on the ITER project? It is a proposal that has been discussed for three years. It would bring scientists from Japan, the European Union, the United States and elsewhere to Canada to participate in a sophisticated international study of nuclear fusion for many years. What do the member and his colleagues think of that as a solution to the nuclear waste problem?

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

—a hot potato, as the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles just said, it means that the issue ought to be given serious consideration.

This is an issue that must be dealt with in a way that will reassure the public so that they have confidence. To get their confidence there should be an ongoing and real public consultation with the various stakeholders in the field, not only the scientists, not only the experts, but also the people in the field.

I realize that we must not always say “not in my backyard”, but the fact remains that this must be done somewhere and in appropriate areas. Why should an area accept nuclear waste coming from another area and another country?

I know there are not enough hon. members here this morning and they are not quite awake. Perhaps they are too tired to criticize me and tell me “Come on, why are you saying that? The bill does not say that we will agree to nuclear waste imports”.

Yes, but an issue such as this one is somewhat like the bills on public security that were passed or tabled here in the House, where the government was saying “Yes, but rest assured, this is not written in the bill”. The fact is we are not reassured. We would prefer it were written that there will be no such imports. Why not do so?

I did not take part in the committee's proceedings but I reviewed the amendments put forward by Bloc Quebecois members who wanted to make sure, among other things, that we had better definitions, and rightly so.

The suggestions to correct one of the flaws were aimed at making sure that the authority was not given to one minister or to the cabinet because, on such an important public issue, specific projects or the subject matter should to be reviewed by the House of Commons on a regular basis, and be audited, not just by anyone, but by someone under the Auditor General of Canada.

As the member for Jonquière mentioned earlier, every proposed amendment was turned down one after the other in committee and here at report stage. Members who used to be on the other side, but who have to tow the party line when a bill is put forward by a minister, voted down these amendments because the government bill was supposedly perfect.

I am making an aside here to remind the House that we have been here for eight years now. This is probably the last speech I will make before the end of the 2001. I said it on several occasions, but I believe it bears reminding.

We saw the way the government dealt with anti-terrorism and public security bills after September 11. We realize that the authority is concentrated in the hands of a single minister, or cabinet at times which is made up of members of parliament appointed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister appoints the Governor General, the senators when the time comes to send members to the other House. He is responsible for appointing people to high offices. Some say that proportionally, Canada is not the United States, and the powers of the Prime Minister of Canada are actually greater than those of the President of the United States.

In the United States, through a veto, both Houses can prevent the president from exercising certain powers such as sending troops abroad or using supplementary funds. He needs to introduce a specific bill or program in both houses of congress. This is not the case here.

In Canada, when we want to buy time, we refer bills to the other place. However, seeing as Liberal Party members also sit in its caucus, they receive instructions from the Prime Minister—naturally, they also share with him what is going on in the other place—saying, “Take your time on that bill”, or the opposite, “Hurry up and adopt that bill”.

An example of this was the bill on organized crime, which has yet to be passed officially by the other place. But they rush through bills on public security, or Bill C-7 on young offenders. Now with Christmas around the corner, during the last sitting of the session before the holidays, we are studying Bill C-27. No doubt an important issue, but the bill is seriously flawed

The Prime Minister or the caucus will have the ability to appoint all of the members of the board for this new waste management organization that will oversee nuclear waste. Who will he appoint? People in whom he has complete trust, or to whom he feels indebted. I know that the word patronage is not necessarily parliamentary, but if the shoe fits, then I do not see how I could avoid the term. So I will use it. This opens the door to patronage.

Under these circumstances, with an issue as important as nuclear waste, how can we expect the public to believe that things will not be decided by the powers that be, the cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the minister responsible?

But it so happens that the minister could be appointed elsewhere, according to the rumour that a cabinet shuffle may take place before Christmas. Therefore, he must please the Prime Minister to make sure that he gets promoted.

The Minister of Finance used to have a degree of independence, but this year, contrary to what he did in the past, he came up with a budget to please the Prime Minister. So much so—it was funny, but it really was not—that a Canadian Alliance member said “Let the real author of that budget rise”, and both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance got up at the same time.

This shows beyond any doubt that, this time, this is not a Minister of Finance's budget, but mostly a Prime Minister's budget. After eight years in office, one would have thought that the Prime Minister would become reasonable, would be less power-hungry, but no. Now, he wants to assume powers which, under our parliamentary system, are normally held by the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, I realize that I am digressing a bit, but I have always recognized your spirit of tolerance and your flexibility. Knowing that this is my last speech in 2001, you are giving me a small Christmas present by allowing me to say what I think, even though this sometimes goes beyond the scope of the bill.

I know that the hon. member for Abitibi--Baie-James--Nunavik is very jealous of me. Indeed, because of the way the current Canadian parliamentary system works, he will not be able to say what he really thinks, since he has a small hope of being appointed parliamentary secretary, or perhaps minister some day. He hopes that the Prime Minister will forget that he once sat as a Conservative.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclearfuel waste.

One needs not be an expert to know that nuclear waste cannot be disposed of in just any regular dump. Today we have a better knowledge of nuclear waste than we did in the 1970s. It was already a concern and the subject of discussions at the time and it still is today.

A few weeks ago the hon. member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie reminded us of the Marrakesh summit. One key recommendation of this summit was that we should consider prohibiting the use of nuclear energy in the future. Since the 1970s, and even before that, a number of countries, including Canada, have been using nuclear power to generate electricity.

Today we can say with some pride that the Quebec government undertook a number of projects, of which Gentilly was one and LaPrade another, but it soon abandoned this approach because of deep concerns and because scientists and experts had many objections. Quebec decided to generate electricity from water power instead of nuclear power.

We can consider ourselves lucky since Quebec produces only 3% of Canadian nuclear waste. When we, as members of the Bloc, say that we want to defend Quebec's interests, I think that, in this particular case, we are pleased that it is just 3%. We have a better understanding of the attitude shown by the Liberal government, that has a great number of representatives from Ontario in the House, when we know that that province produces 90% of nuclear waste.

The member for Brome—Missisquoi cannot say it but I know he totally supports the position of the Bloc Quebecois. As a Quebecer, he is just as proud as we are that the Government of Quebec—be it under the Parti Quebecois or under the Quebec Liberal Party of which his brother is a member—made the choice not to proceed any further with nuclear energy in that province.

Now we have before us a bill on this issue. We supported the principle of the bill at second reading because we were sufficiently in favour of the bill to vote for it at that stage. Nuclear waste is a critical issue as it is hazardous in all respects, including health and safety. The Seaborn panel worked for 10 years on the subject and our critics on this issue raised some objections.

I know the member for Jonquière worked on this for a long time, even until the end, with the member for Sherbrooke. I know that the member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie would have liked to have his say also as environment critic. Unfortunately, the government decided that this issue fell under the purview of the Department of Natural Resources exclusively and not under the purview of the Department of the Environment.

Therefore, the Standing Committee on the Environment could not be consulted on this. I would say that this is one of the main shortcomings of the bill. It would be the sole responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources, which would work with the waste management organizations from the various provinces, and those who have a stake in the industry would be asked to assess and criticize what is being done in this regard. Yesterday, the member for Sherbrooke said that it was like letting the fox watch the hen house, and I agree with him.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Generally, when we deal with a bill or a legislative measure, we should ensure that an audit or an evaluation is done by a third party, independent people or another department. We should ensure that people or officials do not evaluate themselves. This makes no sense.

When we talk about the nuclear issue we should avoid slipping into demagogy and frightening everyone. However, a number of incidents have occurred throughout the world. Some countries have even recognized that they are incapable of properly managing their nuclear waste. Russia, for example, and the countries of the former Soviet Union are desperately trying to get rid of their nuclear waste: first, because its disposal is very expensive; second, because it is technically difficult to manage; and third, because Russia has abundantly used this source of energy.

I remember the objection of the member for Jonquière. We know all the energy she is capable of showing when she disagrees or agrees with something. To avoid this situation, she launched an initiative in her riding regarding new nuclear waste dumps in the world. She was right.

If the same thing had occurred in my riding of Lévis, members can be sure that I would have done the same thing. I believe that any member having to deal with this kind of situation in his or her own riding would have protested and I believe that everyone would have understood. However, the member for Jonquière reacted with fierceness and no later than yesterday she talked about this issue. I congratulate her for having done so. I also congratulate the member for Sherbrooke who, as usual, dealt with the issue in a very serious manner.

I have heard the member for Rosemont-Petite-Patrie say on occasion that he wanted to talk about this. He could only talk about it in the House since the issue was not dealt with by the Standing Committee on Environment. In his speech, which I listened to yesterday, as well as in the one he made earlier today, he pointed to this issue, which, I believe, reflects another important point. It is the place, in fact, the “lack of place” provided to the public on this issue.

We should not consider this issue simply in a technical or a scientific perspective especially since it seems that the more we move forward on this issue the more we give in to uncertainty. When a scientist trying to reassure us about this issue give us the impression that he is stressed, as though he had in his hands an issue—

[Marcel Gagnon, Bloc, Champlain, QC]

I am told they will manage to find them something. I am sure they will.

Once again, I hope that the will will suddenly be there and that the government will decide before the vote at third reading, before this bill is passed—if it stays the way it is, the Bloc Quebecois will certainly be voting against it—to get serious and remember that the future we are talking about is not just the immediate future of the Liberal Party but the future of all Canadians and all the generations to come.

I am one of those who thinks that the management of nuclear waste should become more important for this government. There is still time. Someone said that this would perhaps be the nicest Christmas present the government could give Quebecers and Canadians, tell them that is withdrawing Bill C-27, rethinking it, taking another look at the consultations that were done, getting more information and examining its conscience, since everybody's future is at stake.

[Marcel Gagnon, Bloc, Champlain, QC]

They have indeed already been appointed. This is the main problem we have with the management of nuclear waste, the nuclear future, and my colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes has made that clear. He said that nuclear fusion is simply like trying to stuff the sun in a bottle. It is extremely clean energy, energy of the future that should be useful if we continue research. I also recall this matter, because, when we debated nuclear fusion and the importance of researching nuclear fusion, I was assistant to the Quebec minister of the environment.

While it spends millions on the nuclear industry in general, the government in its great wisdom has decided, as far as cuts are concerned, to go after what is unimportant. It cut some $7.5 million a year in research on nuclear fusion. The wisdom of the government leaves something to be desired. What it does for me is leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

The $3 billion saved over the past eight years will also be used to pay down the debt.

The minister has said “We will look into the matter, and the committee will look into it too, and you will make recommendations”. The recommendations have still not been followed up on. We are not in possession of the truth here. And those who do not, like us, pay for it.

I now want to come back to Bill C-27. One of the committee's recommendations, as I mentioned earlier, was not to give the job of managing nuclear waste to the industry because of the risk involved. Waste management must be given to independent and competent bodies by municipalities and people who will live with waste management, and not to the industry. However, we discover that the bill provides that the industry will manage this waste.

It surprises me that the government did not establish another foundation for that. It would provide work for the friends of the government.

[Marcel Gagnon, Bloc, Champlain, QC]

Very kind of you, thank you for your greetings.

This morning we are discussing Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, at third reading stage. Yesterday's debate on the bill was characterized by great eloquence on the part of nearly all those who spoke. I did not have the opportunity of sitting on the parliamentary committee but yesterday we were given explanations and information on a bill that is of the greatest interest to me, given my longstanding personal interest in all things nuclear.

My colleagues, the hon. member for Jonquière among them, have shown just how important this bill is. One example is the eloquent speech by the member for Sherbrooke, in which he indicated how disappointed he was with the way the bill was turning out.

Then there is the hon. member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, whose knowledge and sense of honesty assure us that when he makes a speech he has done his research and is not just talking for the sake of talking. What he has to say will really inform his listeners. Then there was the member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes, who showed us just how interested he is in this bill and, I think, just how disappointed he is with the turn of events.

At the second reading stage, the Bloc Quebecois indicated its agreement in principle with this bill, along with the hope that the government would be changing certain things, that the amendments suggested by the Bloc Quebecois and other opposition parties would be examined and accepted, the bulk of them at least.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise once again in the House and speak to Bill C-27. The point of the debate is to discuss whether or not we should have further amendments to the bill before it leaves this Chamber.

I would argue that there are a number of amendments, many of which have already been recommended, that would add to the validity of the bill and make it much better and more legitimate legislation.

Unlike the member who just spoke, the NDP member for Windsor--St. Clair, the Bloc member for Sherbrooke, the Alliance member for Athabasca and I worked jointly at committee because we all felt the legislation was poorly crafted. We did not use this as an opportunity to slam other members of parliament or try to position one party against another. We simply said that the legislation was poorly crafted and that it was not accountable to the Canadian public.

The problem with the committee was that it never gave the Canadian public the opportunity to look at the details of the legislation or the opportunity to appear before committee.

As parliamentarians, we used the committee to our advantage and tried to bring as many witnesses before it as possible. However we were never satisfied with the length of time the committee had to study the issue. The main reason for that is that this is an issue that is not going away. It will be here next year. Unlike some members of parliament, I do think we have a responsibility to deal with the issue. However, we did not have to deal with it before Christmas. Another month, six weeks or ten weeks of study at committee surely would have produced a better bill.

Significant issues, as well as significant dollars, are at stake here. Certainly the industries that produce nuclear waste in Canada, such as Ontario Hydro, Hydro-Québec, New Brunswick Power and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., are putting significant dollars into the waste management organization. The bill states that Ontario Power Generation will put up $500 million toward the waste management organization; Hydro-Québec will put up $20 million; New Brunswick Power Corporation will put up $20 million; and Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. will put up $10 million. We are talking about nearly $1 billion. On an annual basis, these companies continue to add to the pot. Ontario Power Generation Incorporated puts in $100 million on an annual basis. Hydro-Québec puts in $4 million. New Brunswick Power puts in $4 million. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. puts in $2 million.

We are dealing with a lot of money that would go toward looking after the problem of nuclear waste in Canada. When that amount of money is on the table there should be a number of overlying rules and regulations, one being accountability and another being transparency.

One of the main problems the PC/DR coalition has with the bill is that there is not enough transparency. Federal government money, through a crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., would go toward setting up a waste management organization to deal with nuclear waste in Canada, yet access to information will not apply to the legislation. I think most Canadians would be surprised to hear that. Certainly that was not a recommendation by the Seaborn panel, which studied the issue at great length.

Beyond its sloppiness is the very arrogance of this legislation. The mayors and wardens of the three Ontario municipalities which already have nuclear reactors appeared before the committee. They had a number of recommendations. None of those recommendations was accepted.

I put forward a number of the recommendations as amendments. Of the 19 amendments that the PC/DR coalition submitted, not one of them was accepted by the government. The government simply brought its members in and voted the amendments down. The Bloc Quebecois put forward a number of amendments. The New Democratic Party and the Alliance Party put forward a number of amendments. We debated the amendments for two days, yet only two amendments were carried.

Surely on an issue of this magnitude and importance to the Canadian public, there should have been more time and at least some acceptance of the democratic principles applied at committee.

There were amendments put forward to deal with the importation of nuclear waste. I wanted to see it very clearly stated in the legislation that there would not be importation of nuclear waste. That amendment was voted down at committee. All of the opposition parties supported that amendment, every one of them, yet the government voted it down. The fact that other legislation may deal with that issue is not good enough.

As an aside, Mr. Speaker, I have a bad cold and I do not think there is enough water here to bury it. It is interesting that one of the members stated earlier that we could put all of the nuclear waste in Canada in an olympic sized swimming pool. I think I need an olympic size swimming pool just to get rid of this cough in my throat.

There are 1.3 million spent fuel bundles in Canada. I would agree that perhaps we do not need a huge space in which to put that amount of high level nuclear waste, but certainly it would take a considerable space. I do not think one swimming pool would be enough.

We have said from the very beginning that we have to deal with the issue and I agree. I for one do not think the nuclear energy sector will go away. The nuclear energy sector will continue. It provides cheap energy. There is a huge cost to pay for that cheap energy and that is radioactive material that will be with us for the next 500, 1,000 or 1,500 years. Nobody is certain of the amount of time that the radioactivity stays.

We have a number of issues to face as a country. Therefore we have a number of issues here to deal with as parliamentarians. We have to deal with nuclear waste. We have attempted to do that with the legislation. However, the legislation was not accurate enough in detailing what nuclear waste is.

The nuclear sector itself asked for a new name. Instead of calling it nuclear waste, it wanted to call it irradiated spent fuel because there is some life left in the nuclear fuel bundles.

There is a very good possibility that science will find a way to take the remaining radioactivity out of those nuclear fuel bundles and simply recycle them through the reactor until all of the radioactivity is gone. There is an opportunity for science to help with the problem that we are faced with.

There is also the opportunity that science will find other ways. It was discussed at great length at committee that perhaps the whole science of transmutation may allow us to change the nuclear fuel bundles into inert material. We are off into the realm of science fiction here and the issue becomes one of dealing with a radioactive dangerous material today. What are we to do?

One of the major problems is that it really only leaves two alternatives. The two alternatives that the waste management organization and the advisory council came up with are in the legislation. One is deep geological disposal, which seems to be the primary alternative and certainly the one most often looked at. The other one is on site at surface storage.

Personally, I find the idea of on site at surface storage completely contrary and not a feasible long term storage alternative. We would not be dealing with the waste; we would simply be piling it up. We would wait for 20 years for another generation to deal with it, or wait for 50 years or 100 years for someone else to deal with the problem. We would simply not be accepting our responsibility as parliamentarians to do something about nuclear waste today.

Having said that, let me say that there is no reason that it has to be done tomorrow, the next day, or the day after. Certainly there was time enough that we could have studied the issue for another three months. We could have made more amendments to the legislation. We could have crafted a better piece of legislation to send to the Senate. Instead, with typical arrogance, the government is insisting on sending the legislation in its present form to the Senate. I expect the Senate will make amendments as well.

I will outline a number of the specific problems with the legislation. One is that the waste management organization will only have representation from industry. I would certainly argue on industry's behalf that it should be the major player in the waste management organization. It is certainly putting the dollars into the waste management organization. There is no reason that some non-governmental officials could not sit on the waste management organization, specifically representatives from environmental organizations and the municipalities that are home to many of the nuclear reactors in Canada.

The advisory council will be appointed by the waste management organization. It recommends that environmentalists, local and regional governments and aboriginal people, as well as technical experts may be involved in the advisory council. That is only a recommendation. It is only saying that they may be, it is not saying that they must be. There is a critical difference in the wording.

On the issue of foreign waste, the legal advisers for the research council stated that there is nothing in the legislation that prevents the importation of foreign waste.

There is another nuance that is even more insidious and even more dangerous. Let us say that tomorrow Hydro-Québec, Ontario Power Generation Inc. or New Brunswick Power Corporation decided to build a nuclear generating station in Maine, North Carolina or wherever. There is nothing in the legislation that prevents any of them as a Canadian corporation from importing that nuclear waste back into Canada for burial in a deep geological vault or for on site storage.

Most Canadians would agree that continued on site storage should not be a long term option. We have to have a better long term option than that but the legislation only gives us two options: deep geological burial or on site at surface storage.

The sloppiness of the legislation, the rush the government was in to get it through this place and the refusal to accept amendments are all in contradiction to what we are supposed to represent as a democratic parliament. Certainly we could have done a better job.

There is no point in trying to deny the future of the nuclear industry. Although we all may not be supporters of a continued nuclear industry in Canada, I would argue that the industry will continue whether we support it or not. It will continue worldwide, which is an even greater issue.

The future of power generation on the continent is going to turn more and more to nuclear, especially in the Indian subcontinent and in China where they are dependent on brown coal with high emissions. If we are to meet our Kyoto standards we are going to go more and more to nuclear energy.

We stated the opportunities with hydroelectric power. There is still a lot of hydroelectric power to be developed in Canada. The Lower Churchill is a prime example. As the NDP member said, the real problem with hydroelectricity is the transmission line drop. I am not 100% sure but I think it is 2% per 100 miles. That is a significant line drop and loss of power in order to transport it.

Perhaps if we put the type of funding and research dollars into alternative sources of energy and hydroelectric power we would find that there are other ways to combat that. We would be able to get over some of the obstacles.

There are opportunities in wind power. There are opportunities in cogeneration. There are opportunities in continuing to burn coal in a clean and safe manner with fluidized bed coal fired generators. There is an opportunity with natural gas. There are a number of opportunities.

In summary, there are a number of issues. First, this was a poorly crafted, extremely sloppy piece of legislation when it came to committee. The government simply did not do its job the way it should have in bringing this legislation to committee.

There was not enough recognition of the importance of local communities that are home to nuclear reactors, specifically the three municipalities in Ontario whose witnesses appeared before committee. There was not enough consideration given to the role of aboriginal communities that may end up being the home to some deep geological deposit and to the input they wanted to have on the legislation. There was not enough consideration given to amendments, including the amendment to prevent the importation of foreign waste into Canada.

Not enough time was given to adequately bring presenters and witnesses to committee. Nor was enough consideration given to amendments that industry put forth and which the government refused to accept. These are the very people who are paying for this particular waste management organization.

The final point is there is no guarantee that we have democratic representation on the advisory council. There is no guarantee that local municipalities and aboriginal communities will be represented on that council or that there will be the technical expertise.

At the end of the day, we cannot accept or support the bill. It is just impossible.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join in the debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. I will begin by recognizing the substantial amount of work done by our critic in this area, the member for Windsor--St. Clair. It has been his recommendation to our caucus that we oppose Bill C-27.

The hon. member cites a number of compelling reasons why the NDP caucus will not be voting in favour of Bill C-27. In trying to render a complicated bill down to a brief summary he points out in as lean language as possible that the aim was to require owners of nuclear waste to assume full financial responsibility and implement a comprehensive, integrated and economically sound approach for management of the waste.

Bill C-27 is the government's response to the 1998 recommendations of the Seaborn panel. The bill has three main elements as the hon. member sees it. First, the main owners of nuclear fuel waste would be required to establish a separate legal entity, a management organization that would be responsible for financial and operational activities related to the long term management approach chosen by Canada.

Second, the same owners would need to establish a trust fund to finance waste management costs.

Third, the governor in council would be required to make a decision on the long term management approach to nuclear fuel waste which the management organization would be required to propose and then implement.

According to the Department of Natural Resources the bill reflects consultations undertaken by the federal government with the public, provinces, nuclear fuel waste owners and other stakeholders. This is the party line put forward by the federal government.

The NDP's concerns with Bill C-27 are lengthy and quite thorough. I again recognize the exhausting amount of work our member for Windsor--St. Clair did in researching the bill and citing its many fundamental flaws.

The hon. member pointed out the main objections of the NDP caucus to Bill C-27. First, it would make the power utilities and AECL, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the centrepiece of the management agency. This runs counter to the Seaborn report which recommended, after extensive public consultation and expert advice, that such an agency be at arm's length and independent from utilities, other vested interests and government. The reservation is that if power utilities are really part of the management agency it is a bit like the fox watching the henhouse.

Second, there is a risk that a lot of our publicly owned power utilities are under constant pressure or threat of being sold to the private sector. I believe firmly that had the Filmon government in Manitoba stayed in power one more year Manitoba Hydro would have been sold to the highest bidder, just like the Tories sold off our telephone system and wanted to privatize everything.

Objective oversight for the long ranging enterprise of managing nuclear fuel waste would be at risk if power utilities had too much say in the management agency. That is our first reservation. Bill C-27 calls for the board of directors of the agency to be made up of stakeholders, not independent people from the broader community as recommended by the Seaborn report.

Again, the board of directors of the management agency would be made up of stakeholders and practitioners rather than members of the community at large, citizen groups, environmental activists or experts in civil society who may have serious reservations about how nuclear fuel waste is treated.

The bill lacks the necessary checks and balances and provisions for regular parliamentary review. Instead it calls only for ministerial review. We are not comfortable with that. The trend toward ministerial rather than parliamentary review is something we have seen developing in a number of recent pieces of legislation put forward by the Liberal government.

An issue so important and critical to our health and well-being as the storage of nuclear fuel waste is surely a subject the House of Commons should be dealing with as a whole rather than there being a simple review by the minister in charge, in this case the Minister of Natural Resources.

We believe the fact that the agency would be made up of people with vested interests in the nuclear industry and not include the broader public and other interests would seriously undermine the legitimacy of the agency. It would jeopardize the public confidence in it which is absolutely critical.

There are few more thorny or frightening issues for the general public than dealing with nuclear waste. Some of this is perhaps because we do not trust that the science has matured and evolved to a point where we can have full confidence in its safety. There is a great deal of apprehension. We believe that public confidence in the management agency is critical. We owe it to the public to allow it to feel safe. It should feel the issue is being managed properly. If people with vested interests in the nuclear industry dominate the management agency and oversight committee that looks at the storage of nuclear fuel waste, where is the public confidence? Again it is the fox watching the henhouse.

The current vested interests have made it clear that their preference is for underground storage in the Canadian Shield, the massive rock outcroppings in northern Ontario and eastern Manitoba. The Seaborn panel reviewed the option of storing nuclear waste pellets in concrete deep in the Canadian Shield, in abandoned mines in some cases. It found the option unacceptable. It found it to be both unsatisfactory for the public and unsafe from a long term social perspective.

I took the trouble to tour AECL Pinawa where this method of storing nuclear fuel waste was being contemplated. As members may know, the tiny pellets are no bigger than the butt of a cigarette and they come stored in rods. The rods would be placed deep in the Canadian Shield which is the oldest rock outcropping in the world. It is very stable rock and is not prone to fissures or cracks. They contemplated going two miles down and one mile over where caves would be dug out of the side wall much like any mining operation. The pellets and fuel rods would be stored in the rooms which would then be filled with solid concrete.

If we do not have a better way to neutralize nuclear fuel waste rods this is about as far away from human touch and influencing humans as we can possibly get. However it was reviewed by the Seaborn commission and rejected as an option even though it was actively promoted by citizens of Pinawa anxious to find alternate employment given that AECL Pinawa was decommissioned and shut down.

We hoped to have an opportunity at the committee to hear from a broad sector of representatives from the scientific community. A lot of experts made representations but just as many had serious reservations about the bill as it stands.

Therefore the NDP critic, the member for Windsor--St. Clair, put forth two dozen substantive amendments that we believe would have made Bill C-27 an effective piece of legislation and given confidence to the Canadian public that the government is prepared to deal with the worrisome issue of storage of nuclear fuel waste. The amendments were rejected. None succeeded.

This frankly does not give us the message that the government was interested in doing the best job it could. The government could have been a lot more open to realistic recommendations from opposition members. This is too important an issue to play politics with. I know it has become a bit of a cliché for members to stand in the House of Commons and make this part of their speech.

In this case surely we have to rise above petty politics. It seems to be a rule on the government side to not allow opposition amendments in most cases simply because it does not want to show any kind of vulnerability in that sense. I believe that most Canadians still are very concerned about the issue of nuclear power in general. Certainly their main reservation is the storage of nuclear fuel waste although frankly even the operation of the plants is of some concern. The hon. member for Verchères--Les-Patriotes pointed out that Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are still fresh in people's minds. We are not fully comfortable that this science has matured to the degree that it should even be used in as widespread a manner as it is today. Also worrisome is the fact that Canada is actively promoting, selling and marketing nuclear power plants to developing nations in many cases, to parts of the world that are even less able to deal with the nuclear fuel waste problem than we are.

I would point out as well that it was the Canadian government that sold Pakistan its Candu and shortly after that Pakistan had nuclear military capability. We sold Candus to India and shortly after that India had nuclear weapons capability. We are selling Candus to Turkey, where the plan is to build them on fault lines of earthquake zones.

We are not really being very good global corporate citizens, in a sense, if we are selling these products to places where, first, we are unable to guarantee that they will be used safely and for the peaceful purpose of generating energy and, second, no management agency oversight committee will be able to enforce the safe storage of nuclear waste pellets, such as in Turkey, Pakistan, India or the other places where we are flogging, promoting and pushing these things. Many Canadians are uncomfortable with the entire nuclear industry strategy of our country.

The problem of course with the nuclear fuel pellets is NIMBY, not in my backyard. No one wants these things in their backyard. What on earth will we do when we have pools the size of olympic swimming pools all around the world full of these pellets? They are being stored and stockpiled in big olympic sized pools. No one has come up with a satisfactory way of dealing with them. I thought our approach toward generating energy had matured a little beyond that. At least we are starting to talk in terms of whole costing and will not undertake anything until we have factored in the whole cost of not only the development or the generating of the unit of energy but also the cleanup of the impact of that unit of energy.

Certainly in the fossil fuel energy sector most people now recognize that the cost of a barrel of oil is not $18 or $27 a barrel or whatever the OPEC cartel is selling oil for. The real cost of a barrel of oil is approximately $150 a barrel. When we factor in the costs of the American military keeping the Persian Gulf shipping lanes open and when we factor in environmental degradation, the real cost of a barrel of oil is really more in the nature of $150 a barrel, which actually renders all alternative sources of energy a bargain by comparison. When we look at what the real cost of a barrel of oil is, we see that developing solar or wind energy would be far cheaper. I should acknowledge that in the budget released on December 10 there is mention of money going to developing alternative energy in the area of wind generation and I am very pleased to see that.

The one area Canadians should really be looking at is not even the supply side of energy but the demand side. We, all the developed nations, should be curbing our insatiable appetite to burn energy, but especially Canada. Canada uses more energy per capita than any country in the world. A lot of people do not realize that. A lot of people think that Americans consume more than we do. It is actually Canadians who gobble up more energy per capita than any other country in the world, yet we do the least in terms of demand side management.

The state of California, through the Bonneville Power Administration, the power authority in the state of California, has precluded the need for eight nuclear power stations in the last five years by their demand side management measures. It goes beyond just turning off the light when one leaves a room. There are comprehensive, government sponsored programs in place for every private residence, commercial business and industrial factory in the state to take active measures to reduce their energy consumption.

The state of California has not ground to a halt. It has been no great inconvenience. What it has done is precluded the need for eight new nuclear power plants. That is smart. I wish our own government would show a little more leadership in that regard. This is a state sponsored initiative. The Tennessee Valley Hydro Authority has done similar things that have precluded the need for three nuclear power plants, again in that same period of time as our research shows us.

We believe that through demand side management we could take some of the pressure off the whole thorny issue of what to do with nuclear waste pellets. Even if we do not embrace demand side management as we should, the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec are concentrating on hydroelectricity, which is far preferable to nuclear power.

With some co-ordination and a national energy strategy we could be supplying parts of Ontario now relying on nuclear plants with clean, renewable, affordable and relatively cheap hydroelectric power, as we are doing in selling our products to the United States. Manitoba makes approximately $400 million per year in power sales to the United States. The grids are just starting to open up. It is an open ended enterprise.

Let me get back to the issue of demand side management because it really is where we should go. A unit of energy harvested from the existing system by demand side management measures is indistinguishable from a unit of energy developed at a nuclear power station except for a couple of important things. First, it is available at about one-third the cost. Second, generating it creates approximately seven times the number of person years of employment. In other words it creates more jobs. We are paying less for it but more of the money goes into jobs rather than infrastructure or the actual hardware associated with it.

A third important thing is that it is available and on line for resale immediately. As soon as I save a unit of energy by turning off a light, that unit can be sold to another customer, hopefully to export it and make money, making it a revenue generator. The fourth important thing to remember is that it reduces harmful greenhouse gas emissions and is in keeping with our obligations under the Kyoto protocol.

I understand I have only two minutes left, but I am glad I was able to point out some of those things. Let me wrap up by saying that if we did a poll we would see that the Canadian public by and large is not yet comfortable with nuclear energy. I believe that is healthy. There are many reasons for this. We simply do not accept everything we are being told by the nuclear industry, that everything is hunky-dory. Everything is not hunky-dory because we cannot even figure out how to store our nuclear waste fuel pellets.

This is where Bill C-27 is very much a necessary bill. The public needs the confidence that comes from knowing that the government is doing something about this, but the bill falls short of really giving confidence to the public because of the many things I have pointed out. The member for Windsor--St. Clair very conveniently itemized them for us and I went through them, but the fact that the board of directors as contemplated in Bill C-27 would be made up of the stakeholders in the nuclear industry is like the fox watching the henhouse. It does not give the Canadian public any confidence that this would be dealt with in an adequate way.

The privatization of utilities, the relentless pressure from the right wingers, from the Tories and the Alliance, which want to privatize everything, is of great concern to most Canadians, because once an industry is in the private sector and profit is the motive, the correct storage of nuclear fuel waste becomes a bottom line issue. There will be efforts to curb the expense. It becomes a cost factor that corporations resent.

We believe Bill C-27 should go back to the drawing board and some safeguards should be put in place so that there is an objective management committee made up of citizens, not stakeholders.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by congratulating my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie for his question.

I think he has pointed out, and rightly, that the Bloc Quebecois had studied in considerable depth the entire issue of renewable energy and the technologies surrounding traditional nuclear fission.

In this connection, I must express my admiration for the work done so far by the various Bloc Quebecois environment critics. I am thinking first and foremost of my colleague from Laurentides, our first critic; my colleague from Jonquière, who also served in that position for some time; and my colleague from Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, who held the position during a certain interim period and is now our environmental critic once again.

In the same vein, I must thank and congratulate for their contributions the hon. members for Jonquière and for Sherbrooke, the latter our natural resources critic, for looking after the specific issue of Bill C-27.

This bill is the continuation of a process that began some 20 years ago and the outcome of a study that took some ten years, the study by the Seaborn panel. A lot of work went into this, and the Bloc Quebecois has carefully monitored the progress of the panel's work with the help of our various critics.

I must congratulate them on their excellent work, which ended up as one component of the Bloc campaign platform. So now we are able to keep abreast of current trends internationally and no longer invest in this costly and dangerous technology, which shows such contempt for the environment, nuclear fission. As a result, the funds currently invested in this annually will be redirected to the so-called green energies, as they should be, in keeping with the Kyoto accord, of which Canada is a signatory.

Canada must be rational in its decisions. Canada cannot expect, as is the case in the bill, to make all the decisions and have others do the work for us, be it the provinces, industry, consumers, or citizens, pawning off all of the work onto others instead of doing it ourselves. The government wants to make the decisions and offload the work onto others. But that is not what it should be doing.

I believe that this is one of the fundamental weaknesses with the current federal system. I will not delve into it in detail. I could repeat the little speech I gave to one of my colleagues yesterday on the nature of the federal system compared to the one that exists in Germany, where currently there is no way to regulate or control the federal government if it oversteps its powers, responsibilities or jurisdiction.

I will come back to the question raised by my colleague, the member for Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, as to the difference between traditional nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, which is the way of the future and which is considered to be among those technologies that are considered green technologies.

Of course, when nuclear fusion is mentioned, often the public hears the word nuclear. They say “No, no, no more nuclear power. First, it is expensive. It is very dangerous. We do not know what to do with the waste and it is not environmentally friendly”.

It is important to make some distinctions. As I said in my speech, nuclear fission splits atoms whereas nuclear fusion fuses atoms. The heat created by this fusion creates energy, which can then be used.

As I mentioned in my speech, it is essentially the dream of creating solar energy in a bottle, in miniature. It produces a large amount of energy with very few negative side effects, very little waste; waste is virtually non-existent. This solves one of the major problems inherent in today's nuclear fission technology.

It is therefore an industry which is safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly. According to scientists, a phenomenal quantity of energy can be produced by means of nuclear fusion.

Right now, an international consortium, of which Canada is no longer a member, is working on nuclear fusion, but what makes the situation I described earlier even more insidious is that the federal government first cut funding for the Tokamak project in Varennes. As a result, that project ultimately folded up. The Tokamak project in Varennes was closed. There are no longer any nuclear fusion reactors in Canada. Canada is no longer a member of the international nuclear fusion research consortium.

Then all of a sudden Canada is interested in being the site of the ITER project. What is the ITER project? It is a project, led by this international consortium, which includes Japan and the European Union countries, whose goal it is to build the biggest nuclear fusion reactor in the world. It is a project on the order of $12 billion. And where do the federal government and the Canadian consortium looking after the ITER project want to put the ITER reactor? In Ontario.

The federal government waited for Quebec's reactor and all the expertise developed in Quebec to fade away, and then gave its tacit and financial support for the possible establishment of the ITER project in Ontario.

Once again, the members opposite will say this is a conspiracy theory, but to a certain degree, the facts speak for themselves.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

I would like to start by congratulating my colleague from Verchères—Les-Patriotes for his speech. I believe his presentation was rather eloquent because since the beginning of our review of Bill C-27 we have been given many examples, but very few made it as clear how huge the impact of this bill is on us.

I remember visiting in 1997 or 1998, at Tokamak and in the area, people who tried to show us the benefits of the nuclear fusion industry.

I stress this fact because I would like the hon. member to explain how nuclear fusion is different from nuclear fission—there is a world of difference between the two—to really scrutinize the topic and popularize it. That is my first question.

Second, I would like the member to talk about an election promise. With regard to nuclear energy and fission, the Bloc Quebecois did not wait for Bill C-27 to make proposals. This is a reflection that came about as the result of ongoing work within our party. Our colleague was one of those who took part in the reflection that led to the election promise made by the Bloc Quebecois. It is important to look back at the commitments we have made as a political party, something the government opposite should do more often by the way.

I will remind the House that during the last election campaign the Bloc Quebecois promised to push for the federal government to stop funding the nuclear fission industry altogether, and for the $150 million put toward that industry every year to be redirected to research and development on green energy.

To sum up, I would like the member first to explain the difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion and, second, to tell us about the solemn promise made by the Bloc Quebecois during the last election campaign, namely to take the $150 million that goes to the nuclear fission industry every year and reinvest in research and development on green energy.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is with a feeling of frustration but also with enthusiasm that I take part in this third reading debate on Bill C-27, which deals with long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

I have a feeling of frustration because we have to admit that we made choices on energy in the past and we now have to suffer the consequences and manage very dangerous nuclear waste, and also because even if we admit we should bear the consequences of choices made in the past and manage this waste, there are a number of things we think should be done and are not provided for in this bill.

For reasons I mentioned earlier, we supported this bill at second reading. We support the principle underlying the bill, not with a great deal of enthusiasm, but because we are a responsible political party. Again, as a society we made certain choices on energy, and we should now accept the consequences of these choices and make long term decisions to protect the environment and public health.

However, during the review in committee at report stage, we tried to propose some amendments to this bill, which we feel is not only incomplete in many respects but, to put it bluntly, ill conceived.

We worked in all good faith, as we generally do when participating in a debate affecting the public. At second reading stage, we made proposals that were in the interest of the public and devoid of any partisan intention.

Yet, both in committee and at report stage, acting blindly and with partisan arrogance as it has done since 1993, the government rejected almost all of the amendments that came from the opposition side. If it does not come from the government, from the Liberal Party, it is not worth passing. They did not even try to find time to look at these amendments. It was simply not worth the trouble as far as they were concerned.

Such arrogance, such disregard for the opposition parties, which after all were elected by the people and express the concerns of their fellow citizens, is absolutely incredible. It is unbelievable.

This is one reason why, while recognizing that something must be done for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, we do not feel this bill is the right tool to do the job, because the government refused to approve the necessary changes, amendments and improvements we had proposed.

Furthermore, one of the reasons I will oppose this bill, as the member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes, is the one I mentioned earlier, namely that I am here to reflect the concerns of fellow citizens. I must strongly condemn the choices that have been made to this day by the government in the energy sector.

It may be that after World War II, there was a degree of enthusiasm, of blind excitement that led western world countries to choose nuclear fission as a source of energy. Up to a point we can excuse the decisions that were made back then, but with experience, with Three Mile Island, with Chernobyl, we have come to see the limits and the dangers of this source of energy.

The government opposite is ignoring the warnings. It is ignoring the fact that all over the world people are beginning to think about new sources of energy. They are beginning to think about doing without nuclear fission, which is dangerous and which pollutes the environment, but this government is bent on selling the Candu technology all over the world.

Allow me to say that I am not the least bit surprised by the positions presented earlier by the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. I am not surprised. What surprises me, however, is to see a parliamentarian who should normally have a modicum of independent thought arrive here and read pamphlets and booklets produced by the Canadian atomic industry.

I am not surprised, because the atomic industry and nuclear fission facilities are primarily concentrated in Ontario and primarily benefit that province. Therefore, we should not be surprised to see a member of parliament from Ontario extol the virtues of nuclear fission. We should not be surprised, but we should be concerned.

In the few minutes I have left I will talk about a political game that has been going on behind the scenes for a number of years. The result of that game is that Canada has made decisions in the energy sector that will impact very negatively on the future of Canadians and Quebecers, particularly the future of our children and grandchildren.

We have deliberately chosen to follow this technological route, pushed no doubt by the Ontario nuclear fission lobby. Riding the wave of what was happening elsewhere around the world, we nonetheless undertook, in the 1970s, a very small research program in nuclear fusion. This program was quite modest in comparison to the nuclear fission program that used the traditional technology of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

As a society, colossal sums of money were invested in the field of nuclear fission in Ontario. We are talking about more than $5 billion invested so far in nuclear facilities by the federal government alone. The federal government has invested approximately $150 million annually in traditional nuclear fission technology.

In addition to this, the government of the day, together with the governments of Ontario and Quebec, had the wisdom, at least, to establish a small experimental nuclear fusion research program. As a result of this very modest research program in nuclear fusion, we managed to build a small nuclear fusion reactor, the Tokamak, in Varennes, in my riding.

Over the years we have not invested $150 million a year, but as a society we have nevertheless invested tens of millions of dollars in this research project, which is the way to the future.

Canada and Quebec had established a partnership—partnerships are rare—but it seems to annoy the federal government. I will come back to and conclude this story in a moment.

Through its nuclear fusion research program, slightly more modest in Ontario, and more significant in Quebec, Canada contributed approximately 1% of the world research in nuclear fusion. However, because it was conducting research in nuclear fusion, it benefited from 100% of the technological benefits of the international research in the field.

Nuclear fusion is a production mode that basically contrary to nuclear fission, which splits atoms, fuses atoms. This fusion, and the resulting heat that is produced, creates energy. The technology is essentially based on the dream of creating solar energy in a bottle.

The energy produced by nuclear fusion is recognized as a relatively economical and safe form of energy that does not harm the environment and produces an infinitesimal quantity of waste, which is no small feat under the circumstances.

As I pointed out, however, we were enjoying 100% of the technological benefits at the time. The federal government invests some $150 million annually in traditional nuclear fission technology, concentrated primarily in Ontario, compared to the $7.2 million it invested annually in nuclear fusion research.

INRS-Urbanisation studies showed that the federal government was probably taking in more in tax revenues than its annual investment of $7.2 million in nuclear fusion.

What happened? Early on in its reign, this government asked Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to cut a number of secondary, superfluous programs, using deficit reduction as an excuse. It was not very difficult for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, the bulk of whose operations are in Ontario, to identify a number of projects that were felt to be less important. Tokamak very likely led the list of proposed closures.

So the federal government, in its infinite wisdom, showing an astonishing lack of vision, decided to cut this $7.2 million which was being invested in nuclear fusion research. The result was that the Tokamak project in Varennes, in my riding, had to shut down.

What is absolutely mind-boggling, apart from this government's lack of vision for the future, is that it made its decision without even consulting or warning its partner. Suddenly it announced in a federal budget that federal funding for the Tokamak project in Varennes was going to be dropped, that federal funding for nuclear fusion research was going to be cut, thus flying completely in the face of the general trend internationally.

This is not the first time that the federal government has completely ignored the general trend on this issue and on many others as well.

So the federal government cut off funding. At the time the government of Quebec, which was in an even worse situation financially than the federal government, could not single-handedly come up with the $15 million needed annually by the Tokamak project in Varennes if it was to continue with its research in a satisfactory manner.

Installations worth tens of millions of dollars were abandoned. This is not what I call a responsible management of public funds. A team of some 100 research scientists, high level technicians trained in our universities at taxpayers' expense, had no choice but to take their high level knowledge to foreign countries. This is an excellent example of brain drain. Our nuclear fusion specialists were forced to leave the country and find work in countries where people believe in nuclear fusion.

Furthermore, Canada had developed extraordinary lines of specialization in plasma and microwaves. How will we be able to maintain the level of specialization that we have developed in those areas? It will be very difficult.

This decision was totally unjustified and unjustifiable, all the more so since the federal government has been wallowing in budgetary surpluses ever since. Not only that, but it has the gall to claim, year after year, that it is promoting innovation, research, science and technology in its budgets.

After killing the most important research and development project in the energy sector in Quebec, this government has the gall to say that it considers technology, research, science and development priorities. It is a true scandal to hear the government say such things.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, with regard to whether or not the Canadian Alliance supports Bill C-27, at this point we still do not support it because we believe there should be arm's length oversight. The committees and boards should be answerable to someone at arm's length of parliament. We would still like to see that worked on.

In terms of comparing who pays what, the most important aspect of the storage of nuclear waste is looking at costs up front. We have to know that this issue is going to be taken care of in advance because it is an obstacle to going forward with new generation Candu reactors, as well as the neutron scattering technology which is so important for new innovations and bringing the high tech sector out of a slump.

The science behind computer chips was generated through the work done at Chalk River Laboratories. In tracing diseases we use Candu technology in our Maple reactors to provide over 70% of the world's medical isotopes. In order to continue to use nuclear science we have to address the spent fuel issue. That is the main concern of Canadians when talking about nuclear fuel. Once that is addressed then we can go forward to help Canadians and all the world in medicine. Further technology developed at Chalk River Laboratories is the science behind MRI.

These are a few examples of why the use of nuclear science is so important. However, before we can go further, we have to take care of the waste issue.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the intervention of the member from the Alliance Party. The topic of debate was whether we should follow through with any further amendments to Bill C-27. Since she did not recommend any amendments to Bill C-27, I am assuming her party has changed its position and is going to support the bill. It was my understanding that the opposition parties were against this legislation because it was so poorly crafted.

If the member did read the specific piece of legislation, how does she think the role of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited works in the legislation vis-à-vis the other three power corporations, Ontario Power Generation Inc., New Brunswick Power Corporation and Hydro-Québec? How does she think that the sum which Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is paying up front compares to the sums for instance that Ontario Power Generation Inc. and Hydro-Québec pay?

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is fitting that today of all days we are talking about Bill C-27. The legislation calls for the nuclear utilities to form a waste management organization that would manage and co-ordinate a full range of activities relating to the long term management and disposal of nuclear waste fuel. Discussions are still in progress with the key parties.

Today is also the last sitting day for the premier of Ontario, and we wish him well. He guided the legislation. He brought Ontario back from the precipice of financial ruin to become one of Canada's economic provincial engines. It was due in part to the extra revenues generated that we were able to continue to discuss power and energy generation in Canada.

The use of Candu technology to date has avoided the emissions of more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, 11 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 2.5 million tonnes of nitrogen oxide. In addition, no particulates were released and that decreased the amount of smog production.

Candu reactors have proven to be a key part of the clean air solution. Canada's greenhouse gas reduction targets and the public demands for clean air would be impossible to achieve without them. For example, the air quality in the southern regions of Ontario would suffer the greenhouse gas and acid rain emissions without Candu reactors. Emissions would increase by 15% to 20% without the use of nuclear reactors.

Bill C-27 talks about nuclear waste. I will begin by sharing with members how I was introduced to nuclear waste in high school. Our grade 11 teacher brought in a black and white film entitled War Games . This film was our first introduction to nuclear energy. It began with a mushroom cloud and thousands of people suffering from a nuclear blast. Then came the aftermath, the fallout and the radiation. It depicted bodies lining the sidewalks with their necks hanging over the curb. The film was produced in Great Britain and was a re-enactment of a nuclear blast that was used for training purposes during the world wars.

The film showed people suffering from burns and radiation sickness. They were barely alive. A policeman would go from person to person gently lifting them and putting a bullet through their heads. When the film ended the teacher told us how that was caused by waste from nuclear reactors. That was the myth I was introduced to as a high school student.

I want to dispel that myth because it is likely many other people share the same background or vision of what is done with nuclear energy and nuclear waste. After graduating from high school I took chemistry at the University of Western Ontario. One of my former professors, Dr. Puddephatt, was presented with the Governor General's award. Taking chemistry and learning about nuclear technology and nuclear chemistry was informative and eliminated the ignorance around nuclear energy as a whole. I had an advantage that not everybody else had.

Canada has never used nuclear science to create weapons. The spent fuel is disposed of safely in large pools resembling swimming pools. We are currently looking at different technologies to get rid of and to store nuclear waste safely for all time. It has been advantageous to Canadians, since Canada entered the nuclear age.

I would like to clarify the myths and untruths surrounding MOX fuel. MOX is mixed oxide. That is the reason why terrorists would not want to use this form of spent fuel to create a bomb.

It was an honour for Canada to be chosen to do MOX fuel testing. The Chalk River Laboratories in my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke have tested MOX fuel for years. MOX fuel came from Russia to Canada for test purposes to see whether or not the mixed oxide fuel could be used for positive purposes in Candu reactors.

The spent fuel taken from sites in Russia was put in powder form and made into pellets that would not be conducive to building any type of weaponry. It would be far too expensive for a terrorist to go through the process of putting it back into the form a weapons grade material.

Canada was chosen because of its superb background and insight into nuclear fuel and energy, and because it was a peaceful country. Equal parts of MOX fuel came from both Russia and the United States. The idea was that for every gram of MOX fuel from Russia, a gram of fuel would be taken from the United States. We did not hear too much about that. People got all riled up over the idea of weapons material coming to Canada.

The fuel was brought to Canada under armed guard. The pellets were put into protective coverings and cases which in turn were placed into concrete drums and chained to the trucks.

For Canadians to become exposed, a truck would have to be involved in some kind of collision, the barrels would have to come unchained and break open, the concrete cracked and the rods holding the pellets sawed through. Then somehow they would have to be ground to dust. Even then the level of radiation would be innocuous. For people to suffer exposure to MOX fuel, they would have to crawl on their belly and either lick it up or inhale it. The fears were unfounded. It was the special interest groups that tried to prevent the transportation of this fuel.

The fact that Russia and the United States are transforming their weapons grade material to an innocuous form, possibly for positive use in the form of energy, is a success.

It is a victory. It is a sign of victory for the disarmament of the two major nuclear powers.

Another scare myth that the detractors of nuclear energy like to use is the accident that occurred at Three Mile Island. The accident at Three Mile Island was a result of a water pump failure. The people at Three Mile Island used regular water to cool their fuel, unlike our Candu reactors which use deuterium. We have heavy water coolant encased in pressure tubes so there are many more protective coverings.

As for the incident at Three Mile Island nothing in North America had ever quite occurred like that. They were not sure what the outcome or fallout would be. They took every major precaution but it was actually the overreaction to the incident that incited fear in people.

Once again, whenever the word nuclear or atomic is used, people see a mushroom cloud instead of clean, blue skies and clean water, which is really the ultimate result of this clean, efficient use of energy.

Another example the detractors of nuclear energy use is the accident at Chernobyl. Its reactors use carbon as a moderator as opposed to heavy water. Heavy water is just a regular water molecule with an extra neutron.

Scientists at Chernobyl were doing some experiments and were shutting down the safety mechanisms in order to see how far they could go in terms of not having any deleterious effects. If we contrast that to the Candu reactor, when the safety mechanisms are shut off, the entire nuclear reactor shuts down.

First, what happened in Chernobyl was in part a problem with the entire technology behind their reactors, it being carbon as opposed to something as innocuous as water. Second, scientists were experimenting with something they had no business experimenting with.

Nuclear technology is not used just for power generation. It is also used for health reasons, for scientific technology. Neutron scattering reveals the structures of the biological object such as cell membranes. It allows us to look at the cells in our body without changing any part of it, without having to take an x-ray which can damage the cells or without having to form it into a crystalline form. By using that we can examine how viruses work and develop cures and treatments for diseases that inundate society right now.

Part of the price we pay for progress in a society is an increasing variety of the waste generated by numerous industrial activities. Since many of these wastes have the potential of harming us and harming the environment, they must be carefully managed and controlled, which is the reason for Bill C-27.

The nuclear power generation stations produce wastes that are radioactive. Canada's nuclear industry has developed the technologies to safely manage, control and reduce the waste overall.

Two types of radioactive waste materials are produced in the day to day operation of Canada's nuclear reactors. There are the low level radioactive waste materials, such as mops, plastic sheeting and protective clothing which are compacted, stored and monitored in concrete trenches in or above concrete buildings. They only represent a small portion, maybe 1%, of the radioactive waste. The other 99% of the radioactive waste is in the form of the high level waste and it is the spent fuel.

What is radioactive used fuel? During the normal operation of a Canadian nuclear reactor, uranium fuel formed into bundles is used to create the nuclear reaction needed to generate the heat which produces the steam used to turn the turbines that generate electricity. Because the neutrons in the fuel rods travel so fast, we have to use a moderator to slow them down so that we can actually get the fission reaction. To get a fission reaction going is quite a feat of science.

After a period of about a year and a half in the reactor, the fuel bundles must be replaced with new ones containing a fresh supply of uranium. Upon removal from the nuclear reactor, the used fuel bundle is highly radioactive and therefore must be isolated from the environment. The used fuel bundles are removed from the nuclear reactor by special machines and are transferred to storage bays within the nuclear power station. These storage bays look very much like large swimming pools. The water in these pools cools the used fuel bundles and shields people from the radioactivity.

How much fuel is there? Through normal operation, an average 600 megawatt Candu nuclear reactor produces about 20 cubic metres of used fuel bundles per year. The bundles in storage in Canada at the end of 1990 for all nuclear generators for one year in Canada would fill one Olympic size swimming pool. All the used fuel is safely and economically stored on site. The bundles in storage for all time in Canada at the end of 1987 would have filled an ordinary skating rink.

How safe is the storage of used fuel? Radioactive used fuel has been stored in this way for more than 30 years, so it has been tested and can be safely stored this way for a much longer period. Radioactivity in the fuel bundle decreases with time. For example, used fuel is 100 times less radioactive after one year and 1,000 times less radioactive after five years. Most of this radioactivity is completely gone within 500 years.

After the used fuel bundles have been stored in water for five years, they no longer require as much cooling and can be transferred to dry storage. The Canadian designed, thick walled concrete storage canisters have been used in Canada for many years. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, our federal crown corporation, has established an underground research laboratory in the Canadian Shield where it studies and develops the technology required for the safe and permanent disposal of our radioactive waste.

Canada's nuclear industry takes its responsibility for the management of radioactive waste seriously. That is why it is in favour of taking responsibility by being an active participant in a waste management organization.

In addition to the clean use and helping to achieve Kyoto protocol goals, whether or not we sign on as active participants, to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions is still a goal we would attempt to achieve. We have the science involved behind the neutron scattering, a positive side asset to the nuclear power itself.

In addition to examining the cells of our body without interfering with or hurting them in any way, we are able to examine other materials as well. It is through the use of new technology and new science that we will be able to provide the next generation with high tech knowledge and many more jobs to come.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Madam Speaker, you are absolutely correct. I would not want to embarrass any member of the House. I am always amazed at the power an individual can have in this place when he or she calls for quorum.

Continuing on Bill C-27, because industry was putting in large amounts of money representatives from Ontario Power Generation and N.B. Power contended that the responsibility should rest with them. I would agree that industry has authority at the WMO because of its financial obligations, but the WMO could have represented a broader range of viewpoints.

The advisory council could have helped to address some of these shortcomings but the way it would be established precludes this from happening. Not only does the advisory council only come into effect once an option for disposal has been chosen, but members are appointed without the requirement that they are broadly representative of the sector significantly affected by nuclear fuel waste.

The possibility that foreign waste will be imported into Canada once we have a waste disposal method in place is another shortcoming or omission in the legislation. Thinking of foreign waste, the PC/DR coalition introduced two amendments at committee which tried to ensure that the import of foreign waste would not be contemplated by the bill.

It is also interesting to note that the legal counsel at committee made the following remarks respecting the bill in relation to foreign waste. I refer to comments made by Carmel Létourneau, the senior policy adviser, legal services, of the National Research Council. She said that the intent of the bill did not cover the question of import of nuclear fuel waste.

Joanne Kellerman, legal counsel to the National Research Council said that the scope of the bill did not touch on importation of nuclear fuel waste from outside the boundaries of Canada. She said that it did not speak to that point.

Both of them went on to say that other acts would deal with the import of nuclear fuel waste if it were to be contemplated at some time in the future.

However, the legislation should clearly state that Canada is not prepared to accept another country's nuclear fuel waste for disposal. The question is this. Why would Canada agree to accept foreign nuclear fuel waste when another country has reaped the financial rewards from this substance? It does not make sense.

These amendments were defeated by those members on the other side of the House, often referred to as government members. That is being generous in my description.

The three mayors of municipalities in Ontario in which nuclear power stations are currently in operation appeared before the committee to outline the impact that nuclear power generation has had on their municipalities. They provided clear reasons why their municipalities should be consulted on nuclear fuel waste management, given that 90% of the waste is currently stored in temporary, above ground containers at the nuclear power plants.

There is no question that this gives all of us some concern. The legislation currently states that local and regional governments, and the big word is may, may be involved at the advisory council level, but in no place does it make consultation mandatory or provide financial compensation for these municipalities.

The PC/DR coalition brought forward amendments in committee to address these points. The member for South Shore was the very person who brought those amendments in, only to have them shot down by government members. It does not make a bit of sense, but again it is government by executive decree. If the Prime Minister or a minister wants something, it happens and the nodding ducks on the other side stand up and follow their orders.

Another proposed amendment would have seen the Minister of the Environment rather than the Minister of Natural Resources oversee the bill and make decisions concerning the disposal method to be used for nuclear fuel waste.

While at first the proposal may appear to remove the responsibility from the minister because of the energy component of radioactive material, we are really dealing with the issue of storage and disposal. It is clearly an environmental issue. The material may be irradiated fuel and have future energy potential, but with current technology and at this stage of development, the focus of the bill is how best to dispose of the material and protect the public from radioactive substances; hence, the need for the Minister of the Environment to be the lead on this file.

Our party agrees that the Minister of the Environment would be the more appropriate person to oversee the management process and, as Sierra Club noted, remove a potential conflict of interest that would affect the Minister of Natural Resources. The minister would not only be in the position of overseeing Canada's nuclear fuel reactors and the commercial aspects involving Candu reactors, but would also be charged with determining how best to manage the long term waste associated with the commercial use of nuclear fuel.

I have outlined my party's concerns with the legislation, which were detailed in committee and echoed in many pieces of correspondence that our party, and particularly the member for South Shore, received on the bill. For these reasons the PC/DR coalition, while recognizing the need to seriously and immediately address the issue of long term management of nuclear fuel waste, will not be supporting the legislation as it currently reads.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address this bill, as I did about a week and a half ago.

Bill C-27 was introduced at first reading on April 25, 2001. It is 15 pages long. In my opinion, this bill ought to trigger discussion at the international level, not only on the management of our waste but also on the use of waste as a productive source of energy in the world.

I stress this point, because a month and a half ago I had the opportunity to attend a major international conference in Marrakesh, namely, the seventh conference of the parties to the framework agreement on climate change, to follow up on the Bonn agreement on climate change.

A major development occurred at the conference, in that a consensus led to the drafting of a legal text to the effect that member countries of the conference of the parties—this is an international consensus—should abstain from using nuclear energy as a future source of energy in the world.

As my colleague from Sherbrooke has already pointed out, even though nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gases, it is a fact that using nuclear fuel waste poses a major threat to public safety. In this regard, I reiterate the Bloc Quebecois position, which would have preferred the term “abstain” in the Marrakesh agreement to have a more direct and legal meaning, closer to the term “prohibit”. This is why the discussion on the use of nuclear fuel waste should go well beyond the management of that waste.

As for the bill before us today, let us not forget that its purpose is, first, to require owners of nuclear fuel waste to assume adequate financial responsibility and, second, to require these owners to carry out their management activities in an integrated, effective and, I might add, safe global fashion, because the threats to public safety are, as I said earlier, obvious and real.

Let us recall that there are three kinds of nuclear waste: waste from nuclear fuel, low level radioactive waste and uranium mine and mill tailings. It is important to mention them, because the different types of waste must not be confused. We can also refer to residual waste, because my colleague from Sherbrooke is also experiencing a situation in which the Eastern Townships may be called upon to become the dumping ground for residual waste produced in the United States. The bill does not deal with this. It deals instead with the first type of waste, that is, nuclear fuel waste.

Let us recall also that in Canada most of this waste comes from nuclear fuel bundles that are currently located, or submerged, as they say, in 22 reactors, especially Candu reactors that use a technology from the end of the 1970s. This waste was for the most part produced towards the end of the 1970s. However, there is a problem today. That is the problem of storing and stocking waste.

Earlier I mentioned that there was an estimated 1.3 million spent nuclear fuel bundles currently submerged in what is known as cooling pools, which corresponds to 18,000 tonnes of waste being stored. However, there is a clear problem. These pools are currently overloaded.

As my colleague, the member for Jonquière, and I have said, not only are these pools overloaded but the infrastructure itself is aging and we most certainly need to make improvements in them.

Everyone agrees on one thing: the current method of storing waste does not constitute a long term solution for Canadians to ensure our public safety. For this reason, it is important to find a better and more efficient way to manage this waste in the years to come.

More specifically, of the 18,000 tonnes of waste currently being stored in Canada, only 3% is located in Quebec, most of which is stored by Hydro-Québec at the Gentilly plant. We have only 3% of the waste, while Ontario, through Ontario Power Generation Inc., with its 20 operational plants, has 90% of the waste. Once again, the 22 Candu reactors produced this waste in the late 1970s.

We must also remember that the New Brunswick Power Corporation, which has only one reactor, is responsible for 5% of all waste. Finally, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which currently has experimental reactors, is responsible for 2% of the waste. It all adds up to 1.3 million nuclear fuel bundles, 18,000 tonnes, 22 reactors, 20 of them in Ontario, one in Quebec and one in New Brunswick. The remainder of the waste comes from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's experimental reactors.

Storing the waste is not a long term solution. This is why the federal government has implemented a nuclear fuel waste management plan for storage over a 20 year period in the geological layers of the Canadian Shield.

This possibility, which is now on the table, has the support of certain experts. I am thinking of Don Wiles, a chemist at Carleton University, who felt as recently as September 23, and I quote:

—the best solution to the problem remains the burial of nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield—

According to him:

—such waste could be stored for 30,000 years without posing any risk to people or to the environment.

There are in fact some people who favour this form of storage. Let there be no mistake: this is long term storage.

Following the introduction of the federal nuclear fuel waste management plan, the federal government decided in 1989 to create the famous independent Seaborn panel, whose mandate the member for Sherbrooke has spoken to us about.

Basically this panel had two main objectives. The first was clear: to examine the technological merits of the solution proposed. What proposal? The proposal to store waste in the Canadian Shield.

The panel's second objective was to examine the criteria for evaluating safety and accessibility. This is quite a task. One can imagine an independent panel sitting and doing its work over a period of ten years. This represents extensive consultations. I will come back to the recommendations later.

One fundamental issue began to take on importance over the ten years of the panel's existence, and that was the issue of public consultation. I will come back to this in the recommendations. It began to overshadow the evaluation of the technical merits of the solution being proposed. Public consultation became an important issue.

All storage and security aspects of the solution proposed by certain scientists, including the scientist from the Ottawa University whom I quoted, were considered by the panel and through broad public consultation. This was one of the major and main conclusions, and I insist on that point, of the panel.

I will quote one of the conclusions:

Canadian public support is vital to the acceptability of the concept of nuclear waste management. Moreover, safety is only one of the vital elements of acceptability. It must be considered from two complementary angles, namely the technical and social points of view.

Therefore the panel did not limit itself to a simple technical conclusion. It considered all the societal implications of the project. Public consultation was the important aspect. And this is why we are disappointed.

I saw the work done by my two colleagues from Jonquière and Sherbrooke on this issue in committee and I know that my colleague from Mercier has moved amendments in the House which would have made consultation unavoidable under this bill. However, the government rejected those amendments out of hand.

This shows that this government cares about the management of waste only from the technical point of view but not in terms of societal implications or respect for individuals.

When hazardous materials are imported, and my colleague saw plutonium and MOX residue and waste imported into her own area, local communities come together to protest and take a common stand but this government refuses to listen to the people.

The minister and the government have been consistent from the beginning. Nuclear waste was imported into the riding of my colleague from Jonquière. Then this bill was introduced in last April and the government rejected all the amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois. If there is one thing we can hold against the government, it is that it refused to hold public consultations.

This the people of Quebec will long remember when they see projects like these cropping up in the ridings of our Quebec colleagues. Hon. members will recall how the public rallied around when there was talk of burying nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield and said no to this. The public has a right to be included in the solution. The proposed solutions must not be solely in the hands of scientists and government. There must also be respect for the consultation process and for the transparency Quebecers have a right to demand of their government.

The consultation aspect was therefore a fundamental element of the Seaborn panel, and this has been, basically, translated into the Bloc Quebecois proposals. It must be kept in mind that the Bloc was the direct conduit for the Seaborn conclusions. This government must realize that commissioners cannot be mandated to hold consultations and examine such questions for ten years and then the outcome of their consultations and their work just have brushed aside. This is a totally stupid way to proceed, and one that shows disrespect for the panel and also for the public, which has the right to be consulted and respected as well as included in the process.

We are therefore disappointed to see the government acting this way, disappointed as well to see that this bill includes one other aspect, the creation of nuclear management bodies via trust fund. Our regret, consistent as we are, is that it makes no sense for the energy companies to also be the nuclear management bodies. There must be transparency. Why could the public not be integrated with these management bodies? Why could local communities not be entitled to a seat on these management bodies instead of leaving the big energy companies to themselves to manage the waste they themselves have produced and are now responsible for? This is a disappointment.

It's a disappointment because the proposal these management bodies need to make integrates three important parameters and requires them, keeping in mind that with this bill the federal government will transfer to the provinces full responsibility for waste management while it is in large part responsible, and the energy companies in particular, to present a proposal that integrates, first of all, the method for burial in the Canadian Shield; second, the method for storage at nuclear reactor sites; and third, the method for centralized storage.

It is obvious to us that this bill opens the door to the importation of nuclear waste. We should not forget that under the leadership of my colleague from Jonquière the municipalities mobilized around special events and demonstrations against importing plutonium.

On June 21, 2001, Greenpeace, which is not in the habit of associating with political organizations, did so in order to fight against the importation of plutonium waste.

Since my time is almost up, let me remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois also has condemned the importation of plutonium waste. We fear, and that will be my conclusion on this bill, that this will open the door to the importation of nuclear waste.

I will quote from the conclusion of a press release by Greenpeace on June 21, 2000, “We cannot allow Canada to become a nuclear waste dump”. We too wish to avoid that.

We would have liked the government to support Bloc amendments for greater openness and better management to secure the future of civilization.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleagues, the members for Sherbrooke and Jonquière, for the magnificent work they did in committee during the review of this bill.

I also want to thank my colleague, the member for Mercier; we should not forget that she submitted amendments to the House. If I am not mistaken, they were all rejected. This shows clearly how this parliament works, and especially the Liberal majority, which is at liberty to adopt or not adopt the proposed amendments. What did these amendments suggest? Public consultation.

When one looks at the whole issue of importing plutonium into my colleague's riding of Jonquière, one clearly sees that even before the discussion on Bill C-27 the federal government had no intention whatsoever of undertaking public consultation on such issues, even if they were at the forefront of the news or were of the utmost importance for public security.

When I say such issues are important for public security, I am quoting a specialist. These days in the House, it is normal to relate all bills or matters discussed in the House to the issues of the day, particularly with the current war on terrorism.

I will remind members of the remarks made by Don Wiles, a professor of chemistry at Carleton University. As recently as September 23 of this year, he said:

These attacks are an example that shows that the stability of civilization remains fragile to a certain extent and that it is preferable to deal with the issue of nuclear waste in the safest manner possible.

More than ever, we sometimes have the feeling that we are studying bills that are of little or no importance. On the contrary, this issue is fundamental in the context of a war against terrorism. Canada's and Quebec's nuclear facilities must be protected, but most of all the waste coming from these facilities must be stored in safe places that will present no danger to the public.

The amount of nuclear fuel waste in Canada is estimated at 18,000 tonnes. There is only one nuclear plant in Quebec, the Gentilly plant, which stores 3% of Canada's nuclear waste. This is a reality.

I would like to ask a question of my colleague from Sherbrooke. How can he explain that a government like the one opposite rejected the amendments moved by the Bloc with regard to public consultation, regardless of the techniques which could be used and which I will have the opportunity to discuss in a few minutes?

How can he explain that this government rejected the opposition's amendments dealing with public consultation?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in one way, I am extremely pleased to speak at third reading of Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

I am not taking this personally, but I realize that there are fewer people here since I started speaking. Is this because of the speaker, the topic, or the fact that people are anxious to get back to their ridings for the holidays? This is a multiple choice question, and the answer could be none of the above, or even all of the above. I hope there is no connection with the speaker.

Nuclear waste affects everyone. Everyone has questions. Everyone has certain fears triggered by the words nuclear and nuclear waste. Gasoline has been in use for 100 years or so, and coal for several centuries, and we have known for some years that certain fuels we use emit greenhouse gases.

In the 1970s, the nuclear era began. Nuclear technology came to Canada. Today, there are 22 Candu reactors producing electricity, 20 of them in Ontario, 1 in Quebec and 1 in New Brunswick.

We are told that nuclear energy ranks second lowest in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, behind hydro-electricity, of course. Since that time, nuclear energy has been expanding, in the United States, Europe and Japan of course, but also throughout the world.

However, when people describe nuclear energy as better as far as greenhouse gas emissions are concerned, they neglect to mention nuclear waste, a result of this technology. Now there is talk of burying nuclear waste.

In the U.S., the Department of Energy has published a scientific report approving of a nuclear waste burial site; the cost of this was a mere $7 billion over 20 years. Hon. members can see what studies of nuclear waste can involve. Yet electricity is still being produced with nuclear power, and we continue to want to sell our Candu reactors all over the world.

What is special about this bill is that the new waste management organization is to be made up of the key stakeholders of the nuclear world, that is Ontario, Quebec, which has one reactor, and New Brunswick, along with Atomic Energy Canada. There are, therefore a number of specialists and involved parties. Some of the people who submitted briefs to the committee pointed out that this was a bit like letting the fox run the henhouse.

Nuclear waste is a problem that arises out of nuclear technology. We are letting those in the nuclear industry develop a waste management plan. We know that nuclear waste is the albatross around their necks. What are they really going to do?

Bill C-27 was the government's response to the Seaborn panel. On April 25, 2001, the government announced legislation dealing with nuclear fuel waste.

The government, through the Minister of Natural Resources, said, and I quote, “This legislation is the culmination of many years of research, environmental assessments and discussions with stakeholders and the public”.

He also said, “Together with the existing Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the legislation would ensure that the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste would be carried out in the best interests of Canadians—in a safe, environmentally sound, comprehensive, cost-effective and integrated manner”.

Having taken part in the different committee discussions and having heard different witnesses, the minister's words to the effect that the legislation was based on what Canadians wanted seemed quite surprising. When he referred to Canadians, the minister was likely alluding to consultation.

As regards consultation, there was a major consultation when the Seaborn panel was created, in 1989, if my memory serves me well. The report was published in 1998. The panel worked on the issue for close to ten years. It held a multitude of consultations and formulated a number of very good, even excellent, recommendations.

The minister refers to consultation in his report, but I do not know where in the history of this bill there was any real consultation.

We are told that the provinces that use nuclear energy were consulted. We are told that the people who live in and around the main areas where nuclear reactors are located were consulted. However, based on the evidence heard by the committee, if the provinces, including Quebec, were consulted, it was probably by telephone or very informally.

When this legislation was announced, we were told that all the provinces agreed with it. Let us take the example of New Brunswick. The New Brunswick Power Corporation appeared before us and proposed no less than 34 amendments to the bill. There may have been consultations at the time, but the fact that the corporation proposed 34 amendments to a bill that has only about 31 clauses is rather telling. We really wonder about the nature of the consultations that the minister promised at the time.

Environmental protection is another issue. As we know, the Minister of Natural Resources is responsible for the energy sector. However, as far as I am concerned, the nuclear energy issue is an environmental one. To be sure, nuclear waste has an impact on the environment. This was an important issue for most groups, not nuclear energy corporations but groups that submitted briefs or took part in the consultation process. One amendment proposed that at least the bill be under the responsibility of the Minister of the Environment. It was also proposed that in certain clauses of the bill the word environment be included, but that term was avoided in the whole government bill.

When this legislation was introduced, an important point was mentioned. It was said that:

—the bill is based on a totally impartial environmental assessment made by the Seaborn panel over a period of 10 years.

This is what got to me. The government told us that this legislation was based on the work of the Seaborn panel, which was impartial, yet it came up with something like this. Most of the witnesses who took part in the committee's consultation process invariably referred to the Seaborn panel and said that the government did not really understand the panel's recommendations.

The government said that the legislation was based on the Seaborn panel, which was impartial, and it came up with a bill like this, which had most of the witnesses who took part in the committee's consultation process referring to the Seaborn panel. They said that the government had not really understood the panel's recommendation, because they naturally addressed various levels, but there were some very important elements in these recommendations which the government basically dropped.

The panel, I think, highlighted one very important element, which is the creation of a waste management organization. The representatives of the Seaborn panel always recommended the creation of an independent nuclear fuel waste management agency, or NFWMA. The report said that for various reasons many communities had a perception of nuclear energy that was detrimental to the activities and projects of the nuclear industry.

If the government hopes to restore any sort of confidence in a long term nuclear fuel waste management system, it must start off on the right foot this time and create a new agency, with no links to the current producers and owners of waste but with a safety-oriented mandate.

It could not be clearer. Obviously, when it came to its bill, the government was anxious that the waste management organization be made up of the principal stakeholders in the nuclear world. In the bill's definitions, we see that the nuclear energy corporations which are to make up the waste management organization are Ontario Power Generation Inc., Hydro-Québec, New Brunswick Power Corporation, and any other body that owns nuclear fuel waste resulting from the production of electricity by means of a commercial nuclear reactor.

The sole reference to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is in connection with any assignee of the company. Obviously, one of our proposed amendments had to do with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited being clearly identified along with Ontario Power Generation Inc., Hydro-Québec, and the New Brunswick Power Corporation as one of the actual nuclear energy corporations. We wanted this to be clearly spelled out, but our proposal was rejected.

Furthermore, the Bloc Quebecois was responsible for some 30 or so of the approximately 80 amendments put forward in committee. We were obviously in agreement with the other opposition parties, the Canadian Alliance, the NDP, and the Progressive Conservatives, on a number of points. On more than one occasion, the other opposition parties were agreeably surprised by the amendments we put forward and wondered why they had not thought of them first.

One of the amendments we had proposed concerned clause 6. It came from the recommendations of the Seaborn panel and concerned the creation of a board of directors that would bring together many more stakeholders than are provided for in the current bill, which includes only nuclear energy corporations.

The board would comprise seven people. During committee deliberations, the government was prepared to add more. I recognize my colleague from Jonquière, who has just joined us and who also took part in its deliberations.

She sat on the committee and asked the government some very good questions. Unfortunately, and I empathize with her, she never got very good responses.

The only answer we got, and I have already mentioned this in the House, was no, no, no. With each amendment we proposed, the answer was a flat-out no.

If only it had been a flat out no after what I hope had been careful consideration. But the way it worked was that the Liberal members were always having to consult about what they should answer.

While we were working on the amendment, and my colleague will testify to this, some members were indicating that things made sense, but, when we asked the question they looked around to see who was the cheerleader, and then it was no, no, no.

Anyhow, they missed an opportunity when they voted down the amendment to paragraph ( c ) that we put forward. We were up to eight directors. Initially, there were seven; we added one and had agreed that eight persons could be part of the waste management organization as board members. We were in agreement; we had improved the bill.

Of course, some people who took part in the committee's hearings said they did not want any nuclear energy corporation. We, however, suggested that with regard to the membership of the board of directors we should have two representatives of the nuclear energy corporations. We wanted to hear their views when the time came to make decisions regarding this very important bill because, after all, it is the tool that will be in place to manage our nuclear waste, and that is something people care about. We wanted to hear a different point of view from that of the nuclear energy corporations.

Of course, there was a representative from the government. In many areas of the bill mention is made of the governor in council, which is the government, and actually the Prime Minister, who for all intents and purposes decides what will happen with regard to nuclear waste management.

We wanted to change the provisions of the bill to make the waste management organization accountable to parliament to members of parliament, who are democratically elected. We could have been the voice of those who consistently say they are afraid of nuclear energy. We could have assessed the situation and voted on their behalf, but the government steadfastly refused to make the process transparent by involving members of parliament.

There were representatives from a well known non-governmental organization dealing with the environment. There was a representative from a scientific and technical discipline having to do with nuclear waste management.

Madam Speaker, you are signalling that my time is nearly up. I must say that in your company time flies.

If we had a Christmas present for Canada and Quebec, it would be to withdraw this bill, send it back to the committee and undertake real consultation. If there were another nice Christmas present to give Quebec, it would be for parliament to unanimously say right now that Quebec is a country, a sovereign state.

I take this opportunity to wish every Quebecer and every Canadian very happy holidays. I wish them whatever their minds and hearts desire.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to continue with the debate at this time, but I do not understand exactly what the motion that has just been moved is about.

It is my understanding that the question is on the motion for third reading of Bill C-27. I wonder how this can be because, as far as I know, the third reading debate has not yet been completed. Therefore, we should be able to continue with our speeches. We had reached the point where we are allowed to make 20 minute speeches, followed by a 10 minute question period.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with the third reading debate on Bill C-27, the nuclear safety bill.

Then we will proceed to the consideration of Bill C-15B, the criminal code amendments, at report stage, followed by the third reading debate on Bill C-43, the technical amendments bill. Consideration of these bills will continue tomorrow.

For next week, which of course commences on January 28, we will resume the budget debate and we will proceed, as quickly as possible after the budget debate concludes, to the legislation emanating from the budget, in other words, the budget implementation bill or bills.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all hon. members and, in particular, the House leaders of various political parties, including those who have gone on to bigger and better things, for their continued co-operation during the entire year 200. They have made this year a productive legislative year. As a matter of fact it has been the most productive year in the five years that I have been House leader. It has been a banner year. I thank all hon. members for making it possible for the House, this parliament and this government to legislate in such an effective way on behalf of Canadians.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to finish my comments on Bill C-27. The PC/DR coalition has some difficulty with a number of issues with this legislation. As the natural resources critic what I find most problematic about the bill is that it does not prevent the importation of nuclear fuel waste from outside Canada.

Municipalities that have nuclear power plants within their boundaries presented a very well produced and articulate brief to the committee. None of their recommendations were taken into consideration. There is an arrogance on the part of some of the government committee members and certainly on the part of the minister that the complaints or concerns of Canadians are not taken into consideration.

It is absolutely necessary and extremely important that any waste management organization which is set up to deal with nuclear fuel waste and the advisory board that goes with it be completely open, transparent and accountable. In order for this process to be accountable, it has to be open to access to information. However, this process is not open to access to information. The difficulty is that Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., which is a crown corporation, puts $2 million a year into the organization with an initial investment of $4 million and still there is no access to information even though federal dollars are going into it.

When we reviewed the bill at committee, we tried to change that by introducing amendments. The PC/DR coalition introduced a number of amendments, as did the Bloc, the New Democratic Party and the Alliance Party. All of the opposition parties introduced a number of amendments. One amendment by the Alliance and one amendment by the PC/DR coalition were accepted.

The purpose of committee stage is to look at legislation, to review and understand that legislation and, not just for opposition members but for all members sitting on the committee, to offer constructive changes to the legislation. The amendments we brought forth were not accepted. They were never looked at.

It is not just on this legislation that the amendments were not looked at; we could go back over a long list of government legislation. One example is the anti-terrorism bill. Closure was forced on that bill. We did not have time to debate the issue in the Parliament of Canada and the very next day the Liberal government did not have enough speakers to continue the debate on Bill C-27.

The problem is not going to go away. Many of us may disagree on how to deal with it, however I think we would all agree that we have to deal with nuclear waste. We cannot pretend it is going to go away by itself because it will not. We have to deal with it in a timely fashion. However the process in place not only is not being done in a timely fashion as it is two years, but it does not have openness, it does not have accountability and it does not have parliamentary review. It is not open to access to information.

It is obvious the government was not listening to committee. It was not listening to the opposition members of parliament. Nor was it listening to its own government backbenchers on committee, who simply should not be there to sit on committee for 10 days and on the 11th day when the vote is taken be moved out so someone who does not know anything about the issue can come in and vote the government party line. That is an abuse of process. That process has been abused for far too long in this place.

I listened to the member who spoke before I did. If we look around the world, without question the dependence on nuclear power is going to continue, especially in third world countries with burgeoning populations. Therefore, the issue of nuclear fuel waste is going to continue. We have to find a way to deal with the issue fairly quickly.

The issue should not be, as the bill allows, for on site management of nuclear fuel waste for perpetuity. That is one of the options that could be recommended by the waste management organization. That is one of the options it could choose. It may decide to store nuclear fuel in Canada at sites on surface for perpetuity.

I would suggest that is a mistake. It is part of the legislation that has been poorly crafted and hurried through parliament when it simply did not have to be. We have a much greater responsibility than that.

It is the same difference here. There is a budget coming down, but there are no surprises. The budget has been leaked. We have a nuclear waste management bill that the opposition members are not satisfied with. A bill on terrorism was passed. It was hurried through parliament and will have to be corrected. We passed an immigration bill and now there is another bill before the House to correct the mistakes in the first one. It is one thing after another.

Surely the government should figure out what its agenda is and what specific legislation it plans to pass. The government should let the committees do their job and craft legislation that comes to the House in a manner that we can improve on, if needed, or we can pass it with reasonable debate. Instead, parliament is not doing its job. We are not able to do our job. We continue to have a government that uses closure like a hammer: no more debate; debate is finished, and it forces closure.

I repeat that the issue with Bill C-27 which I find most problematic is that it does not prevent the importation of nuclear fuel waste into Canada. The bill should specifically prevent the importation of nuclear fuel waste. If Ontario Hydro, Hydro-Québec, New Brunswick Power or Atomic Energy of Canada Limited chose to build a reactor in another country, there is nothing specific in this legislation that prevents them from bringing back that nuclear fuel waste for deposit in Canada.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to continue the debate on Bill C-27, to set up a waste management organization for nuclear fuel waste. I had a few moments left in my time in the last debate and it is important to have the opportunity to finish that today.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak in favour of Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste. I welcome the opportunity to speak to the bill because this debate is long overdue.

It is time to take a hard look at sustainable development and what that means. I believe that the nuclear industry has been unfairly singled out when it comes to waste management. When I say unfairly singled out, I do not mean that there should not be responsible waste management. I mean that in the other ways we generate electricity we have not been as responsible as a country, particularly when one considers the long term effects on the environment.

In fact, the nuclear industry has been very responsible when it comes to waste management. The waste from the nuclear industry is confined to an enclosed area, to be dealt with in a responsible manner.

It is time that we looked at waste management when it comes to all forms of energy.

In Canada uranium fuel bundles spend on average 15 months producing energy inside a Candu reactor before they are used up and replaced with fresh fuel bundles. The radioactive bundles are then transferred to large pools of water on site for storage. Under 18 metres of water, the spent fuel is perfectly safe and harmless, even to the workers doing the maintenance work inside the pool area.

As a measure of the extraordinary efficiency and sustainability of nuclear energy, the entire inventory of spent fuel from 30 years of nuclear electricity generation in Ontario, about 27,000 tonnes, would fill little more than one Olympic size swimming pool.

After 25 years of operation, pools at some nuclear stations, Bruce nuclear generating station in particular, are nearly full and an alternative site or method of storage is necessary.

Bill C-27 calls for the power utilities to establish a trust fund to finance long term nuclear fuel waste management activities and pay a levy for this fund. The waste management organization would then be required by the bill to examine three options: deep geological disposal; on site storage; or central long term storage. The bill would not preclude the opportunity to examine other methods of handling the spent fuel bundles either.

It is certainly in the public interest to have an effective means for waste management from nuclear power plants. Hopefully, a publicly accountable and fully transparent process for dealing with the waste would allay the public concerns about the handling and disposal of this hazardous waste.

As I now understand, planning for permanent disposal is under way and station storage facilities will be adequate at least until the year 2010.

Ontario Hydro is proposing a system of interim dry storage in concrete containers until a more permanent solution is found.

After six years out of the reactor, the radioactivity and heat in spent fuel bundles have sufficiently diminished to where they can be removed from the holding pools then taken to dry storage. Dry storage is not new in Canada and has been in use for over 45 years.

In the Canadian nuclear fuel cycle, storage by definition is a temporary measure. The term used to describe the permanent handling of spent nuclear fuel is disposal. The concept that currently is being proposed for disposal is deep, underground burial at a site yet to be determined.

The disposal concept involves a completely different technology from that proposed for temporary storage. Disposal involves deep burial inside a granite pluton, one of the solid, relatively fault free masses of granite found throughout the Canadian Shield.

The nuclear fuel cycle refers to the entire progress of nuclear fuel from the time the uranium is mined from the ground, through the refining process and fabrication of the ore pellets for fuel bundles, through the time it spends in a reactor producing its energy and until its eventual disposal.

Uranium pellets are about the size of a one-inch or 2.5 centimetre stack of dimes. Seven such pellets produce enough electricity to supply the annual electricity requirements of the average Canadian household. The pellets are loaded into zircaloy tubes about 50 centimetres long. These tubes are in turn held together in bundles by small plates welded to the end.

A fuel bundle weighs about 25 kilograms. Canada, being the world's largest producer of uranium, supplies about 30% of the world's demand from high grade mines located in Saskatchewan's Athabasca basin. We use about 15% to 20% of what we mine. The remaining 80% is for export.

Canadian nuclear technology is the most advanced in the world with the Candu reactor being the most state of the art in the industry. Canada is the only nation in the world that is a world leader in all three areas of the application of nuclear science and technology: uranium mining and milling; medical and industrial isotopes; and nuclear reactor design and construction.

The Candu's advanced heavy water design allows it to use 28% less natural uranium than light water designs found in the United States and in Russia and produces much less waste which has to be disposed of.

The Candu fuel bundles only become highly radioactive after they have been in a nuclear reactor and can be handled safely prior to this by wearing only protective gloves to protect the fuel bundle from dirt and moisture. The bundles are loaded into the reactor by hand during its initial start-up. Once the reactor is operating, bundles are loaded automatically by fueling machines, which is superior to the U.S.-Russia light water design that cannot be refueled while in operation but must shut down for the refuelling to take place. The 28% greater efficiency also means that the Candu reactor is able to recycle spent fuel from light water reactors to produce additional electricity.

In my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke I have the honour and privilege of representing the men and women who work at Chalk River laboratories, Canada's premier sight for nuclear research.

Society does not develop methods of bulk electricity production every decade or even every quarter century. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, most of the world and much of Canada make their electricity in exactly the same way we were making it at the end of the 19th century, by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas to boil water for steam that in turn is used to turn turbines.

The concept of nuclear energy, although advanced, is only partly so. Only the water, the boiling part, is different. Nuclear reactors boil water in a cleaner, vastly more economical way. The turbine part of a nuclear station is exactly the same as in a fossil fuelled station.

In the future, where protecting our environment may become even more critical than it is today, where global warming may compel us to alter many of our traditional industrial technologies, nuclear energy will be an important part of our global electrical power generation. It offers perhaps the only safe transition between the older methods of bulk electricity production and newer technologies yet to be developed.

Contrary to the opinions of certain interest groups in our society, the nuclear industry and the public's perception of the industry are changing. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the definition of sustainable development as found in the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland and entitled, “Our Common Future”.

The report is widely referred to as the Brundtland report. The definition referred to in the report is that sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

For greater clarity, we can further state that from the report on sustainable development, at a minimum, development must not endanger the natural systems that support life on earth, the atmosphere, the waters, the soils and the living beings. We need to start a dialogue about these issues because for too long we have been living on borrowed time when it comes to these issues. The generation of electricity and the impact that will have on the world is quickly coming to the fore. What recently happened in California is a prime example.

While on one hand, here and abroad consumers have been urged to conserve their power consumption and certainly industry has responded by producing more energy efficient appliances, on the other hand demand continues to rise.

I quote from a recent publication that identifies how new technologies like Internet and e-mail, online shopping and electronic banking are driving up the demand for electricity. It refers to a single warehouse in the Silicon Valley used to store such electronic data, consuming as much as 100,000 ohms according to energy analysts.

The United Nations projects a 50% increase in the global population by the middle of this century. Worldwide globalization is paving the way for the emergence of a global middle income class of four billion to five billion who have the same aspirations as we have for comfortable homes, imported foods, foreign travel, automobiles and all of the other comforts of modern society that rely on one thing, an abundant source of energy.

If the rest of the world were to have the same current energy standard of consumption as the developed world, energy production would have to be increased by a factor of 30. These are challenges we will all have to face. How will that demand for energy be met?

Let us first look at fossil fuels, the fuels largely responsible for the greenhouse effect that scientists believe is contributing to our global warming.

Many experts expect the fossil fuel production to peak. If it turns out that the ultimate resource of recoverable barrels of oil is 2,200 billion barrels, production will peak by the year 2013, just 12 years away.

What role may energy conservation play in delaying the time until the decline? Certainly alternative sources of energy can be developed, but at what contribution to the basic energy needs?

In order to provide the city of Toronto with its present power needs, about 40,000 one megawatt wind generators would be required. They would have to cover an area three times the size of Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island, some 5,656 square kilometres. The windmills would also have to rely on a wind that is always blowing, just like solar power depends on a sun that is always shining. We know that does not happen. Storage from these sources adds another level to the problem of alternative forms of energy.

In the discussion about global warming, the biggest culprit when it comes to the greenhouse gases and the consumption of fossil fuels is the automobile. In the U.S. motor vehicles make up about 53% of oil consumption. Early planning, our best hope of reducing the impact of declining oil reserves and reducing the demand for oil, particularly with non-carbon sources, are needed to fulfill our national and international obligation to slow global climate change.

Two especially promising energy forms to replace oil in transportation are stored electricity, especially in batteries, and hydrogen. Hydrogen can be burned in combustible engines virtually pollution free or it can be efficiently converted without pollution to electricity using fuel cells.

The use of electricity and hydrogen would reduce greenhouse gas emissions along with oil consumption. The use of clean Candu generated electricity to run hydrogen producing plants would ensure that the full cycle of hydrogen production is emission free. Recent developments in fuel technology are beginning to allow efficient, cost effective conversion of hydrogen into electricity as an onboard source for transportation.

More important is the tie between hydrogen production and the generation of heavy water which is needed to sustain the chain reaction in Candu reactors.

While producing an industrial stream of hydrogen from electrolysis would be the main objective of a hydrogen plant, a side stream generation of heavy water could also be produced with little or no extra energy expenditure.

Using advanced Canadian technology in a production setting, this would earn additional revenue for the hydrogen production process, making it cost effective while at the same time producing heavy water for the Candu reactors.

Canada has a significant opportunity and it all starts with a healthy nuclear industry. A healthy nuclear industry starts with effective waste management.

I commend the government for the legislation it has brought to the House today. I look forward to further investments in Canada's nuclear industry with a long awaited funding announcement for the Canadian neutron facility at Chalk River Laboratories.

An act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to address Bill C-15B. The title of the bill is an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act.

This bill was introduced at first reading on March 14, 2001, and at second reading on May 3 and 7, but it was not reviewed in committee before the summer recess of the 37th parliament.

The bill was split in two. It was the government's response to hundreds of letters and thousands of signatures from people asking for a more effective act regarding treatment, protection and penalties relating to animal cruelty.

Since most of the provisions of the criminal code on these issues dated back to the late 19th century, a growing number of associations and groups called for the legislation to be modernized, for the scope of the various offences to be considerably broadened, and for harsher penalties to be imposed for animal cruelty offences.

Because there is considerable support for a reform of the part of the criminal code dealing with animal cruelty, Bill C-15B gives rise to strong reactions and conflicting interests.

Initially, the Bloc Quebecois supported several elements of the bill, including the creation of a new part in the criminal code, which would see the transfer of provisions dealing with animals from part XI of the code, entitled “Wilful and Forbidden Acts in Respect of Certain Property”, to a new part 5.1, entitled “CrueIty to Animals”. However, the Bloc Quebecois can no longer support the bill, because it does not protect, among others, the legitimate activities of breeders, farmers, researchers, hunters and so on.

The purpose of this bill is to have more adequate means to deal with offenders who commit cruel and reprehensible acts against animals. The purpose of this reform is to protect animals.

However, while the Minister of Justice claims that the bill does not deprive the animal industry from its revenues, it would have been important to specify this in the legislation, so as to reassure the animal, farming, medical and sports industry regarding any risk of frivolous action.

This was not done. The minister simply amended the bill by adding the defences in paragraph 8(3) of the criminal code. The minister and the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights rejected the Bloc Quebecois' amendments, which would have explicitly added as a defence acting with legal justification or excuse and with colour of right.

The Bloc Quebecois was in favour of the bill in principle if it could have been amended to reflect the means of defence earlier allowed in part XI of the criminal code. That is why the Bloc Quebecois asked that the means of defence in article 429 of the criminal code be added explicitly to new part 5.1 of the criminal code.

According to my colleague, who defended this position in committee, these amendments were not accepted by the government members. In all committees, all we hear from these members is no, no, no.

The Bloc Quebecois is also opposed to the bill because it seeks to take away a number of powers and responsibilities which now fall under the jurisdiction of the Government of Quebec and give them to the chief firearms officer.

Since the gun registration scheme was first introduced, the Government of Quebec has set up agencies responsible for issuing permits—the Bureau de traitement and the Centre d'appel du Québec. Briefly, the Bloc Quebecois is opposed to the bill because it does not explicitly protect the legitimate activities of the animal industry, hunters and those doing research, and it takes away the Government of Quebec's authority to enforce the Firearms Act.

Bill C-15B contains the present provisions of the criminal code concerning cruelty to animals and adds a number of new provisions. Since animals are now considered goods and not human beings, the offences and recourses possible are essentially minor.

Enforcement of the legislation as it now stands results only in damages for loss of goods. In addition, because sentences are lenient, they encourage repeat offences. Animal rights groups have repeatedly called for better protection with respect to cruelty to animals. Respect for human beings begins with respect for animals.

The Bloc Quebecois is in favour of increased protection for animals, but only provided there is protection for legitimate activities involving animals, animal husbandry, sport hunting and fishing, and research. Such is not the case, even after the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois, for all of them were rejected. The purpose of those amendments was to improve this aspect of the bill.

The initial premise has to be that all those involved directly or indirectly in the livestock industry judge this bill unacceptable in its present form. For the great majority of them, these new provisions are likely to increase the possibility of criminal charges against those who work in the industry or who engage in recreational activities such as hunting and fishing.

The demands by the chicken protection coalition clearly illustrate the concerns raised by Bill C-15B. The board of the Quebec federation of poultry producers called unanimously upon the federal government to amend Bill C-15B so that livestock producers would retain the legal protection they enjoy at the present time and be able to continue to exercise their legitimate profession without any risk of complaints or charges. All of the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois relating to this were turned down by the committee.

I would also like to mention that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture is asking that the current wording of the provisions of Bill C-15B regarding cruelty to animals not be kept as is, but that it be amended to provide the agri-food sector with the legal protection that its members currently enjoy under the criminal code. It is a protection they deserve.

In conclusion, producers are asking for the protection of their livelihood and for the assurance that they will not be prosecuted for activities related to their work. The definition of animal could be a source of problems.

I would like to conclude by saying that the amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois would have clarified certain provisions of the bill and would have made a clear distinction between hunters and people who voluntarily hurt animals just for the sake of seeing them suffer.

Unfortunately, the federal government has shown again its unwillingness to listen and its conviction that it knows it all. Had it been open to our excellent amendments, we could have supported this bill. However, such was not the case, and we will vote against the bill, because it needed to be improved.

It is obvious, with Bill C-27, Bill C-36, the one regarding marine conservation areas and all the bills that come before the House, that the government does not want to listen. It sees the opposition as totally useless.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with Bill C-24, the organized crime legislation, which is currently before the House, and at least consider the Senate's amendments to Bill C-24.

This will be followed by Bill C-15B, the criminal code amendments, as I announced yesterday to the House leaders of the other parties.

Then, if there is any time remaining today, we will continue with Bill C-27, the nuclear safety bill.

Tomorrow, we hope to pass Bill C-46, the ignition interlock device bill sponsored by the Minister of Justice, at all stages. I thank the leaders of all parties for having consented to move this through all stages before the holidays.

We will then call report stage and second reading of Bill C-23, the competition legislation. If there is any time left tomorrow, we will turn to report stage and third reading of Bill C-43, the technical amendments bill.

On Monday, we will return to the bills I have listed, and those that have not been completed, that is unfinished business from today and tomorrow.

I would remind hon. members that the budget will be presented at 4 p.m. on Monday, of course, and the budget debate, that is the debate on the amendment to the amendment—in the improbable event of some hon. members wishing to propose an amendment to the amendment—would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with division at the end of the day, on Wednesday.

The business scheduled for Thursday and Friday of next week, if the House is sitting, would be Bill C-42.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Exactly. The point was raised and is worth repeating. It is not Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. but Canadian taxpayers who are reaching into their jeans pockets to come up with those dollars.

On an annual basis, Ontario Hydro will fork over $100 million to keep this waste management organization active. Hydro-Québec will fork over $4 million. New Brunswick Power will give $4 million. Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., with somehow no responsibility for nuclear waste, will still fork over another $2 million per annum.

We are talking about significant dollars going into a waste management organization. I cannot help but think that we have it backward. Perhaps Atomic Energy Canada Limited should be putting in the primary dollars. The subsidiary dollars should be put in by the industry itself because it certainly is responsible for nuclear waste.

I found a number of issues in this piece of legislation to be problematic. The bill pretends to deal with the issue of nuclear waste but it does not satisfy the problem. Nor does it completely deal with the issue. We end up with a piece of legislation which would allow for on surface or on site management of nuclear fuel waste for perpetuity.

There is absolutely nothing in the legislation which would force the nuclear energy sector in Canada and Atomic Energy Canada Limited to come up with an option. We must consider one option which is on site storage if we are to deal with the problem.

My colleagues mentioned earlier that we could recycle the fuel, run it through reactors so that it would become inert and the radioactivity would be taken out of it. Perhaps science will find a way of dealing with this through transmutation. Those are not options that are realistic at this time but they are still options. They are worthy of debate and that debate was curtailed in committee.

It should be noted that prior to our last debate at report stage on Bill C-27 there was a piece of legislation that was important to the security of Canada. Bill C-36 was as important to our security as this piece of legislation. Yet the government forced closure on Bill C-36 because it did not have time. It was an emergency. We did not have time to debate it. The next day there were not enough government members to continue debate at report stage of Bill C-27. Debate failed on Bill C-27.

What is important and what is not important? Canadian voters will make that decision a few years down the road.

It is true that the issue has been around for 50 years. We need to deal with it in a timely manner. This does not necessarily allow us to deal with nuclear waste in a timely manner because it does not preclude on surface and on site storage forever.

There is the issue of accountability to the public. It is also important for the bill to establish a waste management organization and an advisory council that would be reflective of Canadian society.

The member for Windsor--St. Clair talked about the amendments that were put forth by Ontario municipalities which have nuclear reactors in their midst. The PC/DR coalition put forth amendments on behalf of those municipalities as did other members. There was unanimous support for the amendments on the opposition side. That speaks to some unity that we found as we all worked together on this piece of legislation.

The government claims to represent Ontario because it has a lot of members from Ontario. However it does not represent Ontario when push comes to shove and we are trying to get amendments passed that were proposed on behalf of the people from Ontario. They wanted their concerns reflected in legislation that will affect them more than any other group in Canada.

The bill does not mention property values in municipalities that have nuclear reactors or on site storage facilities. People tend not to like to be near radioactivity. They tend to have doubts, concerns and worries about radioactivity. They tend not to buy houses and properties or to build businesses there.

It is a cheap source of power. We would not see that reflection in the property values if we assured Canadians that it was safe and if we dealt with the issue in a timely fashion. A municipality that has a nuclear reactor in its midst would benefit from it because it would be an immediate source of electricity and corporations would come to the area for that reason.

I want to talk about the issue of foreign waste being deposited at some type of a waste management facility in Canada. That issue is neither dealt with nor precluded in this piece of legislation. Most Canadians do not understand that.

The legal authority from the department stated in committee that the intent of the bill did not cover the question of the import of nuclear fuel waste. Another piece of legal advice was that the scope of the bill did not touch upon the importation of nuclear fuel waste from outside the boundaries of Canada. It did not speak to that point.

That is important to me and is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that the PC/DR coalition will not support the bill. It does not preclude Hydro-Québec, Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power Corporation or any corporation from setting up a plant in the U.S. It does not preclude them from producing nuclear fuel waste at a foreign owned plant and bringing that waste back to a depository somewhere in Canada. It is unfortunate that the legislation was drafted so poorly that we will not be able to support it.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it had been my intent to split my time with the member for Saint John. Unfortunately it appears there will not be enough time today to split it, so I will continue with the remainder of the time allowed for debate.

There are several issues involved in speaking to third reading of Bill C-27. The first comment I would like to make is addressed to the member for Windsor--St. Clair, the member for Sherbrooke and the member for Athabasca who sat on the committee. We all worked diligently in attempting to improve this piece of legislation by putting amendments forward but unfortunately we were not successful. We did manage to get in two amendments. The member for Athabasca and I were able to get in amendments to improve this piece of legislation. They certainly improved it, but unfortunately they did not go far enough to allow the bill to be a workable bill that our party, the PC/DR coalition, could support.

It is very unfortunate when a piece of legislation that is needed and requested reaches third reading stage and cannot be supported because it is simply poor legislation. This bill is not unlike my Christmas tie with a grinch on it, the difference being that the grinch story is about evil turning good. The grinch becomes a good member of society and enjoys the fruits and pleasures of the holiday season.

This piece of legislation is just bad legislation, which we attempted to improve so everyone in this nation could enjoy it and benefit from it, but unfortunately we were not able to do that. Even members in the lobby are wearing their festive stockings and holiday gear at this time when we should be working together in the House to improve legislation and pass legislation that is seriously needed so the country as a whole can benefit.

Members who spoke earlier raised very cognizant and real points that needed to be raised. However, there are a number of other points that need to be raised. One of them is the discussion of the significant dollars being put into this waste management organization by industry, and we are not talking about a couple of million dollars. The initial down payment comes into effect 10 days after the bill is passed. Ontario Hydro will put up $500 million. That is not small change. New Brunswick Power will put up $20 million. Hydro-Québec will put up $20 million. Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., which claims to have no responsibility for any nuclear fuel waste, and in fact a lot of responsibility for nuclear fuel waste, I think, and which is the very perpetrator and supporter of the industry, put up $10 million.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today to address Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

A few days ago, I spoke on Bill C-10, an act respecting the national marine conservation areas of Canada. My Bloc Quebecois colleagues also addressed Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism act, and Bill C-42, the public safety act.

I would like to explain from the outset what issues I will discuss over the next 40 minutes. First, I must point out that this government constantly displayed a confrontational attitude, despite the fact that Bloc Quebecois members were committed to co-operating regarding this bill, whether at second reading, during the review in committee, or at report stage.

The Bloc Quebecois, which acted in good faith at all stages of the parliamentary process, was always told by Liberal members opposite no, no, no.

This afternoon, I will again directly address my constituents and all Quebecers and Canadians. We feel that Bill C-27 is incomplete. It lacks transparency and it does not take into account public opinion.

Under the circumstances, we could have said no right from the beginning and made things complicated for the government, but no, we felt that we had to give our support at second reading in order to improve the bill in committee.

However, during the review in committee, when we heard witnesses and when the time came to amend the bill, Liberal members sitting on the committee said no, no, no, without really knowing what the issue was all about.

We are talking about the management of the country's nuclear fuel waste. I was stunned to the hear the Liberal member for Frontenac—Mégantic say, as he was leaving a meeting, that plutonium and uranium were no more dangerous than asbestos. The chair of the standing committee on natural resources and member for Nickel Belt also made a similar comment.

This is a serious matter. We heard many witnesses at the standing committee on natural resources. My colleague, the hon. member for Sherbrooke and Bloc Quebecois critic in this area, has done an excellent job, with some contribution from myself, in his desire to improve this bill.

It is clear, however, that the Liberal members of the committee did not have any idea what we or the witnesses were talking about. At that time, and still today, we were addressing nuclear waste, precisely, 24,000 tonnes of uranium and plutonium which will remain radioactive for some 25,000 years. This has nothing in common with asbestos.

When I hear comments like that, I feel there is no point in talking to the Liberal MPs. They heard all the same things we did, but understood nothing. I think they were there with their ears and eyes firmly closed. The only thing they could say was no, no. That was all we got out of them.

I will therefore continue to talk to our audience instead. Despite what the Liberal committee members have said, the taxpayers of Canada and Quebec are very much attuned to what is going on as far as waste in general is concerned, and nuclear waste in particular. I feel their judgment is far superior to that of the Liberals.

What is Bill C-27 all about? The whole thing dates back to 1989, when the Minister of the Environment of the day mandated the nuclear fuel waste and disposal environmental assessment commission, known as the Seaborn panel, from the name of its chair, to come up with a concept for the permanent storage of this country's nuclear waste.

I would like to digress for a moment. It would be mistaken to mix things and say that the Bloc Quebecois is opposed to Bill C-27. The Bloc supports strict management of nuclear waste. This is a matter of huge importance, and the government has not bothered in recent years to resolve it. The situation has continued, and today we realize that problem must be solved, but not at any cost.

The main recommendations of the Seaborn panel were that an agency be established that would hold public hearings and propose a type of management for this country's nuclear waste. It recommended as well that the cost of this country's waste management be assumed by the nuclear energy industry.

What is there in Bill C-27? Does it follow the letter of the recommendations of the Seaborn report? We must remember that the Minister of Natural Resources was drawing on the recommendations of the Seaborn report when he said he was going to draft the bill. This, however, is not what the chair of the standing committee on natural resources said to me. He said that the Seaborn report is outdated. I think the Seaborn report is very important. The Seaborn panel was independent. It lasted 10 years, cost a small fortune, but it has given us guidelines for the successful management of nuclear waste.

The management is to be independent of the nuclear energy industry. As the committee studied the matter, the Bloc Quebecois proposed a number of amendments to bring Bill C-27 closer to the conclusions of the Seaborn panel. Contrary to what the Minister of Natural Resources said in his speech at second reading, his bill bears no relation to the main recommendations of the panel.

Indeed, the Seaborn panel recommended that energy companies be excluded from the management committee that would propose a form of nuclear waste management.

Let us look just at recommendation 6.1.2, which advocates the creation of a nuclear fuel waste management agency. It reads as follows:

For various reasons, there is in many quarters an apprehension about nuclear power that bedevils the activities and proposals of the nuclear industry. If there is to be any confidence in a system for the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste and—

I am still quoting the Seaborn panel:

—a fresh start must be made in the form of a new agency. The agency must be at arm's length from the producers and current owners of the waste. Its overall commitment must be to safety.

Bill C-27 specifies that energy companies will have to establish a management committee to propose to the minister a long term nuclear fuel waste management concept.

Such a situation is tantamount to opening the henhouse door wide open to let the fox in. As far as the Bloc Quebecois is concerned, recommendation 6.1.2 should be fully implemented. Unfortunately, the Liberal government rejected it out of hand. Incidentally, a number of witnesses who appeared before the standing committee on natural resources also asked that Bill C-27 be amended to reflect that recommendation.

I will quote a few. Irene Kock, a research consultant with the Sierra Club of Canada, testified before the committee on November 8, 2001. She said, and I quote:

The Seaborn panel recommended that an independent agency be formed at arm's length from AECL and the nuclear utilities in order to manage the programs related to long-term nuclear fuel waste management, including detailed comparison of waste management options. The waste management organization must be at arm's length from the nuclear industry. This is a very key part of the recommendations from the Seaborn panel.

It is not just the Bloc Quebecois who says it. All the witnesses said the same thing to the committee. Irene Kock added “It was a very well thought out conclusion and must be incorporated in this legislation”.

I will quote from another testimony, namely that of Brennain Lloyd, a co-ordinator for Northwatch, who also testified on November 8, 2001:

The context is that there have been a number of experiences on the part of the public with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, and with the nuclear industries more generally, specific to this issue of nuclear waste management and related siting processes. They've been very negative experiences for the greatest part, and that needs to be kept in mind.

She was warning the government about certain past experiences. Ms. Lloyd went on to say that:

The resulting mistrust and apprehension on the part of the public must be kept in constant consideration...Third, the waste management organization lacks independence. Given the track record of a number of the agencies that are proposed to be involved, that's particularly problematic. The panel was clear that the waste management organization must be independent and it must be perceived to be independent.

It said an independent agency, not an industry agency. This would be an industry agency. This in fact is what Bill C-27 proposes: a management committee composed of members of industry. This can only be problematic in terms of delivery, the ability to look more broadly at the issues, and the ability to engender public trust and engagement.

The Bloc Quebecois therefore proposed that paragraph 6(2) be amended as follows:

No nuclear energy corporation may be a member or shareholder of the waste management organization.

But what did the Liberal members say? No, no, no.

We have not lost our sense of humour or our desire to see the government make this bill into something that would be what the Seaborn panel and the general public wanted. We proposed other amendments.

I could talk all day about the amendments which the Bloc Quebecois proposed in committee. There were, and the member for Sherbrooke is nodding, between 40 and 45. The New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative/Democratic Representative Coalition also moved amendments.

But each time, the committee, which was chaired by a Liberal member and contained a Liberal majority, said no, no, no. At every stage of the process, they said they were right.

Earlier, the Canadian Alliance member spoke about the fact that the public had to be consulted, but it is plainly written in the bill that the governor in council “may”. In other words, it is not required. When you are told “you may do something” you always have a choice. The majority prevails. If one says “I have everything I need” or “I do not have what I need”, I am going to go ahead. In this case, what it says is that the public may be consulted.

This reminds me of the very moving times we went through in the summer of 2000, when this government wanted to import MOX fuel from Russia and the U.S. I stood up to this, all five feet, five inches of me.

The people of Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean, hon. members will recall, were on side with me on this. A total of 99.9% of my constituents said they were opposed to the importing of MOX. Some 120 municipalities throughout Quebec and a number of regional county municipalities did the same. The Quebec government and the aboriginal peoples voiced their opposition.

Atomic Energy of Canada officials came to the region, telling us that this was just a little rod that went into a big cylinder. They made it out to be such a wonderful and attractive thing that I would have been happy to have it as a decoration in my living room.

Away we went to consult people. This is not an expensive proposition, and it provides us with an opportunity to speak to people concerned by a problem. We talked to the experts. We asked their opinions. We also consulted the Quebec department of health. We even went to a university, along with our regional environmental committee, and held an information session. We invited three experts, who told us that the concept of importing MOX and the method planned for its transportation were not safe.

According to U.S. studies, this concept was not acceptable because it was not 100% sure. Afterward, people were entitled to make comments via the Atomic Energy of Canada website, and this took some 28 days.

So 99.9% of those in our region were opposed. Nevertheless, they went ahead and did it. One fine evening, I am not sure exactly when, the MOX shipment set out. Everyone was on the alert. We have the Bagotville military base in our area. They said they were going to bring the shipment in via CFB Bagotville or an Ontario military base. Let us remember that the MOX was headed for the Chalk River nuclear facility in Ontario.

One night—and I know because I took a stroll near the military base in Bagotville—there was quite a flurry of activity. We did not know when the big day would be, but people from national defence, from public safety and from the health sector were there. There was this flurry of activity. And yet, officials from Atomic Energy of Canada told us, when they came to see us, that there was no danger.

What was all the commotion about if there was no danger and if it was not serious, as they said at the time? Everyone was on edge.

They went ahead and they took it to Chalk River. This proves the government's attitude, that they went ahead despite what everyone thought. In my riding, it was a very strong majority. I held my own consultations. Representatives of Atomic Energy of Canada were in one room and I was in another, that the hotel where the consultation was taking place graciously let me use.

Before going into the room with the Atomic Energy of Canada representatives, people came to see me and sign a petition. They would then come back from the consultation and say to me, “Ms. Bujold, if I could, I would sign the petition twice. I am not sure about what they are saying”.

So we can see just how important the issue of nuclear waste is. We must consult with people. But this is not reflected in this bill.

We must manage our nuclear waste, because it our waste. We have to store it in a way such that it remains inactive for many years to come. Most of the waste that is currently being stored is at nuclear reactors located in Ontario. There are 24,000 tonnes of nuclear waste being stored there. That is a lot of nuclear waste.

We cannot count on the goodwill of a management committee that says it is the representative of these companies that are going to manage the storage.

We, elected members who represent people, must be kept informed of what is happening. We need to challenge them and say “Show us what you are going to say and do. We will accept it or reject it on behalf of our constituents, because we have been democratically elected.”

In committee we proposed a clause to the government which stated that members would have to be consulted in the House of Commons.

Madam Speaker, you are a member like me. When we run for election we say to our constituents “I am going to represent you on all issues. I am able to represent you. If I cannot represent you, I will consult with you and you will give me your opinion”.

People know that whether we are talking about domestic, nuclear or other kinds of waste, we must not become the world's dump. Nobody wants to have any kind of wastes in their backyard. We always say “Not in my backyard”.

So to reassure the public, we had asked the government that the plan be submitted here, in the House of Commons. What did the Liberals say? They said no, no and no. They refuse to be accountable to the people who elected them on a most important issue.

I do not think this is being very transparent. Since we have been sitting in this House, we have noticed that when introducing bills the government always says that it will listen to us, that it will refer the bill to committee for further study, that it will hear witnesses and be open to amendments.

That did not happen for Bill C-27. Nor did it happen for Bill C-36, Bill C-44 or Bill C-42. Who does this government take people for, particularly those people who represent all those who did not vote for the Liberals and that the Liberals no longer represent? I am talking about opposition parties.

I am thinking of people who take the trouble to appear before the committee. I recall that on the last day, before the committee began to examine the bill clause by clause, the mayors of Ontario municipalities came before it. They were involved with this issue because there are nuclear plants in their municipalities. They came to say to the committee “We have to be informed and be part of the development of management. We are involved on the front line because we have to protect our people”.

A member from the Progressive Conservative Democratic Representative Coalition proposed an amendment in this regard, and the members of the Liberal Party once again said no, no, no.

It was also pointed out that consideration should be given to having people representing the native communities on the committee. Some witnesses said that it was important that these communities be consulted. There are not just the experts, there are ordinary citizens as well, who have some expertise in this regard. The answer was no, no, no.

I think we should call them the no, no, no gang. This is what comes out as soon as opposition members introduce something intelligent. Initially they suggest that a bill be drafted. Officials then draft it. Then the minister or members representing the Liberal majority in committee must defend it. Most of the time, I think they do not even know what the subject is and this is unfortunate because it is extremely important.

It was not only yesterday that I started being concerned about nuclear waste and all sorts of waste that we import from the United States and elsewhere. The Bloc Quebecois even asked, through an amendment it put forward, to have the bill provide that we manage our own waste and contain a clause banning the importing of waste from elsewhere. This amendment too was rejected. The Liberal members said no, no, no and yet we know how important this is.

The Seaborn panel was set up by people who wanted to do something about an issue that had been dragging on for years. It took time to write the report. The panel made excellent recommendations. The Minister of Natural Resources, whom I really like, seemed to show goodwill. He had said from the beginning, and I believed him,“I rely on the reports of the Seaborn panel”. But over time he made an about-face.

Now I cannot make sense of the bill. There are many Quebecers and Canadians who will also be lost. Why? Because when it is passed, they will no longer be consulted. It will be the governor in council who will consult, because he “may” do so.

The first recommendation of the Seaborn panel was that the public should be consulted on any nuclear waste management principle. This is what should have been done. That was the panel's first recommendation. This is the one recommendation that should have served as a basis for all the other ones. The government ignored the one recommendation that should have been taken into account with this bill.

Had it not been disregarded, I would have told myself “At least the government is taking this issue seriously. It is not doing this to please people who are close to the powers that be. No, it is really presenting a bill that will reassure Canadians and Quebecers”. I would have welcomed this initiative.

I sat on the Standing Committee on the Environment for two years. When good things were happening, I would always say to the minister and the Liberal members “Yes, we will co-operate, because when it comes to the environment we have to co-operate to advance government initiatives”. That was always my attitude during these two years, and things worked well. When I did not agree with something, I said so.

This bill is now at third reading. Yesterday we voted on the last amendments at report stage. The Bloc Quebecois presented four amendments. They were not even examined. They were rejected out of hand. It was time to do something about this issue, but the government should act in the respect of people, of the public.

That is not what the government is doing. This bill will be studied by the other place, and I hope that they will be able to do what the Liberal government has not done.

Such a bill, such an issue, must not be dealt with casually, as we have seen. I was not present for all of the hearings, but my colleague, the hon. member for Sherbrooke, was. He told me “It makes no sense. There are so many things going on; the witnesses that are appearing are only talking about the Seaborn report. They thought that the government wanted to implement the recommendations”.

Do we bring in witnesses in as a formality, or are we there to listen to them? Most of them are experts. Sometimes, regular citizens can become experts. They came in good faith to warn this government about the problems with this bill. They came and said “We are warning you; listen to us, introduce amendments. It needs to be done properly”.

But the Liberals did what they did to the opposition: they turned a deaf ear. They turned deaf and blind. As far as they were concerned, it was no, no, no. Their answers were dictated by the minister's instructions and the overall bill.

I am very disappointed for the people of the riding of Jonquière, which I represent, and I am also very disappointed for future generations. I have grandchildren, two boys. My daughter has given me two beautiful grandsons aged 5 and 3. Tomorrow, I do not want to tell my grandsons “You know, grandma could have done something. She tried, but nobody on the other side listened to her”.

I am very disappointed because they are the ones who will have to live with the results of our lack of action on December 5, 2001. We will have failed to convince the government to change Bill C-27 into the bill that we wanted at the outset.

This is a sad situation. The holiday season is upon us, and in 20 days it will be Christmas. This is a time of celebration, a time for enjoyment, for spending good times together, but I will be using that opportunity to tell my constituents “We did everything we could to get the government to listen to us, but to no avail. It is doing as it pleases, and it is not even interested in consulting you”.

I think that this government sees itself as the one possessing the truth. Of all those listening to us today, there is not one who possesses the whole truth. When one has an idea in mind, one must take into consideration the opinion of those who want to caution us, who tell us “Take care, there, don't go in that direction. I have proof of my stand, just listen to me and I will tell you why”. We need to listen to others if we are members of parliament. Otherwise, we would be better off elsewhere.

I believe that all members of this House, be they Liberals or opposition members, should have that ability to listen to others, yet in the standing committee on natural resources, I could see that the government MPs lacked that ability.

This has been a great disappointment to me, because today we are forced to acknowledge that we could have done something worthwhile, something to advance a cause that involves everyone. Last week, my colleague from Sherbrooke told me that there were people in one region discussing bringing in waste from the United States to bury in their area. One might also bring up a matter that we settled last year.

Do you remember this, Madam Speaker? At the time, you were not the acting Speaker. They wanted to bury waste from the Toronto area in northern Ontario, near the Témiscamingue area in Quebec.

With the help of the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, we set up emergency hearings. The Minister of the Environment arranged for an environmental assessment to be done. People came to tell us that there were many irritants and they were right, so the government said that this would not be done and it was not.

All the witnesses who appeared before the committee at various times told us the same thing. The city of Toronto was forced to back down.

The government could have done the same thing with Bill C-27. It could have said “Yes, there are irritants”. We never said that this bill was all bad. We said that there were things that were not what we were looking for and that the bill needed to be improved.

We are calling for consultation, management and a report to be tabled in the House. The other day, we suggested the services of the Auditor General of Canada. Yesterday she told us about what was going on with employment insurance and about the $75 that the government handed out before last year's election to individuals below a certain income. She told us about that. The auditor general is credible.

The government members refused. They said that they want an independent auditor appointed by the governor in council.

Our request for clarity demanded an answer, ut we can see beyond any doubt, and it is a shame to have to say this, and I am sad to do so, that there is no clarity. Clarity is not a predominant characteristic of the Liberal government in this issue. I am sorry to see this because I am certain that there are members across the way who would have liked more clarity too, when they realize how little there is, and that they too hear from their constituents on the whole topic of waste. They are going to start looking at the bill and I hope that they will ask themselves what questions their constituents will have for them when they see this.

We must not disappoint the people who elect us. We must ensure that issues as important as nuclear waste management are not relegated to the back burner, as a third, fourth, or fifth priority.

This is a top priority. We have done much harm to our planet in the past. Today it suffers from what we humans have inflicted upon it. With this bill, we had an opportunity to lessen the burden that we have placed on the planet.

However, we did not. The government turned a deaf ear and did not innovate. We hear the word innovate a lot. Today we need to innovate more and more. Since the events of September 11, the world has changed, I believe.

Every weekend I meet a great number of constituents who always tell me, “You know, Jocelyne, we have changed since September 11. Our values are different. We see things more clearly now and we to want to change the little day to day things that we overlooked”.

This bill was an opportunity to change the little day to day things and allow us to finally keep an open mind and consider the winds of change on this very complex and difficult issue.

Today the Bloc Quebecois can say that it is against this bill and that it will continue to oppose it. I hope that my speech will spark something in the members opposite. That is my wish.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this final opportunity to speak on Bill C-27. I have been involved in the process of the bill, which has been in the works for months and years.

Generally speaking, it is my position, and the position of my party, that the bill does achieve some important things and certainly is worthy of support.

Before I get into the analysis of the bill, I want to express some of my frustration with the process that brought us to this point today.

The speech of the member on the government side of the House is part of that frustration. During the hearing of witnesses who expressed their concerns and on whose concerns we based that amendments, I never saw that member present. I very much suspect the speech he just presented was drafted within the bureaucracy of the department and presented here just as the bill was.

Part of my frustration is the way the process works and the mockery it makes of democracy. There are so many better ways to deal with the development of legislation, which would result in better legislation that would better reflect the concerns of a broader section of the Canadian public.

The bill came to parliament, then went to committee. At committee, we went through the process of calling in countless expert witnesses on the issues. They presented their concerns, their analyses and how the bill could be made better. Then we went into the clause by clause process. Some 70 amendments were proposed based on what a lot of us heard from those witnesses.

When we presented those suggested amendments and concerns in committee, the entire government side of the committee sat like a bunch of posts and refused to debate or engage in any discussion about the bill and the rationale for the amendments. Instead, the bureaucrats from the department, who wrote the bill and understood what was in it, sat at the end of the table and answered those questions. That was a very frustrating process.

This could be done in other ways that would include all parties of the House in a committee setting, with experts from the various departments, such as justice, technical, et cetera. Together we could sit down, draft a bill and enter into some discussion as to why it should be done this way or that way and how the bill could be made as good as it possibly could. That just does not happen.

It seemed as though the members of the government side of the committee table were so arrogant that felt they did not need to enter into any discussion because, in the interests of time and expediency, they would simply use their majority in committee and in the House to pass the bill whether we liked it or not. Perhaps they did not understand the bill and the implications of the sections for which we suggested some amendments and therefore passed off the responsibility to respond to those things to the departmental experts at the end of the table.

Whatever the case, it truly was a frustrating process. I find the same frustration over and over again whenever we get into a bill that falls within my area as critic of natural resources. It seems to be a practice that repeats itself over and over again.

I have been here for over eight years. There certainly has not been any demonstrated desire to give elected members of parliament any degree of authority or any real input in the development of legislation which we will all have to live by for many years to come.

Having vented my frustrations with all of those things, I will proceed to discuss the bill.

There is a lot of merit in the bill. It deals with an area that we in Canada have needed to address for a long time. As the member opposite suggested, this is a process that has been going on for 25 years in Canada without any resolution. Bill C-27 takes us a little way toward some resolution of the problem of nuclear waste disposal.

For the most part the bill is a reflection of the recommendations of the Seaborn panel which did an excellent job in its study and its recommendations on how we should handle this matter. It did not comply in a number of ways that would have had merit and would have made the bill better. The Seaborn panel suggested strongly to have some kind of outside independent oversight over the waste management organization. The government for whatever reason chose not to do it that way.

Bill C-27 reflects some of the recommendations made by the disposal concept environmental assessment panel and presented to the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment in February 1998.

Some might imagine that an issue as important as the management and disposal of nuclear fuel waste would have fast tracked its way through the House of Commons. However, we saw those recommendations back in 1998 and here we are in 2001, almost 2002, and only now are we at third reading stage of this important bill. Despite the time lag, the bill has a lot of merit.

Canada's nuclear industry has stood alone for many years because of the fact that the industry does not have a producer pay approach to the cleanup of waste products. Other industries, particularly other industries within natural resources, have had to concern themselves with the cleanup of potentially dangerous or damaging materials and have similar funds built into a condition of their licensing. It is common within the industry.

Those costs are so well ingrained within most industries that the fact that the nuclear industry has never had that requirement probably has raised concerns in many parts of Canada for many years. The legislation will finally put the nuclear industry on a par with other resource industries in its requirement to be financially and morally responsible for the disposal of hazardous waste.

I believe that by using this piece of legislation the government intends to create an accountable management system for the long term management and disposal of nuclear fuel waste. I would quantify that to restrict it to high level nuclear fuel waste. I can only hope that the road the government chooses to take is not just paved with good intentions. I hope that the bill will quickly lead us to some concrete action.

I am pleased to see that the major players in the industry, namely, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, or AECL as it is known, Ontario Power Generation, Hydro-Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation are all involved in the process. The bill will ensure that this collective group will be required to establish a waste management organization that will implement the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

One of the other concerns, which we heard a lot of talk of in committee and from the previous speaker, is the need for transparency. There is at least the transparency of the requirement to table the studies and the annual reports of the waste management organization, and I was glad to see that. However any time it is suggested in the bill that there is a responsibility either to report to, or for the governor in council to make a decision on, it makes me a little nervous. I think it makes a lot of Canadians nervous.

It seems that only by allowing members of cabinet to make final decisions with no role for parliament in those decisions, especially on something as important as nuclear fuel waste, it opens a decision to Liberal insider trading. Certainly we saw a lot of that yesterday in the auditor general's report. It is a reasonably common phenomenon. Who knows what friends the governor in council might have in the business of nuclear fuel waste disposal. It could of course present some very lucrative contracts to individuals who are running the right business at the right time and of course have made the right levels of contributions to the Liberal Party of Canada. That is a legitimate concern, a concern backed up as I said by some of the comments of the auditor general yesterday.

Furthermore, the major owners and producers of nuclear fuel waste have to establish a trust fund and make set annual payments into that trust fund to finance the long term management of the waste.

Finally, the new waste management organization has the responsibility to determine fiscally responsible, realistic options for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

Once these options are determined, they will then be presented to the governor in council through the minister, who will then make a choice as to the best approach. That decision having been made, the waste management organization may, and I emphasize the word may, then move forward to waste disposal.

One of the most outstanding weaknesses of the bill is that once the report is done, the trust fund is set up, the study is done and the recommendations are made to the minister, there is really no assurance that will require the waste management organization to proceed with implementation of any of the chosen options. We could sit on this issue for another 10 years before anything concrete was done.

While the waste management organization may identify a technically feasible process for disposing of nuclear fuel waste, it may find, as the Seaborn panel did and as the department has for a number of years, that while technically the idea is acceptable, it simply cannot find a location, a community or a province that will allow such a facility in its backyard. It is a well known fact that it is hard enough in this day and age to find something as simple as a nuisance ground, a non-toxic waste disposal site if you will, for the huge amounts of urban garbage that we produce. It is very difficult to find a site that is acceptable for those kinds of facilities. It is no small feat to find a community anywhere that will jump at the opportunity to accept the kind of facility that we are proposing for the disposal of nuclear fuel waste.

One of the key recommendations of the Seaborn report that appeared in the legislation is the need for an independent advisory board. I referred to that suggestion earlier. In the Seaborn report the advisory council would be given the responsibility of ensuring openness and transparency of nuclear fuel waste management, particularly in areas related to public and aboriginal participation, environmental assessment, monitoring, mediation and dispute settlements. Furthermore, the Seaborn panel recommended that the agency should be heavily involved in all stages of the agency's work and options for long term management.

I am pleased to see that the government has incorporated the general idea of an advisory council in the legislation. However it concerns me and others on the committee and others in the public that the original spirit of the council seems to have been lost in the translation into this legislation.

As far as I can see there is little in the bill that structures the advisory council to be the watchdog of the agency. In fact it seems to me that the council is to be given a much smaller role than what the Seaborn panel recommended.

The government's record on openness and transparency when it comes to governor in council appointments is not good. There simply is not another word for it. The Seaborn panel made solid recommendations to enable the agency to be an open, honest, transparent and accountable organization, yet the government seems unwilling to open up its process to that kind of scrutiny or that kind of input. I must confess that it makes me wonder exactly how the government intends to set this whole process up if it is unwilling to ensure transparency and accountability from the very beginning.

Obviously a key area of the bill is the process by which a method of disposal of nuclear fuel waste will be chosen. As described by the bill, within three years of the coming into force of the act, the waste management organization shall submit to the minister a study setting out its proposed approaches for the management of nuclear fuel waste along with the comments of the advisory council on those approaches, as well as the organization's recommendations as to which of its proposed approaches should be adopted.

Realistically, and this is reflected in the legislation, there are only three real choices for the disposal of nuclear fuel waste. The idea that the waste management organization has a broad range of options to study, examine and recommend really is not realistic. There are three choices, those being deep geological disposal in the Canadian Shield, storage in a nuclear reactor site, or centralized storage either above or below ground. The only feasible one is the first one, the deep geological disposal in the Canadian Shield, with some variations as to how that is done and whether it is absolutely permanent or is a type of storage system that will allow reclaiming of that buried fuel waste if technology should come along in the future that would allow for a better method of disposal.

Certainly we already have above ground storage at the nuclear reactor sites. We have had in the past to some degree some centralized storage at some of those sites as well. The very fact is that the industry and Canadians and a number of the panels that made recommendations do not deem what is presently taking place as being acceptable in the long term. At least in my opinion that narrows the choices down to the one that was looked at and the one which the Seaborn panel suggested was technically feasible. The problem was there was no public support to allow that proposal to go ahead.

According to the Seaborn panel, whichever method the waste management agency chose, the choice had to meet several key safety and acceptability criteria. To be considered, the concept must have broad public support and, as I suggested, that is not the case.

It has to be safe from both a technical and a social perspective. That criteria seems to be at least within reach. It has to have been developed within a sound ethical and social assessment framework. There has been a lot of good work done but I am not sure that particular criteria has been met at this point.

It has to have the support of aboriginal people. We heard at committee that this support is certainly not there at this time. Some very stringent conditions were placed on that support being forthcoming.

It has to be selected after comparison with the risks, costs and benefits of the other options. As I said, the other options are very limited.

It has to be advanced by a stable and trustworthy proponent and overseen by a trustworthy regulator. I suggest it has yet to be determined if the waste management organization could be deemed to be a trustworthy proponent. I certainly hope it would.

There are those on this side of the House, at least, and I think a fair number of people across the country who would question whether the government is in fact a trustworthy regulator of this system.

It seems to me that in some ways it is the first of those conditions that will be the most difficult to meet. Having broad public support on an issue such as this where there is such a strong sense of “not in my backyard” will be a truly tough obstacle for this agency to overcome. Of course there are also a number of other conditions which, as I said, will be some challenge to meet.

The choice, according to the Seaborn panel, must: demonstrate robustness in meeting appropriate regulatory requirements; be based on thorough and participatory scenario analyses; use realistic data, modelling and natural analogues; incorporate sound science and good practices; and demonstrate flexibility.

Of course we will not know until the report comes to the minister and then becomes public whether in fact the chosen one will meet those criteria.

I certainly hope that any organization working with nuclear fuel would already have the stringent safety regulations and good practices, but even that is in some question considering the conditions under which Ontario Hydro had to shut down a number of its nuclear reactors. That process was forced upon it not by Canada's own industry regulators but by a U.S. industry inspector.

There certainly are a number of concerns about the stringent safety regulations and the compliance with those regulations and good practices and they will remain.

One of the key issues this agency will have to contend with is the question of how safe is safe enough, taking into consideration different technical and social perspectives. Nuclear scientists are likely to have views on the issue that are very different from those on the environmentalist side of the equation, yet somehow, if the plan is to go forward, both groups must be made to feel comfortable with and accepting of this plan.

As far as I can tell the only really viable course of action for the long term disposal and management of nuclear fuel waste is that which has been proposed by AECL, that is, the deep geological disposal in the Canadian Shield. However, as I mentioned, in its study the Seaborn panel concluded that it seems to meet the requirement from a technical perspective and states that:

—safety of the AECL concept has been on balance adequately demonstrated from a conceptual stage of development, but from a social perspective, it has not.

Furthermore, the study concluded that:

—the AECL concept for deep geological disposal has not been demonstrated to have broad public support. The concept in its current form does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada's approach for managing nuclear fuel waste.

I know only too well how the government likes to operate when there are contentious matters that do not have public support. A perfect example is the MOX fuel that was flown into Chalk River without any sort of public support after numerous towns, cities, native communities and the Ontario provincial government raised their opposition to the MOX plutonium test plan. Without any public notice, and showing complete disregard for public concerns, the government went ahead and flew in the MOX for the test.

I would like to urge the government to take a more responsible, measured and, frankly, more reasonable approach to nuclear fuel waste management. There is simply too much at stake to just put a stranglehold on opponents of the proposal.

As I said at the beginning of my comments, I am pleased that the legislation has finally come to the House and that the government seems to have taken to heart most of the recommendations of the Seaborn report.

The committee discussions on the bill were certainly interesting and could have been even more interesting if we had had a little more participation from the government side. Not surprisingly, the government did not allow any opposition amendments to the bill, which could have been to the benefit of the waste management agency as well as all Canadians.

While I do have hopes that the good intentions of the bill will actually turn into solid, responsible legislation I am not convinced that the government intends to follow through with total accountability and openness. The bill certainly has merit, and while I am pleased to see that the government has finally taken action on this issue, I believe more should have been done with the bill. Consequently, with some reservations, we will be supporting the passage of Bill C-27.

[David Pratt, Liberal, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources for its thoughtful review of Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste. I also take the opportunity to thank all witnesses who took the time to present their views to the committee on this important issue for all Canadians.

It is absolutely clear that along with the benefits of including the nuclear energy option in Canada's energy supply mix comes the responsibility of properly managing the resulting waste.

The waste in question is solid fuel bundles discharged from reactors built with our own Candu technology. Existing waste is currently stored safely at reactor sites while it awaits a long term management strategy. The nature of the waste requires a management approach covering the long term. Development and control of nuclear energy is a federal responsibility. It falls within federal jurisdiction. The Government of Canada has a duty to assume its responsibilities in this area which include the critical matter of an oversight function.

Bill C-27 is a major step forward for Canada with respect to the management of nuclear fuel waste over the long term. The bill is the culmination of more than 25 years of research, environmental assessment and extensive consultations with stakeholders including waste owners, the province, the public and aboriginal organizations.

The majority of Canadians who voiced their views want a solution to the issue. They are looking to the Government of Canada to establish a clear, fair and comprehensive strategy to make effective progress.

Bill C-27 is entirely consistent with the Government of Canada's radioactive waste policy framework of 1996. That policy framework makes clear that the government's objective is to ensure radioactive waste is disposed of in a safe, environmentally sound, comprehensive, cost effective and integrated manner.

I will be perfectly clear. Government oversight of the health, safety, environment and security aspects of long term management of nuclear fuel waste has long been provided through the 1945 Atomic Energy Control Act. This act was strengthened and replaced by the Nuclear Safety and Control Act which entered into force on May 31, 2000.

The proposed nuclear fuel waste act is needed to implement the Government of Canada's radioactive waste policy framework and ensure waste management operations are carried out in a comprehensive, cost effective and integrated manner which includes financial, social, ethical, socioeconomic and other broader considerations.

Should parliament assent to Bill C-27 it would be complementary to the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. Together both acts would ensure waste management activities are carried out in a safe, environmentally sound, comprehensive and integrated manner.

From the general principles established in the policy framework arose the specific requirements that are the backbone of the legislation before us. At the outset we wanted to ensure we heard the views and interests of stakeholders and strove to achieve an appropriate balance among competing priorities.

This was a challenging task and not one reached rapidly or in haste, however, an acceptable balance was achieved. I am confident this legislative framework would assist in making effective progress toward the implementation of a solution in the best interest of Canadians.

Bill C-27 would build on the good work of the nuclear fuel waste and disposal concept environmental assessment panel, or the Seaborn panel, and the government's response to it. The Seaborn panel carried out a comprehensive decade long review and Canada-wide public consultations. The panel made recommendations to the government, most of which were adopted as outlined in the government's response to the Seaborn report.

I reiterate our appreciation for the work carried out by panel members and the chair. We are thankful for their dedication in listening to all the views Canadians wished to convey. The government took seriously the work of the panel whose recommendations impacted significantly on the formation of government policy.

How has the public reacted to Bill C-27? There has been overwhelming support for legislation to deal with the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. Nonetheless concerns have been raised with respect to some of the details of Bill C-27. Members of the public have expressed concern that the government did not adopt the Seaborn recommendation to create a crown corporation to carry out the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

The Seaborn panel stated that various plausible organizational scenarios existed, each with advantages and disadvantages. It concluded that:

Whatever structure is chosen, however, the agency’s purposes, responsibilities and accountability must be spelled out as clearly and explicitly as possible, whether by legislation or in a charter of incorporation.

Consistent with past and current Canadian practices Bill C-27 would place primary onus for operations on the industry. This would be accompanied by appropriate government oversight. The government would exercise general oversight over the waste management organization established by the nuclear industry.

This approach has been chosen to allow us to move forward effectively. It would provide for a clear separation between those who carry out operations and those who regulate them, thus avoiding conflicts of interest. Similarly the waste management organization would be responsible for establishing and financing a credible and effective advisory council. Oversight would be exercised through the bill's transparency requirements.

In developing the oversight provisions of Bill C-27, care was taken to harmonize them with the federal oversight powers of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act which would be exercised over the long term in managing nuclear fuel waste. Not only did we ensure there would be multiple government oversight mechanisms at play as recommended by the Seaborn pane, we assured ourselves that no undue overlap or duplication would occur among the mechanisms.

We have heard the public's call for transparency. Members of the public want to participate in important decisions that affect their lives and those of their children. Bill C-27 would provide for mandatory transparency. This was recommended by the Seaborn panel and agreed to by the Government of Canada as an essential condition for increasing public confidence.

For example, all waste management organization reports submitted to the minister, including the initial study of options, would be made public. The waste management organization would need to carry out public consultations at every stage of the process. All the advisory council's comments regarding the waste management organization's reports would need to be made public. The government would have additional consultation requirements under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

How have the affected utilities and provinces received Bill C-27? The main owners of nuclear fuel waste have conveyed to the government and the House committee that they welcome the increased regulatory certainty the legislation would provide. Bill C-27 would provide them with a clear framework to fulfill their responsibilities. The bill would not create an unmanageable financial burden. Small waste owners noted that the waste management organization would be required to provide them with services at a reasonable cost.

In developing the legislation the government consulted Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, which are the affected provinces. We addressed many of their concerns. We showed as much flexibility as possible without compromising the Government of Canada's policy objectives for federal oversight. The provinces recognized that development and control of nuclear energy falls under federal jurisdiction. They were all supportive of the bill's principles.

How have aboriginal peoples engaged in the process? Aboriginal peoples have shown considerable interest in this federal initiative. The Minister of Natural Resources has sought their active participation in future steps regarding the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. They participated extensively in the Seaborn public hearings. The Minister of Natural Resources has met with a number of aboriginal leaders to discuss how they wish to be consulted on the next steps. The active involvement of aboriginal peoples would be recognized and ensured by Bill C-27.

In addition to requiring the input of traditional knowledge from affected aboriginal communities during future siting phases, the bill would require the government to continue to carry out parallel consultations pursuant to its fiduciary responsibility. The Government of Canada recognizes the valuable perspectives and insights of aboriginal peoples.

Matthew Coon Come appeared before the House committee to speak for the Assembly of First Nations. Amendments were proposed and the committee recommended Bill C-27 be amended to include traditional aboriginal knowledge and expertise on the advisory council before the governor in council selects an approach for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

What would be the immediate impact after entry into force of the nuclear fuel waste act? The trust fund would be kick-started and the waste management organization would begin preparing its study. This report must be submitted to the government within three years. The study would include a comparison of risks and benefits of each option. The waste management organization must examine those options explicitly outlined in Bill C-27 but would not be limited to those options and may propose others.

Several stakeholders and some members of the House committee doubted whether three years would be enough time for the waste management organization to carry out the required work for the study. In this regard it should be noted that the Seaborn panel suggested that two years would be sufficient. Like Seaborn, the Government of Canada requires the study to contain sufficient information to compare options and decide on the most acceptable long term management approach for Canada.

After consultations, it was concluded that a three year period was appropriate in view of all the work that has already been done in Canada and elsewhere. It is now time to move forward. Utilities have been made aware of potential legislation for several years and have already started work.

What about the administration of the act? The bill indicates that the Minister of Natural Resources would be responsible for the administration of the nuclear fuel waste act. The department would be the focal point for interdepartmental consideration of technical, financial, social and ethical reviews and for any independent reviews that might be necessary. The department would provide the government's direct and indirect liaison with the waste management organization, the public, the provinces, aboriginal groups and other interested parties. The department would ensure compliance with the nuclear fuel waste act. It would manage all auditing, verification, inspection and enforcement measures.

A key aspect of Bill C-27 is its focus on a transparent process. Modern regulation seeks to involve the active participation of the public and to make clear the decision making role of the elected government. The activities of the nuclear utilities, the waste management organization and the minister are to be made transparent. The information should be made easily and promptly available to the public. Operations would be audited effectively.

In this regard the oversight approach taken in the bill is based on strong transparency requirements while leaving the organizing and implementation of the operations with the nuclear industry, combined with effective government oversight.

Does Bill C-27 address the broader nuclear energy policy issues? The nuclear energy option attracts interest on broad matters, for example, the appropriate mix and supply of available energy resources, sustainable development of energy projects, the social impact of high technology and globalization, the export or import of waste, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and, more recently, acts of terrorism. These are serious issues but all fall outside of the scope of this bill.

Of the issues I just mentioned, I will highlight one that commanded a lot of attention during the House standing committee review, namely the export and import of nuclear fuel waste.

There has been some talk about Canada becoming the dumping ground of the world for nuclear fuel waste. Let me assure the House that the government's first concern is to deal with nuclear fuel waste generated in Canada. There are no plans either to import or to export nuclear fuel waste. Bill C-27 was not designed to address these practices. Should they ever be considered in the future, there are existing federal mechanisms which would allow full public consultation and would guarantee that any application would not pose any unreasonable risk to health, safety, security and the environment of Canada. The two main mechanisms are the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Addressing broader public policy matters must not serve as an excuse for delaying our current responsibilities for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. Ensuring appropriate waste management is a laudable objective in its own right. We already have nuclear fuel waste currently in storage at nuclear reactor sites. Storage activities are safe but are not designed to be permanent solutions. No longer are there any good excuses for delaying what our generation, which benefits from nuclear power, must do to deal with the waste.

What can we conclude at this time on Bill C-27? This legislation is the culmination of years of work and was not established in a contextual vacuum. Policy development was guided by extensive consultations with all stakeholders by modern regulatory practices, social justice concepts and by experience gained in other countries. Policy development was influenced by the invaluable work of the Seaborn panel, including contributions of all those Canadians who actively and conscientiously participated in the public hearings.

The result is a phased, step-wise, decision making process allowing for all planned and executed waste management operations to be reviewed on an ongoing basis and for the public to participate effectively at every step along the way.

Implementing a solution will take many years and will possibly affect future generations. The focus of legislation is on the responsibility of today's generation while at the same time allowing sufficient flexibility to allow decision making by future generations. Much progress has been made internationally on implementing a solution for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

The challenge for the government in developing legislation was to be fair to all stakeholders and to strike an effective balance in the public interest. I firmly believe that the proposed legislation fully meets the challenge.

With this legislative framework, Canada will be able to move ahead effectively in a reasoned fashion toward the implementation of an appropriate solution for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste and take into account not only the technical matters but incorporate in a central and integral way the social and ethical values of Canadians.

I look forward very much to parliament's approval of this very important bill.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, for the Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved that Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division at the report stage of Bill C-27.

The question is on Motion No. 2.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties and there is agreement, pursuant to Standing Order 45(7), to further defer the recorded divisions requested on report stage of Bill C-27 until the end of government orders on Tuesday, December 4.

Business Of The House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond somewhat belatedly, as a result of the disorder created by the opposition.

The business of the House will be as follows. We will continue this afternoon with Bill C-27 respecting nuclear waste. Following that I propose we move on to private members' hour.

Tomorrow the business will be Bill C-44, the aeronautics bill for which the House gave its unanimous consent earlier this week and for which I thank it.

On Monday we will consider the report stage and third reading of Bill C-37, the Alberta-Saskatchewan claims bill. That would be followed by Bill C-39, the Yukon Act amendments.

Tuesday shall be an allotted day. This is the final day in the supply cycle with the resulting supply votes and so on at the end of the day.

On Wednesday we will complete any of the business that I previously mentioned that has not been finished, if such is the case, and we will consider the report stage of any bill that is reported from committee in the interim. I am told for instance that Bill C-41 has been reported today or will be tomorrow. That will be on the list as well.

Finally, there has been agreement among House leaders that on Monday, after we complete the deliberations on the two bills I mentioned, we would have a short debate on a motion on employment equity. That is a compulsory requirement according to our rules, to have a committee review of the employment equity legislation. The House leaders have agreed, and I have since put it on the order paper, that we would consider that motion toward the end of the day on Monday, in addition to the business I have just announced.

Nuclear Waste Act

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will also speak to this important bill, Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

What I am seeing mostly is the way that my party has analyzed this bill. Our party has a long term vision. When someone has a long term vision, he or she is able to provide, through sound regulations, a framework for a project such as the one proposed with Bill C-27.

If our party has moved new amendments today, it is because, when the committee studied this bill, all the amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois were once again opposed by the Liberals.

It is as though this government, which should normally be more transparent, was not able to accept any idea put forward by another party. These people think they are totally controlling all the democratic decisions here in this parliament. If our parliament became the model of what the Liberals want, there would be no more democracy here. The only democracy here is when we have the opportunity, like now, to make ourselves heard and to put forward interesting proposals, but that is all.

When we work in committee, I often notice that we have trouble getting started on time because these people are so serious we cannot even have a quorum. However, when the time comes to reject motions, there are seven, eight and even ten liberal members there to quash our proposals. That is what they call democracy.

I want to refer back to one amendment in particular which I think should have been accepted. With that amendment, Bill C-27 would have created a transparent management committee. The proposal gave some people the opportunity to participate in transparent and fair management.

Let us look at the proposed membership for the board of directors. We asked for two representatives of nuclear energy corporations, which is normal when dealing with nuclear energy; one representative from the government, once again a normal request since the government is responsible for the implementation of the act; one representative from the aboriginal community; and one from a recognized government agency active in the environmental area. As far as I know, nuclear waste management does have an impact on the environment. As the issue is very specific and highly technical, we also requested one representative from a scientific and technical area related to nuclear waste management and one expert in public affairs in the field of nuclear energy.

From the expression on your face, Mr. Speaker, it sounds reasonable. Everybody agreed with that. It was good common sense. Unfortunately, our proposal was rejected at committee.

Let me give an example. When a child goes through negativism—the infamous no, no, no phase—we figure he will soon grow out of it. As far as I can see, negativism has such a great hold on members on the other side that it will be years before they reach political maturity. When they do, they will be capable of openness and they will understand that we too, on this side of the House, can have good ideas and move a bill forward.

We can hope that one day there will be political maturity on that side. However, since my election here, on June 2, 1997, I have often despaired of the fact. I would like to return to two amendments introduced by my colleague from Sherbrooke.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

It is the least we can do, as my colleague said.

We also asked that no nuclear energy corporation be a member or shareholder of the nuclear management organization.

The Liberal Party is against transparency, as the chemist said he wanted. It is against consultation and it supports the involvement of energy corporations within the waste management organization.

This is why, in 1989, the Seaborn panel was mandated to examine the merits of the techniques and solutions proposed by the government. This panel sat for 10 years and submitted its report in 1998.

One conclusion of the Seaborn panel that I remember and that should guide the government in its decisions with regard to Bill C-27 is this, and I quote:

Broad public support is necessary in Canada to ensure the acceptability of a concept for managing nuclear fuel wastes. Safety is a key part, but only one part, of acceptability. Safety must be viewed from two complementary perspectives: technical and social.

Therefore, I hope the government will accept the arguments of the Bloc Quebecois, and especially those of the people of Quebec.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise to speak to this important bill, Bill C-27. This bill may not seem important, but it is because it has given rise to major debates in various regions of Canada, most specifically in certain regions of Quebec.

Let us take, for example, the area represented by my colleague from Jonquière. He was eloquent in listing the realities surrounding the importing of MOX in his area, which was done without any real consultation by the federal government.

This bill is important because it also affects Quebec, particularly the Gentilly plant, where, inevitably—because Hydro Quebec will become a member of the waste management organization—Quebec will become involved in a broad debate involving not only the crown corporation, but over time, we hope, all Quebecers.

Four amendments by my colleague aim to improve transparency. Members opposite criticize my use of the word transparency. This bill demonstrates one thing: that this government never once listened to the opposition, including in committee, as my colleague mentioned, when it came time to make proposals regarding consultations. Not only did it not listen to the opposition, but in real cases, when it came time to consult the residents of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, the federal government failed to set up a consultation process and mechanism that satisfied the expectations of residents.

What is the objective of this bill being considered today? One of them is to require owners to take on financial responsibility when it comes to nuclear waste management. As well, a second basic objective of the bill is to undertake waste management in a comprehensive, integrated and efficient manner.

It is important to highlight that there are three categories of radioactive waste. First, there is waste from nuclear fuel. The second type is low level radioactive waste. The third type is uranium mine and mill tailings.

The bill before us today deals primarily with the first of these three types of waste, namely nuclear fuel waste. Currently there are 1.3 million nuclear fuel bundles in Canada, which means that more than 18,000 tonnes of waste are stored in so-called pools. The nuclear fuel waste is put in these pools to neutralize it to some extent.

However we must not delude ourselves. This is not a long term solution. On the one hand, it is not intended to last some 30,000 years, as could be the case if the nuclear waste was buried in the Canadian Shield and, on the other hand, it is not a long term solution because the pools used to store nuclear fuel are currently overloaded.

We fully agree with the federal government's decision to establish a long term plan to better manage this waste. This is the first objective of the plan proposed at the time by the federal government.

The second fundamental objective of the plan is to permanently store waste over a 20 year period in the geological layers of the Canadian Shield.

This is where there is a problem. Even though a number of scientific studies indicate that the Canadian Shield could be a long term storage area, for a period of about 30,000 years in the case of nuclear fuel waste, the various consultations that were held, including by the Seaborn commission, show that, in several regions, the public is strongly opposed to the storing of such waste.

Scientists have confirmed the desirability of such a solution. For example, an article published on September 24 in Trois-Rivières' daily Le Nouvelliste refers to comments made by Don Wiles, a chemist from the University of Ottawa. The article said the following:

As a scientist, Mr. Wiles feels that the best solution to the problem remains the burial of nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield, where such waste could be stored for 30,000 years without posing any risk to people or to the environment.

The chemistry expert tells us:

Mr. Wiles hopes Atomic Energy of Canada will offer more transparent and simpler explanations, which might facilitate public acceptance.

Greater transparency is where the problem lies with Bill C-27. There is no transparency whatsoever and no desire to involve citizens or groups of citizens on the boards of waste management agencies.

Where the basic criticism lies is that only energy companies such as Hydro-Québec, New Brunswick Hydro and others with nuclear waste on their territory would have a say in this waste management agency, although from past experience we know that the public wants to be involved.

We have the example of the MOX in the riding of my colleague from Jonquière and the instances of public outcry when there were plans to bury waste or experiment with the possibility of burying nuclear fuel waste in the geological layers of the Canadian Shield. All of this demonstrates that people want to have a say in decisions.

But no, not only has the government not integrated these provisions in its bill, it also seems, for all intents and purposes, prepared to reject the four amendments by the Bloc Quebecois. First of all, Motion No. 6 calls for more consultation.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak on the amendments to Bill C-27. The reason it is so important to have these amendments considered and added is that the lack of these amendments has drawn the proliferation of nuclear energy to a slower start.

In my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke we had the birth of and were responsible for the initial Canadian scientific research into nuclear energy. We have had many inventions relating to nuclear energy as spinoffs as a result of the growth stage of the nuclear industry, for example, the MRIs we have right now and the medical isotope research. We supply over 70% of the world's medical isotopes. That is a result of the acceptance of nuclear research.

The amendments, if accepted, would bring more clarity to and provide the general public with more insight as to what the nuclear industry is all about. Once we have more public acceptance of the nuclear industry, then we will have the support to go forward and do more research.

For example, for the past two years cabinet has been considering funding the Canadian Neutron Facility. Even though the member who spoke previously said that the Minister of Finance had accepted this in principle and that we are just waiting for the go ahead on the funding for the Canadian Neutron Facility there is still reluctance on the part of government to go ahead because it is not sure whether or not the public will see it as a positive move. The reason people will not necessarily see it as a positive move is that there is an element of secrecy surrounding the entire nuclear industry. What these amendments seek to do is demystify the nuclear industry.

Energy is the key to our future. The need for energy is growing exponentially. The electronics industry is an example. More computers are showing up in people's homes.

Right now in Ontario we are preparing for a potential shortage of electricity for the upcoming winter by building more coal fired plants. With coal fired plants we have the emission of carbon dioxide. As we all know, this contributes to global warming. The use of nuclear energy as a part of the overall mix in power supply is necessary not just to have an ample supply of energy but to save the environment.

In the amendments before us we have Motion No. 2 which deals with the outline of the establishment of an arm's length organization to monitor and dispose of nuclear fuel waste. We cannot support this motion because it takes away from companies the onus on dealing with nuclear waste. Companies and the producers of nuclear waste say that they want to have an active role in storing the spent fuel. In fact the whole issue of storing spent fuel can be an industry in itself. It can be an economic boon to the communities who accept it. Therefore we would not necessarily want to take away the opportunity for the power industries and companies to eventually use the spent fuel, the infrastructure and the jobs surrounding it, as a means of a profit sharing idea.

If we had a profit element to the spent nuclear fuel commodities, it would serve to subsidize fuel costs. Last year's high increase in fuel costs was debilitating for people on level incomes. We need to ensure that does not happen again. Anything that a power company can do to decrease costs for customers is a real plus.

Motion No. 4 would attempt to bring more accountability and openness to the activities of the waste management organization by making it subject to the Access to Information Act. We support this. A few years ago the riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke had the opportunity to house spent nuclear fuel. Some of Canada's brightest scientists could be found in this community. The community understands the chemistry and physics behind nuclear science.

People in the community were willing to accept this because they knew what it was all about since they had worked at the plant for over 40 year. It could have meant more retail jobs and more people coming into the community. Yet because of the fear of the unknown and the lack of accountability or the public not being informed of everything there was to know, this drew to a standstill and the community lost out on the opportunity.

Motion No. 5 would amend clause 12 which states that the waste management organization must submit plans to the minister for proposed disposal approaches as well as recommendations within three years of the act coming into force. The amendment would extend the deadline to 10 years, which is far too long to wait for the nuclear industry to be able to grow again.

It is important for the nuclear industry to go forth at this time because of alternate uses of energy and not necessarily nuclear energy itself. For example, the science behind hydrogen fuel cells was developed at the research station in Chalk River. When a nuclear reactor is not needed it does not have to be shut down. It could continue to operate but instead of being used for the production of power it could be used for the production of hydrogen. Rather than building a whole new plant to produce hydrogen for fuel cells these plants could be used to make hydrogen.

Car companies are looking for ways to store hydrogen and electricity in fuel cells. Instead of all vehicles being carbon burners we could use this technology. The science behind knowing what nuclear energy is all about has promise for not just the nuclear power industry but for other industries as well.

Another side advantage of the research behind the nuclear industry is the science of materials. Reactors are also used to look at different types of materials, to look for fractures and to examine structures. For example, when the space shuttle Challenger crashed it was Chalk River and the nuclear reactor science department, NRC, that examined it and determined that an o-ring was not responsible for the crash.

It is very important to discuss these amendments. Motion No. 8 would give further clarity and openness. The bill must be passed but with the proper amendments in the best interest of all Canadians.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today on Bill C-27,an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

The Bloc Quebecois is not against the sound management of nuclear waste. There are currently close to 24,000 tons of nuclear waste stocked on the sites of Canadian nuclear facilities. These tons of waste have a life expectancy of 24,000 years. These figures just keep getting larger. It is therefore quite normal to try to manage these time bombs.

The Bloc Quebecois supported the principle of the bill at the second reading stage. We told the government that we would table amendments in committee and were hoping for some open-mindedness on its part. However, once again, it must be recognized that what has been going on these past two weeks is totally absurd.

The important amendments presented to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources were not read not heard. The liberals answered “No, no, and no.” This is all we could hear.

We are dealing with a major issue here. When I held a public meeting in my region about the importation of 24 grams--and I repeat grams--of MOX fuel from Russia and the United States, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited came to tell us that it had held consultations. There were 28 days of consultations on an Internet site. How many people from my riding said they were opposed? Well, 99.9 % of my constituents said they were opposed to any importation of nuclear waste from just about everywhere.

There was opposition from 124 municipalities throughout Quebec, the regional county municipalities, the Communauté urbaine de Montréal, the Communauté urbaine de Québec, the Quebec government, all the environmental groups and all the stakeholders. What did the government do in the middle of the night? I cannot figure out how they went about it. There is a military base in my region. There was sheer panic. They arranged to have armoured vehicles, and they were supposed to come our way. Ultimately, we did not see a thing, but nevertheless, nuclear waste was imported. It cost several hundred thousand dollars.

I consulted some American experts, who can also give us information on the nuclear issue. I consulted internationally renowned experts. They told me that governments must address this issue and must not import other countries' nuclear waste.

We asked this government to include in the bill a clause that would state quite humbly the position of the Government of Canada as against importing nuclear material from other countries. What did the Liberals say? No, no and no.

This bill does not even contain a guarantee that waste will not be imported from other countries.

When Bill C-27 was introduced, the Minister of Natural Resources said that it was in response to the Seaborn commission. I am not sure if the minister did indeed read the report, or if he was conscious that he was reading the Seaborn report, but this bill does not respond at all to the Seaborn report.

We wanted to improve it, we agreed. We said that we had the Seaborn report, that we wanted to improve it along those lines. We were aware that he wanted to act. We said that we would give him the opportunity to manage what needs to be managed in our region.

As for the committee chair, I would like to discuss this. Sometimes I wonder if he was not both judge and judged from the start. I think that the issue we are debating today is an extremely serious one, which we debated in good faith in committee.

Nobody listened. The first recommendation of the Seaborn commission stipulated that the government must consult Canadians, and that it have significant support from them. I do not know what happened to that consultation, nor the support. But the Liberals are moving ahead.

I am very sad to say that this is yet another dark moment in the history of Canada. This is a great tragedy. We are not talking about hospital waste. We are talking about nuclear waste. This is serious.

I do not even think that the government members on the committee knew what they were talking about. Yet, they were there to vote. They watched the parliamentary secretary vote and followed suit. We even explained the amendments that we had proposed, but they did not even bother to listen. In the end, it was clearly no use; it was almost a farce sitting on the committee.

I do not think this is something to joke about. It is a major issue for the present and future of our societies. We are talking about nuclear waste. Nuclear energy is not some little candle that can be blown out. No. It is very dangerous, particularly when there is also talk of burying this waste in the Canadian Shield. Three quarters of the Canadian Shield is located in Quebec.

Will Canada, and Quebec in particular, become a dumping ground for waste from around the world? We have only to think of household waste. People do not want that buried in their backyard. Imagine if it were nuclear waste.

I think that what we have here is a semblance of democracy. I will never accept this. The debate is beginning. The government was not interested in anything we had to say. We will never accept such an insubstantial bill. It is an ineffective response to a commission which lasted ten years and did some serious work. This is not what the commission was trying to accomplish.

Enough. As the House knows, we put forward four extremely important amendments at report stage. I hope the Liberals will pass at least one of them but I am sure they will not because they are deaf and blind. These are the Liberals' only attributes right now when it comes to this bill.

I said I was not going to get worked up today but I cannot help myself. This is frightening. We will fight the battle. We will, keep on fighting until third reading and, if they do not reconsider at report stage, I think they will have to be held accountable. As MPs, we are accountable to our constituents. These are not waste management organizations. The Minister of Natural Resources will be judge and judged. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited reports to the Minister of Natural Resources. So why does he have responsibility for a piece of legislation which makes him the judge and the judged? There is something very wrong with this.

I hope that the Minister of Natural Resources, for whom I have great respect, is listening today and that he will say to his parliamentary secretary “That was not what I wanted you to do in committee. I wanted you to listen to the opposition”. Like the eight other henchmen on the committee, he did not listen to the opposition. This is just the beginning and we will keep on fighting.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate today on amendments brought forth by the member for Sherbrooke to Bill C-27, the nuclear fuel waste act.

I agree with the member for Athabasca. The bill is not transparent enough, there is not enough accountability and it does contain too much ministerial and privy council discretion. That has been the position of the PC/DR coalition from the very beginning.

I want to speak specifically to the amendments. Several were put forth and a few were not allowed at this stage. I would have preferred to speak to all the amendments because I believe all amendments were very good. Although there are a couple of amendments that I will not support, they were put forth in a manner and a tone that was meant to improve the bill and to bring more accountability and transparency to the process.

I think it would benefit everyone if I were to review the bill and what it establishes. Bill C-27 would see the establishment of an independent waste management organization, or WMO, which has been referred to by other members, and would require the WMO to provide recommendations to the minister on long term nuclear waste storage possibilities. Some of those possibilities could be and are expected to be deep geological disposals somewhere in the Canadian shield.

The reports, statements and studies done by the WMO would be made public, and that is important. We fought diligently to make sure that occurred. The bill should ensure that Canadian taxpayers are not liable for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, which again is extremely important. It is important to note that the industry players who fund the WMO, Ontario Hydro, Hydro-Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation, would not only put funding in place but they would have some say in what happens. These rates, however, would be arbitrarily established by the minister, which I do not think any industry player or any corporation in Canada would be comfortable with.

I think what needs to be said and what I will say again at third reading is that the bill does not preclude foreign waste from being deposited or disposed of in Canada. The bill does not require aboriginal, environmental or municipal representation on the advisory council. It speaks in a very general way that it would be nice and warm and fuzzy if there were representation from the aboriginal community, the municipal players and the environmentalists but it does not make that an absolute. The bill does not establish the WMO at arm's length from industry. I have some qualms about that. Industry is funding this so I think it needs some control in the process but the Seaborn panel did recommend that it be at arm's length from industry.

One of the really serious failings of the bill is that it would continue to place power in the hands of the minister and the governor in council, and provides little role for parliament in decisions on the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

There could have been a number of things that would have improved this particular piece of legislation and I will speak to some of those amendments now.

Amendment No. 1, which was amendment No. 3, would prevent nuclear energy corporations, including Ontario Power Generation, Hydro-Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation, from being members on the waste management organization. As the bill currently reads, the nuclear energy corporation shall not only be members of the WMO but always remain members of the organization. It would allow one of the recommendations made by the Seaborn panel when it studied the issue of nuclear waste disposal. That was the arm's length relationship which I have already mentioned.

The PC/DR coalition will not be supporting this amendment, although we would have considered supporting it had it provided for some nuclear energy corporations to be members of the waste management organization. When the power companies appeared before committee, they were clear about the need for active involvement in the WMO, given that they were the ones supplying the hundreds of millions of dollars for the management of nuclear fuel waste. The coalition supports industry on that point and cannot agree with this amendment.

The other question becomes one of liability. If industry could, and I expect it will, have some liability in this process, for example contamination of ground water, then it should be more directly involved in the process. Maybe the process could be nuanced so that industry would not have all the members, but it should certainly have some representation.

We totally agree with amendment No. 2, which was previously amendment No. 6. The amendment would require the minister to engage in public consultations on the disposal method recommended by the waste management organization. That is quite a bizarre thought I am sure for the government to engage upon. However it would be a nice way to give Canadians a Christmas present that does not cost them anything, by letting them know that it is looking at the bill, that it wants to make the bill more accountable and that it wants to involve and allow Canadians to participate in decisions that will concern them. Therefore, members of the PC/DR coalition support this. We supported a similar amendment at committee and we continue to support it now.

The last amendment would see the act come into force on January 1, 2003, instead of a day to be fixed by order of the governor in council. I think the amendment is meant to allow a little more time in the process and I understand why the member for Sherbrooke put it in, but it is not an amendment that I would tend to support. There has been enough time, studies and work on this. The bill is delinquent in a number of areas, but I do not see the day that the act would actually come into force as being one of those areas. This would not be an amendment that we would support.

However, I commend the Bloc member for Sherbrooke for his participation at committee and involvement in the bill. He, like many of us on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources, has really quite serious doubts and problems with this specific piece of legislation, not the least of which is the fact that the legislation is just plain and simply poorly crafted, not unlike other legislation that has been gone through the House as of late. There has not been enough input from the parliamentary process and certainly not enough input from committee.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be able to add my comments to the report stage of Bill C-27. Although my party did not introduce any amendments at this stage of the bill, we still have mixed feelings about it, as well as with some of the amendments that the Bloc submitted.

Clearly we support the concept of the bill. An important principle is being established here in the nuclear industry which is past due. That is the principle of polluter pay and that the industry itself be made directly responsible for the costs of cleaning up and disposing of the waste it creates.

Most other resource industries have had that responsibility for a long time already. For a long time the mining industry and the oil and gas industry have had to post bonds to guarantee that the cost of the liability of the cleanup and disposal of hazardous waste is taken care of. The bill would establish that same principle within the nuclear industry. However it does not go far enough in that it only relates directly to the cost of disposal of high level nuclear waste. It should have gone further. The trust fund should also have been included and have been adequate enough to guarantee the cost of decommissioning of nuclear plants and disposal sites.

I do not think anybody has any idea what that cost would be. The minister has told us that the cost is somehow included in the electricity rates that are charged. With the kind of debt incurred in the Ontario industry mainly because of the nuclear plants, it gives me little confidence that Ontario Hydro has the resources put aside, or is prepared to put aside, to cover the cost of decommissioning of any of the reactor sites. While it is a beginning, the bill certainly does not go far enough.

I have another issue with the bill. Although some of our concerns were addressed at clause by clause in committee, it became clear that while the bill requires the establishment of a waste management organization made up of the producers of nuclear waste and the creation of a trust fund to cover the cost of disposal of that waste and it requires the waste management organization to produce a study and make recommendations to the minister on the best way to dispose of nuclear waste, it goes no further than that. Once the organization fulfills those obligations under the bill and makes a report to the minister, there is no timeline or requirement to implement the plan.

The bill would allow the waste management organization to fill the responsibility within the bill. However, nothing would really happen in the form of implementing a plan and disposing of nuclear waste in the country for another 20 years. We have been working for 20 years to try to figure out a way of what to do with nuclear waste up to now. The government and governments before it, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. which is doing the research around the issue, have been working on it for 15 or 20 years and have not been able to come up with a solution. I am really not sure how the waste management organization created in the bill would come up with a solution when others could not, that would have the confidence of the Canadian public to proceed.

That is the key to this bill. That is basically the subject of some of the amendments the Bloc has put forward and many of the amendments that were put in at committee stage. The aim was simply to try to change the bill in a way that would allow the waste management organization, because of transparency, openness and accountability, to gain the confidence of the Canadian public that it was doing the right thing, that it was safe, and that it was addressing all of the social and economic issues around this.

There are still some real weaknesses in the bill. In my opinion it will not give the Canadian public the kind of confidence needed to make it a success.

Some of the amendments the Bloc has produced, specifically Motions Nos. 2 and 3, were an attempt to change the bill to comply more fully with the Seaborn recommendations in moving the whole issue away from the industry, from the producers of the waste. I do not support that.

I like the idea of the producer pay principle. If it is going to put up the money to cover the cost, then it is reasonable that it be the one to create and manage the organization that actually does it. I would certainly feel no more comfortable in having the government, through AECL or any other government created agency, responsible for implementing and coming up with the plan than I do with the industry. The industry has produced the waste and it is paying for the disposal of the waste. As long as it is properly regulated and there is proper oversight, then that is the form it should take. I do not support Motions Nos. 2 and 3.

Motion No. 6 is an attempt to bring more clarity to the issue of public consultation, transparency and accountability. We heard at committee that everyone wanted to see that in place. The industry itself clearly stated in testimony that this process could only be successful if there was absolute transparency, openness and accountability to the public so that the public could have confidence in the process that was taking place.

Motion No. 8 is another amendment which I support. There is no legislative requirement in the bill that would have the waste management organization move to implement its chosen form of disposal, to get busy and start taking care of some of this stuff. All it has to do is report to the minister. The minister could sit on it for years and years and we would be not much further ahead than we have been for some time. Motion No. 8 specifies a date when the act comes into force. Maybe it does not answer every aspect of the issue but at least it brings some certainty to the requirement that the bill be brought into force and that we proceed with it.

Some good concerns have been brought forward and, as you said when you grouped the amendments, Mr. Speaker, reflect some of the concerns that were also addressed in committee. There again the government would have been wise to take note and perhaps to have accepted some of the amendments that were made in committee to make the bill more accountable and transparent and to give the public confidence that the industries that are producing nuclear waste in the country are thinking on the broader picture of the public interest and public good, and not simply of their own economic interests and other interests.

With that, I will save my other comments for third reading debate on the bill.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-27, in Clause 6, be amended by replacing line 35 on page 2 with the following:

“6. (1) The Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the appropriate standing committee of the House of Commons, shall”

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-27, in Clause 6, be amended by replacing lines 4 to 7 on page 3 with the following:

“(2) No nuclear energy corporation may be a member or shareholder of the waste management organization.”

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-27, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing lines 18 to 21 on page 8 with the following:

“14. (1) The Minister shall engage in such consultations with the general public on the approaches set out in the study as may be necessary.”

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-27, in Clause 32, be amended by replacing lines 33 and 34 on page 15 with the following:

“32. This Act comes into force on January 1, 2003.”

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The Chair will first proceed with a ruling concerning Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

There are eight motions in amendment on the order paper relating to the report stage of Bill C-27.

Motions Nos. 1, 4, 5 and 7 will not be selected because of their similarity to motions proposed in committee.

The other motions have also been examined and it is the opinion of the Chair that they meet the criteria of the note to paragraph 76.1(5) of the Standing Orders concerning the selection of motions in amendment at report stage.

Motions Nos. 2, 3, 6 and 8 will be grouped for debate and voted upon separately.

I shall now put Motions Nos. 2, 3, 6 and 8 to the House.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as hon. members know, the House will not sit tomorrow as is the usual courtesy to a political party holding a national convention, in this case the New Democratic Party.

Our business for next week is fairly straightforward. First, we will deal with report stage and third reading of Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism legislation. When this is completed we will turn to second reading of the public safety bill that was introduced earlier this day by the Minister of Transport.

On any days next week, particularly in the early part of the week, should the debate on any of these items end earlier in the day, it would be my intention, then, on Monday to call for report stage and third reading of Bill C-27, the nuclear safety bill and, if time permits, second reading of Bill C-43, the technical legislative amendments bill which I introduced earlier this day.

If debate collapses on or after Tuesday, it would also be my intention to add to the list that I have just made Bill C-35, the foreign missions bill, at third reading.

Committees of the House

[Raymond Bonin, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee of Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 2, the committee has considered Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, and has agreed to report it with amendment.

I thank and commend all members of the committee from all sides of the House for the fine work they did.

Management of Nuclear Waste

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, many years ago in Quebec, there was a popular song about a doll that said no.

This was pretty much what happened yesterday in the initial hours of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources as the Liberals kept saying no to amendments from the Bloc Quebecois and the opposition.

The indifference of the Liberals was striking when we put forward our suggestions to improve Bill C-27 on the management of nuclear waste.

Repeatedly, they rejected the creation of a board of directors representative of the local community, including the aboriginal community, in order to ensure public confidence and add some credibility to the bill, which needs it.

They said no to blocking the import of nuclear waste from other countries, no to including an environmental clause, and no to referring the recommendations of the new waste management organization to the House of Commons.

The Bloc Quebecois has interesting proposals to make and the public has a right to know what they are. The Liberal puppets with their “no, no, no, no, no, no” will not stop us.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with Bill C-10, the marine parks bill.

Tomorrow we will consider Bill S-31, respecting a number of tax treaties.

As indicated by the deputy House leader for the opposition, next week is a week in our constituencies. When we return we will consider: report stages and third reading of Bill C-38, respecting Air Canada; second reading of Bill C-41, respecting the Canadian Commercial Corporation; report stages and third reading of Bill C-27, the nuclear waste legislation; Bill C-35, respecting foreign missions; and second reading of Bill S-33, respecting carriage by air. During that week the government may introduce another bill dealing with public safety and we would begin debate on that matter as soon as possible.

Finally, I intend to consult colleagues later this afternoon, given the uncertainty in the airline industry, to see whether there would be a favourable disposition, notwithstanding the tabling of the report on Bill C-38 today, to see if the House would agree with dealing with third reading tomorrow. I intend to consult later this day on this matter.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-27. The question is on the motion.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity to say a few words about Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. This is a matter which has interested me for many years. If I recall correctly, one of the first questions I ever asked in the House of Commons had to do with this issue.

Marc Lalonde was the minister of energy and his parliamentary secretary, Roy MacLaren, had a reputation for giving some of the most boring late shows one could ever imagine. He later went on to great heights as the high commissioner in London.

What I was concerned about then, and I raise this in a way to counterpoise my view of what has happened since then with what was said by the hon. member for Halton, was the fact that AECL was initiating a process that we are now near the end of, that is to say a process by which it set out to prove that deep geologic disposal of high level nuclear waste was the way to go.

I have chosen my words carefully because it did not set out to find out whether or not it was the best way to dispose of high level nuclear waste but to prove a conclusion it had already arrived at. The hon. member for Halton reinforced this earlier today when he said that 22 years ago he went to the Whiteshell nuclear research establishment where he was exposed to the technology, whatever that means.

The technology, the method of deep geologic storage or disposal of high level nuclear waste, had not been developed yet. In fact the lab is separate geographically, although in the same area, from the Whiteshell nuclear research establishment. It had yet to be built in 1979. If we listen to the hon. member for Halton we might have the impression that all this was fully developed in 1979. At that point they had yet to dig into the ground and create the underground space that they would use to test their theories about the safety of deep geologic disposal of high level nuclear waste.

That underground lab did not open until the mid-eighties. I first visited it very soon after it was opened in February 1986. For the hon. member to suggest that somehow this was already entrained in 1979 is not so.

What happened was that there was a process. The problem with the process all along was that the impression was never dispelled to my satisfaction or to the satisfaction of a great many others. There were certain people who knew what the outcome would be from the day the process began. The process was not open ended and did not allow for the possibility of coming to a different conclusion.

If we do not have the possibility of coming to a different conclusion it is not science. If we already know what the result of an experiment will be, and we are not open to the possibility that it might not work out the way we think it will, it is not science. It is politics.

It was a predetermined outcome based on a political decision that Canada as a maker, producer and seller of Candu reactors was determined to be able to tell its potential clients that it had a way of disposing of high levels of nuclear waste that would be produced by those reactors.

This is ultimately the conflict of interest at the heart of the entire process which has never been rooted out. We see it in the bill. Even now, at the end of the process, it is the industries themselves that will be put in charge of dealing with nuclear fuel waste without any participation by people who do not have a vested interest in the issue.

As long as the country continues to want to sell Candu reactors through a crown corporation, not only the crown corporation but the government itself will be in a conflict of interest. They and others involved in the industry who also have a vested interest are charged with the responsibility of determining whether there is a safe way to dispose of these high levels of nuclear waste. If they cannot say that, they will have a hard time selling the reactors.

This is a prima facie conflict of interest, yet we have not been able to successfully make the argument over the last two decades that the debate has been ongoing. That is my primary objection to the bill. It continues the conflict of interest of the government, AECL, and for that matter even AECB, although from time to time it does tell AECL what to do.

The nuclear club is a very small club. It is almost like a religion subscribing to a particular world view. Anyone who does not share the basic presuppositions about the wonders and benefits of nuclear energy can never become a member of the club.

The member for Halton said that it was best to leave it up to the people who know how to do it. He asked why they would want to leave such a question up to us. That is a fair question.

I do not claim to be a nuclear scientist or physicist, but there are experts in the field who are not tied to the industry. There are people in academia and NGOs that know a lot about the subject. They are trained in the same way the people in the industry are trained. They would be capable of rendering an independent decision while participating in a collective judgment made at a table at which they and members of the industry were present.

That sort of thing was recommended by the Seaborn panel but it is not in Bill C-27. Instead there is the same closed little circle of so-called expertise tainted by vested interest.

Another point made by the member for Halton was the concern he had that there was a provision in the bill for third party funding in the financing of waste management costs. He was worried that the loophole might be an opportunity for a subsidy.

I actually started to listen with some sympathy to what he was saying at that point in his speech. I felt he had the narrative sort of wrong up until then, but when he talked about subsidy and the need for us to know the full costs of particular energy options he made a lot of sense.

One of the things that is wrong with our economy and that has all kinds of environmental and social consequences is that we externalize the costs of various ways of doing things instead of internalizing them and having them built into the price of things. That sounds to me like a market argument, yet when it comes to something like energy we do not have a market. We have all kinds of hidden subsidies.

One of the greatest acts of subsidy, that is the subsidy to the nuclear industry that has taken place over the years in Canadian society, has not always been that hidden. In some cases it has been right out front.

The member for Halton used the figure of $16.2 billion. He was worried about there being the opportunity for further subsidy, and I think that is a legitimate worry. I commend him for that worry because we need to be aware of and take into account the full costs of the way we do things, particularly the full environmental costs, not only with respect to the nuclear energy option but also with respect to other energy options.

For example, the damage that is done to highways, the atmosphere, the safety of the travelling public and the tremendous overreliance on trucks instead of trains is a cost borne by society and government through road construction and repair. It will be borne by everyone in terms of health care and other environmentally related costs in the future, thanks to the greenhouse gas effect, et cetera. These are not costs that are figured into the cost that we pretend is associated with a particular energy option.

The member from the Alliance talked about the fact that our nuclear establishments were potential targets of terrorism. Unfortunately this is true. However, even more unfortunate, this is something that people who have been against nuclear energy have been saying since the beginning of this industry.

Having nuclear reactors and nuclear waste is much more dangerous in terms of potential terrorism attacks or political and social instability and everything that goes with it than having hydro dams, coal plants, natural gas plants, solar power, wind power or whatever the case may be.

There is something qualitatively different here. There is an infinite qualitative difference between the danger of nuclear waste and nuclear reactors if they were to be damaged and the damage that can be done by other energy sources, other energy factories or whatever, should they be the object of attack.

I say to the hon. member from the Alliance that it is a real concern, but it is a concern that has been raised for decades by opponents of nuclear energy. They have said it is a mistake to assume that the world would be exactly like it is today. We should plan our energy options, particularly when we are taking account of various risks, not on the basis of some sanguine view of the universe but with some account being taken of various worst case scenarios. That has not been done and that is why we are in the position we find ourselves in today.

Someone said that even if we stopped producing nuclear power today and shut down all the reactors we would still have to deal with the problem of nuclear waste. I agree. We still have all kinds of nuclear waste and we have to decide what to do with it.

I am not trying to argue for the status quo. There is an opportunity for Canada, and this is the sense in which I regret the dismantling of the Whiteshell research nuclear establishment at Pinawa.

There is all kinds of work to be done on the question of how to deal with high level and low level nuclear waste. It should be done in a way that does not contain within it all this conflict of interest. There is work to be done in determining how best to decommission nuclear reactors because there will be reactors that will need to be decommissioned.

Whether or not we choose to build new ones, we have a lot of old ones around that will not last forever. In terms of the people who are interested or who have already had their training in nuclear related technologies, it is not as if there is nothing to do.

It is not as if there is not some worthwhile task out there. It is not as if their raison d'être should depend on the making and marketing of more Candu reactors. There is a generation of work to be done by people who know something about this field in figuring out what to do with the waste, how to decommission reactors, and for that matter, improving and enhancing some of the useful ways in which nuclear science can be used for various medically related purposes and other purposes.

This is only second reading, and we hope against hope, we hope for things unseen, we hope for things never seen in this place, we hope that finally this conflict of interest will be seen for what it is and that the government will adopt the recommendations of its own panel and try to set up a more independent, arm's length agency to deal with the question of nuclear waste. Or is it, as I suspected back in 1979, a fait accompli from the beginning, all this process, 22 years of process to arrive at exactly where the Liberal minister of energy at the time thought the thing would end up in the first place.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

As members know, I am very interested in the whole nuclear energy issue. Last year, Quebecers, and particularly people in the Saguenay region, realized that when the federal government had the ill-conceived idea of importing, by air, a radioactive product, namely MOX plutonium, over their heads.

Today's debate deals with an extremely important issue. Since Canadian nuclear power plants first came into operation, the federal government has never bothered to develop a long term management plan for its nuclear waste. To this day, hundreds of thousands of tons of uranium and plutonium are stored close to nuclear power plants, thus posing an explosive risk to the environment and to public health.

In light of this situation, in 1989, the Minister of the Environment asked an independent panel, chaired by Blair Seaborn, to examine the long term management of our nuclear waste.

The panel released its report nine years later, in February 1998. In a speech delivered on May 15, the Minister of Natural Resources mentioned that he would follow up on the recommendations of the commission to the effect that, to be considered acceptable, a concept for managing nuclear fuel wastes must have broad public support. It must, among other things, enjoy broad public support and it must be advanced by a stable and trustworthy proponent and overseen by a trustworthy regulator.

I must make a short digression here. Again, any management concept must enjoy broad public support. Hon. members will remember that, less than a year ago, I fought along with other groups against the import of MOX fuel. In spite of the short time frame given to the public to express its views and in spite of the fact that this was really a bogus consultation, hundreds of people took time to make comments and suggestions to the government, and particularly to the Minister of Natural Resources, and to say that they did not want other countries' radioactive waste.

I have in hand Transport Canada's report following these so-called public consultations. It is a 700 or so page document where virtually all of the stakeholders said no to this plan to import. The report also contains resolutions from close to 200 municipalities, including the Montreal urban community, the Quebec urban community and other regional municipalities that are also against importing plutonium into Canada.

Furthermore, a unanimous report from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade mentions, and I quote:

The Committee recommends that the Government reject the idea of burning MOX fuel in Canada because this option is totally unfeasible.

Did the government take this comments into consideration? No. It proceeded against the whole world to import 680 grams of Russian military plutonium.

What is happening with Bill C-27? Is the minister going to take public opinion into consideration? The Minister of Natural Resources waxed eloquently during his speech about how Bill C-27 had not been created in a vacuum, but took into account comments make by the public. I find that strange, because I do not recall reading in the papers any announcements regarding any “Consultation regarding establishing a long-term nuclear fuel waste management plan” with the lovely Canada logo above it.

If the minister thinks that asking the advice of a handful of specialists working in the field of nuclear energy constitutes a transparent process, he should think again.

The Seaborn panel's second recommendation asks that all nuclear fuel waste management proposals be advanced by a stable and trustworthy proponent and overseen by a trustworthy regulator.

Yet in his speech the Minister of Natural Resources said that, under this bill, the major decisions will be made by the governor in council.

As far as the methods of management are concerned, the bill as it reads states only that the minister “may” consult the general public. Everyone will agree with me that there is nothing transparent about this bill, since all decisions will be taken by the Minister of Natural Resources. Once again, all comments by the public will be shunted aside and public opinion will be ignored. But the question of nuclear energy is too important to be ignored.

I will also point out that the way our nuclear waste is to be disposed of is not yet defined. Here is a quick quiz question: who will define the selected method? The public? Of course not. What the bill indicates instead is that the final choice of method will be made by the Canadian government.

There is no nuclear tradition in Quebec. Of course, we have the Gentilly 2 generating station, but its output is insignificant compared to the hydroelectric output of LG-2 and Manic 5. Unlike Ontarians, the people of Quebec are not receptive to nuclear industry. The concept of long-term nuclear waste management, therefore, must not be implemented at the expense of Quebec.

The Seaborn panel recommended that nuclear fuel waste be stored permanently in a geological formation similar to the Canadian shield. From a geographic standpoint, this geological area represents about 90% of the area of Quebec.

Are we to conclude that all Canadian radioactive waste will be stored in Quebec in the Canadian shield? With C-27, it appears that that could be the case, since the final decision rests with cabinet and the Minister of Natural Resources.

How could such an approach be acceptable to Quebecers? After the fight waged by the people of Abitibi and Témiscamingue against the disposal of waste in an abandoned mine in northern Ontario, does the government think it will be able to bury radioactive waste in old mines in Val-d'Or or Amos without anyone having any say? I doubt it very much. Rest assured, because Quebecers are not the only ones who do not want this matter buried on their land.

Clearly, we cannot oppose the long term management of nuclear waste, but does this issue have to run afoul of Canadians and Quebecers? The minister has to realize that fear of things nuclear is strongly entrenched in people, and we cannot blame them, especially when we consider Canada's nuclear infrastructures.

In his speech, the minister refers to the “unequalled security record of Canadian nuclear facilities”. I beg to differ.

On August 17, the French network of the CBC reported that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission had concerns about the quality of maintenance of the main reactor at the Chalk River nuclear facility near Ottawa. It feared that the numerous departures of experts and engineers in recent years might jeopardize the safety of its activities.

According to Paul Lafrenière, director of the Chalk River nuclear facilities, since 1957 its technicians have been trained on the job, believe it or not! I find this most disconcerting. As well, this is where building 220 is located, and military plutonium was stored there between 1950 and 1957.

I would like to revisit the question of importing the plutonium from dismantled ballistic missiles.

As the bill stands, there is no indication that the disposal of nuclear waste will involve just Canadian waste. The door is therefore opened to imports of MOX from the U.S. or Russia.

Let us recall the Prime Minister's promise made in April 1996 at the Moscow summit, that Canada would import close to 100 tonnes of this over the next 20 to 25 years. In January 2000, 120 grams of MOX arrived by helicopter from the United States, and another 680 grams from Russia.

At the time, the Minister of Natural Resources said that Canada would not import additional MOX until it had developed a concept for the long term management of nuclear waste.

Now, the last building block is in place. With this bill, the legislative framework will be complete. Once this concept is accepted, all by recommendation of the governor in council, 100 tonnes of plutonium will be transported by airplane, helicopter, boat or truck across our country to be burned in the CANDU reactors.

Setting aside the events of September 11, why is the Canadian government offering up on a silver platter to the Americans an easy way to dispose of their plutonium? All members know that the Americans are large producers of nuclear energy. Recently, we learned that the United States had extended the authorized operating life of their nuclear generating stations by 60 years.

More than ever, it is clear that the federal government is trying to prolong the life of its nuclear reactors. With this concept of waste management, it will be able to continue along this road. But what benefit does it hope to achieve?

Historically, the federal government has invested over $5 billion dollars in nuclear energy and has been putting about $150 million annually into this form of energy since 1994. Everywhere in the world, even among the nations which are the greatest users of nuclear energy, questions are being asked about this kind of energy and there are plans to gradually dismantle the stations. In this regard, we need only mention the case of France and of Germany.

In November 1999, during the meeting of parties to the convention on climate change in Bonn, Germany, Canada put forward a plan which would give emission credits to countries exporting nuclear reactors, thus allowing Canada to meet its objectives indirectly, without reducing its own emissions.

Despite growing opposition from the public, Canada is continuing down the nuclear path instead of promoting renewable energy and adopting strong policies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

We know that Canada is way behind when it comes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.To remedy this, Canada is pushing nuclear energy, which does not give off greenhouse gases. This is a position which can even be found on the home page of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's website. In fact—

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of Surrey Central, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

The bill, if passed, would require the creation of a long term management strategy for the disposal of nuclear fuel waste in an integrated, comprehensive and cost effective manner. To do this, major owners of nuclear waste would have to create a waste management organization to implement the long term strategies for handling, treatment, conditioning or transporting for the purpose of storage or disposal of nuclear fuel waste.

Nuclear fuel waste means irradiated fuel bundles removed from a nuclear fission reactor. This nuclear waste management organization has the responsibility to determine fiscally responsible and realistic options for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. It would also direct the organization to establish trust funds to finance the above activities.

The act applies to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited or its assignees and nuclear energy corporations, which would deposit the following respective amounts to its trust fund within 10 days after the act comes into force: Ontario Power Generation, $500 million; Hydro-Quebec, $20 million; New Brunswick Power Corporation,$20 million; and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, $10 million. Then additional amounts of $100 million, $4 million, $4 million and $2 million per year respectively from all these four organizations will be deposited until the minister approves the amount of the deposit.

I have some concerns regarding the bill. The fee or cost of managing seems to be vague, unclear and perhaps unjustified. I am concerned as to how they have calculated the amounts and for how long the deposits have to be made. I have no idea and the bill does not explain anything about that.

According to Bill C-27, the governor in council would decide as to the best approach to be implemented by the organization. I am concerned that the decision should be based on management and scientific facts with no political interference.

The other concern I have, which has raised eyebrows, is that the nuclear industry has stood alone for many years and no such levies were in place within the industry for disposal of their hazardous wastes. Whereas, other industries that have to deal with the cleanup of hazardous and potentially dangerous or damaging materials have to have similar funds as a condition of their licensing,

Why has this weak Liberal government been neglecting this important safety issue since 1993? It seems to be in line with the character, culture and attitude within the Liberal government to neglect, as it has with many other important issues, such as the budget, health care, defence, organized crime, terrorism, national security, the safety and welfare of Canadians and many other issues.

The nuclear industry cannot operate without the proper checks and balances in place.

This legislation would bring the nuclear industry, which deals with this most serious and dangerous stuff, at par with other industries in providing overall safety for Canadians, which has not been a priority for the government for so many years.

The other concern I have is that the government and the waste management organization must be focused on results, not just on the process. The organization would create an advisory council to examine the study, the triennial reports that have to be submitted to the minister and comment on that study.

I am also concerned that the advisory council would be appointed by the governing body of the organization and nominated by government to include representatives of local regional governments and aboriginal organizations. Based on the track record of the Liberal government, I am afraid it will be used again as a patronage opportunity for failed Liberal candidates or their friends.

Another concern I have is highlighted in the Ottawa Sun of today. We have about 22 reactors in Canada. They were placed on enhanced security within hours after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.A. Could any of them withstand an attack similar to the World Trade Center attack? The fear is that an airborne attack could rupture the containment buildings designed to isolate radioactive materials. The president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has assured, according to the article, that the measures in place are adequate but are under evaluation.

Atomic Energy of Canada has imposed a secure airspace of 3,000 feet, or 3.5 nautical miles, around the research campus at Chalk River. However, the industry is in denial about the threat of airborne attacks, which the reactors were never designed to withstand.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission said that there was no identified terrorist attempt against Canada. However, the crown corporation is in contact with the RCMP and CSIS on a daily basis. The interesting point is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has conceded that its reactors are vulnerable to airline crashes, but Canadian officials are not making such admissions. Canadian officials are declining comment.

I am concerned that in such an unfortunate event how well equipped are we to handle such circumstances?

I hope and expect that the above concerns will be addressed. The bill does not yet address those concerns. The government has finally realized that a trust fund at the expense of the nuclear industry merely asks those who make the mess to clean up the mess and to pay for it.

The riding of Surrey Central, which I proudly represent, could have used something like a nuclear safety commission 25 years ago when it first became the temporary home of some 4,000 tonnes of radioactive material. For over two and a half decades, my constituents have been exposed to radioactive and toxic material in the heart of the community of Newton in Surrey.

In June 1972 a firm in Surrey was licensed by the federal government to import niobium ore containing radioactive thorium. The imported ore was used in smelting operations. Tonnes of hazardous waste was ignored and left unattended in the open until 1976. It was 1984 before the federal government accepted responsibility for it.

I heard from people in that area that children played on it. Some unconfirmed reports said that some cows from a nearby dairy farm died.

The feds forgot about the radioactive waste again until October 1989 when a special task force was appointed, on a volunteer basis, to deal with the storage, handling and disposal of the hazardous, unprotected piles of smelter slag and contaminated soil in a corner at 7800 Anvil Way in Newton. As well, there were barrels of concentrated radioactive material rusting in Thornton yard of the CN rail. I went there and took pictures. The barrels were rusted and contained concentrated radioactive material.

The slag, which was left in the open, remained there for a number of years. This material was also used as a filling when a building was constructed on that site.

The Surrey citing task force consulted with local, provincial and federal government. The federal government appointed, on a voluntary basis, an organization comprised of two people to look after this radioactive material. It stored the material in a concrete bunker for 25 years, calling it temporary storage.

The federal voluntary task force could not find a permanent solution to the problem. Communities it contacted, including remote and abandoned uranium mines, refused to accept that material. It is a crime to have kept that hazardous material in the heart of the country's fastest growing city, Surrey.

As a member of the foreign affairs committee then dealing with nuclear proliferation, I found out about this neglected storage site. After some research and consultation, I lobbied for three years and personally followed up with the Minister of Natural Resources until that 4,000 tonnes of dangerous material was finally removed from Surrey.

Some of it has gone to Chalk River, Ontario while more was finally dumped in Arlington, in Washington state.

The land slag was also excavated under the building. The building was supported and the material was excavated from under the building. The whole operation was very expensive to taxpayers and has been kept kind of secret by the federal government.

I am happy that finally my pressure had results and the Minister of Natural Resources was helpful in dealing with the issue. I thank him for that.

The longer the delay, the higher the cost and the more potential for harm and danger in the community. I knocked on doors in that area to find out how people felt, but many did not even know about it. The federal government did not educate the community members about that material.

That is a shameful story highlighting carelessness and neglect by the federal government in dealing with hazardous and radioactive waste in Surrey.

In conclusion, on behalf of the people of Surrey Central, I will be paying very close attention to the work of the proposed waste management organization to see that the travesty that occurred in my riding does not happen anywhere else.

I urge government members as well as the minister to look seriously at the issue, to look into the concerns and to make possible amendments if they can. While I support the bill because it is a step in the right direction, even though it is a baby step, I will also say that the measures such as those contained in the legislation obviously are long overdue.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will preface my comments with a few remarks relating to the speech of the hon. member for Windsor--St. Clair. A few other issues need to be recognized. Many alternative forms of energy including solar and wind are being continually developed. If we had put the kinds of dollar into those industries that we put into other industries in the energy sector, perhaps we would have a reasonable alternative now. However I think we must admit the fact that it is not here today or is it likely to be here tomorrow.

Another absolute issue we have to look at is the fact that the world, not just the western world as we know it, is more dependent on nuclear energy and will become even more dependent on nuclear energy not only in 2001 but in the next decade.

The energy requirements of the Indian subcontinent of Pakistan, China and Southeast Asia will have to be met for a growing and burgeoning population. Those countries intend to build 70 to probably somewhere around 180 nuclear reactors in the next 10 to 20 years just to meet the demand for electricity.

I do not think we can pretend that we do not have a issue, not just for Canada but for the entire world, in terms of finding a way to store nuclear waste safely or to change it into a safe form.

It is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-27, the nuclear fuel waste act. Nuclear fuel waste is an issue for all Canadians, even though only three provinces have nuclear power stations. Nevertheless the implications of nuclear fuel waste have long term and widespread impacts.

It is the fear factor associated with nuclear power and nuclear waste which continues to thwart attempts to deal with the issue solely from a technological and a technical standpoint. Unless Canadians can be assured of the relative safety of nuclear power it will be difficult to reach any kind of consensus on how and where to store or to dispose of radioactive waste.

I have seen the fear associated with radioactivity and radioactive materials close up. Nova Scotia contains significant amounts of uranium. In the late 1970s some exploration was undertaken to determine the feasibility of mining uranium near my hometown of New Ross. The thought of uranium mining being undertaken in the area caused a public outcry.

Although the tests determined that the site was not economically feasible, even at the inflated rates of the time of $40 per pound compared with today's value of $8 per pound it demonstrated the fear associated with radioactive materials.

Since the early 1980s there has been a moratorium on uranium mining in Nova Scotia. We are not even talking about radioactive waste; we are just talking about uranium mining. While uranium is unlikely to be mined in Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canadians are well aware of the issue of nuclear fuel waste because of the presence of the Point Lepreau nuclear power station in New Brunswick, located in the riding of my colleague from Saint John.

Combined with the nuclear power station in Quebec and a further 20 nuclear power stations in Ontario, this brings Canada's total to 22. With the fuel waste produced by each of these power plants as they use nuclear fuel bundles to produce electricity, the issue of how to deal with the waste produced is long overdue. In fact the government has been studying the issue for decades, with the most recent report being in 1998.

It is long overdue for the federal government to introduce legislation addressing the matter. The 1998 report of the nuclear fuel waste management and disposal concept environmental assessment panel laid the groundwork for appropriate storage and disposal concepts. It was limited, however, in its examination of the waste management proposals, tasked only with the examination of Atomic Energy of Canada's limited proposal of deep geological disposal and not asked to propose other methods for long term management of nuclear fuel.

The panel, often referred to as the Seaborn panel after its chair Dr. Blair Seaborn, laid out a number of recommendations respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. One of the comments in the report that has been picked up on extensively is the statement that while deep geological disposal is technically sound, it is not acceptable from a social standpoint to many people.

Senator Lois Wilson, a member of the panel at the time, stated that this observation had been misconstrued or misread. Instead of saying that such a disposal method is technically sound, the panel was trying to state that the definition of safety had both a technical and a social aspect. In this regard the method does not meet the criteria on safety. That is the way I understood Senator Wilson's comments on the matter.

We can all appreciate the fear and the questions that Canadians have regarding the issue. We all know about the nuclear bomb from World War II and remember the meltdown at Three Mile Island in the United States.

On March 28, 1979, a series of malfunctions, mistakes and misinterpretations led to the worst nuclear accident in the United States when the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island experienced a meltdown. Although the accident did not release significant amounts of radiation into the nearby area, the consequences could have been disastrous.

The disaster at Chernobyl augmented these fears. In 1986 the reactor in Kiev, Ukraine, part of the Soviet Union at that time, ruptured the containment structure and sent radiation through the northern hemisphere. As many as 75 million people were exposed to high levels of radiation.

I mention these points not to confuse the issue of dealing with radioactive waste but to further submit the fear of general public about radioactivity and the nuclear sector. It is difficult to say whether this fear is valid and whether there are technological ways we can deal with.

Whether for war or peaceful purposes like power generation anything involving nuclear capability represents the unknown to many Canadians. However it also represents two of the reasons legislation dealing with nuclear fuel waste is important, first, to address the long term need to deal with waste so that nuclear power continues to represent a viable and productive energy source and, second, to establish a fund to ensure that if problems occur money is available.

Whether for compensation, repair or other extraneous matters, without an independent third party body to deal with waste management responsibility falls to the federal government. Already accused of conflict of interest because of the desire to augment sales of Candu reactors, the government needs to be open and transparent in its examination of nuclear fuel waste disposal proposals.

The Seaborn panel carried out public consultations throughout its study. Since then there have been discussions with aboriginal groups about possible deep geological storage within the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario. These discussions must be open and encourage debate and a thorough examination of all issues involved.

The legislation would establish a waste management organization that would report to the minister. It would collect and oversee financial contributions by the 22 nuclear power stations and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. It would be an independent third party organization, but already I question some of the parameters or lack thereof respecting this organization.

It is important for all Canadians to be privy to information that affects their safety. This means information must be publicly reported on a timely basis. I will be expecting more detailed answers as the legislation is studied at committee stage. I hope the minister plans to live up to his commitment that no concessions would be made respecting safety or transparency.

Some experts suggest that long term storage and above ground storage containers could continue for extended periods of time, while others argue that the issue must be dealt with in the near future. Reports indicate that there are 1.3 million spent fuel bundles from nuclear power stations in temporary storage in Canada.

The waste management organization would be tasked with determining what storage method is safest. The legislation would be one step toward a long term storage initiative for nuclear fuel waste. As the world's leading supplier of uranium Canada needs to look at the overall impacts of nuclear power which includes nuclear fuel waste and its management.

I look forward to informed debate on the issue in committee. Like other members of the natural resources committee, I hope the process will be entirely clear and transparent, that we will be able to call informed and expert witnesses before the committee, and that we will take the time to study all areas and all clauses of the particular piece of legislation.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP is quite pleased to see legislation come forward on this issue, not this legislation in particular but at least some legislation.

If there is any area of the environment that speaks to the necessity of having the precautionary principle applied before an industry such as the nuclear industry is allowed to develop, this is it. It is necessary when one is considering the legislation to look at a bit of the history. As we all know the nuclear industry was an offshoot of the development of nuclear weapons flowing from research and work done during the second world war. It began to be used for non-war purposes subsequent to the second world war. We got our first small nuclear reactors in the 1950s and 1960s and in the process of doing that began to identify even back then the very serious problem of the byproduct, nuclear waste.

However identifying the level of seriousness seems to have come to the attention of governments only after the huge expansion that occurred in the 1970s, particularly in Canada with the Candu reactors. At that point there was a recognition that we would have to do something about nuclear waste.

Because we allowed the continuous development of this industry, what did not happen at that point was an economic assessment of the real cost of nuclear power. In fact, we have not even done that up to this point. That is one of the problems with the bill. However, we did allow the expansion and there was very substantial expansion through the 1970s.

At the end of the 1970s the atomic energy commission of Canada was prompted to begin to seriously look at what it would do with all the nuclear waste from the nuclear plants. Over a period of extensive research and time, it came up with a proposal which was, in simple, man on the street terms, to dump it. It put some fancy words around it and talked about deep rock burial. That is the phraseology. In essence, they wanted to dump it in the Canadian Shield.

As this proposal came forward, as I think any sensible person could imagine it got a less than overwhelming response from local communities that might have been the site of this dump. Because the reaction was so strong from the Canadian citizenry, a commission was appointed, chaired by Blair Seaborn, and it became generally known as the Seaborn commission. The commission studied this over an extensive period of time, almost 10 years, and reported in 1997 with a very damning summary of the AECL proposal.

The government, in response to that, to a great extent rejected the commission but pretends now in the legislation to allow for the implementation, or at least the potential implementation, of the recommendations from that commission.

To some significant degree the bill is a fraud if its intent is in fact to implement the Seaborn commission recommendations because it does not do that. What it does do is allow the industry to make all of the decisions, to do that in a relatively short period of time given the level of intense research required and probably using a methodology that will be relatively inexpensive for the industry but totally unsatisfying for the Canadian public.

As I said when I began my remarks we welcome the legislation coming forward because this issue has to be addressed by the House. We will be supporting the bill on second reading to have it passed on for committee review. The work in that committee hopefully will get us to a result by way of significant amendments that in fact would make the treatment of nuclear waste something in which Canada can be a leader in the world, as opposed to what we see in the bill now.

I want to deal with a few of the specifics in the bill that we will be looking at and attempting to alter at committee stage. The first, which I have already made reference to, is the composition of the decision making body. The bill provides for the establishment of a waste management organization. We welcome that. It was part of the Seaborn recommendations that a body of that nature be established. What we are opposed to and will attempt to get changed is the composition of the panel that will form that commission, because as it stands now the only people who would be on it are from the industry. Those people who need regulation would be doing the regulating.

The Seaborn commission recommended that there be experts on that panel, that it involve extensive public consultation, that it be at arm's length and independent from the utilities that provide the services and the product, from the other vested interests or offshoots of those utilities, and from government itself, in other words, that it be completely independent. We will be looking for those recommendations to be incorporated in the bill.

There is a second group that is established under the bill, advisory panels and committees. Again, that was recommended by the Seaborn commission. These would be more broadly based and somewhat localized to the areas where there are current nuclear facilities. The bill would restrict participants to being from just that area. In effect the local community would be given a chance to sit on these committees but would not be given any resources either in the form of personnel to act as secretaries or money for things like travel or hiring experts. The bill does not provide for any of this. Again, the Seaborn commission recommended all of that. In addition, any people from the outside who may be able on a volunteer basis to provide expertise would not be allowed to sit on the committees. We will be looking for some significant changes in that structure.

It is important to note that after all its research, study and consultation, one of the Seaborn commission's major conclusions was that even though deep rock burial may be technically feasible, not one community in Canada would risk accepting the nuclear waste.

The credibility of both the waste management organization and the advisory councils is extremely important. Ultimately, the only way nuclear waste will be adequately dealt with and dealt with to the satisfaction of the Canadian public, both generally and specifically in some of these communities, is for it to have absolute credibility. Bill C-27 goes in the opposite direction.

I want to spend a few moments on the funding for nuclear waste disposal. I had the opportunity to spend some time at the nuclear site in Darlington, Ontario, which has currently four reactors operating and four more that are idle. I spent the better part of a day looking at the system. The current system is simply that it is stored, first in water and then it is moved into containers, very high tech in both cases, but obviously short term in that it does not deal with the waste itself. It is strictly storage. That is the only methodology we have at this point.

The financing that is being recommended in the bill, I believe, and it is where there is some shortfall, is based on the original AECL proposal of deep rock burial. I am not entirely convinced that the proposed funding will even be sufficient to do that because of what I expect will be very strong opposition from whatever community in which the site may end up, if that ever proceeds.

However, I am convinced that it is clearly not enough money if we continue short term storage. The reason for that is that this waste has no end in terms of its lifespan. The best scientific minds in this field cannot tell us what the life expectancy is of this material.

We may be storing nuclear waste above ground or in limited, below ground facilities for centuries and millenniums, and that has not been costed into the bill at all. This is very clear from the dollars. We are not talking about peanuts. We are talking about billions and billions of dollars that are being proposed but the amount will be nowhere near adequate for long term storage. That is a matter that has to be looked at very closely.

If the government were serious about paying attention to the work done by the Seaborn commission, it would do a number of things in this legislation as opposed to the smokescreen it is creating here. If it set out the legislation along the lines of what the commission recommended, we could have a real independent agency, one that would be arm's length from the nuclear industry and from the government.

That independent agency would be entitled and authorized to look at the various options. This is another real flaw in the legislation. It really only provides for two options: the storage that is going on now, short term, or the deep rock burial.

There are other potential options. Extensive research has been going on over what is called a transmutation of the waste. It is believed there are ways of reprocessing it. This has not been done yet, I would hasten to add, but it is believed that we may be able to run the waste back through the system. At this point it would be very dangerous to do that but if it can be developed, it may reduce the volume of waste quite significantly and, subsequently, storage capacity requirements would be dramatically reduced.

The other research that has been going on has to do with using the waste as fuel repeatedly and eventually completely eliminating the issues of storage and disposal. The forecast of us ever being able to do that, either in this country or any place in the world, is long term. The point is that there are some other potential options to look at rather than just the two that the waste management organization, which will be authorized by this bill, are supposed to look at.

The other problem with the bill is that it only allows the waste management organization three years to come up with its proposal. Again, what we will be faced with is an organization that is completely dominated by the industry, which has already taken the industry's position of what it wants to do with it, and it will be given three years to come up with a recommendation. We already know what the result will. We will be going back to the original AECL proposal of deep rock burial.

As I have said, if the bill remains the way it is and is passed into law, this will be, to a great extent, a charade that the government has put us through.

I would like to talk a bit more about the options. We have heard some hair-brained ones. I thought that one of the most interesting ones, which was quite star trekkie, was to load the nuclear waste onto a spaceship and shoot it into the sun. With this option we would not only have Star Wars , we would also have all this nuclear waste that potentially could end up in our outer atmosphere. This is not an option that I think any reasonable commission would follow, but there are others.

A fair amount of research is going on in this area and it should be pursued. We are not the only ones doing it. A number of other countries are very active in this regard.

With regard to the timeframe, whatever the waste management organization eventually ends up looking like, there is no way it should be mandated to come back with a report within that timeframe. We have been working on this issue since the late seventies, although it probably should have been longer, and to mandate the organization now when we have this type of controversy, is grossly unfair however it is composed.

In conclusion, I just want to make one additional point concerning the whole issue of the phase out of the nuclear industry.

Although I think most of us are already aware of this, I want to bring to the House's attention that Germany has now moved on this issue. The German government has formerly reached an agreement with the industry that it will phase it out. A number of other countries in Europe are following suit. This waste issue with which we are dealing cries out for Canada to do the same. We have a major problem on our hands that may go on for centuries or even millenniums. We do not need to compound that by increasing the volume of this waste.

As I said earlier, we will support the bill at second reading to get it to committee and for us to make those significant changes. It is obvious from my comments that if those significant changes do not come forward we will be vigorously opposing the legislation at third reading.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue debate on Bill C-15, the criminal code amendments. Time permitting, I would like to start with Bill C-6, the water export bill. If there is agreement, which I intend to seek very shortly, a take note debate would follow after 8.30 p.m., pursuant to requests made in the House by some hon. members, on the Prime Minister's forthcoming visit to the United States of America to meet the president.

On Friday, we will commence second reading of Bill S-23, the Customs Act, and if necessary, Bill C-6, the water bill.

On Monday, we will deal with Bill C-30, the courts administration bill, followed by second reading of Bill C-27, regarding nuclear waste.

Next Tuesday shall be an allotted day, in the name of the Bloc Quebecois.

Next Wednesday we will deal with the Nunavut water and surface rights bills which was introduced earlier this day.

As I mentioned earlier, I draw to the attention of House that there were some consultations earlier today. Given these consultations, I will propose a motion now to the House. However, for the benefit of House leaders, it will be slightly amended because I will have to remove some words in order to seek what I believe is the common ground. If the House leaders have the text of the motion, I will start in the second sentence, not the first. I move:

That, at 8.30 p.m. this day, the House shall continue to sit and shall resolve itself into a committee of the whole to consider a motion “That the committee take note of the planned meeting between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States” provided that, during consideration thereof: (1) the Speaker may from time to time act as Chair of the committee; (2) the Chair of the committee shall not receive any quorum call or any motion except the motion “That the committee do now rise”; (3) when no Member rises to speak, or at 12 a.m., whichever is earlier, the committee shall rise; and (4) when the committee rises the House shall immediately adjourn to the next sitting day.

Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2001

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to today to participate in the debate on Bill C-15, an act to amend the Criminal Code and other acts. I really feel as though I am standing to give two or three speeches.

This is an omnibus bill that has some very distinct different pieces of legislation within it. While there are some very good pieces of legislation in the bill, there are some very bad ones. The bill is the good, the bad and the ugly.

Bill C-15 contains a number of amendments which we would like to see and which we would be in favour. Some parts of the legislation were requested by the Canadian Alliance before the House recessed. In fact, the Canadian Alliance requested that this bill be split so we could deal with those pieces of legislation.

We asked for a split in this bill to ensure speedy passage of those amendments dealing with child luring and child pornography over the Internet, leaving the more controversial part, that is the section dealing with cruelty to animals, for further review and debate. Government members voted against our motion. As a result, this summer more children fell prey to sadistic pedophiles, hunting them down via the computer.

In late August the Canadian Security Intelligence Service released its 2001 report. Among many other findings, CSIS said that the Internet provided an easy means for sexual predators to lure potential victims through conversations in chat rooms. The report reads:

Internet chat rooms and web sites dedicated to the sexual exploitation of children enable the collection and dissemination of child pornography at a faster rate than past methods of distribution. Requests for assistance received by law enforcement concerning child pornography on the Internet continues to rise in Canada. The anonymity of the Internet provides opportunities for sexual predators and pedophiles to lure children for sexual purposes.

I will briefly point out that CSIS also found that across this country child prostitution continues to be a threat. We must take every measure possible to protect children in the country and throughout the world. I therefore fully endorse the section of Bill C-15 that makes it easier to prosecute Canadian citizens or permanent residents who sexually abuse while abroad and engage in so-called child sex tourism.

Under the new law, it will not be necessary to obtain a formal request for prosecution from the respective other country. Although I do in theory support such measures, I would be remiss if I did not question the effectiveness of this Canadian measure aimed at eliminating child prostitution throughout the world. I am skeptical about how readily and easily this attempt to bring Canadian citizens to justice can be accomplished through this legislation.

Bill C-27 introduced and passed in the House in 1997 made it an offence for Canadian citizens to engage in sexual relations with children in other countries, an offence for which perpetrators would be prosecuted in Canada. While this bill was before the House, the Canadian Bar Association as well as a number of prominent Canadian lawyers said that although Bill C-27 provided “an admirable statement of principle” it would be virtually impossible to enforce. Alan Young, a criminal law professor at Osgoode Hall said:

We've seen this before with Parliament enacting a law with very little teeth. They've shown good intent but it is just not enforceable law. Think about it. How could it be? How are Canadian authorities going to become informed of these infractions? Any extra-territorial law is going to be fraught with political infractions and be nearly impossible to enforce.

With regard to the Internet, Jay Thomson, president of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, a group that represents about 80 of Canada's largest Internet service providers, welcomed provisions of Bill C-15 saying that it would make life a lot easier for his group by putting the onus on the judges to define what was and what was not child pornography. Once a judge ordered a site or a link deleted, it would be easy for the provider to do so, according to Mr. Thomson.

The new bill would also give judges the ability to order the confiscation of any equipment, including computers, used in the commission of child pornography offences. Judges would also be given range to prohibit convicted makers of child pornography from having contact with children.

As duly noted I am sure, I have spent half the time allotted to me to pour out accolades on this piece of legislation and to provide some bravo to the government for bringing forward some good sections of Bill C-15. I must however turn to the contentious portion of the legislation and be critical of a bill that wants to politicize parliament and be partisan in nature.

I am referring to the section of the bill regarding cruelty to animals, the part of the legislation that has made it impossible for us on this side of the House, especially those of us who represent rural agricultural ridings, to support the bill.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Chicken Farmers of Canada and the Alberta Farm Animal Care Association, to name just a few, have expressed reservations and concerns regarding Bill C-15.

The majority of these groups say that they support the changes made to the cruelty to animal section of the criminal code in the interests of modernizing and increasing penalties to those who would treat the animals with cruelty or undue care. However, as stated by the Alberta Farm Animal Care Association, the bill needs to specifically and clearly articulate the principle that generally accepted practices in the livestock industry fall outside the intent of the legislation.

What these groups are asking is whether the accepted practices in the cattle and chicken industries, which are generally accepted nationwide, fall outside the legislation.

The Chicken Farmers of Canada, representing close to 5,000 farmers in all provinces and in the Northwest Territories, believes it is necessary to protect animals from cruelty, but that the inadequacies found in Bill C-15 are such that they could bring into question the normal and legitimate uses of animals in agriculture. It believes that in its present form, Bill C-15 could cause some very serious consequences for animal agriculture and that there could be some nuisance charges stemming from the lack of clarity and upfront protection with the bill.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association, an organization representing over 100,000 cattle producers in Canada, believes that Bill C-15 will create unwarranted exposure to prosecution of members, other livestock producers, hunters, fishers and medical researchers.

These agricultural organizations are asking that the government leave the animal cruelty provisions in the property section of the criminal code or provide the current upfront legal protections of lawful excuse in section 429(2) by removing the definition of animal or modify it to exclude the phrase “or any animal that can experience pain” and retain the words wilful and wilfully as they currently appear in the relevant offences.

These organizations are only asking that minor changes be made to Bill C-15, changes that will assure that ranchers, farmers and other animal owners will not be put at risk. Canadian Alliance members, particularly those of us representing large agricultural areas, will be pushing for those amendments as Bill C-15 proceeds through the justice committee and report stage.

We already have a very fragile agricultural sector. When we look at our agricultural sector today, such as grains and oilseeds, we see that it is weak. Look at the drought conditions, the grasshoppers and all the different things that have created a weakened agricultural climate. Look at what this legislation will bring in. The Canadian Cattleman's Association has said that this will jeopardize the practices of ranching and farming in Alberta and throughout Canada. Others have said that it will put at risk the ability to be prosecuted for normal practices.

We need to protect an economy that is fragile. We need to protect an agriculture that would be devastated without the cattle industry. We need to defeat the bill.

Points Of Order

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for raising this matter.

I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to consider the argument that he made, particularly with respect to whether or not there is something in the nature of the way this standing order was used today that separates it out from the way it has been used in the past, the argument that the hon. member made for instance with respect to the use of this motion in respect of supply.

The government House leader argued that because it is only amendments to supply, it is not supply. However I think that was a very weak argument in itself. If it is amendments to supply, it has to do with supply, and therefore, Mr. Speaker, it merits your judgment as to whether or not the use of this standing order with respect to supply is in fact a new use of this particular standing order and one that is not in keeping either with practice or with your own understanding of that particular standing order.

Having said that, I would certainly want to indicate that I do not consider it consultation that somebody gets up to do something by unanimous consent, fails to do so and then some time later seeks to do it through this particular standing order. It may constitute some kind of notice but it does not constitute consultation.

I think it is clear that again we are meeting a Liberal deadline. There is some kind of cabinet retreat or something on Thursday and Friday, so we are faced with the use of this particular standing order.

The government has been willing to make its own sacrifices. It dropped Bill C-6. It does not want that any more. It also dropped Bill C-27. This has been one of the more unproductive sessions. Not only did we lose all the things that the government said it was going to do when it called the election, but it did not even get around to the things that were dropped, because now we are dropping them for some other Liberal deadline.

I know you want me to get to the point of order, Mr. Speaker, and I will. It seems to me that what is at stake here is the nature of this particular standing order itself. I remember when it was brought in, I believe in 1991. At that time I remember speaking to this particular change in the standing orders. If I remember correctly, I think I referred to it as a sort of parliamentary uber-menschen clause, and the way in which the government saw itself, as Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment , rising above the ordinary moral limits, as Raskolnikov did in Crime and Punishment , by killing the old lady just to show that he was not bound by ordinary morality.

Here we have the Liberals doing the same thing as the Tories did in 1991, showing that they are not bound by any kind of ordinary parliamentary morality or notion of what would be proper due process or procedure. They are quite prepared to just use whatever kind of authority they have at their disposal, which is what they did this morning.

You may say that 25 members could have stopped it. Certainly the parties that have 25 members will have to ask themselves why they did not. However this particular standing order was designed in a parliament where all parties had 25 members or more. Here again we see a kind of carryover from a previous parliament, that is to say, the parliament before 1993. I am sure when this was set up it was understood that all parties had at their disposal at least 25 members. The smallest party in the House was the NDP and we had 44 members. To say 25 members at that time was at least leaving open the possibility that if any one party objected, this would not happen.

Today we have a situation that is quite different, and certainly that standing order should have been changed by now. However, there are a number of other things in our standing orders that are still out of kilter because we have standing orders that were written to serve an entirely different parliament and entirely different political circumstances, that is to say, the political circumstances that existed prior to 1993.

I would ask you, to reflect on whether or not there is an opportunity here for you to rule, given the different nature of this parliament and of the previous parliament, that there is not something about this standing order that you might find unacceptable. Clearly it now has an effect on the rights of smaller parties which it did not have at its inception.

You, who are charged with the protection of the rights of minorities in this parliament and the rights of smaller parties, may want to consider whether you could make some ruling or give some advice to the House as to whether this particular standing order should be amended.

In doing so, Mr. Speaker, if your recommendation were to be followed, providing you make such a recommendation, we could remove from the standing orders something which is kind of a blight on our parliamentary life here: The fact that the government has this kind of power which it can use and has used on a number of occasions and which really makes a mockery of a lot of the so-called power that the opposition has.

Imagine a parliament in which no one party had 25 members except the government. Would it then be okay for the government to just deem everything to have been passed on division? I know this is a bit of a reductio ad absurdum argument but nevertheless that exists. That is a possibility within the standing orders if the Canadian public were to elect a parliament in which only the government had more than 25 members.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the two questions raised with respect to Bill S-15 are in regard to the need for a royal recommendation and whether the levy described in the bill is a tax.

The fundamental purpose of the requirement for a royal recommendation is to limit the authority for appropriating money from the consolidated revenue fund to the government.

In section 2 of the Financial Administration Act, appropriation is defined to mean any authority of parliament to pay money out of the consolidated revenue fund. The consolidated revenue fund is defined to mean the aggregate of all public moneys that are on the deposit of the credit of the receiver general. Only ministers can obtain the necessary approval from the governor general for a royal recommendation to appropriate these funds. The constitution stipulates that bills requiring or processing a royal recommendation must originate in the House of Commons.

With respect to Bill S-15, the money raised through the levy is to be collected by the Canadian tobacco industry. Therefore I see no requirement for a royal recommendation for the bill.

The second question has to do with whether or not the levy established through the bill constitutes a tax. In plain language of the bill, the bill speaks in terms of a levy rather than a tax. The purpose of the levy, as stated in the bill, is to meet an industry purpose beneficial to the industry, although the industry purpose also has public benefit.

The levy is imposed exclusively on tobacco products of whatever description and is to be spent in pursuit of the goals listed in the bill. Consequently, what is being proposed is a levy, not a tax.

Erskine May describes two criteria by which a bill proposing a levy is exempt from the financial procedures, including the adoption of a ways and means resolution that would normally apply to bills imposing a tax. The first criterion is that the levy must be for industry purposes. The second is that the funds collected must not form any part of government revenue.

Erskine May includes examples of bills from the United Kingdom which were regarded as levies, as well as those which failed to meet either or both of these two criteria.

There are recent Canadian experiences, as well. In this parliament we have the example of Bill C-27 which imposes a levy on the nuclear industry. The government felt it necessary to attach a royal recommendation to the bill and adopted a ways and means motion prior to its introduction.

In support of Bill S-15, we have the example of Bill C-32, an act to amend the Copyright Act, which was considered in the 35th parliament. Bill C-32 imposed a levy on the sale of blank tapes to be distributed to artists and artist groups as a form of royalty. Bill C-32 did not have a royal recommendation and the bill was not preceded by a ways and means resolution.

In Speaker Parent's ruling of December 2, 1998, regarding Bill S-13, the predecessor to Bill S-15, he cited the following:

The levy was of benefit to that industry since it permitted the audio duplication of copyright material for private use. This would enhance the market for blank audio tapes. The levy on the tapes was designated to raise funds by which owners of copyright material would be compensated for losses caused by private duplication of that material. The link between the benefit to the industry and the levy being imposed seems clear in that case.

To make a comparison of Bill C-32 to Bill S-13, the Speaker went on to say of Bill S-13:

Surely the lack of credibility referred to here is a function of our common sense understanding of the self-interest of the tobacco industry, namely, that as a commercial enterprise its primary goal is to expand its markets and thereby to increase profits. Young people would constitute the future growth potential for the industry's market. How could it be to the benefit of the industry to reduce smoking among the very people who would constitute its growth market? It is this implausible proposition that underlies the credibility problem to which the bill refers.

With all due respect to Speaker Parent, he may have been a competent school teacher and a respected speaker of the House but that did not qualify him as a director of marketing for a tobacco company.

I, myself, do not pretend to guess at the marketing strategy of those corporations. If the fate of the bill hinges on whether the levy is a benefit to the industry or not, we should get that answer from the tobacco industry itself.

The claim that the bill is not beneficial to the industry is false. The industry has been asking for this very bill. It has been running ads in support of Bill S-15. I have a copy here and I will give a copy to you, Mr. Speaker, at the end of my comments. At the end of the ad it states:

Imperial Tobacco and JTI MacDonald strongly support Bill S-15. We believe that it is consistent with our companies' view that underage people should not smoke and that the decision to do so should be an informed one made only by adults. We commend those who have worked so hard to help bring Bill S-15 towards reality and reaffirm our support for the Bill and the Foundation it would create.

There you have it, Mr. Speaker. The industry clearly supports the bill. If we go back and consider Speaker Parent's suggestion that common sense prevail, it is common sense that Bill S-15 is beneficial to the tobacco industry since it is going to great lengths and spending large sums of money on these ads promoting the bill.

The other weakness in the argument of Speaker Parent in this is when he said:

How could it be to the benefit of the industry to reduce smoking among the very people who would constitute its growth market?

Mr. Robert Parker, chairman and chief executive officer of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council, stated before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on April 1, 1997, the following:

The manufacturers agree that youth should not smoke, period.

Don Brown, past chairman, president and CEO of Imperial Tobacco and chair of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council, made similar comments regarding youth smoking to the Vancouver Board of Trade on October 1, 1998. He said “We believe children should not smoke—”.

Finally, Speaker Parent, in his ruling, overlooked the fact that selling cigarettes to minors is against the law. He was suggesting that breaking the law is a common sense marketing strategy.

In the event the Speaker is sympathetic to the point of view of the government House leader, I offer another alternative, and this will be my last point.

In our rules there are exemptions regarding financial matters. Standing Order 80(1) states:

All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons, and all bills for granting such aids and supplies ought to begin with the House, as it is the undoubted right of the House to direct, limit and appoint in all such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications of such grants, which are not alterable by the Senate.

Standing Order 80(2) states:

In order to expedite the business of Parliament, the House will not insist on the privilege claimed—.

The standing order describes these circumstances as, and I quote:

—penalties thereby imposed are only to punish or prevent crimes and offences—

The purpose and the benefit of Bill S-15 would be to prevent young people from smoking. Since this is considered an offence, it would meet the criteria of Standing Order 80(2). I would think that the government and all members of the House would not, in this instance, insist on its financial privileges. Bill S-15 is aimed at significantly reducing underage smoking in Canada. What better reason is there than that.

Finally, the Senate Speaker, in his ruling of April 2, 1998 on Bill S-13 said that it was his view that, and I quote:

—matters are presumed to be in order except where the contrary is clearly established by the case. This presumption suggests to me that the best policy for a Speaker is to interpret the rules in favour of debate.

In this case I would argue that we should give the benefit of the doubt to the receivability of Bill S-15 and allow for debate and a decision by the House on a very important issue for the young children of this country.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the bill on the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

First, I would like to draw a parallel with the discussions on open line shows this morning. Yesterday, the finance minister gave his economic update. On a local radio show in my riding people were expressing their views on various elements of the minister's statement, including the debt.

Why am I talking about the debt? People where saying that over the past 30 years previous governments had been accumulating the debt. The government is now taking steps to pay it down as quickly as possible so that future generations are not stuck with reimbursing the amounts borrowed by previous generations.

What I want to stress here is responsibility. We must take responsibility for what we are doing now and for what we did in the past. When it comes to the nuclear world, nuclear waste in particular, we are told, depending on the source, that nuclear waste can last 200 years, 300 years or 500 years. Other sources mention 1,000 years, or even several thousands of years.

How can we deal responsibly with waste that will affect people throughout the world for hundreds, even thousands of years?

Since we have been talking about the nuclear industry for a number of years, I would like to step into the past and point out a few things about the background to the bill.

In February 1998, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency published the “Report of the Nuclear Fuel Waste Management and Disposal Concept Environmental Assessment Panel”, known as the Seaborn report.

In a 1978 joint statement, the governments of Canada and Ontario asked Atomic Energy Canada Limited to develop a concept for the deep geological disposal of nuclear fuel waste.

In a later joint statement, in 1981, they agreed not to go ahead with the selection of a site for that purpose without first holding proper public hearings at the federal level and submitting the concept to the approval of Canadian and provincial authorities.

In September 1988, the federal Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources referred the concept, along with a broad range of nuclear fuel waste management issues, for public review.

On October 4 1989, the federal Minister of the Environment appointed an independent environmental assessment panel to conduct the review.

At that time, the panel's mandate was to review a concept rather than a specific project at a specific site. The panel was also mandated to review a proposal for which the implementing agency was not identified, and to establish a scientific review group of distinguished independent experts to examine the safety and scientific acceptability of the proposal. The mandate also involved reviewing a broad range of policy issues. Finally, all those elements had to be reviewed in the five provinces concerned.

AECL describes its concept as a method of geological disposal of nuclear fuel waste in which the waste form is either used CANDU, or Canada deuterium uranium, fuel or the solidified high level waste from reprocessing. The waste form is sealed in a container designed to last at least 500 years and possibly much longer.

Waste containers are placed within the confines of underground disposal rooms or in boreholes drilled from the rooms. The disposal rooms are between 500 and 1,000 metres below the surface. The geological medium is plutonic rock of the Canadian Shield.

Such a facility would cost an estimated $8.7 billion to $13.3 billion in 1991 dollars, depending on the amount of waste to be disposed of. The panel conducted its review in several provinces, including Quebec and Ontario. It did environmental impact assessments and consulted the public, namely the natives.

Among other activities, the terms of reference directed the panel to examine the criteria by which the safety and acceptability of the concept for long term waste management and disposal should be evaluated. It also required the panel to prepare a final report addressing whether AECL's concept is safe and acceptable or should be modified, and the future steps to be taken in managing nuclear fuel wastes in Canada.

Here are some key panel conclusions. Broad public support is necessary in Canada to ensure the acceptability of a concept for managing nuclear fuel wastes. Safety is a key part but only one part of acceptability. Safety must be viewed from two complementary perspectives: technical and social.

To be considered acceptable, a concept for managing nuclear fuel wastes must have broad public support, as I was saying earlier, and must be advanced by a stable and trustworthy proponent and overseen by a trustworthy regulator. Therefore, for the public, the level of confidence in the people and organizations managing nuclear wastes is very important.

After applying these criteria to the AECL disposal concept, the panel came to a number of key conclusions.

The key panel conclusions are the following: from a technical perspective, the panel believes that safety of the AECL concept has been on balance adequately demonstrated for a conceptual stage of development, but from a social perspective, it has not. It also says that, as it stands, the AECL concept for deep geological disposal has not been demonstrated to have broad public support. The concept in its current form does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada's approach for managing nuclear fuel wastes.

Then the panel considered the steps that must be taken to ensure the safe and acceptable long term management of nuclear fuel wastes in Canada.

Here are its main recommendations.

A number of additional steps are required to develop an approach for managing nuclear fuel wastes in a way that could achieve broad public support.

Among other things, we should issue a policy statement governing the management of these wastes; initiate an aboriginal participation process; create a nuclear fuel waste management organization, or NFWMA—but its better to use the full name, so we know what we are talking about; a public review of the regulatory documents of the AECB through effective consultation processes.

We also need to develop a comprehensive public participation plan, to develop an ethical and social assessment framework and to compare the options for the management of nuclear wastes.

Taking into account the views of participants in our public hearings and our own analysis, the commission developed the following basic recommendations to governments with respect to a management agency.

It was recommended that a nuclear fuel waste management organization be established quickly, at arm's length from the utilities and AECL, with the sole purpose of managing and co-ordinating the full range of activities relating to the long term management of nuclear fuel wastes.

Another recommendation was that the agency be fully funded in all its operations from a segregated fund to which only the producers and owners of nuclear fuel wastes would contribute.

It was also recommended that its board of directors, appointed by the federal government, be representative of key stakeholders, and that it have a strong and active advisory council representative of a wide variety of interested parties.

It was also recommended that its purposes, responsibilities and accountability, particularly in relation to the ownership of the wastes, be clearly and explicitly spelled out, preferably in legislation or in its charter of incorporation.

It was also recommended that it be subject to multiple oversight mechanisms, including federal regulatory control with respect to its scientific-technical work and the adequacy of its financial guarantees, to policy direction from the federal government and to regular public review, preferably by parliament.

Finally, the commission pointed out that until the foregoing steps have been completed and broad public acceptance of a nuclear fuel waste management approach has been achieved, the search for a specific site should not proceed.

If the AECL concept is chosen as the most acceptable option after implementation of the steps recommended above, governments should direct the NFWMA, together with Natural Resources Canada and the AECB or its successor, to undertake a review all the social and technical shortcomings identified by the scientific review group and other review participants, to establish their priority and to generate a plan to address them. The nuclear fuel waste management organization should make its plan public, carry out public consultations and then implement its plan.

As members will recall in the Seaborn report, the panel recommended that the federal government establish a management committee with the objective of finding solutions for nuclear fuel waste management and implementing them.

However there has been a change of approach and through Bill C-27 the government has decided to pass the waste management responsibility off to the provinces. In Quebec, Hydro-Quebec should be the one in charge of establishing a waste management organization. I point out that the WMO must establish, by appointing its members, an advisory committee to study proposals and make recommendations.

The idea is to establish a waste management organization whose objective will be to set out nuclear fuel waste management proposals for the federal government and to implement the proposal it accepts. The WMO established by Hydro-Quebec must then make available to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and to any owners of nuclear fuel waste produced in Canada, at a reasonable cost of course, nuclear fuel waste management services as provided in the proposal approved by the governor in council.

When I gave details about Hydro-Quebec,, I must say that I was venturing an opinion and was interpreting a little. Would Hydro-Québec make recommendations? If so, would it do so individually or in conjunction with the group mentioned in the bill? This group is comprised of the Ontario Power Generation, Hydro-Québec, a New Brunswick power corporation and Atomic Energy of Canada.

Some aspects of the bill are not clear. For example, we presume that all these stakeholders will work on a nuclear waste management policy but we can also presume that this would be done individually.

As for financing, the nuclear energy corporations, such as Hydro-Québec and Atomic Energy of Canada, would individually or jointly, as I said earlier, create a trust fund that would be used for implementing the approved waste management proposal.

Under the bill, Hydro-Quebec would have to pay, 10 days after the day on which the bill came into force, $20 million for its fund, and $4 million in each subsequent year. Afterward, the waste management organization, Hydro-Québec, would be able to propose shares to the federal government.

We also know that there is interest on any late payment. I suppose members know about this. We all get into situations where payments are due but not in arrears, of course. If the funds or the interest are not paid, the bill provides for fines not exceeding $300,000 for each day on which the offence is committed.

In this trust, the first withdrawal of funds must be for an authorized construction or storage activity. The funds must be used to implement the proposal approved by the minister.

Examination of the bill shows that the proposal to the minister should include three management approaches, particularly concerning the following: disposal in the Canadian Shield; storage on site at nuclear plants; centralized storage, either above or below ground; a comparison of the benefits, risks and costs taking into account the economic area to be determined; a description of management services; an implementation plan; a timeframe, and especially a program for public consultation and an annual financing formula for policy implementation.

However there is a hitch in the bill, which provides, as I read it and I think that I am right, that only the minister can hold public consultations. As we know, consultation is crucial because we also know that the capacity to rely on those who will manage nuclear waste is just as crucial.

Of course the waste management organization will have to submit an annual report of its activities. The form, the updated estimated total cost, the financing formula, the amount of the deposit to be paid, of course, and the amount of the final guarantees to be included in the annual report must be approved by the minister.

All these reports will be tabled and the minister will make a public announcement in this regard. Let me repeat that this report still provides for fines of $50,000 to $300,000 per day of violation. Should we consider that as an incentive for the tabling of these reports on time? I think so. Are the fines too high given the importance of the reports to be tabled? It is a question worth asking. The members will answer if they want to.

The Canadian government is the only one that regulates the nuclear industry. It has invested more than $5 billion in this area over the years and approximately $150 million a year since 1994, whereas all the other countries of the world, even those that use nuclear energy the most, are reviewing their use of this type of energy and are even thinking about progressively decommissioning their nuclear power plants and opting for alternative energy sources.

The Liberal government is determined to promote this type of energy as an interesting alternative to fossil fuels, which create more pollution in spite of the virulent public opposition and the major problem of radioactive waste. Last year, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited estimated that it would cost $377 million to decontaminate its plants and dispose of the waste.

However, the Seaborn panel clearly indicated in 1998 that the estimated cost of a long term nuclear waste management facility ranged from $8.7 billion to $13.3 billion in 1991 . Today, the amount is estimated at $15 billion for most countries, such as France and the United States.

Therefore, the amount of $20 billion, plus $4 million annually for Quebec, raises questions in our minds. Will it be enough? In November 1999, at a meeting of the parties to the convention on climate change held in Bonn, Germany, Canada proposed a plan that would give emission credits to countries that export nuclear reactors, which would enable Canada to meet its targets indirectly without reducing its own emissions.

Despite growing opposition from the people, Canada is continuing down the nuclear path instead of favouring renewable energy and adopting strong policies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

During the last election campaign, the Bloc Quebecois promised to suggest that the federal government cancel any funding to the nuclear fission industry and that the $150 million that go to that industry every year be retargeted for research and development in the area of clean energy.

Since this opens the door to exporting nuclear waste, one has to wonder if the government really understands the public's opposition to this type of project.

On the subject of importation, in a previous committee sitting, I had the opportunity to discuss with officials from the Department of Natural Resources.

I asked one of them, with respect to importing nuclear wastes, if the waste management organization were to find relatively good solutions—being taken for granted, of course, that we support nuclear projects and therefore consider that the proposals are relatively good—should we fear that nuclear waste might be imported to get a better return on our investment in various waste management programs or projects that Canada might implement?

This is a major risk because in every one of our communities there are waste disposal sites for solid waste or domestic waste. We know what this is all about. When I was on the municipal council in Sherbrooke, we had a waste disposal site. There is one in my ward. One can imagine the problem it creates.

When it comes to the management of nuclear waste or any other kind of waste—of course technically they cannot be compared, although as far as a process is concerned it is the same thing—nobody wants it in their backyard. We all know that. We do not want to see waste imported because it has happened before. It has happened in Quebec and I am convinced it has happened in other provinces too. We should avoid it.

In view of the fact that often the only thing that matters for our Liberal government is money, I am afraid that at some time in the future waste will be imported to make our nuclear waste management system more profitable.

It is something we must keep in mind because the official from the Department of Natural Resources told me that for the time being they had more than enough to do in dealing with our own waste. What concerns me, not to say scares me, is the fact that he said that for the time being they are not considering this.

When I am told “For the time being, we are not planning on it”, am I to understand that their plans may change tomorrow, next week or next year?

That is why the bill must really be transparent. All its details must be clear, precise and, to the extent possible, be assessed. Moreover, even though consultation is provided for in the legislation, we must never neglect to consult. The population must be consulted.

Even if the urgency is evident, we believe that public consultation—and let it be clear that we do not want the kind of bogus consultation that was held in regards to MOX and that lasted only 28 days—is necessary and fundamental.

Another thing will have to be closely considered. The bill intends to force Quebec or, more precisely, Hydro-Quebec to operate according to the proposal that will be adopted by the natural resources minister in Ottawa and to the criteria set by him. Is Quebec really in agreement with these criteria? That is what we will determine later.

We also have a concern about the fines provided for in the bill. Do members not think that the fines imposed for each day of infraction are excessive, considering that this type of bill always contains variable factors? We know that the bill contains provisions allowing additional delay, but the issue of fines is still of concern us.

If we look briefly at the situation of Canada's nuclear power stations, we find that the obligation to treat nuclear fuel waste is unfortunately something that the Bloc Quebecois cannot oppose, but we do strongly oppose the use of fuel and the operation of power plants using nuclear fission.

As members know, in his most recent report, the auditor general clearly indicated that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission needs to improve its regulatory regime for power reactors. Among other things, the audit pointed out that the commission does not use quantitative measures to rate nuclear power facilities.

According to the auditor general, the rating systems used are not always based on specific criteria but rather on the judgment and expertise of staff.

While we do not believe that the staff would be dishonest and is probably competent, we would like to point out that the auditor general said, and I quote:

The criteria for what is acceptable or unacceptable are subjective and could be misunderstood.

Moreover, as the auditor general pointed out in the report, CNSC faces significant difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified staff. Combined with its current regulatory regime, which relies heavily on the expertise and judgment of staff, the lack of human resource capacity could impact its ability to function adequately in the future.

Considering that only a responsible approach is necessary on this matter, the Bloc Quebecois will support Bill C-27, while maintaining major reservations. The Bloc Quebecois will continue to follow the matter very carefully because there are major issues involved in this bill.

These issues relate to the huge economic investment required for a management regime based on the protection of the environment and of the health of Quebecers. The Canadian people and even the American people would be affected by this bill. While Mr. Bush is not giving a lot of hope on this matter and the Canadian government has a strange approach toward this, we consider it our duty to ensure first and foremost that the bill does not have negative consequences and that the issues will be carefully considered at all stages. At this point, we agree on the bill but we have very major reservations.

In conclusion, people need to have a good relationship with the main stakeholders, as, of course, with the federal government in its responsibilities on waste management. There must also be a trust relationship with the fuel nuclear waste management organization.

If it is possible to create this trust, we will get the support of the public. The public will have to be consulted, but it has to be real consultation and not token consultation, as I said earlier.

The bill will have to be very specific on the potential for importing nuclear waste. It must be clear that the waste management organization's sole purpose is to manage nuclear waste from Quebec and Canada. We know very well that nobody would accept nuclear waste from other countries, with all the risks involved.

Our responsibility today is crucial. We are making decisions that will have an impact on events that could occur in hundreds or thousands of years. Some people are used to managing without any long term vision but here we need to consider future generations, and much more than the next few generations, as we are talking about hundreds and thousands of years.

We will get a chance in committee to deal with various aspects of the bill and we retain the right to move amendments to Bill C-27.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

The bill mandates the establishment of a long term management strategy to ensure nuclear waste is disposed of in a comprehensive, integrated and economically sound manner.

The bill has three key elements. The major owners of nuclear fuel must establish and implement a long term management plan for nuclear fuel waste. They also must establish a trust fund and make set payments to the fund on an ongoing basis.

We support the bill in principle although we have concerns. The onus to act should not fall entirely on industry. The government should have an observer capacity and should share responsibility for waste disposal. By and large, however, we support the bill.

There must be checks and balances to ensure waste is disposed of properly and safely. However it is a major challenge. There is an international aspect to the issue which, although not immediately evident, should nonetheless frighten Canadians. We are heading toward an environmental catastrophe not just next door but across the ocean. The impact will affect Canadians from coast to coast.

Radioactive waste is an intriguing problem because it lasts for tens of thousands of years. When we deal with radioactive waste we must make sure it does not come in contact with any aspects of our biodiversity or ecology for 10,000 years. The decisions we make today will affect generations far down the line. It is a very difficult problem.

Fuel rods used in nuclear reactors last about three to four years. Every nuclear plant deposits about 30 tonnes of nuclear waste per year. What happens to the rods? After three to four years they cannot carry on a nuclear reaction. However they still have a great deal of power. A lot of energy is locked away within used fuel rods and they can still be lethal to human beings, animals and plants.

People exposed to nuclear materials can be killed outright. However they also suffer from high rates of cancer, various malignancies and other profound health effects that dramatically shorten their lifespan.

We have about 18,000 tonnes of nuclear fuel in Canada. That will expand as time passes. The challenge is deciding what to do with it. How do we ensure public safety? That challenge will affect us south of the border as well.

A number of principles need to be followed. They are as follows. First, there must be a commitment to safety and environmental protection when disposing of nuclear waste. Second, nuclear waste materials must be accepted voluntarily by the host community. In other words, any community in which we deposit nuclear materials must give its consent.

The decisions that community makes could potentially affect it down the road. We do not know the long term affects of the disposal of this material. We worry about leakage and cracks in the tomb nuclear waste material is encased in. We do not know what will happen to that nuclear material 5,000 years from now when it will still be lethal and dangerous for human beings, animals and plants.

From the outset there has to be open communication of information with the communities involved. There can be no secretive or unilateral decisions made to deposit nuclear waste in areas near human habitation. The communities in the area must be made aware and they must buy into it. In fairness to the host community, a benefits provision in recognition of its service to the community at large has to be recognized.

Some very interesting experiments have been done on the disposal of this kind of material. I will talk about two of them. One is called the nuclear powered turbo reciprocating engine. Rather than burying the nuclear rods in the ground, can we extract the considerable amount of energy contained within those nuclear rods? That is an intriguing question. However the question also poses some very interesting potential solutions on how to use the nuclear rods by extracting energy from them for a longer period of time. That is where the nuclear powered turbo reciprocating engine comes into play.

This engine utilizes some of the remaining uranium within the rods. We use uranium-235 in nuclear reactors. However uranium-238, which cannot maintain a nuclear reaction, is in sizeable proportions in the effete rods. The rods can be bombarded with atoms which will break them apart and they will release considerable amounts of energy.

While the fuel rods in their original state are used for about three or four years in a nuclear reactor, they can be used for 13 to 15 more years, thus extracting more energy from the effete rods than what would have been received in the first three to four years. To use these rods for 18 years rather than 3 or 4 years is a very interesting proposal. When using the effete rods there is still the problem of disposal at the end of that period of time as they are still as radioactive as they were when they originally came out of the nuclear reactor.

The government should ask the National Research Council to explore this option with researchers in the United States who are doing similar research. It is a simple principle of burning rubbish rods and generating energy from them in a way that would be very useful for our environment. This would also lead to fewer rods being used if energy could be generated from the effete rods. Therefore the nuclear waste that we would have to deal with would be smaller.

Another option is called the fusion torch which was established some time in the seventies when the possibility of fusion reactions existed. For whatever reason there has been less interest in exploring the possibility of fusion. However the fusion torch can be used to burn the effete rods in a different way through fusion reaction.

While fusion is not a reality at this point in time, I would ask the government to have the National Research Council work with scientists in the international community who are working on fusion as a potential option for dealing with our nuclear waste problem.

What I am about to tell the House now is truly frightening. It is taking place in Russia and Ukraine and there is active Canadian involvement. We all know what happened to Chernobyl, the devastation that incident brought on the population there, and how radioactive nuclear tides were spread over a large area. What Canadians may not know is that there are many more Chernobyls in Russia and Ukraine. It is not only a problem for the people there. Radionucleotides are cancer causing and teratogenic materials that enter our ecosystem and bioaccumulate into other ecosystems far and wide.

I had the honour of participating in discussions with members of the government on this. We know many radionucleotides are bioaccumulating in the flora and fauna in the Arctic, and that is having a dramatic negative impact on the lives and health of the people living there.

A Mayak reactor, which is located near Ozersk in Russia, was supposed to be closed down. Lake Karachay, which is nearby, is the repository of nuclear waste materials from that reactor. The lake is the most radioactive place on our planet. If people were to bathe in the lake it would kill them. One would think the reactor would be shut down, but it is actually expanding, and it is expanding with Canadian taxpayer money.

Canadian taxpayer money is being used to maintain the Mayak reactor that is dumping radioactive waste materials into Lake Karachay. This is having a dramatic, negative and lethal impact upon the population there. Why is Canada funding a reactor in Russia that is dumping radioactive waste materials into a lake where people could be killed?

The goal has always been to shut down a lot of these reactors that are effete. In the last 10 years Canada has put almost $90 million into shutting them down but we now know that a lot of the money was not used for that purpose. These reactors are not only open but a lot of the money has gone into the pockets of the Russian bureaucracy.

Why is $90 million of Canadian taxpayer money being sent to Russia in good faith only to be dumped into the bureaucracy and into the pockets of private individuals, and then chewed up with no end result?

As a G-7 country, Canada committed almost $300 million to make sure those reactors were shut down, closed and cleansed of radioactive material. That has not happened. Russian nuclear weapons are being sent to the Mayak reactor so they can be reprocessed into MOX fuel, which is a radioactive and lethal fuel.

The Canadian government should be asking some tough questions of the Russian government, such as where is the money that was sent, why are the reactors not being closed down, and why is radioactive material being dumped right into the biosphere with no checks or balances whatsoever.

We were supposed to close the reactors down. Canadians will be shocked to know that we are funding 40 new reactors in Russia. However the reactors are using 30 year old technology that has been widely dismissed as being dangerous and unsafe by western standards. Why is Canada funding 40 new reactors in Russia that have 30 year old technology? We are exporting to the international community technology that is unsafe for us. Why are we doing this?

This will lead to more Chernobyls, more Mayak reactors and more nuclear waste being dumped into the biosphere. It will not affect communities in the former U.S.S.R. but it will affect all of us. Our government does not know where the money has gone or where we are supposed to spend it.

Little has changed in Russia in terms of nuclear reactors, cleanup mechanisms, and checks and balances that ought to be there. There are many other Chernobyl-type situations just waiting on the horizon.

Another aspect that would be frightening for Canadians to realize is that in Ukraine, which has a number of nuclear reactors, the government has stripped the regulating body of its monitoring powers. What is happening is that fewer checks and balances are being put in place. This will have a lethal and devastating effect not only on that country but on all former eastern bloc countries.

CIDA has said that the money that it sent has simply disappeared. Millions of dollars have disappeared. Money was also sent through Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to finance a program that would increase the operating safety of nuclear reactor plants. That was a great idea. Who could argue with that?

It also wanted to clean up Europe's largest nuclear power plant, the Leningrad nuclear power station near St. Petersburg, because it was unsafe. The power plant continues to operate. The money that was sent to clean up these operations and to close them down has done absolutely nothing at all.

CIDA also gave $500,000 to Russia's nuclear regulatory agency, GAN, but legislation currently before the Russian parliament will transfer the GAN's licensing powers to another group called Minatom. Minatom will be a self-regulating company beyond the reach of government. Why are we sending money to the Russian government to fund a regulatory agency that will have no powers?

We are sending money to an agency that will have nothing to do with regulations because the regulatory body has been moved to something else and will be a toothless tiger. It will have no checks and balances, no government regulation, no transparency and no public involvement. That is very frightening. Canadians would never tolerate that type of situation here.

Canadians would demand, and rightfully so, that the nuclear regulatory agency be monitored by a public transparent organization. What Canada is doing with its international aid money is sending millions of dollars into a big, black hole where it is not producing the intended effect.

I encourage the minister responsible for international development, when she hears about these issues, to take a very aggressive position. The Minister of Foreign Affairs should also make immediate interventions with President Putin and the Russian government to get to the bottom of it.

If he cannot do that, Canada should choke off all moneys going into these programs and should rally the international community to say that no more money will be sent to clean up Russian nuclear waste sites or to decommission nuclear reactors until we know where it will go and where the other money has gone. The Russian government has a great deal to answer for and has poisoned the good will of Canadians and the international community.

The last aspect I want to talk about is the issue of depleted uranium. This came up as a big issue after the war in the former Yugoslavia and the gulf war. A number of our soldiers came back with strange illnesses such as malignancies, weaknesses and depressed immune systems. No answers were found as to the cause. The Department of National Defence said very clearly that it did not believe it was due to anything in particular and that these people just got sick as a matter of course.

There is the larger question of whether or not depleted uranium, which is radioactive and can have lethal effects on individuals, contributed to the illness of men and women in uniform, not only those from our country but also other participants who came back from both the gulf war and the former Yugoslavia.

I emphasize that it is essential for the Minister of National Defence to work with the international community to obtain an answer for our soldiers. They deserve one. We must have an answer to determine whether depleted uranium has a negative effect, whether on impact the dust created that can travel for more than 100 kilometres has a deleterious and potentially lethal effect on the health of our soldiers. We have a responsibility in that regard.

Many people from around the world are looking at this question. If we work with our international defence partners on the matter together, we will have the answer for our soldiers who have been affected in some unknown way as yet by some terrible diseases.

Actually a group on the east coast has done some very interesting studies. It found residues of radioactive uranium in the bodies of individuals who came back. If my memory serves me, I believe residue has been found in the bodies of 12 of 20 individuals.

The department of defence has said this was not a problem. I urge the department not to take such a cavalier attitude toward the problem and not to completely dismiss it. It should deal with and explore the facts and the signs. It should not deal with it individually but work with the international community that is struggling to find an answer to this very important problem.

It is not only important because of what happened in the past but because depleted uranium is still being used. It is being used in the anti-tank ammunition of the A-10 warthogs and anti-tank weapons that are used on the ground. The number of countries that are using it has expanded dramatically over the last few years. Pakistan and India, our NATO partners, and many other countries are using DU munitions in their military.

This is not only a problem that has happened in the past. It will happen in the future. We must find the answer. A concerted international effort by defence departments and scientists from around the world will get to the bottom of it. We owe it to our men and women in uniform not only to find the answers but to make sure they are treated with more care and consideration. That is our minimum responsibility to them.

We support the bill. We recognize that nuclear waste is a very serious problem, but for it to be disposed of wisely we must have buy-in from the communities. There must be an open and transparent process for where it will be put, how it will be disposed of, and the tomb these nuclear materials will be encased in.

I also encourage the government to work with the international community to look at alternatives. I have spoken about the fusion torch. I have spoken about the NPTRE that can be used as another way of burning effete nuclear rods. We can use these things to decrease the amount of nuclear waste that we will ultimately have.

I encourage Canada to work with the international community to do it. It is another one of those problems that not only affect us but affects the international community and all those who are in possession of nuclear reactors.

We have to deal with former U.S.S.R. countries to find out where the tens of millions of dollars have gone that we have sent to Russia and Ukraine for decommissioning nuclear reactors and other nuclear waste material.

It has not gone where it should be going. There are other Chernobyls on the horizon. People will be killed. Canada can play a very important international role with our other partners in this regard. We all have a vested interest in ensuring that nuclear waste is disposed of wisely. I encourage the government to work with all of us and the international community to make sure that happens.

Business Of The House

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with the debate on the opposition motion.

Tomorrow, we will begin second reading of Bill S-24, the Kanesatake agreement legislation, and resume debate on Bill C-27, the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act.

When we return on May 28 we will complete consideration of Bill C-7, the youth justice bill. I will be seeking advice from members opposite about wrapping up that debate. As backup we would have Bill C-27, if necessary, and Bill C-19, the environmental legislation.

Around mid-week we hope to commence report stage of Bill C-11, the immigration legislation.

Thursday, May 31, shall be an allotted day.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Following consultations among all parties, I believe you will find unanimous consent to adjourn the debate on Bill C-27 now.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved that Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to present Bill C-27 for second reading. This is an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

The nuclear energy option has been part of Canada's energy supply mix for over a quarter of a century. Canada and, in particular, Ontario have benefited from this production. With these benefits, however, comes the responsibility of properly managing the resulting waste.

The waste in question is solid fuel bundles discharged from reactors built with our own Canadian Candu technology. Existing waste is currently stored safely at the reactor sites and await a long term management strategy. The development and control of the nuclear energy option falls under federal jurisdiction and the Government of Canada has a duty to assume its responsibilities in this area, which includes the very critical matter of oversight functions.

The proposed legislation in Bill C-27 is a major step forward in dealing with the management of nuclear fuel waste in Canada over the long term. The bill is the culmination of many years of research, environmental assessment and extensive consultations with stakeholders, including waste owners, the provinces, the public and aboriginal organizations.

Canadians want a solution to this issue and are looking to the Government of Canada to establish a clear, fair and comprehensive strategy to make effective progress. Bill C-27 provides a legal framework for such a strategy and sets the course for years to come.

This federal initiative builds on the government response to the nuclear fuel waste and disposal environmental assessment panel. The panel, also known, for short, as the Seaborn panel, carried out a comprehensive, decade long review while consulting with Canadians from Saskatchewan to New Brunswick. I commend the panel on its efforts to come to grips with this very important issue.

In March 1998, the panel submitted its recommendations to the Government of Canada. In December 1998, the Government of Canada provided its response. In the response, the government agreed with the large majority of the panel's recommendations. In particular, the government agreed that federal oversight was needed to proceed with the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, and we stated three policy objectives for that oversight: first, that it must ensure that a segregated fund be established by waste owners; second, that it must ensure a reporting relationship between the Government of Canada and a waste management organization to be set up by the waste owners themselves; and third, that it must ensure a federal review and approval mechanism, including the issue of access to the fund.

In 1996 the Government of Canada announced a policy framework for radioactive waste which highlighted that:

The federal government will ensure that radioactive waste disposal is carried out in a safe, environmentally sound, comprehensive, cost-effective and integrated manner.

The Government of Canada has already provided oversight to ensure that the safety and environment of Canadians are not unduly affected by the nuclear energy option. This has mainly been carried out pursuant to the 1945 Atomic Energy Control Act which was replaced in 2000 by the new Nuclear Safety and Control Act. The proposed nuclear fuel waste act is now needed to complete the fulfilment of government responsibilities by ensuring that long term waste management activities are carried out in a comprehensive, cost effective and integrated manner.

Bill C-27 ensures: that all nuclear fuel waste to be managed in Canada is addressed under a consistent and unified approach; that all nuclear fuel waste owners fall within the same legal framework; that waste owners will start setting aside funds to fulfill all their financial responsibilities over the long term; and that waste owners will work together in complying with all relevant Government of Canada policies considering technical, socioeconomic and ethical aspects.

The proposed nuclear fuel waste act and the existing Nuclear Safety and Control Act would be complementary. Together they set the foundation for fulfilling federal jurisdictional oversight responsibilities for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.

What are the main requirements of Bill C-27? First, the bill requires the establishment of a waste management organization by the main waste owners in Canada, which includes primarily the operating nuclear utilities. The organization would be responsible for carrying out government approved waste management operations. This is consistent with the regulatory philosophy adopted in Canada which places the primary responsibility for safety within the nuclear industry.

The safety record of our Canadian nuclear utilities is unparalleled. It is recognized internationally. These utilities understand the need for excellent performance and they understand the need and desirability of public participation in the decision making process. They must, in short, earn the public's trust. The proposed legislation would ensure activities of the waste owners and of the waste management organization are subject to public scrutiny and reviewed annually by the government.

Second, the bill requires the waste management organization to submit to the federal government options for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. It is important to understand, and I underline this point very clearly, that no decision has yet been made on which management method will ultimately be adopted. The Government of Canada agreed with the Seaborn panel that more work needed to be done in this area before any decisions could be made. Bill C-27 provides a legal framework to carry out that work. The bill requires that the waste management organization examine three options: deep geological disposal, onsite storage or central long term storage. In addition, the waste management organization can propose any other option as well. The bill makes clear that the government will make the final decision on an approach to be adopted for Canada.

Third, the bill requires the main waste owners to put aside real money in a segregated trust fund managed by a third party. Canadians want to be assured that when the time comes, money will be available to fund all long term waste management activities and the Canadian taxpayers will not be called upon to shoulder that financial burden. This is entirely consistent with the polluter pay principle. Therefore, upon entry into force of this legislation, it is expected that deposits as prescribed in the proposed nuclear fuel waste act would start the accumulation of the money that is needed in the trust fund.

The challenge for the government in developing this legislation was to be fair to all of the stakeholders and to strike an effective balance in the public interest. I firmly believe that the proposed legislation fully meets that challenge and it is supported by initial reactions that have been received on Bill C-27.

The main owners of nuclear fuel waste have conveyed to me that they welcome the increased regulatory certainty provided by the legislation, that it provides them with a clear framework to fulfil their public responsibilities and that it does not create an unmanageable financial burden. Small waste owners will note that the new waste management organization would be required to provide them, that is, the small owners, with long term management services at reasonable cost.

In developing this legislation the Government of Canada of course consulted with the affected provinces, that is, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. We addressed many of their concerns and showed as much flexibility as possible without compromising that fundamental point about federal oversight. The provinces recognize that the development and control of nuclear energy is indeed within federal jurisdiction and they are supportive of the direction that we are taking in this legislation.

Government oversight in the legislative scheme provides for mandatory transparency. This was recommended by the Seaborn panel and agreed to by the Government of Canada for increasing public confidence. For example, all waste management organization reports submitted to the Minister of Natural Resources are to be made public. The waste management organization must carry out public consultations at every stage of its process. An advisory council must be established by the waste management organization, whose comments on the organization's activities would also be made public. In addition, over the life of the project the government would exercise additional oversight as required through the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Care was taken in putting all of this together to avoid overlap and duplication while ensuring that all requirements are fully met. Therefore, as recommended by the Seaborn panel, there are multiple government oversight mechanisms at play here which would ensure that the process proceeds effectively and democratically.

Aboriginal people have shown considerable interest in this important initiative. I have sought their active participation in decision making on the long term management of nuclear fuel waste. They participated extensively in the Seaborn hearings. I have met with a number of aboriginal leaders to discuss how they wish to be further consulted on next steps. This active involvement of aboriginal people has been recognized and ensured in Bill C-27.

In addition the government will continue to carry out related activities pursuant to its fiduciary responsibility toward aboriginal people and recognizes the valuable perspectives and insights of aboriginal peoples which can usefully inform and influence all future steps.

I would make the point that in any of the dialogue that I have had with aboriginal leaders, whether verbally or in writing, whenever we have discussed this matter we have not discussed the issue of where any particular future disposal sight might hypothetically be located. That has not been the topic on the agenda. What we have talked about is how they wish to be consulted in the process, how they wish to have influence on and input into the process. It has not been any form of negotiation. It has been a respectful solicitation of their advice and their insights, because they do have a great deal to offer in this decision making process.

What of the administration of the nuclear fuel waste act? Under the proposed legislation the main decisions would be made by the governor in council. The designated minister for the administration of the legislation would be the Minister of Natural Resources. As such, the Department of Natural Resources would be charged with carrying out ministerial responsibilities under the act.

The department would provide the focal point for interdepartmental, technical, financial, social and ethical reviews and for any independent reviews that might be necessary. The department would provide the government's direct and regular liaison with the waste management organization, the public, the provinces, aboriginal peoples and other interested parties. The department would ensure that the nuclear fuel waste act is complied with and thus would manage all auditing, verification, inspection and enforcement measures.

Bill C-27 was not established in a contextual vacuum. The evolution of policy was guided by consultations with stakeholders and by experienced gained in other countries, together with the invaluable work that was done by the Seaborn panel. The bill adopts a phased, step-wise approach allowing for all planned and executed waste management activities to be reviewed and for the public to participate effectively at every step along the way.

The process would take many years to complete and would possibly affect future generations. The legislation focuses on this generation's responsibilities but is flexible in allowing decision making by future generations if that turns out to be the case.

Canada can now move ahead effectively toward an appropriate solution for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste which takes into consideration not only technical safety matters but incorporates, in a very integral way, the social and ethical values of Canadians. I commend the legislation to the House.

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that there have been negotiations among various parties in the House on Bill C-19. I would propose that we adjourn the debate and then proceed to Bill C-27.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)