Bill C-27 (Historical)

Canada Airports Act

An Act respecting airport authorities and other airport operators and amending other Acts

Canada Airports Act

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first let me thank my colleagues from Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore and Saint John who are giving me this opportunity to speak. I rise on behalf of my constituents in Hamilton West to address second reading of Bill C-27, the Canada airports act.

There is extreme concern in the airports community that Bill C-27, if not amended, would cripple an airport's ability to continue to work in what is clearly a very competitive international market. It is no secret that the air transportation industry has an enormous impact on the Canadian economy. It creates over 300,000 jobs, accounts for over $34 billion in economic outputs, and provides nearly $4 billion in tax benefits to all levels of government.

Today, the viability of Canada's air transportation system is threatened and the consequences for Canada are enormous. It is a well known fact that the airline industry is in crisis. The impacts of 9/11, the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq and SARS have led to a 20% reduction in air traffic. Air Canada's restructuring will have a dramatic impact on smaller airport communities where Air Canada is the dominant and/or sole air carrier.

Airports must adjust to the new realities of air travel. Reduced frequency and withdrawal of service mean airports will have to reduce costs in order to minimize impacts on airlines and of course air travellers.

The federal government too must act to cut costs to airports so that these may be passed along to airlines in the form of lower fees and charges, and to air travellers in the form of lower airfares. Ironically, at a time when the federal government should be reducing the operating costs of airports the proposed Canada airports act does just the opposite. The act, which effectively re-regulates an economic sector which the government effectively and successfully de-regulated eight years ago, piles one administrative redundancy upon another and introduces over 40 areas in which the minister may pass regulations adding to the administrative burden of Canada's smaller airports.

The government is introducing these drastic measures without a single overarching public demand for change and without having conducted a single regulatory impact or cost benefit analysis. In fact, a number of independent and government commissioned studies have recommended a course of action substantially different from the government's proposed legislation. These include: first, a moratorium leading to a reduction and eventual elimination of airport rents; second, removal of industry specific security surcharges--no other type of traveller is required to pay directly for security and policing services--third, full funding for ACAP and making these capital funds available to all level two airports; and fourth, substantial reduction of regulatory burdens.

I declare my bias and it is called John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. According to Mr. Tony F. Battaglia, President and CEO of TradePort International Corporation, and operator of the Hamilton airport:

The act will have a profound impact on the growth of John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. The act's one size fits all approach to airport government conflicts with Hamilton's unique and award winning public private partnership between the city of Hamilton and TradePort International, a private company operating the airport under terms of a 40 year lease. The act impedes the ability of the private operator to innovate and adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs in order to improve service and reduce costs. The act significantly erodes local control by the community--a founding principle of the Canada Airports Policy (1995).

The John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport is unique in Canada; between 1999 and 2002 passenger volumes have grown exponentially--from 23,000 in 1999 to 846,000 in 2002. In the next five years passenger volumes will grow sixfold--to about five million passengers annually--and HIA will become the fifth or sixth largest airport in Canada. Under the act, the ability of HIA to attain this growth is substantially impaired. Growth of this magnitude requires a significant investment in airport infrastructure--over $100 million must be raised in the capital markets.

By adding to the airport's cost structure and impeding its ability to set fees and charges to match revenues with expenses, the act imposes an element of risk that private sector lenders may be unwilling to accept. Blindly advancing this gratuitous legislation may bring irreparable harm to Canada's smaller airports; there are other alternatives. We suggest the following:

Phased implementation of the act with Canada's Schedule II airports exempt from its provisions until three years after its proclamation.

Schedule II airports would have three years to file with the Minister of Transport an operating model that satisfies the act's governing principles of transparency and accountability.

As operators of the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, we stand willing to work with the federal government and parliamentarians to find solutions that meet the needs of the government, the aviation industry, and air travellers.

It is signed by Tony F. Battaglia, President and CEO.

I could go on because the problem also impacts larger airports such as Vancouver airport. I do not know if it is appropriate, Mr. Speaker, but given the time, may I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to complete my remarks which would take no more than five minutes?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate today on Bill C-27, an act respecting airport authorities and other airportoperators and amending other acts.

As the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel and as transportation critic, I had the opportunity to review the legislation on airport authorities, since the Mirabel airport is managed by an airport authority called ADM, Aéroports de Montréal.

When a minister or other member of the Liberal Party introduces a bill as a means to have more transparency, we obviously always look at these nice proposals with an open mind.

In Mirabel, we had quite an exercise in transparency with ADM. All reporters and all Quebeckers who have followed the Mirabel airport saga know that Aéroports de Montréal did not operate with a great concern for transparency.

We sometimes use harsh words out of frustration with certain situations. I will try to explain the position of the residents of the Basses-Laurentides area concerning what could have been the best chance for economic development in this region of Quebec.

In 1966, when the federal government decided to replace Dorval airport, which was built in 1941, it really wanted to put Quebec back on the map. I should remind members that, at the time, Montreal was the only international gateway into Canada. Building a brand new airport was obviously indicative of a great desire to open our door to the world.

And it was not just any kind of airport. At the time, the government expropriated 93,000 acres of land, which was 10 times the size of the largest airport in the world and 27 times the size of Dorval airport. That was the goal of the Liberal government of the day.

Since 1966, or over the last forty and some years, the Liberal Party has been in power two thirds of the time. It is the Liberal Party that launched this project and set this goal. There were periods when the Conservatives were in office but, in the end, this is part of the history of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Giving Quebec a giant airport, the largest in the world, is a very important goal. Now we must see what the goal was and what the reality is today. Right now, Mirabel airport still sits on 15,000 acres of land, which is still four times the size of Dorval airport.

However, this international airport deals with only one air carrier, Air Transat, which is quite happy. In the Lower Laurentians, we are very glad that Air Transit is still doing business in Mirabel. ADM has announced that in the fall of 2003 or the spring of 2004 at the latest, international flights or air passenger services will be a thing of the past at Mirabel airport.

As you know, that is the harsh reality we have to face. Things happen, like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 or SARS which is currently affecting some airports, but ADM and the federal government took their decision well before air carriers throughout Canada started having problems.

Of course, that brings us to the operations of the infamous airport authorities, which have been a problem. Since 1988, we have been dealing with what is now called a non-profit corporation. First, there was SOPRAM, which was created in 1988 but was replaced in 1992 by Aéroports de Montréal, the current organization that this new bill will now change.

Non-profit organizations are currently managing equipment belonging to the people of Quebec and Canada and also funds. Let me go over some of the provisions of this bill to try to explain how it is possible to close down an airport that was inaugurated only in 1975 while investing in another airport, Dorval. At this point in time, over $800 million of public money has been invested. When renovations started at Dorval, we were told that they would cost $200 million at the very most. Believe it or not, the costs have now reached $800 million. Based on the most recent estimates, to properly upgrade Dorval for the new millennium, we will need to invest another $1.2 billion in the airport and the surrounding road infrastructure. That is $2 billion that the federal government will have invested in a airport that should have been replaced back in 1966, when Dorval and all of its facilities were felt to be obsolete.

However, today, this airport is being renovated but there are constraints. Indeed, Dorval is an airport in the middle of a city, with time constraints. Flights must not take place after 11 p.m. So there are time constraints. When Mirabel airport is closed, this will be the only airport capable of receiving passengers in the metropolitan area of Montreal. Of course, this will create constraints for airlines.

This is a matter of choice. When we put the question directly to the minister, to all the representatives, to Liberal members from Quebec, they say: “We will go back to Mirabel one day”. Why? Because Mirabel airport is located outside Montreal. The runways have been laid out so as not to disturb the urban populations. It is a highly secure airport. Considering September 11, 2001, we never want to experience another plane crash in an urban area. Thus, everything should have been taken into account, particularly since September 11, 2001, to try to keep Mirabel airport. On the contrary, a destruction operation started in 1992—in fact, in 1988—but more specifically since the creation of the new ADM. This destruction operation will continue, of course, because passenger services will disappear, as I said earlier, by January 2004 at the latest.

Besides, we are still being told that Mirabel is an international airport. Of course, people were up in arms. Not only was there land flipping, but proceedings were launched by the municipality of Mirabel and all social and economic stakeholders. Millions of dollars were spent. It was ruled that the lease had been respected , since ADM had an obligation to maintain an international airport.

Clause 6 of this brand new bill that has not yet been passed says:

Nothing in this Act derogates from the rights and obligations under a lease of an airport granted by any person, including Her Majesty in right of Canada, to an airport operator, as the lease read on the coming into force of this section, except to the extent that those rights and obligations are inconsistent with this Act.

That means that a lease takes precedence over this bill. Obviously, I would like to agree with the content of the bill, but I have to live with the situation in Mirabel. People are living with the situation in the Lower Laurentians in West Quebec. The airport authority there is going to eliminate passenger traffic, insisting it is still operating an international airport, and the government and the minister will say “Yes, we consider this to be an international airport”. An international airport without passengers is hard to swallow.

What is really going to happen in the industry? Will legal proceedings be taken again against ADM to compel it to abide by the lease? As long as the government is not willing to rein in these organizations that are claiming to be non profit, it will not work.

The government has quite the defence, of course. I am saying this for the benefit of Quebeckers who are listening to us; I will sum up how the airport authority board is set up. It is made up of between 11 and 15 members, their number being set in the bylaws.

In the case of the Montreal airport authority there are 15 appointed board members. The government is saying that the management of airports is being turned over to the industry. Out of these 15 appointed board members, only one is from the Lower Laurentians and the Mirabel area. As far as the other 14 are concerned, 11 come from the Island of Montreal, one from Laval and two from the South Shore.

Once again, we are told that the management is local. Obviously, the managers are not coming from Mirabel airport. When the time comes to make big decisions, it is obviously easy to reach a consensus around the Montreal airport board table.

This bill is telling us there will be greater transparency, but it confirms that independent bodies will manage assets. I will go even further than that. Clause 45 says:

An airport authority is not an agent of Her Majesty in right of Canada.

So it is not only non-profit organizations managing the government's assets. Clearly, the land and buildings belong to the federal government. They belong to us all because we all pay taxes in this country. The assets are managed by independent agencies that, furthermore, are not agents of Her Majesty in right of Canada.

So, why include this provision? It is so that the minister can say, in the House, in response to questions from the opposition about the actions of airport authorities: “It is not my responsibility. Those people do not report to the federal government”.

We had a terrible time with this in the Lower Laurentians and at Mirabel. We are going to go through this again. In fact, ADM is holding its annual general meeting on May 8. According to my sources, I am almost certain that ADM will announce the complete shutdown of the airport and will expect its board to adopt, next Thursday, a resolution to launch an international call for tenders for the use of the airport, hotel and administrative offices, excluding tenders related to running an airport. In other words, ADM wants to see if the airport, hotel and administrative offices can be converted into something other than an airport. That is the goal, although it says it will respect the lease and that this will remain an international airport, because Mirabel still offers cargo operations.

I do not know how members with international airports in their ridings would feel if an airport authority candidly told them that it did not want to launch an international tender call for aviation operations, because it was too afraid of the competition. There are people interested in using this site for civil aviation and passenger transportation. So, ADM does not want to manage it.

The hotel has been closed since last summer. There have been at least six potential buyers and ADM has said publicly, “We operate airports; we are not hotel managers”. The hotel belongs to the federal government. In the lease, there is a clause stipulating that they must use the buildings and infrastructure for the purposes for which they were entrusted. That is a clause in the lease.

The hotel was entrusted to be operated. Today, they can contravene the lease with the Minister of Transport's approval, since he responded here in the House that it was an independent organization and it could do what it wanted. He trusted ADM because ADM has the obligation to maintain an airport of international calibre.

Those who know anything about aviation predict that three years from now even the cargo sector will have left Mirabel. The airport will cease to be. In this bill, once ADM has been given all of the powers it needs to reach its objectives, how will it be possible to save Mirabel?

It will be impossible. The government should modify the lease and allow ADM to close Mirabel airport.

Obviously, there would be a debate. How would the government do it? It would wait until the election and make the change in the first year of its new mandate, so that voters forget about it. Governments always operate in the same old ways. When you follow things and see how good the Liberal government is at controlling information, you can predict how people will react. We know the important stuff occurs before the election and a month or two after. Then it comes around again three and a half or four years later.

Polling indicates—and you may have had the opportunity to see some polls—that attitudes toward politicians in Quebec differ a great deal from those of the rest of Canada, where the central governments are chosen by the people, whereas in Quebec, it is the complete opposite. Local governments are the ones that are most loved by Quebeckers. That is traditional and probably historic. We could always take a closer look at what has happened.

Yet the Liberal government is fully aware that, in Quebec, the public is far less concerned about federal government operations and this therefore allows the feds to stir up great hopes as it did with Mirabel. It created a huge potential for employment and now it is going to be closed down completely.

There cannot even be any predictions because as we speak, believe it or not, Mirabel, the biggest airport in Canada, as far as area goes, still has no development plan. Even with the lease requirement of the provision of a master plan and a development plan by 1998, there is still none, yet they say there is a master plan.

It is so complex, but I can tell you that they do not know, at this time, what they are going to do with Mirabel. Never mind whether one calls it a master plan, a development plan or a land use plan, I can tell you they have no idea. If they are asked the question tomorrow, they will say they do not know what they will do with Mirabel.

One thing they do know: passenger flights are going to disappear and they will try to keep the freight for the moment, despite what the reports are saying.

Leafing through the bill, I must express my resentment of it, despite its possible good intentions. We are told, of course, that the role of an airport operator is to give equitable access to its facilities. Clause 24 reads:

Every airport authority and other airport operator must provide to all air carriers who operate or wish to operate aircraft on their airport, equitable access to the facilities or air terminal building—

Having spoken with executives of Air Transat, which is at Mirabel, I can tell you that they are still interested in remaining there. They want to stay, but of course the approach that has been taken by ADM and the company to get it out of Mirabel will leave them without the same access to facilities at the same price. There have been threats along the lines of “You are the only ones flying out of this airport, so we will charge all costs to you”. This will make it more expensive than flying out of Montreal. So there have been threats.

Even though the carrier has a lease with obligations, even though, legally, it could go to court and try to protect its rights, things are not easy for an operator in such a situation, with all the complexities of aviation today.

In addition, even though the Government of Canada is the owner, it is clear that ADM acts as the landlord, managing the facilities, negotiating with the airlines and, in the end, saying to them, “If you do not move to Dorval, you will have big problems in the future. We will send you bills and you will be fighting them in court”. That battle will last 15 years, until their lease runs out.

Here is a company that provides very good service, that is quite satisfied to be at Mirabel, and which has another 15 years on its lease, but, under pressure from ADM, will probably sign a new agreement to move to Dorval, if it has not yet already done so as we speak. Nobody is supposed to talk about it; it all has to be done oh so nicely and under a cloak of secrecy. No pressure must be put on ADM. No one should say anything, because that might reflect badly on the company and on operations.

Finally, one thing I know is that it is bad for the entire population of the Lower Laurentians and West Quebec. If there had been transfers to other airports in Quebec, I would have said, “That is not so bad”. The problem is that the shift is towards Toronto and Ottawa. That is a fact.

One problem is that those who manage the Montreal airports have not understood that they are not helping Quebec; they are helping the rest of Canada. That is what they are doing. They are helping the Ottawa airport, which has been expanded, and that is good for Ottawa. They are helping Toronto, which has picked up all the transferred flights, and now finds itself the new gateway into Canada.

All this has been to Quebec's detriment, and it has been done with the full knowledge of all the federal Liberal members from Quebec and all the Conservative members at the time. They watched as all this happened. Obviously—I say it again—the Liberal members were especially involved, since they were in power for more than two thirds of the last 40 years while the Mirabel saga was unfolding.

Of course, when we see concern for transparency in a bill and when we hear the minister say, in his press conference on Bill C-27, that the government will stop having airports managed by organizations that do it behind closed doors, we cannot imagine how things can be different. These organizations have been doing everything behind closed doors since they were created. I cannot see how they could show any concern for transparency. It will be very hard.

Moreover, passengers who use Mirabel airport are required to pay enormous fees to repair Dorval airport. All those who have flown from Mirabel airport over the last eight years, since the fees were implemented, have been paying for the renovations at Dorval airport. Imagine that. I would not say it is Machiavellian, but close. That is the way things are done. People are told that they will have better services. The authority took the money and renovated Dorval airport.

Everything is done in secrecy. The government tells anyone with whom it deals not to say anything, that it will make an announcement. Of course, at the general meeting that will take place on May 8, there will be a big press conference and we will all be handed a done deal. We will not have the opportunity to object and to criticize; the decision will already have been made.

Why? Because, as I mentioned earlier, these non-profit organizations are not accountable to the federal government. They are completely independent and I should add that they are also financially self-sufficient. They are given the power they need to find money. It is as simple as that.

In fact, clause 46(3) reads as follows:

An airport authority may issue a bond ordebenture or other evidence of indebtedness.

And that is done, of course, without any endorsement from the federal government, but rather on the sole basis of expected revenues, which are the projected revenue from the airport improvement fees collected from the users, because that is the beauty of all this. These people have clients. They go to the banks and say “Look”. And they end up with the same credit rating as any Crown corporation and they can contract loans. During all that time, nobody is held accountable. It is a very profitable deal for those who charge interest rates. There is no risk involved. The money is not used to run deficits. Have you any idea how far a director can go? Some people have heard directors say “If things do not work out, the federal government can take the airport back.” It is as simple as that. Of course, there are the buildings, the land, the runways, the hotel. All of that belongs to the federal government. The directors only manage the buildings and have the duty, as I said before, to maintain two international airports.

I find that quite incredible, which is why I would like to go over clause 6 one more time.

Nothing in this Act derogates from the rights and obligations under a lease of an airport—

This provision puts the lease above the bill. It has always been that way. They have never upheld the law. They have always had their own way. The minister has always said “Yes, you are doing good; everything is going well, it is up to you. We will not get involved in what you are doing”. Why? Because it is politically dangerous and might even be politically devastating. That is how governments behave nowadays. Discussions are held and then the onus is put on independent organizations who are subjected to incredible political pressure.

The problem is that, often, these are people who are appointed, because there are representatives appointed by the government. In this case, we will have an appointment process that is well indicated in the legislation. Yes, these are representatives of the area, appointed by organizations in the area, but the fact is that Montreal's north shore and the Basses-Laurentides, excluding Laval, will only have one representative. It is not the new board and the new process that the bill is proposing that will change anything.

For us, ADM has already changed. Last year, the type of board contained in this bill was introduced. For all those who thought that, with this new bill, a new way of operating or appointing directors would be introduced, it is too late. In Quebec, things were going so bad that everyone had to get involved to get rid of the old directors, among others, the old chief executive officer. The process was changed and we have the new board of directors.

Bill C-27 is already in force. The Mirabel area, the Basses-Laurentides and Montreal's north shore, excluding Laval, only have one representative out of 15 members of the board. Consequently, the future is not looking good.

In this bill, there are airport authorities. I see that several airports are jointly managed. But Ottawa and Halifax manage only one airport. I even dare to dream that we could perhaps think about having an airport authority for Mirabel and one for Dorval. We could perhaps abolish ADM, which is managing two airports, but which is bleeding one dry to try to make the other one survive. Perhaps we will see this one day. Perhaps the Bloc Quebecois will introduce a bill or an amendment to this bill. Except that it would really take the will of the people to make this happen.

I know perfectly well that it will not happen since I asked the question to ADM officials. That is why they will put out an international call for tenders for the terminal, the hotel and the administrative buildings. When I talk about an international call for tenders, it is to find a new vocation for the property. They will look at the international level to see what someone could do with an empty hotel, an empty administrative centre and an empty terminal, apart from operating a passenger airport, which any interested party will be told they cannot do.

That is the decision that will be made, believe it or not. I am preparing a nice question to ask of the minister the next day or a few days later. I will ask him if he thinks that ADM's position respects the terms of the lease. He will certainly answer that, yes, it still is an international airport because of the freight operations. Some international airports rely solely on freight.

But those who know the history of air transportation know that the newer passenger aircraft have more and more space in the cargo hold for the transportation of goods. That is how airlines make flights profitable, which allows them to reduce fares for passengers. Aircraft are made bigger so they can carry more cargo. As a result, cargo planes are disappearing, slowly but surely, in favour of bigger passenger planes. That is a fact.

But once again, they think people on Montreal's north shore or in the Basses-Laurentides and all over Quebec do not understand how the industry works. They are telling them, “Look, you have a nice cargo airport, which is going to be developed and remain an international airport”.

No matter how much we hope, how much we read into bills such as this one, how much we try to be encouraged and to encourage our fellow citizens, this is not the first time the federal government slaps the Basses-Laurentides in the face.

Of course, my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville can attest to it. A decision was made to close the GM plant in Boisbriand. Ontario finally managed to eliminate car manufacturing in the rest of Canada and maintain it in the province. We know full well that it is the minister in charge of Canada's economic development in Quebec's regions, the current justice minister, who announced after visiting Detroit and meeting with the executives at GM Canada that he had no choice and that the GM plant in Boisbriand had to be shut down.

Mirabel international airport will be closed to passenger traffic. What it will become will be announced in a matter of months or days. It is tough to be repeatedly slapped in the face by the federal government.

It is not true that the federal government cannot act; however, it is true it does not want to act. That is the truth. Of course, Bill C-27 is a perfect example. I can predict that even before Bill C-27 is passed, Mirabel airport will be closed to passenger traffic. That is what is going to happen. This bill will be dragged through the House long enough so that the government will not have to force ADM to abide by this new bill, especially section 6 that would compel it to respect the terms of the lease and not to do anything that would be contrary to the lease since it has precedence over the bill. That is what will happen. ADM is in a hurry. We know. Air Transat is being pressured. ADM is rushing ahead to make sure everything is done before May 8 to be able to make the announcement at the general annual meeting. It is rushing to announce Air Transat is moving.

Why? Because ADM does not want Bill C-27 to be adopted. It does not want to have to deal with other problems. It has already had to deal with the hotel owner's wrath. About $17 million had to be paid to the hotel owner because, clearly, the profit projections are not quite what they were when the lease was negotiated. The owner won. An appeal has been launched. Obviously, in the meantime, this is costing hundreds of jobs in this sector. This hotel was not just for passengers; it was also used for other purposes and had built a reputation over the years. That is why so many hotel owners would like to purchase it.

The harsh reality is that ADM does not give a—there are things we are not permitted to say in the House—hoot what the residents of Mirabel, the Basses-Laurentides, Quebec and Canada might think. It does not care. It wants to try to save what remains of the aviation industry in Quebec, again by choosing the wrong solution, which is to try to direct road and air traffic toward Montreal Island.

On every island in the industrialized world, traffic is being directed elsewhere to try to set up offices for white collar workers. Pretty suburbs are created too, all to try keep the big stuff outside, including airports. In this respect, Montreal will always be doing the opposite, controlled by the West Island of Montreal—how wonderful—which prefers to deal with Toronto than the rest of Quebec.

This is the reality. It has always been like this. It always will be. I cannot imagine things being any different, although maybe some day they will. That will be the day that Quebeckers create their own country. Perhaps then people will see that by helping someone else, you help yourself. Charity begins at home. So, the people of Quebec must understand that they must do unto themselves before they do unto others.

That is the harsh reality. Once again, the federal government had created high expectations within the population of Quebec. Let me go over the figures one more time, because they are incredible. The government had set aside 93,000 acres of land, that is 27 times the Mirabel airport and 10 times the largest airport in the world. That is what Mirabel was at the beginning. Nowadays, it is still one of the biggest airports in the world. Even if almost 75,000 acres have been given back to the expropriated, it still sits on over 15,000 acres of land and that is four times the size of Dorval airport. Once again, this airport will disappear with what? With an organization, ADM, that will argue that we will be going back to Mirabel one day; with a minister that will agree; with Liberal members from Quebec who will also tell us “One day, we will come back to Mirabel. It is unavoidable. Because of security issues. Because of all kinds of things”. In the meantime, $800 million has already been spent on Dorval and another $1.2 billion will be invested in that airport, with the requirement, under the new legislation, for greater transparency. There is a whole chapter on airport improvement fees. Air carriers have the tough duty to tell airport authorities, “You charge too much for improvements. The fees that we and the passengers have to pay are crippling the airline industry”.

I do not see how these costs can be reduced at Montreal. ADM has not finished and still has over $1 billion to invest in its facilities.

There will be an attempt by all companies, Air Canada leading the pack, to ask ADM to cut the charges. One way to do that is to reduce renovation expenses. Renovations are finished at some airports, but Montreal is only about one-third done. ADM cannot, therefore, cut its costs. Obviously, Mirabel will have disappeared, so there will be only Dorval left.

There is another issue: rents. Today the airlines are coming before the standing committee on transport to tell us that, if the industry is to be saved the federal government absolutely must reduce rents so that airports, airport administrations, can reduce the charges levied on the airlines. Our audience needs to understand that in Montreal ADM does not just charge user fees for hanger or facility renovations, but also charges the airlines fees. Each time loans are arranged or bonds are issued, these must be paid back. They need revenue from somewhere.

I can tell you that the Bloc Quebecois agrees. Rents must come down and this must have a direct impact on the airlines. Believe it or not, ADM has been making requests of me for more than three years, since I was elected. ADM wants to reduce the rents in order to invest, once again, in renovations for Dorval. That is the reality.

I cannot see how to make it work in Montreal, because ADM has already thought about reducing the rent paid to the federal government, but that was to free up cash to borrow more and put more money into Dorval. As people have said, in 20 years, that will be finished and they will come back to Mirabel.

Somewhere the idea of the high speed train to get to the Mirabel airport has been dropped. Believe it or not, the terminal, which was built in 1975, has a train station that has never been used because high speed trains were never brought in. However, there is a station.

It would have cost $350 million to finish both highways, highways 13 and 50, and to finish the access by high speed train. In 2000, the cost was up to $450 million. More than $2 billion will have been spent at Dorval and yet, one day, we are supposed to be back at Mirabel. That is the reality.

In closing, it has been a pleasure for me to take this time to try to help those Quebeckers and Canadians who are following understand that sometimes we have good reason to complain about the federal government's actions.

Obviously, for the residents of Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, of Terrebonne—Blainville, of Laurentides and Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, and all of the ridings that could have benefited from the major development as a result of the Mirabel airport and that never got that chance, I hope that this bill will allow us to wake up ADM or even the federal Liberal government. It is never too late to do the right thing. As long as we own 15,000 acres of land with good buildings and equipment, there is always hope that it can be made profitable. I hope that a ray of wisdom will beam down from the sky and enlighten the Liberal government, so that justice can be done for the Lower Laurentians region.

[Jim Gouk, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand to speak on Bill C-27 today. I listened with interest to the words of the parliamentary secretary to the minister and I will probably have some direct comments on some of those things if time permits.

With a bill like this, let us start with the worst. One of the worst things in the bill is that the powers of the minister are not subject to review or appeal. He gives himself awesome powers in the bill.

Let us just imagine how this would work in other areas like, for example, the former minister of finance, who says, “Let us close some of the tax loopholes in all these foreign countries where we have Canadian corporations that are getting tremendous tax benefits, but let us leave one open, Bermuda, let us say”, where, as it happens, the former minister of finance has all his ships in his private company registered, “and let us have that not subject to review or appeal”.

How about the former minister of public works and government services, who says, using these kinds of powers, “Let us have the power to award contracts without tender. Let us be able to send them out to our friends, our donors, and let us get into a big advertising scheme and pay these people whether they actually do the work we have contracted for or not”.

Or maybe we will have the former minister of justice, who will come up with a bill like Bill C-68, tell us that it is going to cost $2 million and, when it costs a billion, says, “That is fine. Let us leave it that way. Let us not review it and most certainly let us not have any appeal”.

Given the mistakes that the Liberal government and its various cabinet ministers have made in the past, I think the very notion that we would give any minister on that side of the House the powers to make decisions that are not subject to either review or appeal is absolutely absurd, yet that is exactly what Bill C-27 does.

I will now get to some of the specifics. One is airport authority directors. The authority makeup calls for up to 15 directors on the board and it is quite possible that there would not be so much as one person representing the airlines. The required makeup includes two from the federal government; we notice that the government always make sure that it is on the list. The mandatory requirements are two from the federal government, one from the provincial government, three to five from municipal government, and then three to five from two of the following five groups. To be sure, one of those five groups is the national association of domestic air carriers, but they do not have to use that one. The other alternatives are economic organizations, provincial associations of lawyers, engineers or accountants, community organizations and unions. Out of all of these three to five are taken. It is quite possible that in some cases there would not be so much as a single representative of the airlines on those boards.

This is a not for profit corporation we are talking about, the airport authority set up by the government, as the parliamentary secretary has stated. By contrast, the same government set up Nav Canada. Nav Canada also has 15 directors of which four are from the airlines and one general aviation representative on the board. Five out of 15, one-third of the board, are absolutely guaranteed to be from the aviation industry, yet for the airports of the country, the national airports, the government has a board that could quite conceivably end up with not so much as a single airline representative, yet they are the ones that have a primary interest. The primary paying customer of the airports is the aviation industry, but with this bill there is not a commitment to have even one industry representative on the board.

The airlines must have the ability to influence terminal designs in order to ensure that cost effective designs reduce costs. We can imagine how we could build a very elaborate and very fancy edifice with a lot of architectural oddities, wasted space, a lot of dramatic flare in the design and incredibly expensive furnishings, none of which are part of the functions of the airport. We do not want a bunch of ugly boxes dotting the country. We want buildings that are pleasant to be in and are effective for the flow of traffic and so on, but we all know that there are people who have a tendency to get carried away. With that very primary customer possibly not being on the board, there is nothing to prevent airport authorities from saying “We can charge pretty much what we want, add airport improvement fees, and build something pretty fancy. It would be a monument to our work and our board to have such an incredibly beautiful airport”.

We do like to have nice things, but we also like to have a functioning, cost effective airline industry, particularly at this time. We are finding out that the airline industry is having a tremendous amount of trouble staying afloat and the last thing we should be doing is coming forward with a bill that could add to those costs instead of trying to find ways to control them.

Speaking of controls, there needs to be some control on the rent that the federal government charges airports. The federal government used to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year in airport operations. Now it makes hundreds of millions of dollars and all the improvements that are done to the airports are done at no cost to the government; now there is a sweetheart deal. The government used to have airport landing fees and a variety of fees that it charged the airlines. It used to lose a lot of money and it still had to operate the airport and do any improvements.

I was in the aviation industry for many years and saw how bad many of these terminals were. In fact, even now some of them are still in the process of growing out of that neglect by government. Right here in Ottawa is a prime example. We have a very inadequate terminal in Ottawa, but as we drive up to it, we see a very beautiful new terminal being constructed off to the right. That new terminal will be in operation sometime next spring, actually ahead of schedule. It is being built by the Ottawa Airport Authority at no cost to the federal government. We have that wholly inadequate terminal, out of which we are still operating while the airport authority puts up the new building, yet the government is essentially gouging these airport authorities. The government is taking huge profits out of these businesses, if we want to call them that, on which it formerly lost money.

Government rent increases are exorbitant, not just from where the rents started but in regard to where they have gone since the government has had these airport authorities take over. For example, when the Winnipeg Airports Authority officially took over the operation of the Winnipeg airport in 1997, the rent was $900,000 a year. That is quite a bit of money. Basically it is $1 million a year. Since that time, the Winnipeg Airports Authority has made many improvements, none of which were funded by the federal government. It has done this through its own drive, through its own funds raised in operating the airport. The rent that the federal government will charge by the year 2007 will have increased to $7 million from $900,000 in 1997. No wonder the airline industry is in trouble. It gives new meaning to the old adage “I am from the government and I am here to help”. With that kind of help, it is a wonder we have an airline industry left at all.

National airports are not the only ones affected by bad government decisions of this nature. When the government, as the parliamentary secretary described, set about creating the national airports program, it also set about divesting itself of all the other airports in Canada, all the smaller feeder airports and community airports. The government pushed these onto the municipalities, many of which really did not want to take them. They did not want to be operating airports. They have enough responsibilities on their own. In my hometown, the airport of Castlegar used to lose, under the operation of Transport Canada, half a million dollars a year, so the government was telling Castlegar, a small community of about 7,000 people, “You had better take over the airport, because if you do not, no one will take it over, so we guess we do not need an airport and we will just shut it down”. That is a hell of a load, frankly, to put on a small community of 7,000 people.

At the time the government asked Castlegar to take over, it said there were certain things that the city would be able to do to be cost effective and to hopefully get rid of some of this deficit, because of course adding half a million dollars a year in costs for a small community like that would be absolutely devastating. Castlegar was allowed to put on an airport improvement fee. The parliamentary secretary said the minister was very generous, that he would allow the city to continue to operate it to cover operational costs. It is a good thing, because otherwise it could not operate that airport.

There is one other thing that was done. At the time the City of Castlegar took over the operation of its airport, there was an airport fire department with a full complement of staff, vehicles, facilities and everything. They were well-trained, very conscientious people and I want to make sure that no one misunderstands that. I am not in any way suggesting that airport firefighters are not highly motivated and well-trained, conscientious people. However, in many of these airports, they are largely unnecessary. I worked directly at airports for 22 years. During that 22 years of working at airports, I have never once seen a firefighter save a life, not because they are not properly trained or motivated but because the opportunity never arose.

First, to put it graphically, the aircraft, if that is what we are dealing with, has to have the decency to have its emergency at the airport. If it happens somewhere en route and comes down somewhere off the airport, then the fact that there is a fire department at the airport is irrelevant. Second, gruesomely but accurately, there have to be survivors. If there are no survivors, then the whole exercise is for naught as well. Third, in terms of response time, it has to happen suddenly and without notice. If an aircraft has a problem and is coming in to land, the people on board want you standing by. They are not going to wait until they get to the airport to tell you this; they radio ahead and advise. So firefighters do not necessarily have to be at the airport. They can come from some distance.

The federal government said, “We know that there are a lot of costs in operating airports like Castlegar. We know that we lost a lot of money. We also know that there has to be some level of protection for public safety. That is reasonable”. It said, “You do not necessarily need to have the firefighters stationed right at the airport if you can demonstrate to us an acceptable response time for bringing in those firefighters from somewhere else”.

Castlegar and many other airports like it did exactly that and said, “Here is our plan, here is the location, here is the distance, here is the staffing we have, here is the response time. It has been all properly demonstrated. We can do this. This is our plan, presented in detail”. The federal government said, “We accept your plan. Do you now accept the airport, with this and all the other conditions that have been agreed to?” And the City of Castlegar, and many others, over 70 of them, said, “Yes, we do”.

The federal government, having had these little communities accept these airports, now has come back with Canadian aviation regulations 308, CARs 308, which now potentially would place the onus on many of these small communities that run these airports. They basically took money losers off the hands of the federal government. They came to an agreement with the federal government before they took them over in which the government said, “You don't have to keep the firefighters on. We agree with your proposal. It is safe”. Now the government is saying, “We changed our mind. Thank you for taking over the airport. Thank you for getting this loser off our hands and coming up with better, more efficient ways to operate it than we ever could. Now we are going to force you to put the firefighters back at the airport”.

For small airports such Castlegar, or even small communities in some cases, that is an overwhelming expense to visit upon a community of 7,000 people. In some case they are spread over a bit bigger population. That is absolute total irresponsibility on the part of government. Yet the minister wants us to think this is a good bill when it does not even begin to address things like that.

I would like to talk about some of the things the government is involved in that also have not been dealt with in the bill, things where the government could be saving money. It is just like the example I gave on small community airports where the government was so inefficient and ineffective in its operation that it lost a fortune. We should look at the things for which it is still responsible, that it still actually operates or an operation it has taken over and see whether is cost effective.

I am talking now about airport security in general terms. I would like to give a couple of examples that really draw to light the fact that airport security, to a certain degree, is a myth. It is nothing but a facade to make people feel safe. It is something that stops an honest person from accidentally doing something wrong, like taking along a little penknife that he forgot was in their briefcase. It stops him from doing that. It does not stop someone who intends to take some form of weapon that could be used against other people on board an aircraft.

Let me give an example of that as it applies to security at the House of Commons, post-September 11. Undoubtedly, Mr. Speaker, you have noticed the large number of RCMP officers at the foot of the road coming into the House of Commons down by the Confederation building. Half of the parking lot, which used to be there, is gone. A great big trailer is there. There is a big covered inspection station. At any given time there are as many RCMP officers and RCMP vehicles at that location as most individual detachments in my entire riding have.

What is their purpose? Their purpose is to inspect vehicles that drive on to the hill. They stop them. They check who is driving them. They check where they are going and why they are going there. They may look in the trunk. They may look under the hood. They have fancy roll out mirrors that they can roll underneath to see if anything is attached.

One time I asked an RCMP officer why they did that and what was the purpose. The officer said that it was to make sure somebody did not take something into Parliament that was not allowed, that would be dangerous and that could be used for destructive purposes. It was to prevent terrorists from smuggling explosives on to the Hill.

The RCMP officers stop these cars, open their hoods and their trunks and roll fancy little silly mirrors underneath the vehicles. Maybe they are dripping water on to the mirrors. Right beside that station people off the street, coming from wherever, dressed in whatever manner, without any security or any connection with the House of Commons whatsoever, walk on to the Hill with backpacks, with shopping bags and with big packages of things. They come on the Hill not only at the bottom by Confederation building where the vehicles are stopped but at a number of points along Wellington. They just walk on the Hill. If this is about stopping explosives and all these other things, what is the point of looking under a car's hood when there are people who we do not know walking on to the Hill carrying backpacks?

I am not suggesting that we stop and search every person who comes on the Hill. I am showing the absurdity of looking under the hood of a car to ensure there is nothing tied to a tailpipe but not worrying about people, whoever they may be, coming on to the Hill with backpacks, shopping bags and whatever other method of conveying stuff on to the Hill that they might happen to use. It is absolutely absurd.

In my entire riding there are 27 communities, 18 city councils and two regional districts. It is 27,000 square kilometres. We have 100 RCMP in my riding. We have about 100 RCMP officers on the Hill, never mind the House of Commons security people.

RCMP officers are not inside the buildings. They are out there wielding these silly little mirrors underneath the cars and watching all the other entrances, not for the people with backpacks and shopping bags but to ensure that someone does not drive through. I pointed this out to them one time and they said that if those people tried to come into a building, then their backpacks and shopping bags would be checked. Why do we not check the vehicles when they come into the building? That is absurd.

However, if we are worried about what is in the vehicle, then why would we not be worried about a vehicle coming through without anything, being checked through and then having half a dozen people with big backpacks or whatever come and put them into cars. Now they are inside the parliamentary grounds and the car has whatever has been taken in unchecked in the trunk, or back seat or wherever else. The concept is absurd. When we get to airports, we have exactly the same concept: the facade of security.

We now have plastic knives on board aircraft. We get plastic knives but we get China plates, glass glasses and steel forks. When I fly, I have a meal on board Air Canada. I am given two steel forks. Something happened some time ago now. The trays are a little crowded. I was working and then dinner came, so I put my work away and had my dinner. One of the forks must have been knocked off the tray and landed in my briefcase unbeknownst to me. When I got home and took the stuff out of my suitcase I discovered I had one of these forks. Being an honest person, I wanted to return it to Air Canada because it certainly was not my intention to steal that fork.

The next time I went to the airport, I took the fork with me. When I got to airport security I put all my metal stuff, my pen, my organizer and my cell phone, into the little basket. I also included the fork because I certainly was not trying to sneak it on board the aircraft. Security looked at it and said that I could not take it on board. I asked why not? I asked the security officers where they thought I had got it? It had an Air Canada logo right on it. I told them that I would be given two more as soon as I got on board the plane. They said that they knew that, that it was silly but those were the rules. They confiscated the fork, and I presume that Air Canada never got it back. I was stopped from taking on board a steel fork. We are paying a fortune to stop people from taking on something that the airline will give them once they get on board anyway.

While I had that fork, I looked at it because there were some striking comparisons. A lot of people may have found that when they tried to get on board the aircraft, they were stopped because they had one of those little manicure clippers, the kind that people squeeze together to clip their nails. It has a tiny slide out file. People can take the clippers on board but the files have to be broken off. I had one of those at home which had not been modified for airport security. When I looked at the fork, much to my surprise the tines on the fork were longer than the file I was required to break off if I wanted to go on board the aircraft with it.

We are not talking about John Q. Citizen. We are not talking about some accountant or a school teacher going on board to do something stupid. Conceptually at least we are talking about terrorists who would hijack the plane or do something incredibly disruptive on board. Do they need an inch and a half long nail file, especially given the training that many of them have? If they take an ordinary wooden lead pencil and hold it so the eraser part is in the palm of their hand and the rest of the pencil protrudes between their second and third fingers, that is infinitely more dangerous and more deadly than a sharpened stiletto in our hands. Yet they do nothing about that.

Let us talk about an ordinary credit card. A person can actually hone the edge of a plastic credit card to the point where it is as sharp as a knife. Speaking of knives, they make composite material knives, special hard plastics, that one could actually strap to one's leg and go through security. It will not set off any alarms because it is not metal. It will not be found in the X-ray machine because a person's leg does not go through. Yet it ends up on board in the hands of someone who is trained to use that type of thing.

That is the facade we are going through and nothing will change that. There are totally different ways of dealing with it. Many suggestions have been made, including something that is politically incorrect but nonetheless effective. Something like profiling is very open to criticism but it is effective. The Israelis have had one hijacking. They are a target, yet they have had one hijacking. That is the method they use. What we are doing is completely ineffective.

The carpet cutters that were taken on board were not snuck on board. They were taken on board because they were allowed. Now we do not allow carpet cutters but we still allow pencils and credit cards. The airlines still give out steel forks and regular glasses on board the plane. There are wine bottles, liquor bottles, all these things. Even things like a shoelace in the hands of a highly trained person is a deadly weapon. We have to be realistic about the incredible amount of money we spend and what it is supposed to do.

To put it in a more specific manner as to how we can save money in a lot of these airports, I go back to the example at Castlegar.

First, let me talk about the major airports. The major airports now have what the government calls enhanced security. More people have been hired and given training. Bigger and better X-ray machines are being put in and there is talk about putting in CAT scans. There are explosives sniffers and all kinds of things. Supposedly this is pretty effective.

Then we go to small communities like in my area: Cranbrook, Castlegar, Penticton. We do not even have basic X-ray machines. We have some very conscientious people who check hand luggage and make passengers walk through metal detectors. For all their training, it is incredibly easy to conceal things for those who would do that type of thing. Obviously it is easier to get something through there than it is when one gets to a big airport and it is run through a CAT scan.

However once people go through that and they get on board the plane, that plane flies around all that fancy enhanced security and deposits them on the secure side of the airport. All the money being spent to put this stuff into the major airports is for naught because we let people get on at the least secure airport and fly them around them.

How can the government save money? Places like Castlegar, Cranbrook and Penticton have Dash 8 service. Anyone can charter a Dash 8. It is not a big deal. They do not even use the terminal. They get on the plane and fly to whatever place that plane has been chartered. Why would people worry about getting on board a Dash 8 to hijack it? They can lease the plane and take it wherever they want?

I suggest the government look at doing away with airport security in the small airports that only have small turbo prop service. It should let people get on board in those places and not worry about checking. When passengers fly into places like Vancouver or Calgary or other places, the passengers should simply be unloaded into the general part of the airport so they do not go into the secure side. If they are only flying from Castlegar to Vancouver on a business trip, they are on their way, no hassle and no cost. If they are connecting to other places or flying overseas, they should go through this enhanced security. There is some logic at least to that.

It is still essentially ineffective for someone who is determined enough but at least there is some rationale behind that and at least we have eliminated the cost of security in a lot of airports where there really is no justification for it. The old adage for this one is “a chain is as strong as its weakest link”. It is a phenomenal waste of taxpayer money to put a CAT scan in Vancouver and one in Castlegar then fly them around the CAT scan in Vancouver having gone through in Castlegar.

Clause 116 would require every airport authority to display the Canadian flag in the terminal and in any other place to which the public has access. I like to see the Canadian flag as much as anyone. The people are arriving in Canada. The minister has suggested that these would be at airports that have international travel. I would suggest that it is probably already there. However if the government wants to formalize it I think it is going way over the top in terms of the bill. Beyond that, it would require that signs be erected in prominent locations around the airport and in every terminal building proclaiming that the airport is owned by the Government of Canada.

The only possible reason for doing that would be to fool travellers into believing that the new terminal, built with airport improvement fees, was somehow provided by the government. It is a deception at best and a fraudulent misrepresentation at worst.

Let us say that we own a business. We rent a building and make all kinds of development improvements to the building because we have an expansive operation. Why on earth would we put up signs proclaiming that the building and all the wonderful things belong to somebody else? It does not happen.

Why should these airport authorities put up prominent advertising saying that the building they are leasing happens to belong to the Government of Canada, especially in buildings such as the new terminal building that will be opened next spring in Ottawa which does not have 5¢ of federal money? Yes, it belongs to the federal government, and what a sweetheart deal that is, but not 5¢ was put in. In fact, a huge amount of money was extracted from the very people who paid to put that building up.

Clause 57 would limit an airport authority's ability to invest in another corporation, limiting it to 2% of gross revenues per year. This effectively would kill off Vancouver airport's very profitable YVR airport services by severely restricting its ability to finance projects in places such as Chile, Jamaica and Hamilton. The profits from these projects come back to be utilized by this non-profit authority and reduce the overall costs of airport operations.

The airport authority is made up of business people and the government is the last entity in the country that should be giving the private sector rules and advice on how to make a profit.

Going back to the example of Edmonton, here is an airport like all the rest on which the federal government lost money. The Winnipeg airport authority has made a tremendous number of improvements to its airport at no cost to the government. Its reward was, first of all, being hit with $900,000 a year in rent, and, if that is not bad enough, since 1997 its rent has been increased many times and will be $7 million in 2007.

Another thing that is significantly absent in the bill are rules regarding airport improvement fee money collected by the airlines on behalf of airports. This is curious given that the government has already recognized the need to protect its own money in the name of the air traveller's security charge currently being collected by airlines. The airlines are required to hold that money in trust separate from general revenues.

All funds collected by the airlines on behalf of others should be held in trust. It should not become part of the individual airline's revenue and then some other charge come out at some other point. If it is collected by the airline on behalf of someone else then it should be held separate.

As of April 4 Air Canada, which is, as we know, in a lot of trouble these days, owes Canada's largest airports many millions of dollars for airport improvement fees collected. That money is now tied up in Air Canada's bankruptcy protection hearings.

When we talk about small airports, as I have with my home airport of Castlegar, it does not take a lot of funds that were budgeted for and counted on by that community to run into serious trouble if they suddenly find that they are not getting paid those fees.

I would like to talk in general terms about the fact that the bill has too many errors and omissions for the aviation public to deal with. There are always a few things in a bill that someone will not like or a few things that should be in it but are not. That is what makes up Bill C-27. A vast majority of the things in the bill should not be in it or should at least be better modified. If the government were truly responsible a lot of things would be in the bill but unfortunately they are not. Committees should be tasked with fine-tuning bills, not doing major overhauls.

I want to touch on a few things the parliamentary secretary to the minister said. He said that the government was building on the 1994 airport program it introduced and that this was new international airport policy that was building on this and doing things well. One would think that when it takes nine years to put something together it would be put together a lot better than the government has done with this. There are so many problems in the legislation that it is absolutely absurd.

The parliamentary secretary spoke about monitoring and promoting good corporate policy and yet the government does not have any concept of good corporate policy. Everything it does is either touched with corruption, like the former minister of public works and government services, or it is corrupted with absolute financial irresponsibility, like the former minister of justice who came before Parliament with a bill that he said would cost $2 million and now has cost $1 billion. While all of this was going on, the government knew of the horrendous cost overruns and it covered them up. This is the organization that will monitor and promote good corporate policy for the private sector, not for profit airport authorities. That is pretty absurd.

The parliamentary secretary also talked about better transparency and public reporting. Why does the government not start over there on that side? It is curious to hear the government saying that it has to watch this organization to make sure it is held accountable, that it is absolutely transparent in its operations and that it holds public meetings to allow the public see exactly what is happening. Where was this idea when the government ran up a bill of $1 billion with Bill C-68, the Firearms Registration Act, which was supposed to cost $2 million? Why does the government not start with those kinds of policies and then maybe we can consider that it has some credibility to start talking about accountability from others?

Let me talk about the charging principles for airport improvement. The government wants to have mandatory consultations with the users and a lot of control to make sure nobody is overcharged. I again remind members of the example of the Winnipeg airport where $900,000, almost $1 million a year to start, from something that it used to lose money on, accelerating to $7 million a year by the year 2007, while that airport authority continues to build up that airport and make it better than it was when it took it over from Transport Canada.

The public bid solicitation is also something in the bill.

I see I am almost out of time so I will conclude by saying that I am concerned that none of the recommendations from committee dealing with security fees, airport rents and reduction of aviation fuel taxes have been addressed by the government. I therefore would move that the motion be amended by replacing all the words after the word “that” with “this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-27, an act to amend the Criminal Code and other acts, since the bill fails to address the recommendations in the first report of the Standing Committee on Transport, air travel security charge, tabled on December 12, 2002”.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-27, the Canada airports act, introduced in the House on March 20. It is part of the vision for our transportation system policy framework embodied in “Straight Ahead - A Vision for Transportation in Canada” that was released in February by the Minister of Transport.

The Canada airports act would be part of moving this vision forward and would guide the continued development of a sustainable airport system. This is a piece of legislation that has been developed for the longer term. Its purpose is not to address the short term challenges facing the entire air industry sector at this time.

These more immediate concerns have the full attention of the government. Let me assure the House that the government is actively monitoring the current situation in the airline industry. As we all know, the air industry is facing challenges, such as the SARS health issue, the war in Iraq, and fluctuating fuel costs.

The government remains fully committed in reviewing its policy on rents collected at the airports that it leases. The minister hopes to be able to announce shortly the direction the government intends to take on this matter.

The Canada airports act would provide a legislated economic policy framework for the only part of our transportation infrastructure that is lacking one, namely airports. Canada's transportation policy has evolved over the years in response to changing times and conditions. Today, we need to modernize and reform Canada's airports policy by enshrining some key obligations and governance principles in legislation. In doing so, we are contributing to the governance agenda as set out in the most recent Speech from the Throne.

The act responds in a positive manner to the recommendations in the government mandated local airport authority review report of 1999 and the Auditor General's report of October 2000. It conveys the governance response to the recommendations on airport governance in the Canada Transportation Act review panel report and in the final report of the independent observer on airline restructuring.

It reflects comprehensive consultations with the affected airport operators, air carriers and provincial and territorial governments.

The Canada airports act is intended to build on the successes of the 1994 airport commercialization policy, while addressing new and emerging issues that have arisen, with 10 years experience since that policy was announced.

The bill contains a new declaration for a national airports policy that replaces the 1994 policy which was primarily divestiture oriented. This declaration is very much in line with the new transportation policy statement set out in Bill C-26, the transportation amendment act, introduced in the House on February 25.

The declaration recognizes that it is in the public interest to have a national system of airports that is operated in a manner that is safe, secure, efficient, economically sustainable, transparent and environmentally responsible. The new policy also articulates the requirement to provide facilities and services to air carriers in an effective, pro-competitive manner and to provide opportunities for air carriers and passengers to express their views on key airport development issues and fees.

The policy recognizes local and regional interests through the activities and governance structures of airport authorities, as well as the role airports play in linking the air transportation system to other modes of transportation and linking the communities they serve to the rest of the world.

The new national airports policy declaration will guide airports in how they must implement the requirements of the act.

Upon passage, the Canada airports act will apply to 29 airports that account for 95% of the traffic of all scheduled passenger and cargo traffic in Canada. This includes the 26 airports identified in 1994 as comprising the national airports system and other airports of national significance due to their strategic geographic location, continued federal residual ownership or because they serve more than 200,000 passengers annually.

The bill contains the key elements that constitute an economic policy framework to strengthen the governance, transparency and accountability of these airports.

I will say a few words on each of these.

Let me start with the government's role and powers. The government's key role is to protect the public interest as it relates to airports, namely, monitoring the airport system and making policies to promote the integrity and long term sustainability, protecting federal property and promoting good corporate governance.

The Government of Canada will be granted the power to give directions and create regulations, for example, in the provision of equitable access for air carriers to airport facilities such as gates, bridges and counters, slot coordination, federal visibility and environmental requirements. The Government of Canada will also be given emergency powers to remedy extraordinary disruptions similar to what is provided in the Canada Transportation Act.

As for the roles and obligations of all affected airport operators, there will be a requirement for them to provide information to the Minister of Transport in support of carrying out his role of overseer, policy-maker, landlord and regulator.

Operators will also have to develop a pro-competitive, equitable access policy for airlines wanting to use essential airport facilities and services, and to post information on fees.

Airports will also have to give access to state and military aircraft, and airports with international traffic will have to ensure visibility of symbols of Canada.

All will have to help Canada meet its international obligations including trade commitments, for example, obligations under bilateral agreements with other countries.

Turning to disclosure and accountability, the focus of the act is on higher transparency through public reporting. There is a more limited application to the airports in the territorial capitals and airports not operated by authorities. However all affected airport operators will have to produce annual reports with audited financial statements and hold annual meetings that are open to the public.

In the case of airport authorities, the requirements are spelled out in greater detail and include those respecting financial information on investments in subsidiary and minority interest corporations. They include the requirement for an independent, comprehensive performance review to be conducted every five years from the date of transfer. To increase transparency, authorities will have to have all their key documents available for public review including their leases and performance review reports.

Perhaps one of the most important subjects covered in Bill C-27 relates to airport fees. Although notice requirements are covered in our leases, this bill would establish a more formal fee setting process respecting aeronautical fees and passenger fees of general application.

The bill sets out the charging principles and requires that a methodology for determining fees be developed that will make it clearer how they meet financial needs. It establishes a procedure for notices of fee adjustments and obligatory consultations with concerned parties.

The bill makes provision for appeals to the Canadian Transportation Agency in cases of alleged non-compliance with these procedures or with charging principles.

The proposed bill includes rules on the use of airport improvement fees, AIFs, collected from passengers. AIFs can only be charged in support of capital projects and those projects must be identified. Smaller airports, with traffic of less than 400,000 passengers, are permitted to use passenger fees to cover operating costs and they must also be disclosed.

I would like to explain some of the elements specific only to airport authorities, those related to their corporate structure and governance regime.

Unlike the port authorities that were continued under the Canada Marine Act of 1997, airports were divested without the benefit of a specific legislative framework. All but three airport authorities were incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, part II, as for not for profit entities.

We have now determined that it is more appropriate for the airport authorities operating leased airports of national significance to be incorporated under their own legislation. Consequently, all the airport authorities will be continued under the act. This means that instead of 21 different statements of purpose, the airport authorities will have a single, simplified statement that applies equally to all of them. Initially this will affect 18 airport authorities. This will be accomplished without any requirements other than to amend their bylaws to comply with the act.

The rights of the airport authorities will be preserved and they will continue as not for profit entities without share capital that are not agents of the Crown. The airport authorities will have the power to engage in activities defined as essential and complimentary activities of the airport and to create subsidiaries within investment limits.

Bill C-27 would also establish the framework for a more uniform corporate governance regime for authorities that updates and strengthens what we have now.

Nothing can replace a solid regime of governance and transparency for airports of national significance that provide an essential public service. The regime will be based on elements such as the structure of boards of directors, the necessary skills, the rules of eligibility for directors and rules regarding conflicts of interest.

All airport authorities will be subject to the same requirements regarding the make-up of boards of directors, with the possibility of choosing directors based on local factors in the region where the airport is located.

The bill spells out the types of organizations that can become selecting bodies that appoint or nominate directors as well as the processes for nominations and appointments of directors. These bodies include the federal government, the provinces, the regional authorities and municipalities and five categories of non-governmental entities, including the Air Carrier Industry Association. This uniform yet flexible regime is designed to ensure that no single entity controls the board and that persons with all the necessary skills are identified.

The proposed bill sets out in detail the duties of the boards of directors and will require them to have a governance committee and an audit committee. In addition, there are rules on auditor selection and rotation, on public bid solicitation and mandated consultation with air carriers and the community. As well the airport authority obligations respecting compliance with the Official Languages Act have been transferred without change.

We believe that with this bill we have struck a balance between the freedoms that airport authorities have and the need for increased accountability. We also believe that we have struck a balance between the wish of air carriers to have their say in the decisions of the authorities, and the independence of said authorities.

There are pro-competitive provisions to assist the airlines and the airports in their decisions on access to essential airport facilities such as slots, gates, bridges and the like. We believe these are measures that will contribute to ensuring the viability of air carriers. How communities can relate to their airports is made much clearer.

Many of these obligations are already in some form in our leases with the authorities, but we have done more. We have offered to provide advice on how to be compliant with the act to any airport that asks. Members should know that some airport authorities have already begun to put in place transitional measures to bring themselves into compliance more quickly.

The bill is a significant piece of legislation which I know has been anticipated by members. The Minister of Transport looks forward to the debate on its contents and to discussing it in detail in standing committees.

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, for the Minister of Transport]

moved that Bill C-27, an act respecting airport authorities and other airport operators and amending other acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-27, an act respecting airport authorities and other airport operators and amending other acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Solicitation Laws

[Sophia Leung, Liberal, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address private member's Motion No. 192 proposing the establishment of a special committee of the House to review the solicitation laws. The committee's overall goal would be to improve the safety of sex trade workers and the community and to recommend changes that would reduce the exploitation of and violence against sex trade workers.

I congratulate the hon. member for Vancouver East for moving this motion. Through this initiative, I want to address public concerns around prostitution related activities and the concerns in the community.

Over the years, in partnership with provincial and territorial governments, the federal government has undertaken various initiatives to address the issues linked to prostitution, the safety of sex trade workers and the reduction of harm to communities. Today in supporting this motion, I will support some of those initiatives and support the establishment of a committee of the House which could help in addressing prostitution related issues.

In 1997 the government passed Bill C-27 which amended the Criminal Code to create the new offence of aggravated procuring. The intent of the amendment was to facilitate the use of police decoys so that authorities could apprehend the clients of prostitutes under the age of 18. This amendment also made available special protections to young persons who testified against their exploiters, for example, through the use of a screen, closed-circuit television or videotaped evidence.

The Department of Justice has also supported a number of initiatives related to crime prevention and community based projects, particularly through phase two of the national strategy on community safety and crime prevention. This entailed a $32 million commitment each year to a program for safer communities.

For example, one initiative was the production of Stolen Lives: Children in the Sex Trade . This video documents the difficult lives of young sex trade workers in Vancouver and Calgary. Another example is the department's funding of close to half a million dollars to Victoria's Capital Region Action Team to address problems linked to youth prostitution in that area.

More recently in October 2002, Canada acceded to the optional protocol to the United Nations convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, or CEDAW. Canada has supported this UN convention since it was ratified in 1981.

In November 2000, along with the British Columbia child welfare services, Justice Canada co-hosted a national meeting of justice and child welfare officials. Action which has resulted from this meeting includes the establishment of a network of justice and child welfare officials to allow for the prompt sharing of information on all issues related to children and youth involved in prostitution.

The Department of Justice will continue to build on past achievements and to work with all its partners, including provincial, territorial and municipal government departments and agencies involved in justice related issues, social services and child welfare issues.

I therefore support this motion to establish a special committee of the House to review solicitation laws. We must find innovative ways to address the issues and deal with the problems. To do that we need discussion, brainstorming, strategizing and solutions. Our hope for achieving those things lies in establishing a committee of the House where representatives of people of every region of Canada could gather to serve the best interests of their constituents and communities.

In closing, let us work together with the hon. member for Vancouver East. I will support her initiative.

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to rise to speak on Motion No. 192. The motion proposes the creation of a special committee of the House “to review the solicitation laws”, that is, the criminal law regarding prostitution-related activities,“in order to improve the safety of sex-trade workers and communities overall, and to recommend changes that will reduce exploitation of and violence” done to sex trade workers.

First, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East for having introduced the motion so that we can have this debate on what is clearly a very important issue. It is no secret that public concerns in the area of prostitution-related activities are growing with respect to the safety of the prostitutes and the harm caused to communities. It should also be noted that careful consideration of prostitution-related criminal law issues is important and is consistent with the government's commitment to vulnerable people, children included, and their protection.

I want to stress that the intent of the motion is admirable in that it tries to find a way to help a group of vulnerable persons and communities in our society that have consistently been marginalized, as the previous speaker indicated. However, I cannot emphasize enough that prostitution is a complex and multi-faceted problem. It must be addressed on many fronts, including legislative reform, community support, social interventions and other related issues.

In addition, the various impacts of prostitution on sex trade workers and on communities must be addressed in collaboration with a wide variety of partners, including other federal departments and agencies, provincial and territorial governments, particularly their departments responsible for dealing with justice-related issues and those responsible for social services and child welfare issues, and last but not least, municipal governments across the country.

Having said that, I wonder whether a special committee would be the best vehicle to elicit the collaboration of all these partners that must be involved in any attempt to address these issues. Clearly the cooperation of all these partners would be necessary to properly and usefully address all facets of prostitution-related issues.

I would like to take a few moments to give a somewhat brief and general outline of some of the government's past accomplishments and its ongoing work on this issue.

The Department of Justice has already undertaken various initiatives to address the issues linked to street prostitution, including the safety of sex trade workers and the reduction of harm to communities. For example, past legislative reform has included Bill C-27, in 1997, which amended the Criminal Code to create a new offence of aggravated procuring, to facilitate the use of police decoys for the apprehension of customers of prostitutes under the age of 18 and to make available special protections to young persons testifying against their exploiters, that is, such things as a screen, closed circuit television or videotaped evidence.

Another example of legislative reform is Bill C-51, in 1999, which amended the Criminal Code to extend the list of offences for which an authorization to intercept a private communication can be granted to include prostitution-related offences. This allows law enforcement to use electronic surveillance to investigate organized and telephone prostitution rings.

In relation to crime prevention and community-based projects, the Department of Justice has supported a number of initiatives, particularly throughout phase two of the national strategy on community safety and crime prevention, a $32 million per year program for safer communities. One initiative, for example, was the production of the “Stolen Lives” video, which documents the difficult lives of young sex trade workers in Vancouver and Calgary. Another example is the Department of Justice funding of some $489,000 to Victoria's Capital Region Action Team to address problems linked with youth prostitution in the Victoria area.

In the international arena, Canada has been involved in addressing the trafficking of women and children. For example, we have actively participated in the negotiation of the optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child relating to the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in May 2000. Canada signed the optional protocol in November 2001.

As an example of working with our partners on this important issue, a federal-provincial-territorial working group on prostitution was established in 1992 by the federal-provincial-territorial deputy ministers of justice and reviewed legislation policy and practices concerning prostitution. It was co-chaired by the federal Department of Justice. Its final report was released in December 1998. It made recommendations on both legislation at the federal and provincial levels and on possible partnerships between government agencies. It underscored particularly the need for enhanced collaboration between justice and the child welfare systems.

As another concrete example of our partnerships in action, the federal Department of Justice co-hosted with the British Columbia child welfare services a national meeting of justice and child welfare officials in November 2000. Follow-up action to this national meeting has included the establishment of a network of justice and child welfare officials to allow for the prompt sharing of information on all issues related to children and youth involved in prostitution.

Additional follow-up action is overseen by the federal-provincial-territorial deputy ministers responsible for social services. Also, work is still being done, particularly to study issues and impacts relating to the possibility of decriminalizing street prostitution.

The Department of Justice will continue to build on past achievements and to work with its partners, including provincial, territorial and municipal governments and departments and agencies involved in justice related issues and in social services and child welfare issues.

Needless to say, this is a very complex matter and for all these reasons I support the intent of the motion in principle. However at this time I do not believe that a special committee of the House is the effective way for the development of recommendations and proposed changes to reduce the exploitation and violence done to sex trade workers.

Nuclear Safety and Control Act

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me first commend the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis on the wisdom of his comments today on Bill C-4, to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

I have had the pleasure and the honour of speaking on this bill for a total of 90 minutes. I have a little more to say. In light of the evidence presented by the government, there is a need to put more energy—not nuclear energy but something more common sense in nature—into this issue, and ask the government not to move any further into privatization by basically promoting private investment in the nuclear industry.

The fact that major financiers were not investing in the nuclear industry because they were indirectly liable for such a project shows that they knew it was risky. It is well known that financiers do not put their money into ventures that pose huge risks, the scope of which they do not know.

No one here can know the full impact of radioactive waste. During the previous session, we reviewed Bill C-27 on the management of nuclear fuel waste. We are well aware, because we examined the issue, that many countries have still not found the solution. I mentioned this yesterday in my speech. Some radioactive elements are present for periods as short as 550 years. That may seem very short in the history of a people or of humanity. However, other radioactive products remain present for 14 billion years, which is a much longer period.

As regards nuclear energy, we must question this form of energy, which is seen as a contributor to greenhouse gases. There is an inherent danger to the use of nuclear energy in terms of the world's safety, whether it is in the production of that energy, in the burial of radioactive waste, or even in the possibility that someone could get these products to make nuclear bombs.

I firmly believe that a debate should take place on whether or not to continue to develop nuclear energy. There are some rather striking examples. Take Germany, where 30% of the electrical energy was dependent on the nuclear sector. Germany is now announcing that it is dropping nuclear energy and that by the year 2050, it will have eliminated around 80% of its greenhouse gases. That country is ending the development of nuclear energy and, at the same time, it is able to commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by over 80% by the year 2050.

As we can see, these two objectives are not incompatible. This is what I am urging the government to do. It must go forward and begin a process to drop nuclear energy and its proliferation. This proliferation is being promoted by the bill, which tells major financiers “There is money to make in the short term in the nuclear energy sector, with no long term responsibilities anymore”.

We know full well that large multinationals, whose only objective is to make money, can easily invest in the nuclear energy sector. Should a catastrophic environmental disaster occur, they will just withdraw and their responsibility will be limited. They will not go any further. They will have made their money when it was easy. When there are responsibilities to be assumed, who will assume them? Who will have to clean up all these contaminated sites? Again, indirectly, it will be the public, because this situation will always occur.

In environmental matters, the government is always the one responsible for decontaminating, for reassuring the public and for ensuring that we have a healthy environment to live in. This is why it becomes more and more necessary not to involve the private sector in such important areas but to withdraw it from those sectors because it is not capable of assuming long-term responsibilities.

I think it is pretty clear that the government is not up to speed, particularly where alternate or renewable energy sources are concerned. It cannot therefore really want to invest in them.

Moreover, we are told that governments have invested over $15 billion in the nuclear sector. With opportunity costing, this represents indirectly over $161 billion invested in nuclear power.

Let us try to imagine the investments that could have been made in opportunity costs on renewable energies. There is nothing complicated about it: nuclear waste is with us just about forever, and is a risk to the entire population of the planet and the planet itself. There are, however, other important elements that are also equally eternal: the sun, the air, the water, the land. These are all elements with which we must work to obtain constantly renewable energy.

The Bloc Quebecois has raised this, has made predictions about the potential employment benefits of the wind energy industry. But to no avail, because the government wants to invest in nuclear energy.

This government has a fundamental problem when it comes to wind energy. There is, of course, always the exception that confirms the rule, and I again thank the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis for his speech. The government is still at the stage of wondering whether the windmills are turned by the wind, or create the wind. So if that is the stage they are at, there are a lot of serious questions to be asked.

I am therefore urging the House to put this bill on hold so that the public can have its say as to whether it wants nuclear energy or not. According to the latest surveys, the people of Canada and of Quebec are saying no to nuclear energy.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity on two occasions to speak to the bill formerly known as Bill C-57, which is now Bill C-4. This means that I was able to speak to this bill for more than 80 minutes. Now we must discuss the amendment put forward by my colleague from Jonquière to hoist this bill.

The last time I spoke to Bill C-4, I could not even finish because there were too many arguments in favour of its withdrawal and particularly in favour of a broad debate on the nuclear industry.

Today we have only ten minutes to speak to the amendment, and I must tell the House that this whole debate about the privatization of the nuclear industry could be postponed to a certain extent. We know that the purpose of this amendment proposed by the government is essentially to eliminate barriers to the privatization of the nuclear industry.

We have never had real debates on whether we should continue to invest in the nuclear industry and continue to try to fix, at an extravagant cost, nuclear generating stations that are in bad shape.

Privatization makes it easier to re-open nuclear plants that were quite rightly shut down. It also opens the door to the costly development of nuclear energy in Canada. I will digress for a minute. Atomic Energy Canada is for all intents and purposes a government entity. We can already see the emerging conflict of interest.

Obviously, we must look at reducing nuclear waste. Last year, we debated Bill C-27, regarding the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste. We have compelling evidence that this waste may last for years, even thousands of years, and we do not know how to dispose of it properly. We do not know how to lessen the potential impact on the environment and human health.

Continued reliance on nuclear energy increases even further the risks of environmental accidents, not only those linked to nuclear waste, but also all sorts of other accidents that might occur. Cases in point are Three Miles Island, Chernobyl and others. We also have national and international security concerns due to potential terrorist acts as well as the use of nuclear reactors to make nuclear bombs.

Since 1997, when the Nuclear Safety and Control Act was drafted, section 46.3 of the act in some ways limited the possibility for businesses or financiers to invest in nuclear energy. People say it was a drafting mistake. However, neither during the debate nor in committee was that ever mentioned. It can be easily said—not claimed, but said—that at the time the government was trying to prevent the private sector from investing in a major way, to promote nuclear energy. At that time, there was no debate either on whether or not we should continue to invest in nuclear energy, much less about private investment.

In the world we live in in 2002, we realize that an increasing number of countries are getting out of nuclear energy. The majority of countries in western Europe that use nuclear energy, except for France, have decided to stop doing so mainly because of the lack of solutions for disposing of spent fuel containing 1% of plutonium; this is true too of states relying heavily on nuclear energy such as Belgium where the percentage is 50% and Germany where it is 30%.

Promoters of nuclear energy often say that this form of energy is the solution to the greenhouse gas issue. We know that 30 per cent of Germany's energy used to come from the nuclear industry. Today, by terminating its nuclear program and its investments in the nuclear sector, Germany will have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. This is a high figure, considering that Germany will have been able to do this even without 30 per cent of the energy it used to get from the nuclear sector.

It is totally false to say that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is closely linked to the use of nuclear energy. As I have already said, nuclear energy brings its own long-term and very long-term problems. I will give a few examples.

Carbon 14 is a radioelement which can remain radioactive for as long as 5,500 years. Mr. Speaker, you will no longer be there to verify that carbon 14 is no longer radioactive. I can even tell you that you will no longer be there to see those thorium 232 elements which can remain radioactive for 14 billion years.

In 1997, no attention was given to whether or not to continue with nuclear energy. Now there is, but obviously they had refused to allow the private sector to invest in nuclear energy. Today, people are increasingly withdrawing from this sector. There were some pressures at that time, mainly from members of the public who refused to allow the transportation of plutonium, of MOX, through their communities. In addition, in Canada, the Seaborn report also pointed out the vigorous opposition of the general population to the burial of radioactive waste. If the population is opposed to the burial of nuclear waste, we should not support the passage of legislation promoting the financing and development of nuclear plants in Canada. These plants would produce even more nuclear waste, which could be expected to generate even more opposition among the public.

In light of what is happening today in all European countries, Canada should finally take a stand, once and for all, on the development of nuclear energy. We have learned recently that even the Swiss, much of whose electricity needs are met by nuclear plants, are going to make a decision on their nuclear program. Right now, Switzerland is the third most nuclear energy dependent country in the world, after Lithuania and France, with 40% of its electricity coming from nuclear plants. The Swiss will soon have a referendum to decide whether to maintain the existing moratorium or phase out nuclear energy by gradually closing down their five nuclear plants by 2014.

Today, we have before us a motion that this bill be postponed indefinitely, and that emphasis be placed on priority action. We should hold a comprehensive debate and consult the general public and organizations promoting renewable energies.

We realize more and more that renewable energies are here to stay. This industry creates thousands of jobs. For the same amount of energy production, it creates many more jobs than the nuclear industry. Wind energy can create many more jobs.

Renewable energies tap resources that are almost indefinitely renewable, like the sun, wind, water and the biomass, as well as energy sources from the depths of the earth.

To conclude, I urge the government to withdraw this bill and to hold a comprehensive debate on the future of nuclear energy in Canada and on the investment we must make in renewable energies.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I make any comment or answer my colleague's question I want to congratulate him on becoming a grand-père. Hopefully the rest of us will get there at some stage in the process. One of the great privileges of standing in the House is that we do represent ourselves, our children and our children's children. The things we debate and discuss and the bills we pass should reflect that.

I would like my colleague to know that I am not forgetting Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or the dangers that are inherent in the nuclear sector. I am also not ignoring the very real fact that nuclear energy will continue to be part of our electricity supply in North America and indeed the world. In order to react to that fact we need to have, especially in Canada, legislation that reflects that.

There is another part of the legislation that is as problematic as how the legislation and the current clause 46(3) affect the lending institutions and the nuclear reactors. It also affects our research and development, our laboratories and our hospitals. Certainly no financial institution should be held responsible for nuclear waste or nuclear cleanup, if it is required, that it did not cause. I think that is the reason we would support the bill. However we also support open, full and complete debate on the legislation and intend to ensure that it is debated.

I appreciate my colleague's comments and the comments of the member for Sherbrooke who debated Bill C-27, the nuclear waste disposal act. We had unanimity among the opposition parties that it was a poorly crafted, poorly worded, typical, I might add, piece of Liberal legislation. Everyone in the House was against that legislation.

I separate this particular bill out differently. I think it affects the industry differently, and I certainly encourage and support debate on it, but at the end of the day we will support this particular clause.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to rise on the debate of Bill C-4 today. I listened fairly closely to the hon. member for Sherbrooke. He raised a number of very important issues about furthering this debate and making it broader. I encourage the hon. member to continue with that thought process because there is much more to be debated.

I agreed with the member on a number of issues, but quite frankly my Progressive Conservative colleagues and I disagree with him on a number of other issues. It was quite telling when he spoke about the future of nuclear energy. Although we are in agreement with how the government has ignored its responsibility to deal adequately with nuclear waste, certainly the future of nuclear energy will meet part of our energy commitments.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke quite rightly used Europe as an example. Although much of Europe is downsizing its nuclear sector, Germany has absolutely no compulsion about continuing to buy nuclear energy from France. With the German arrangement for getting rid of its reactors credits can be transferred between German reactors. Therefore Germany will continue to be a nuclear operator well into 2025 and 2030. In and of itself that does not set the case for nuclear energy, but it is part of the argument as it unfolds that should be laid out for people to discuss.

With the background of the bill there is a real sense of déjà vu, for my French colleagues. It seems to me that not long ago we were here debating this very bill. We had been lobbied by the banking institutions and the nuclear sector. At that time there was a great amount of urgency about this piece of legislation. It had to be passed within a certain timeframe.

There are a number of bills and I will mention just one of them: the Kimberley process for grading and marketing diamonds. That is another bill that has a great amount of urgency. We have to get it passed by December 31, 2002, because we have already signed a charter at the United Nations.

These two pieces of legislation are urgent. Both of them have a fair amount of importance. We need to get them passed. Yet the government prorogued the House. It said in the middle of September that the legislation was not important, that we did not have to come back here, that the nation's business could wait. It simply got rid of the legislation, the committees and the members who sit on the committees and said that it would set them all up again.

In the government's infinite wisdom I am sure there must have been a reason for that, but I do not know what it was. I am waiting to be enlightened. I expect that some time over the course of the next couple of weeks the government will enlighten us on the reason it prorogued the House. We had already debated this legislation in the House. It had already gone through committee. Why did it take this legislation and say “Forget it. It is not required. We do not have to worry about it. We will just start all over again”?

By the way, it now wants us to take the Kimberley process and fast track it. We are to forget about having a debate on it because it is not required. The government has a deadline so it will fast track it. If it cannot fast track it, it will just use its majority to force closure and get it passed. That is not democracy. Even the Liberals in their limited knowledge of how democracy works would understand that this is not democracy in any way, shape or form.

To speak directly to the bill, the government passed the Nuclear Safety and Control Act in 1997 but apparently, like all the rest of the legislation it has passed, it forgot to read the bill. Specifically it did not read the fine print.

We have subsection 46(3) of the act that was passed in 1997 by the government which has become problematic. When nuclear corporations asked for debt financing from the banks and the debt servicing people of the country they found that the banks did not want to provide it. When we read subsection 46(3) it is quite clear why they did not want to provide it. Subsection 46(3) reads:

(3) Where, after conducting a hearing, the Commission is satisfied that there is contamination referred to in subsection (1), the Commission may, in addition to filing a notice under subsection (2), order that the owner or occupant of, or 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.

Back in 1997 I do not think it was the intent of the government to put the responsibility for nuclear contamination cleanup on the backs of the financial institutions that would be supporting the said nuclear reactor or site. Certainly that is the way the banks looked at it. Under the old section of the act they had a liability that there was no reason they should assume.

I look at the debate about nuclear energy as a separate debate about the wording of this particularly sloppy piece of typical Liberal legislation. It is absolutely no surprise to me that we have to go back to fix legislation as we have done many times with many other pieces of legislation in the House that the Liberals had passed by forcing the issue, by preventing debate and by using their huge majority.

Today in Canada the CNSC licenses over 3,500 operations. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is responsible for 3,500 operations in Canada. We are not just talking about nuclear reactors. There is a handful of nuclear reactors in the country but there are 3,500 nuclear operations. These operations use nuclear energy or materials. They include uranium refineries, nuclear power plants, hundreds of laboratories and most hospitals.

If we look at section 46 of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act as it is currently written, we realize that the liability for contamination at any site extends not just to the owners, occupants and managers of that site but to lenders such as banks and other financial organizations.

When we read that, and if even we are against the principle of nuclear energy, we must realize this piece of legislation affects a lot more operations than just nuclear power plants.

I do not think many members of the House want to start shutting down our laboratories and our hospitals because of a mistake in a piece of legislation that was forced through the House in 1997 by another majority Liberal government.

If we look at the substance of the bill to amend section 46 of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the amendment changes the wording of section 46 to eliminate the liability of lending institutions for remedial measures in instances of nuclear contamination. There is still a liability for the operators, managers and owners, as there absolutely should be, but even in my wildest dreams I do not see an argument for liability on behalf of lending institutions.

I am not trying to say that somehow we should allow the big banks to run the country or not be applicable to the laws that govern the country, but in this case there is clearly no reason that it should apply to the financial institutions. Liability for any possible radioactive contamination would only apply to the owners, occupants and managers of the site that may be contaminated.

Under proposed section 46(3) that measure can be interpreted to extend beyond liability for nuclear site remediation as it is worded now. It should apply only to an owner, operator and manager of the site, not to the financial institution.

Hopefully it is not the job of government to stifle the nuclear sector or to prevent it from being a supplier of clean energy, which it is. We had unanimous consent in the House against Bill C-27 that was to deal with nuclear waste with which the government dealt in a very sloppy, ineffective, unorganized, unprincipled and totally arbitrary manner. All opposition parties in the House voted against Bill C-27.

To this very day the government has not dealt with the long term storage problems inherent in the nuclear energy sector. However, that does not mean we should not approve a small change in legislation that would allow nuclear operators, laboratories, hospitals and research facilities to access debt financing.

There are all kinds of reasons that I would tend to debate this issue. Did the government take its responsibility to the people of Canada seriously when it reintroduced the bill after it prorogued the House and threw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater? I do not think the government took its responsibility seriously at all.

We could have been back here in the middle of September and we could have been moving on a lot of legislation, not the least of which is the Kimberley Process. Now we are hearing at the natural resources committee that somehow we may not have time to deal with the Kimberley process because it is October 10 and we need to have this done by December 31. We have known about it for some time but we have not dealt with it, so we will just shut down the diamond industry if we do not get it ready.

Canadian mines are producing 6% of the world's gemstones. With the Ekati mine coming on line we are expected to produce 12% of the world's gemstones. It is a huge market, a wonderful industry, a great opportunity for northern Canada, and we have a helmsman who is asleep at the wheel. His first mate jumped ship and the rest of the sailors are ready to mutiny at any minute.

Now we will throw out all the legislation, never mind what is or is not important, and we will rework it all. It is not a question of the Progressive Conservative Party supporting the legislation, we will support it, but we do not support the arrogant, indecisive, totally unorganized approach the government has to everything.

If the government makes a mistake today, it will worry about it some day. Some day down the line it will get it fixed. It did something in 1997 but it did not have the competency to craft legislation that would actually last more than five years before it had to be fixed again here in the House. Somehow or another it muddles along throwing out legislation and then bringing it back. In the meantime the important issues facing the country are put on the back burner.

By the way, now we have another burning issue, the Kimberley process, which is a great process. Because it is a natural resources issue, we might have to send it to the trade committee where it can be dealt with in a timely manner. It is not the opposition's problem and it is not the fault of the opposition parties in the House that the government cannot figure out how to run this institution.

We have spoken to this subject a number of times and, unfortunately, we will be speaking to it again. It was the result of poorly crafted legislation that was introduced in 1997. We have a responsibility as parliamentarians to fix the legislation. I intend to vote in support of fixing that legislation but I will not vote in support of stifling debate.

Because the government made the decision to prorogue the House and because it does not understand the basics of governing the nation, we will debate this issue as long as anyone cares to debate it, whether it be members from the Bloc, from the NDP, from the Alliance or from the Progressive Conservative Party. We have a responsibility to Canadians to examine all parts and aspects of this legislation, which we already did.

However, since the government said that we would have another opportunity, I feel as an opposition member of Parliament that we will take that opportunity and look at the legislation until it goes through all the hurdles and the whole process, to the Senate, is approved and comes back to the House again. That is not the fast track. That is not the easy way out for a government that denied its responsibility, decided to look the other way and prorogue the House of Commons for no foreseeable and observable reason.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, is now back as Bill C-4. It had been introduced at first reading on Friday, May 31, 2002. It went to second reading the following Tuesday, June 4, 2001. I think we all agree that this was fast.

It now is one of the first ones to come back, which shows the government's eagerness to give in to the demands of the nuclear lobby.

Of course, it is not a very large bill. It even seems quite simple. However, if we take a closer look at it, some fundamental issues emerge. The bill is only five lines long. It contains only one short paragraph. Subsection 46(3) of the old act said:

Where, after conducting a hearing, the Commission is satisfied that there is contamination referred to in subsection (1), the Commission may, in addition to filing a notice under subsection (2), order that the owner or occupant of, or 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.

In the French version, the word “responsable” is being replaced by the word “occupant” , and in both versions the words “with a right to or interest in“ are being replaced by the words “who has the management and control of”.

In the French version, the terms “En outre, elle peut” refer to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. As can be seen, subsection 46(3) is amended as follows:

(3) Where, after conducting a hearing, the Commission is satisfied that there is contamination referred to in subsection (1), the Commission may, in addition to filing a notice under subsection (2), order that the owner or occupant of, or 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.

We can all agree: this is quite simple. However, the government tells us that it is simply correcting an irregularity and that we should move on to other things as quickly as possible. That is the government's wish. However, it is a bit brief.

When we say it is a bit brief, it reminds me a bit of Cyrano de Bergerac, whom I will paraphrase if you will indulge me. We could say the following: “Oh no, young man, that is a bit brief. One could convey much to the gods just by varying one's tone of voice. There is curious: But what does this apparently inoffensive simplicity conceal? Timorous: There are therefore risks if financiers do not wish to commit themselves. Cavalier: Ah, that is a private matter. We should not concern ourselves with it. Interrogative: Can we do without nuclear energy? Affirmative: Nuclear energy is not a greenhouse gas solution. Provident and considerate: Invest in renewable energy; it will be to your advantage.

The arguments of the minister and the sponsor to justify this amendment are clumsy to say the least. They claim that it is merely a very minor technical correction to correct a mistake that was made when the legislation was passed in 1997. According to them, Hansard makes no mention of a discussion on this paragraph and they also claim that the legislator did not intend to make it so difficult to finance nuclear generating stations. These claims distort the reality, or dare I say, the truth.

In a message written to the government, Brian Armstrong, Bruce Power's general counsel and corporate secretary, describes the points that the government should take into consideration, and I quote:

Generally, the legislation has a negative impact on the capacity of private corporations to invest in nuclear plants, and this is detrimental to the future development of the Canadian nuclear industry.

This is all that was needed to launch the debate. There are two specific things in this statement, namely the privatization of nuclear plants and, more importantly, the anticipated development of that industry. I am convinced that this small clause in the bill did not go unnoticed.

In 1997, no one had stated any intention of privatizing nuclear plants. All the funding was provided by the provinces or by their crown corporations through the issuance of government backed bonds, and not through mortgages on nuclear plants. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the legislator acted the way it did. It acted in compliance with the strict rules that have always governed the nuclear industry.

Moreover, the whole argument overlooks the major negative developments in the nuclear industry since 1997, both in Canada and around the world. It is as if they wanted the House to begin this debate with a 1997 vision, that is without taking into account the evolution of the situation in recent years.

On the contrary, I think we are justified in addressing the issue in a 2002 context. We must put into perspective the changes that have occurred in that industry since 1997, and we must see if it is in the public interest to now promote not only the privatization of nuclear plants by eliminating these constraints, but also, as I said, the development of the nuclear industry.

Before briefly reviewing the major events which have occurred since 1997 and which serve as arguments against the nuclear development which the Ontario privatization effort is attempting to achieve, and before showing the increased environmental and safety risks which would result from this amendment, it is appropriate to examine the government's main arguments and to comment on them.

The government tells us that the nuclear industry is at a disadvantage, compared to other forms of energy. It is perfectly normal to treat the nuclear industry differently, since the scope of contamination following a nuclear plant incident is tremendous, both in terms of its geographical impact and the duration of its effects.

The explosion at Chernobyl contaminated the land all the way to the south of France and numerous cancers relating to this accident still surface every day and will continue to do so for decades to come. Therefore, it is normal to be much more demanding with the nuclear industry.

The government also tells us that this puts Canadian industries at a disadvantage compared to their international competitors. What industries? Nuclear power plant construction is totally under the control of the federal government, Atomic Energy of Canada being the sole Canadian supplier. As for the operation of these plants, it has been under the control of the provinces so far, and this standard also applies to a foreign private operator wanting to invest in a plant here. That foreign operator is treated the same way as any local private operator. The government also says that this was an exceptional measure.

When dealing with an industry that produces extremely hazardous waste that will remain hazardous for thousands of years, including plutonium and some other components which can be used and have been used to build mass destruction nuclear weapons and for which there exists no solution that would be safe in the long term, it is absolutely normal that such an industry be subjected to stricter rules than those that apply to an oil well or a hydroelectric dam.

The government also tells us that the general powers of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission are sufficient. In view of the commission's lack of independence, it is preferable to keep this specific power rather than rely solely on the regulatory power provided under section 24 of the act.

I should point out that this commission did not exist in 1997. Until 2000, it was the former Atomic Energy Control Board. As was the case with members of the old board, members of this commission are appointed by the government, which also owns Atomic Energy of Canada and has an obvious business interest in the development of the nuclear industry.

This explains why it has never refused or withdrawn a nuclear generating station licence, despite the many dangerous incidents that occur on a regular basis. It took a report from American consultants, in 1998, to convince Ontario to close half of its reactors, which had become too dangerous after just some twenty years in operation.

Let us look at the important events that have occurred in the nuclear industry since 1997. I say 1997 because that is the year the Nuclear Safety and Control Act was reworked and amended. Subsection 46(3), which the bill seeks to amend, dates back to that time. However, we must look at what has been happening in the meantime to determine if it is still appropriate to privatize and expand the nuclear industry.

First, in 1998 Ontario had to shut down half of its reactors, resulting in a $10 billion loss for Ontario Hydro, which now had a negative net worth and had to restructure. The utility was divided into three, leaving behind a huge debt for taxpayers.

The shutdown was due to the premature aging of the equipment and the inability of the staff to manage an environment that had become difficult and dangerous.

In Canada, we also had the publication of the Seaborn report. Here, as everywhere else in the western world, the commission found, after a ten-year study, that the proposed solution to bury spent fuel was strongly opposed by the general public and that there was no other long-term solution.

To avoid having to shut down plants whose cooling pools were full to capacity, the number of temporary on-site dry storage facilities was therefore increased.

Moreover, no new plant has been built in Canada over the past 20 years, none is planned for the next several decades and none of the plants shut down in 1998 has yet been able to re-open.

The only plant in New Brunswick, which is now 20 years old, is showing signs of premature aging, and over the past 24 months it has had to be shut down on several occasions for prolonged periods of time. According to an ongoing preliminary study, it would take over $850 million to extend its life past 2006, if it lasts that long, which is doubtful.

In Quebec, an identical plant, Gentilly-2, will be 20 years old next year, and the recent increase in the number of reportable problems seems to indicate that it too will have to be shut down earlier than planned.

When it is possible to obtain 800 megawatts for $500 million by constructing a new natural gas fired plant, which is not excessively polluting—I am not promoting natural gas, but speaking against nuclear generating stations—it would be surprising to see $850 million invested in renovating, without any guarantee, an old 675 megawatt nuclear lemon generating 2.3 tonnes of irradiated fuel weekly, without any long term solutions for disposal of that spent fuel.

What is more, as far as events in Canada are concerned, the bad reputation of this industry has put young people off, and as a result, nuclear plants are having difficulty finding replacements for their highly skilled staff.

In the meantime, between 1997 and the present, certain events have taken place in other countries. Most of the countries of western Europe that use nuclear power, with the exception of France, have decided to end the experiment, particularly because of the lack of solutions for disposing of spent fuel, with its 1% plutonium content. This is even the case for heavily nuclear-dependent states such as Belgium, which is 50% dependent, and Germany, which is 30% dependent.

Most of the pressure has come from the public, which refused to allow plutonium shipments to pass through their towns and villages on the way to or from MOX processing sites. They cannot be faulted for this, when we know that a single microgram of this substance can kill in a very short time, if inhaled.

There is one other point. Canada has been unsuccessful in all of its attempts to market Candu to other countries since the China contract. After a long process, Turkey has deferred for another 30 plus years its decision on the advisability of using atomic energy. As for Korea, having had a lot of problems with its Candu, it has decided not to use Canada to supply its needs in future.

Atomic Energy of Canada therefore needs to convert to the service sector, since it does not have a single contract for new power plants. Even the completion of the long-suspended Rumanian plant, which has been on hold for years due to lack of funds, has not yet been approved, and private funding is no more easily obtained.

Still looking beyond our borders, moreover, an accident in 1999 in a Japanese reprocessing centre under construction shook up the entire world nuclear industry and forced it to re-examine its standards and risk assessments relating to this technology. This accident, following the Chernobyl disaster, was the catalyst for a number of countries going off nuclear power.

Even highly nuclear dependent Japan has re-examined its investments. As for France, it halted operations in its breeder reactor, since these were unjustified in a shrinking market context, which ought to lead in the medium term to reprocessing plants, and possibly the nuclear plants themselves, being closed down.

There is one final point in regard to the events in other countries. No new plants have been built in the United States since Three Mile Island, in 1979. The state of Nevada used its veto to stop the planned construction of the only disposal site for millions of tons of spent fuel in the United States. This site was supposed to be built in the Yucca Mountains, approximately 80 miles from Las Vegas. A vote was pushed through Congress in an attempt to go ahead with the project, which has already cost $8 billion for technical studies alone.

A protracted legal battle can therefore be expected in order to prevent any new plants, which President Bush dearly wants, from reaching the drawing board before the end of his term. No one wants to invest in this technology as long as there is no long-term solution for disposing of the spent fuel. This fourth point is the second last one. I have one final point left.

The disappearance of the U.S.S.R., the rise in terrorism, and more recently, the conflict between India and Pakistan have highlighted the grave dangers of nuclear proliferation, both in terms of states capable of producing and launching arms of mass destruction, and small groups that are able to explode dirty bombs made up of conventional explosives and highly radioactive nuclear waste right in the middle of our cities.

Obviously, this was the situation that existed from 1997-2000, which leads us to wonder why the government has taken a position that favours the private sector and places even greater emphasis on the development of nuclear energy.

There are also environmental and safety risks with the nuclear industry. Ontario decided to hand over the ownership and management of a nuclear generating station that is currently closed, to a private company, to the qualified staff of a foreign company, in order to avoid having to make the major investments required before it could be re-opened, because staffing deficiencies were a determining factor in the forced closure of 1998.

In terms of environmental risks, obviously in the event of a major contamination that would bankrupt the local subsidiary, a mortgage lender that had the benefit of a guarantee from the foreign head office in addition to the mortgage guarantee, would exercise the former rather than seize the property, as many businesses often do, which would make it liable for any damage to the environment. In such cases, the head office would cut loose its subsidiary and nobody would be take responsibility for the contaminated site.

There are also security risks. Again, it is clear that putting the private sector in charge of any part of the operation or decontamination of sites containing nuclear material increases the risk of nuclear proliferation through the infiltration of individuals working for terrorist states or cells.

That is why, since 1980, the United States has prohibited the private reprocessing of any nuclear matter within its jurisdiction to prevent even the smallest amount of plutonium from finding its way into the hands of individuals over whom it has absolutely no control.

Regarding plutonium, let me give a quick example to illustrate the situation to our listeners. The size of the piece of paper I just crumpled corresponds to the amount of plutonium that was used in the Hiroshima bombing.

The proposed change to subsection 46(3) will encourage the development of nuclear energy in Canada. Privatization will make it easier to reopen plants that were closed down in Ontario and will increase environmental and security risks.

Because it is contrary to Bloc Quebecois policy to promote the development of nuclear energy, because there is practically a global consensus about moving away from nuclear energy, and because the dangers of proliferation have been abundantly illustrated by recent events on the international scene, we must oppose this amendment, and take this opportunity to promote a broader debate on the relevance of privatization and indeed of this whole foray into nuclear energy.

One objective of the Bloc Quebecois is to initiate a debate in which I think people would be very keen to participate. I have been hearing comments about this debate, and will share a few. Someone said “I will not agree to having future generations foot our nuclear energy bill and pay for our squandering”.

True, there is no such thing as “the rights of the human of the future”. Even the rights of the child are not yet a fait accompli. This does not concern all the lobbies that care only about immediate profit, and do not care about what happens tomorrow, let alone in the distant future.

The nuclear waste issue has yet to be resolved. It will probably never be resolved at a reasonable cost. Meanwhile, the nuclear lobby has opted for site storage, or perhaps underground storage, leaving our children's children with the burden of managing it for centuries to come.

Other comments foster debate or show the need for debate.

Some people have said that the civilian nuclear industry, an offspring of the military nuclear industry, was established without debate. The public, the only beneficiary of this huge source of energy, was not consulted. A true debate was never held. Decisions were always imposed upon the public.

Others have said that nuclear energy is not unavoidable and, most of all, should be thoroughly debated to evaluate its pros and cons; this debate is clearly needed in order to avoid an impasse.

Others also say that nuclear energy has beneficial as well as damaging effects and wonder whether we should consider only its benefits, namely power, and forget its damaging effects, hazards and waste.

We need to ask this critical question: should we, yes or no, drop nuclear energy? As matters now stand, the government has decided to go ahead by privatizing, thus indirectly acquiring the tools needed to develop the nuclear sector. Meanwhile, the fundamental question remains unanswered, and people were never consulted nor informed in a manner that would allow them to take a position on the issue.

I really hope that this short provision of five lines or so will bring about a true debate on the future of the nuclear industry as soon as possible.

Nuclear industry experts define the nuclear energy in three words: hazards, waste and costs. In short, this is what nuclear energy is about. How, then, can we honestly avoid the fundamental debate and promote the development of nuclear energy only because we are in favour of privatization? To my knowledge, there is no one in the private sector who will invest money if there are no profits to be made. And yet, development is often the only road to profits.

If we want to get into the debate, we have to consider hazards, waste and costs.

Let us talk about hazards. The protection of the public and of the environment against atomic radiation hazards generated by nuclear power plants is already a hazard linked with nuclear energy, as defined in dictionaries.

We know that a tremendous media campaign is being conducted tto make the public feel guilty about being concerned. The underlying message is always “If you are worried about nuclear energy, it is because you are stupid and incompetent”. It is urgent to stop making the public feel guilty. Its concerns are perfectly rational. In most forums—but that does not necessarily make it a societal debate—whether on the radio or elsewhere, people and scientists who believe in nuclear energy tend to put down those who have legitimate concerns.

The danger or hazard linked with nuclear energy comes from the very large amount of energy released by nuclear fission and the existence of a chain reaction, which create the risk of an uncontrollable exponential runaway. The radioactivity of the spent materials is released.

The threat posed by nuclear energy is related to several factors. It is often due to operating errors and material deficiencies. Indeed, in nuclear plants, many accidents are caused by operating errors, acts of sabotage, or equipment failure.

The more complex the technology, the more the human factor becomes a key factor. As I explained earlier, because of the bad reputation of nuclear energy, young people who would have the skills, the intelligence and the brain to work in this industry are turning away from it in increasing numbers. The government says that this is yet another reason to privatize the nuclear industry and, perhaps, to hire human resources abroad.

Earlier, I briefly mentioned that it is also for reasons of competitiveness and profitability that the safety aspect is being eroded. It has been said that nuclear plants are getting old. We are told that the costs of renovating and upgrading them are huge. In a strictly private environment where profitability is the number one priority, we have every reason to voice serious concerns.

To ensure a competitive production cost per kilowatt-hour, the operating life of plants is being unduly extended, the downtime of reactors is, perhaps, imprudently reduced and there is also increasing reliance on middlemen. We know that nuclear plants were originally expected to have an average operating life of 25 years. Now, they are talking about extending it to 40 years or more. However, equipment failure is often age-related.

Disasters could very well happen. Who is responsible when disasters occur? The House will remember that, in 1957, the United States congress passed the Price-Anderson Act limiting the civil liability of nuclear operators in the event of a nuclear accident. Such a limit was considered a precedent in civil liability.

Members will also remember than on July 29, 16 European countries signed the Paris convention setting forth the strict liability and the exclusive liability, but also the limitation upon the liability in the event of a serious nuclear accident. Pursuant to the agreement, measures are taken to avoid any interference with the development of the production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Limited liability would help the nuclear energy industry avoid major financial setbacks caused by a nuclear accident. Since exclusive liability applies only to the operator, it protects subcontractors and building companies against any hidden flaws in the construction of the facilities.

This is strikingly similar to the attempt by the government to exempt from reducing the level of contamination anyone who could be linked to such a risky but potentially very lucrative business, if no accident happens. Then, if something bad occurs, the financial security they provide, hence their liability, would be limited.

Later on, in France, the legislation passed on October 30, 1968 set out the terms and conditions of the Paris convention. It confirmed the exemptions to the general law of liability. Section 3, as amended in 1990, limits the compensation to be paid to the victims by the operator to 600 million francs and by the State to 2.5 billion francs. So, there is still a limitation upon the liability of private operators managing and operating nuclear plants. I do not agree with this approach.

Therefore there is a risk of major disasters. As my time is running out and the Chair is indicating to me that I have five minutes left, I will now talk about risk, waste and costs.

We already talked about risk. In terms of waste, last year Bill C-27 provided for large amounts of money to manage dangerous nuclear waste. It also provided for investments from every user. These were large amounts of money, but we do not know how far they will go. We are not even sure how long it will take.

However, as I said earlier, the United Stated has spent $8 billion in studies alone. Imagine what it means in terms of making storage secure or even ideally getting rid of and maybe completely eliminating waste. However, this does not seem possible.

So we are left with what I would call the terrible and catastrophic irresponsibility of our predecessors, who never really wondered how to manage waste, or even eliminate it, and what the impact would be. That is all I had to say about waste management.

With regard to costs, we know very well, for example, that federal subsidies to Atomic Energy Canada over the past 46 years amount in total to $15.8 billion in 1998 dollars.

It should be noted that this $15.8 billion subsidy is real money, and that it does not take into account the opportunity cost, that is what the subsidy would have been worth if the government had invested in less costly initiatives. At a rate of 15%, the opportunity cost of government subsidies to Atomic Energy Canada is $2.2 billion. You see how much money has been sunk into this. We can foresee how much more will be sunk in the future.

The question could be asked during an extensive debate on the nuclear industry. We could ask ourselves the following question: Can we opt out of nuclear energy? The answer is relatively simple. Yes, we can. People will ask what we can turn to. Saying yes, we can opt out of nuclear energy is saying yes to something else.

What are the alternatives? Our renewable resources, of course. Human beings need sun, water and air. The whole earth needs wind to operate properly and renew its own energy. It is the same, in terms of energy, as what the earth needs to operate.

Renewable energy sources are constantly replenished. As I said earlier, these sources are the sun, the wind, water and the biomass. If we put all the money that was invested in nuclear power and related fields, all the money that is still owed, at today's value, and the money we will have to spend to manage nuclear waste and environmental problems, if we invested all that money in renewable energy, we would not even need to bother with Kyoto. The problem would be settled quite quickly.

Here in Quebec—we are not in Quebec, actually—