Bill C-4 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act

Nuclear Safety and Control Act

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is becoming more and more obvious that the hon. member is smuggling into the debate observations and items that have nothing to do with the bill before us, which as the House knows is on liability in the nuclear industry. It would be highly welcome by I think everybody in the House if finally, after 20 minutes, the member would focus on the bill before us, namely Bill C-4, rather than using the time to engage in political shots that have nothing to do with the bill before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, I intend to go over a couple of nuclear accidents, but to understand what was behind the accidents, the basics of the physics behind it has to be explained. The potential for a nuclear accident is what is preventing the financial system from lending to the nuclear industry.

It was discovered that heavy water, water with a hydrogen atom replaced by isotope deuterium, was about 10% heavier than normal water. Carbons, usually in the form of graphite, are the usual moderators. Ordinary water also moderates neutrons but because of its relatively high absorption, it is not as effective as heavy water.

The presence of neutron absorbing materials should be minimized in a reactor. They can however be used to stop or control the nuclear fission process. For example, neutron absorbing control rods can be moved into and out of the core to control the reaction and they form some of the safety mechanisms.

Nuclear technology and the science behind it are difficult to comprehend and therefore are frightening. However nuclear technology is not alone in this regard. We live in a technological age. Our modern world is full of scientific marvels that are difficult to understand and the boundaries of science and technology are constantly being expanded.

How many people can comprehend how tiny, barely visible slivers of semi-conductor chips can store millions of bits of data or compute millions of calculations per second? For those who are frightened of nuclear technology and its complexity and who are therefore reluctant to vote in favour of Bill C-4, it may be reassuring to know that radioactivity is something natural.

Many people do not realize it, but radiation is everywhere around us. Radioactivity is a natural and integral part of our earth. It is as common and necessary as the oxygen we breathe and the sunlight that brings life to our planet. Not only does the sun create the light and heat upon which our world depends, but the giant inferno inside the sun constantly ejects a stream of energy and particles called the solar wind into space. The particles and the solar wind travel through space and react with the earth's atmosphere, creating cosmic radiation that constantly rains down on us.

All living beings are constantly bombarded by millions of particles of cosmic nuclear radiation each second. The amount of cosmic radiation is at least at sea level because of the shielding provided by the atmosphere. It increases progressively as the height above sea level increases. Residents of Banff, for example, receive .2 millisieverts per year more radiation than the inhabitants of Halifax. Flights in airplanes yield more radiation than staying on the ground.

Since there is so much radiation in the environment, it is not surprising that there is a substantial amount of radiation in our bodies. It comes into our bodies directly when we eat fruit and vegetables and indirectly when we eat the meat of animals who eat root crops. The radioactive potassium is then deposited in parts of our bodies, such as bones, and potassium helps maintain fluid pressure and balance within cells.

Combined with other natural radioisotopes inside and outside our bodies, a person is struck by radiation about 54 million times in a single hour. Every day of our existence, over a billion radioactive particles are passing through our bodies.

Through the long evolution of humans, our bodies have learned how to live with this radioactivity, but not all radiation in the environment is natural. Some arises from human activities, some of which have given rise to Bill C-4.

The largest human made source of radiation is from medical applications. Other very small contributors are the nuclear laboratories, industrial and consumer sources such as smoke detectors. Ninety per cent of the medical radiation dose comes from X-rays. Other medical radiation comes from radioactive isotopes used in various diagnostic tracer tests. Coal fired plants release radiation in their emissions due to the radioactive elements in coal. Radiation can arise from the release of radon from disturbing the earth during construction and road building projects and from the use of phosphate fertilizers which contain relatively high concentrations of natural radioactive elements.

When the subject of nuclear power is raised, two incidents come to the minds of the uninformed, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. There has only been one accident involving a reactor with a large radiation release to the public, namely, the one in 1986 in Chernobyl. Scientists were conducting an experiment involving shutting off the safety systems and running the reactor at a very low power, which was difficult to control. A sudden huge increase in power caused a steam explosion that destroyed the reactor. The Russian reactor used graphite, a combustible moderator, which caught fire and released radioactive smoke into the air. In contrast, Canadian reactor safety systems cannot be turned off and heavy water is used as the moderator as opposed to graphite.

The Three Mile Island situation arose from a loss of coolant and subsequent operator error. A faulty valve in the cooling system stayed open when it should have closed. A flaw in the American design system did not alert the control room that the valve was open, so the emergency core cooling system was manually turned off, which prevented the core from being adequately cooled, and a substantial part of the core melted. The radiation was almost all confined to the reactor containment, with the public in the immediate area being exposed to the equivalent of a small fraction of the yearly background dose of radiation. The plant lacked a proper communication protocol and the state authorities, who were unaware of the facts of the moment, panicked and evacuated the region unnecessarily, which led to the worldwide concentration on Three Mile Island.

Our Candu reactors use a different safety system, a different moderator and an entirely different cooling system. In addition, there is a clear protocol for advising the first responders and all levels of government should an incident occur.

As recently as last week, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Council gathered stakeholders together to review emergency preparedness and response arrangements across jurisdictions. Unfortunately, the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior has been reduced to poker chip status in the Prime Minister's desperate attempt to maintain his grip on power. The Minister of National Defence has had the directors there turning away groups that have been attracted to the institution's reputation.

Other government departments have been informed that the Arnprior centre will be closed, only to be temporarily relocated to the finance minister's riding. Three hundred and ninety-six million dollars have been earmarked for emergency preparedness, and the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, OCIPEP, is more preoccupied with empire building than the safety and security of Canadians at this point. The Minister of National Defence is responsible for OCIPEP, yet he did not know of its existence until questioned about it here in the House less than two months ago.

The minister says that no decision has been made on the college's future, yet air conditioning units were seen being installed just weeks ago in the building which formerly housed the GST processing centre before it was moved to Shawinigan. In fact, a few days ago the minister said he had not even read the report justifying its relocation at all.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for the opposition has suggested that people who are against Bill C-4 do not understand the bill. She is giving us a lecture on neutrons and protons, when the object of the bill is to absolve financial companies from liability for investing in the nuclear industry. The bill has nothing to do with neutrons, protons and Einstein. It has to do with the financial implications of investing in the nuclear industry. She is completely off track. She has not read the bill.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I fail to recognize the significance of what the hon. member is saying to the House because Bill C-4 deals with the financial aspect of the nuclear energy program. She should relate her speech to Bill C-4.

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

Mr. Speaker, part of the opposition to Bill C-4 stems from the lack of knowledge behind how the process works. That is why I am explaining it.

As I was saying, in splitting the uranium atom, an enormous amount of energy is released. In fact the splitting of one uranium atom releases seven million times the energy produced by burning one atom of carbon. The potential for creating energy from fission was immediately recognized then. The clues all came together, including Einstein's earlier theory of mass and energy equivalence.

The expression “splitting the atom” is a technical misnomer. What is actually being split or fissioned is the nucleus, not the atom. The total number of protons plus neutrons stays the same. That is both sides of the equation have the same number of nucleons. There are many different fission reactions for uranium-235. The material we start with is always the same but a range of elements can be produced.

The neutrons being liberated generally have high energy; that is, they are being released at a very high speed and considerable energy is released. This is accompanied by a small loss of mass in the system. This is in accordance with Einstein's famous equation which states that mass is a very concentrated form of energy.

Early scientists noted the neutron was what caused the fission in the uranium nucleus. They also noted that several neutrons were released during fission. If one of those neutrons could be made to hit another uranium nucleus, it could cause that nucleus to also fission. Then several more neutrons would be admitted that could cause more uranium atoms to fission and so on. This is called a chain reaction.

If fewer neutrons are being generated by fission than are being used to initiate fission reactions, the process is not self-sustaining, and is termed subcritical. This is the case with ore bodies. That is why we do not have nuclear reactions happening in nature. If exactly the same number of neutrons are being generated as are being used to split the nuclei, the nuclear reaction is said to be critical. In this case, a controlled amount of energy is constantly being released in a sustained chain reaction.

This is the process that nuclear reactors use. The energy is released in the form of heat which heats the cooling moderator and then generates steam which in turn turns the turbines which go to the grid which provides us with power to our homes.

One problem is that most nucleis absorb neutrons and this absorption removes them from sustaining a chain reaction. Thus any attempt to create a chain reaction must minimize the presence of neutron absorbers.

Chain reactions do not happen in ore bodies, for example, because the uranium in the ore bodies consists mostly of uranium-238 and that only has a low concentration of uranium-235. The ore body also contains too many neutron absorbing impurities.

It took large teams of scientists many years to discover how to achieve exactly the right conditions.

First, there needs to be a core of fission material, that is material that will fission. Uranium-235 is currently the primary material used. By a quirk of physics, the fission atom splits most readily if the bombarding neutrons are going quite slowly. As neutrons emitted by the fission process are going fast, the core needs to be surrounded by a material called a moderator that slows the neutrons down. Only a few materials are good at moderating neutrons without absorbing them. The more equal the nuclear mass of the moderating material--

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-4, the reincarnation of Bill C-57, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. The bill is necessary to correct a clause that prevents a debt financing by the private sector for the nuclear industry.

Lenders such as banks and other financial institutions are refusing to consider approval for loans to the nuclear industry because the section in the current act makes the lenders liable in the instance of a nuclear spill.

The passage of Bill C-4 is critical to addressing concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, that is if the concern on the part of the NDP and Bloc are genuine.

Opposition to the nuclear energy system stems largely from the lack of understanding of how it works. I shall do my best to demystify the technology.

In 1905 the great physicist, Albert Einstein, showed theoretically that mass and energy were equivalent. It was more than 30 years however before scientists discovered the immense energy that could be released by transforming matter into the fission process. A Hungarian physicist, Leo Szilard, took out a patent on a device that would develop enormous energy from the nucleus from a chain reaction based on a neutron capture process involving the release of more than two neutrons. Although he had no idea of whether this would work in practice, the concept was exactly how a nuclear reactor works.

Next came the discovery of the fission process itself. In 1938 two Germans, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, reported the puzzling result that when they bombarded uranium with neutrons, barium and crypton were always produced.

Shortly after, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Firsch noted that barium has 56 protons and crypton has 36, yielding a total of 92 protons, the same as uranium. This clue led them to deduce that the uranium atom had been split or had undergone a process known today as fission.

However there was something even more astonishing. In splitting the uranium atom, there was an enormous release of energy.

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the House on the third reading of Bill C-4, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

Bill C-4 is a one clause bill which clarifies the wording in subsection 46(3) of the act. Subsection 46(3), as currently worded, has had the consequence of extending the potential obligation for site remediation, in the unlikely event contamination occurs, beyond the owners and managers to private sector lending institutions. This has in turn deterred private sector financial houses from lending to the nuclear industry.

Under the current wording of subsection 46(3), the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has the authority to order the owner or occupant of, or any other person with a right to or interest in, to take prescribed measures to reduce the level of radioactive contamination. The proposed amendment clarifies the subsection by deleting the words “person with a right to or interest in” and replacing them with the words “person who has the management and control of”.

Under the amended subsection 46(3), owners, operators or managers of nuclear facilities would still be liable for cleanup.

With regard to lenders, the amendment would quantify their risk. If Bill C-4 is enacted, a lender would stand to lose, at most, no more than the moneys advanced. The lender would not face a potential unlimited liability. However, a lender who went into management and control of a nuclear facility would be within the reach of this subsection. Canadian law generally limits lender liability to those with charge, management or control of secured assets.

Some members of the opposition have alleged that the bill represents a change in government policy. The answer is no. The change contemplated by the amendment would simply put the nuclear industry on an equal footing with other industrial and power generation sectors. No other industrial sector or power generation sector is encumbered by a federal provision of this nature that discourages access to bank lending.

Loans may be needed by the industry to refurbish, modernize and extend the life of nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry must have access to commercial credit to finance its needs, like any other sector. This amendment would allow the nuclear industry to attract market capital.

Bill C-4 is not and should not be misconstrued as a measure to provide favourable treatment to the nuclear industry. As I have already emphasized, there is no similar federal requirement for other industries. Amending subsection 46(3) would remove an anomaly which is keeping banks away from lending to the nuclear sector in order to avoid assuming potentially unlimited liability. Limiting liability to the owner, occupant or those who have management and control is normal practice in federal environmental law. Canadian law generally limits lender liability to those with management or control of secured assets.

I want to assure the House that Canada has a stringent regulatory regime for the nuclear industry. This would continue to be the case after this amendment. Canada's regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, or CNSC, would retain sufficient authority to protect health, safety, security and the environment.

The regulations of the CNSC require licence applicants to submit information on the effects of their operations on the environment. This information is used by the commission, in consultation with other federal and provincial regulatory bodies, to establish the operating parameters for a nuclear facility. The CNSC has a compliance program in place that confirms that these parameters are observed.

There are tough sanctions for offences under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. It is an offence to fail to comply with any condition of a licence. The CNSC can also suspend, revoke or amend a licence if conditions are not met. Licences can include the requirement for a financial guarantee to cover contingencies that may arise.

The issue before us is not the safety of Canadian nuclear plants. Canada has in place a stringent safety regime under the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The Canadian nuclear industry has a very strong safety record.

The issue before us is access to financing, financing that owners and operators of nuclear facilities may wish to seek to retrofit or modernize nuclear facilities and at the same time meet the stringent safety requirements of Canada's nuclear regulator.

I also would like to thank all hon. members and ask them to join me in supporting Bill C-4.

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the report stage of Bill C-4.

Call in the members.

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

Kyoto Protocol

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments from my colleague from Gander—Grand Falls. His last analogy probably sums this up as good as any analogy that I have heard. He said that the whole is only as strong as the sum of its parts, that Canada is only as strong as its provinces.

Instead of having a confrontational attitude and approach to difficult issues, the government would have been much better served to have had an approach that would have brought the provinces on board and would have allowed them some modicum of cooperation and some reward in the process that would have encouraged them to embark upon the Kyoto protocol.

Instead, it is typical of the government and its almost now 10 years in office. It did not have a plan. It waited until the very last moment in the process. It is my understanding that the Prime Minister has given word that the vote will occur on the Kyoto protocol on Monday. It would seem to me that there is a very limited amount of time to debate this in a responsible, reasonable, rational manner and, hopefully, in an intelligent manner.

I do not think many members of the House, although there may be a few, would debate that climate change is not occurring. There may be some debate about why it is occurring.

What went wrong? How can a government, which has been in power since 1993 and which signed this Kyoto protocol in 1997, now all of a sudden say that Kyoto has to be signed by December 31? All the legislation in the House seems to have to be passed before 2003, whether it is the nuclear bill, Bill C-4, or the gun control bill or Kyoto. There must be something awfully bad coming in 2003, something that we do not understand on the opposition side. What would be the difference if Kyoto was signed by August of 2003?

Have we somehow given a promise? All our trading partners have not signed on to it. All our trading partners do not intend to sign on to it. We do know enough about this legislation.

If we go back to the Rio summit, two major issues arose from that summit, biodiversity was the first one. Ten years later we have a Liberal government that has failed to pass the species at risk act. It has failed to pass any significant piece of environmental legislation.

Global climate change was the other issue that came from the Rio summit. That was in 1992. Kyoto was in 1997. On December 31 are we going to turn into something, but we do not know what it is yet. There is absolutely no reason for the government to pursue the course that it has. There is no reason the government could not have had the provinces on board. There is absolutely no reason that it could not have lead by example.

Two years ago in the natural resources committee members asked the committee to investigate the Kyoto process and look at the issue of climate change. Nothing happened. While we had agreement from some, we could not get an agreement from all government members. We could not get agreement from all opposition members. There were at least two of us who agreed to the motion but we could not get agreement to work on the cost of Kyoto. That was amazing.

Here we are at the last hour of the last day debating this issue and trying to find some reasonable position to take. The government has changed its position. It turns over more than one would turn bacon in a frying pan. It is absolutely incredible. It started off with an implementation date of 2008 to 2012. Now it may be 2020, 2030 or 2040.

Canada is the highest energy user per capita in the world. We use energy. We live in a cold climate. We have big distances to travel. Canada is a huge country. Our energy costs are high now and they will continue to be high.

What has the government done to lead by example? The Parliament Buildings do not even have thermopane windows. If we wanted to reduce heating costs that would be a small and fairly inexpensive first step. The government should wrap its head around that. The government is telling the rest of the nation how to retrofit for billions of dollars and it has not spent 2¢ of its own money to do the job itself.

What will a litre of gasoline cost at the end of the day? Do not say it will only be 3¢ or 4¢ more expensive because we know that is not true.

What will be the cost of a litre of home heating fuel? What will be the cost of a cord of firewood? We live in a cold climate. It is important to keep warm. A sweater will only do so much; we have to have an alternative heating source.

Why did we embark upon a program that encourages pollution by third world countries? We are saying that we will forgive the carbon produced by third world countries until they get up to scale with their own economies. Would the world not have been better served and would Kyoto not have been better served if we had said we would supply those third world countries with clean sources of energy? Would that not have been a better process to embark upon? Did no one think of that? Is that too complicated for the members on the government benches? Surely it is not. It is pretty basic.

How will carbon credits work? I still have not heard a satisfactory explanation from the government side.

Why did we not receive credit for clean exports? Hundreds of thousands of megawatts of clean electricity go from Canada into the U.S and there is no credit for those clean exports. With respect to the natural gas which comes from Alberta, the east coast and the high Arctic, there is no credit for those clean exports. We will be shipping product to the U.S. and allowing the U.S. to cut its carbon dioxide emissions but we will not be getting credit for shipping that product.

It seems that there has been a lot of obfuscation to make a fairly simple issue very complex. The government has done a poor job of defending the interests of Canadians. There is not an issue that we have ever supported in the House that was not costed out ahead of time. The government could say, “We have a cost here and it will be so many billion dollars in the first year and so many billion dollars in the second year”. We do not believe it, and Canadians do not believe it. There has to be a better and more pragmatic approach to this issue.

Where have we looked at emissions? What has the government done to foster green energy? What has the government done to foster ethanol production in Canada? We could have 10% to 20% of all the gasoline in Canada supplemented with ethanol. Nothing has been done.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties and there is an agreement pursuant to Standing Order 45(7) to re-defer the recorded division requested earlier on report stage of Bill C-4 until Tuesday, December 3, at 3 p.m.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Even I have to admit that is a good comeback.

This afternoon we will debate the third reading of Bill S-2 respecting a number of tax treaties. Tomorrow we shall consider report stage and if possible third reading of Bill C-4 respecting nuclear safety. If necessary we will continue with this bill on Monday. We will then return to the debate on the Kyoto protocol.

A little later next week we will deal with Bill C-3, the Canada pension plan amendments. Thursday, December 5 shall be an allotted day.

I am in the process of consulting with colleagues and other parties with a view to having one or more take note debates starting early next week.

Committees of the House

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources regarding its order of reference of Tuesday, October 29 in relation to Bill C-4, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

The committee has considered Bill C-4 and reports the bill without amendment.

Canadian Wheat Board

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, western farmers are not in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. Western farmers did not get a vote to establish a monopoly. Farmers did not vote on Bill C-4 in 1998. Farmers do not set the initial price. Farmers do not vote on all 15 directors. Farmers do not vote on the appointment of the president. Farmers do not vote on amending the Canadian Wheat Board Act, only politicians can.

How can the minister say that farmers are in charge when he makes all the decisions?

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with the discussion of parliamentary modernization. As a result of the great interest by members on all sides of the House and the level of participation in this debate, I will be consulting with colleagues to see if it is possible, notwithstanding the scarcity of time around here, to find more time to debate this motion.

Tomorrow we will consider Bill S-2 respecting a number of tax conventions.

Pursuant to the request of the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, I am pleased to announce that on Monday we will commence debate on the long-expected motion with respect to the Kyoto agreement. I thank the member for his interest. This motion will be put on notice later this day. Given the considerable interest in this matter, I expect it is not impossible that the debate might take longer than one day. Therefore I will also announce to the House that on Tuesday and perhaps other days we will debate the Kyoto motion.

In terms of legislation, I would like to do report stage and third reading of Bill C-4 when it is reported from committee. It is my intention then to call Bill C-3, the Canada pension plan amendments, as legislation following that. Because of the very large number of bills presently before committee, as they are reported to the House of Commons we will bring those forward for debate at report stage and third reading.

Privilege

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege on behalf of the hon. member for Windsor—St. Clair because it needs to be raised at the earliest opportunity.

I would like to seek your guidance on events that took place at the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources. The member for Windsor--St. Clair was in the process of debating his motion to summon a witness to the committee on Bill C-4. The motion was in order; proper notice was given. He had only spoken a few minutes when the chair interrupted the hon. member and put the question on the motion, even though the hon. member had not finished his intervention.

Several times the hon. member for Windsor—St. Clair raised his objection to this move and refused to yield the floor, but the chair ruled that he could not speak on the motion because the question had been put.

According to Marleau and Montpetit at page 857, in a case such as this, the chair should have either suspended or adjourned the meeting. Instead the vote took place on the motion of the hon. member for Windsor—St. Clair and the meeting continued without the member having the opportunity to express himself on the motion which he had put to the committee.

Mr. Speaker, is there any recourse for the hon. member in this case? I would like to seek your guidance on this.