Bill C-5 (Historical)

Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act

An Act respecting civil liability and compensation for damage in case of a nuclear incident

This enactment establishes a liability regime applicable in the event of a nuclear incident that makes operators of nuclear installations absolutely and exclusively liable for damages up to a maximum of $650 million. Operators are required to hold financial security in respect of their liability. This amount will be reviewed regularly and may be increased by regulation. The enactment also provides for the establishment, in certain circumstances, of an administrative tribunal to hear and decide claims. Finally, this enactment repeals the Nuclear Liability Act and makes consequential amendments.

Nuclear Liability and compensation Act

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would seek unanimous consent to go back to routine proceedings. I believe that people were leaving the chamber and they did not hear the motion. There was a lot of noise and people did not hear what the motion was about, and we were standing. I would seek unanimous consent that we return--

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I will ask. Is there unanimous consent to revert to routine proceedings?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

No.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

No, so the hon. member for Western Arctic has the floor on debate.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, once again I stand to speak to Bill C-5, the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act.

In my previous speech, which was about a month ago, I took the time to describe all the amendments that we proposed on this bill. Our concern is the impact on the ability of people to obtain compensation in the event of a nuclear accident. Much of the bill favours the nuclear industry over those who may be seeking compensation from the industry in the case of an accident or any kind of incident at a nuclear plant.

The nuclear industry is heating up in this country. There are proposals in two provinces in western Canada for nuclear reactors. The movement toward nuclear energy seems to be gaining some steam in the country, yet none of the basic issues that speak to the concerns Canadians have over the development of this industry have been addressed. There is still no plan for waste disposal. The roles of government and private industry in the nuclear industry have not been clarified. We still have not determined whether the nuclear industry is cost effective in this country. Over and over we have subsidized the development of nuclear energy. At the same time this bill does not give proper coverage and protection for the liability that could occur with a nuclear accident.

A $650 million liability limit is the minimum possible for Canada to match with international agreements. We have said over and over that that is not good enough. The United States, our closest trading partner, carries liability far in excess of $650 million for each plant in that country.

The Conservative government is moving ahead with a bill that does not adequately do the job. We have pointed that out over and over again. We have attempted to work with the government on amendments in committee and here in the House. We have been stonewalled by the government. We have been stonewalled by the official opposition as well. The Liberals have not shown much responsibility.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Call them “the Liberal”. There is only one of them here.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot comment on people's attendance in the House of Commons. That is against the traditions of the House. I would hope hon. members would not encourage me to do that.

The Bloc is supporting this bill as well. This bill is a half-hearted attempt to set a proper liability limit. There is an attempt within the bill to provide many outs for companies in case of a requirement for compensation. It is difficult for private individuals to obtain the kind of compensation that would be necessary as a result of a nuclear accident.

It is simply not good enough to have time limits of three years or ten years in which people could expect to see an impact from nuclear accidents. We already know that 30 and 40 years later people are coming forward with health issues from nuclear accidents. People are bringing forward situations where nuclear material has been transported from one area to another and it ends up in housing units or it has been used for fill in some cases. These incidents eventually have an impact on people's lives.

When the limits within Bill C-5 are set to such a short term, it opens the door for companies to avoid being responsible. Of course that is good for the companies, that is good for the surety of the industry, but it is not good for Canadians. As a member of Parliament who has been elected by individual Canadians and not by companies, I am here to try to bring clarity to this bill as it impacts on Canadians. We are frustrated with trying to move forward with some very basic amendments to various terms within this bill for the past year and a half. It has been difficult.

We have seen with the Chalk River incident in December the importance of a strong nuclear safety agency. We have seen the necessity of ensuring that we protect Canadians, that we protect investment and that we protect the direction this country takes with nuclear energy.

There are many reasons not to support this bill. We will continue to debate it today and perhaps tomorrow, and if we can carry this through, this bill will remain unresolved for a few more months. Perhaps Canadians will have a chance to speak up and influence the government.

If the Conservative plan is to sell off Canada's nuclear industry and if this bill is simply to allow foreign companies to purchase the assets of AECL, this issue should be up front. Canadians should understand why we are doing the things we are doing in Parliament, but that is not the case. The government continues to move this bill forward in a fashion that suggests it is simply for other purposes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to part of the member's speech. I am not quite clear on this, but he seems to be opposed to any private ownership in the nuclear industry and he wants control retained by the government. Maybe he could clarify this. It was my impression that the New Democrats were absolutely opposed to any nuclear development, period, whether it was done by the government or by corporations. I would like that clarified. If that is the case, it seems to me there is a lot of sucking and blowing going on at the same time.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of issues my colleague raised. One of them is the position of the New Democratic Party on nuclear energy. Quite simply, nuclear energy is part of the Canadian energy mix. It exists now and will exist in the future. Our concern is to ensure the nuclear industry is operated in a safe fashion but also to ensure that the problems the nuclear industry has yet to address are addressed.

We have not seen a resolution of the problems that the nuclear industry has with waste. That has not happened, so why would this be seen as a good area to expand in and provide, as the Conservatives did in the last budget, $300 million for the ACR-1000 nuclear reactor? We are not in favour of that. We are not in favour of continuing to subsidize an industry that has been in place for over 50 years.

The industry cannot get its act together to produce equipment at a price that matches that of its competitors, whether it be wind, solar, hydro, clean coal or anything else. If the industry cannot do that, why should the government support it? The government is deliberately subsidizing that industry and then it will turn around and sell it to the Americans. What kind of deal is that? That is simply a bad deal for Canada and for Canadians.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is on so many committees, but I am not sure of whether he was at the natural resources committee when minister appeared before it.

Two issues were raised, the first issue being the $600 million compensation cap that was placed through the legislation. I am not sure whether it was the member who asked the question, but the minister was asked why the government would put that cap on when a major nuclear incident would have such larger and more expansive implications geographically.

Is the member aware of what the answer was? What would the appropriate amount and mechanism be, if it were entrenched in the legislation, with which the New Democratic Party would be satisfied?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, originally we were looking at the amount that was in place in the United States, our closest neighbour, of some $10 billion in liability. The Americans have a system of sharing the liability among all the existing plants. A system like that in Canada probably would have been preferable to this minimum liability limit. That is exactly how it was portrayed by the minister when he was in the committee.

He said that this was the international minimum standard that the government would go with because it would be accepted by the international community. However, places like Germany, where it has experienced major problems with nuclear reactors, has an unlimited liability for anyone wanting to put one in place.

The reason why the government will not go in that direction is it would make it less attractive to sell AECL. There is a higher liability limit on the plants in Canada. The true costing of the nuclear industry would be more evident in the cost in insurance.

What we see is a compromise to keep the costs down for the nuclear industry. At the same time, the government, in this budget, is recklessly throwing more money into the industry.

We really have not had a national energy debate where we can match up one new form of energy against the old ones.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We have a new national energy program this morning.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting thing in Parliament that whenever one talks about the future, some tend to refer to the past. We need a debate on energy in Parliament. We need it now. We have $140 a barrel oil. We have many choices in front of us and we have to make those choices in a reasonable fashion, with Canadians understanding all the costs.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Western Arctic because I know he has paid a huge amount of attention to this issue. Because of his riding and the interest there, he is one of the people in this place, and certainly within our caucus, who pays very close attention. I agree with his comments. We need a proper debate and a context in terms of a national energy policy.

We see these piecemeal attempts coming forward that do not give us any grounding or context in terms of what is going to happen in Canada. One of the concerns we have, and what we have heard from the community, is the fact that the Conservative government has big plans for the nuclear industry in Canada and that it has been offered as a solution to the question of greenhouse gases. We see this in Alberta with the oil sands. This is not an existing status quo and it puts a cap on things.

The question of civil liability and compensation for nuclear industry damage is looming. Not only is it a serious situation in the status quo, but also where it leads us in the future.

Could the member for Western Arctic reference that in terms of what we might possibly face in the future in the expansion of the nuclear industry in Canada, so the question of liability will become an even greater issue?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting when we talk about the expansion of the nuclear industry. Peace River is looking at a huge 4,000 megawatt plant. That is probably linked into the plans to develop transmission capacity in Alberta to Montana and on into the United States. Perhaps, if we look at it in a longer sense, what we would do is provide an opportunity in Alberta to develop nuclear energy, without the kind of safeguards and liability that the United States has, and then export that power to the United States.

In some sense, that project is still much in doubt. Saskatchewan has suggested that it would like to look at a nuclear reactor. I think what is driving this is its understanding now that clean coal with sequestration is an enormously expensive process, and it is going to get cold feet on that pretty quickly too.

The Conservative government threw a quarter of a billion dollars toward this project and the Saskatchewan government threw in $750 million. The industry has only put $300 million. They are going to produce a 100 megawatt clean coal sequestration plant in Saskatchewan. My goodness, that will never be cost effective. Therefore, perhaps they are going to the nuclear reactors because they do not see this is going to be, in the long term, a very attractive potential.

What we have not done is put it in context. If we do not do that, people will continue to propose projects and look at things in the short term, which may make no sense at all in the long term.