Okay, I just wanted to make sure.
I find that in formulating this new Bill C-5, there are two important aspects. One of them is compensation for damages suffered, and the other is the expansion of nuclear power.
The nuclear power industry has been saying that they need this bill in order to meet international conventions, and also to perhaps reassure the public that if there were an accident, there would be proper compensation.
As you all know, the city that is most threatened by a major accident is Toronto. In the Toronto area, $650 million would come to a compensation of about $200 per person or house. Many people feel that this is not very much. In the United States, the figure that is thrown about is $9 billion for a major accident at one nuclear reactor site. That would come to $3,000 per person or house.
The Pembina Institute in Canada has estimated that an accident in the Toronto area would cause damages of about $1 trillion. That would come to $300,000 per person or house. In my opinion, that would not be a desirable event and sufficient compensation, even at that high figure.
The second aspect is expansion of nuclear power because of the climate change question.
The first aspect I address in the short resumé I sent you is that there is room for liability coverage in the case of nuclear reactors, because if you read the AECL documentation, which I do every year, and also the CNSC documentation, you find that all of these people in the nuclear industry are terribly worried about a major accident. It's a nightmare, and they have confessed it, even in public.
So a major accident is possible, and in the resumé I sent around, I quote AECL in 2002, where they addressed the question of the positive nuclear coolant void reactivity coefficient. In the existing CANDUs, if you have a loss of cooling water, or bubbles, or anything that diminishes the density of water trying to cool the reactor, the nuclear reactions increase in their intensity. This is called a positive feedback, and this feature has been recognized by AECL as being undesirable.
It makes the old CANDU reactor illegal in England or in the United States. It does not meet the security standards of England or the United States. So in their effort to develop a new reactor, AECL has insisted on having a negative coolant void reactivity problem, but as far as I know, it still has not been solved completely.
That makes the old CANDU reactors very dangerous. I'm upset by the fact that instead of building new reactors, which are far safer, they retube a design that was made in the 1970s.
In the last four decades, there has been tremendous progress in all areas of technology, including nuclear power, so I find it very upsetting that they're proud of doing retubing contracts here and there, in New Brunswick, at Bruce around Toronto, and now they want to do Gentilly in Quebec. It's just going back to a design of the 1970s, a design that does not meet the security standards of England or the United States, the first two nuclear countries in history.
Regarding expansion, I work in the field of renewable energy, and I was at a convention on wind power about a month ago. What's amazing about wind power is that it has been increasing by 25% a year for the last decade. Canada is positioning itself in this area. Ontario already has 400 megawatts of installed power. Quebec has about 500 megawatts. B.C. has a big project to have 350 megawatts near Prince Rupert, with further expansion to 15,000 megawatts in the coming years.
In Europe, the European Union passed a law in September that calls for the production of 20% of electrical power in the European Union by renewable energy by 2020.
In the United States, people are talking about having 25% renewable electricity by the year 2025.
If you look at the wind energy maps and the solar energy maps that are available online, you will find that Canada is blessed with tremendous wind and solar resources.
The main point I want to make to the Minister of Natural Resources is that if we manage—if you manage with us correctly—our natural resources, which include wind and power and geothermal, we could easily increase government income by a tremendous amount and lower the income taxes.
I will stop here.