Natural Resources Committee on March 18th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Oh, not at all.

[Serge Dupont]

I will be brief.

Yes, there are a couple of things. Within NRCan's main estimates, moneys are allocated for what is called the legacy waste liability program, which is trying to address at Chalk River, in particular, waste that has been accumulating basically since World War II, so that it be managed and stored responsibly.

Moneys are also allocated through the estimates to fund our activities in Port Hope and to provide that remediation works are undertaken there. At this stage it's still in terms of detailed designs for waste facilities so that we properly address the issue of waste in Port Hope after a period of 50 years.

Then there are others, with respect to technology development, that may address how we better use spent fuel, and that is something AECL continues to devote attention to, including in discussions, for example, with China, as to how we better use spent fuel to generate energy cleanly.

So it is quite a range, Mr. Chairman. I think I'll stop here within the allocated time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Thank you, all of you, for coming before the committee today to answer questions: Ms. Doyle, Mr. Dupont, Mr. Farrell, and Mr. Merklinger.

Mr. Tonks, go ahead.

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

Mr. Chair, not necessarily on a point of order, but while the minister's staff is here, as a matter of process when a question is asked, for example, on carbon sequestration, the issue with respect to policy that's developing out of the CCS program, is there a process whereby the committee could ask, for example, if there's any policy work being done on carbon pricing? How would I go about that on behalf of the committee? A notice of motion? Or simply ask out of the question if there is anything the committee could be supplied with, in terms of research that's going on in the department?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You can just ask when the witnesses are here. We've done it, in fact.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

The minister has committed to coming back with information on some of the questions asked.

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

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Or you can request information through the chair.

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

Okay.

I think the committee would be interested. If that is going on, if Ms. Doyle could take it under consideration, and perhaps report to the committee....

[Cassie Doyle]

Yes.

If I may, Mr. Chair, and I didn't mean to avoid that part of the question, but I should just mention that the lead on the question of carbon pricing, which this government has made a decision to approach through regulation, is Environment Canada. They play the primary regulatory role when it comes to GHG emissions.

But we would be very happy to provide what we can, working with our colleagues at EC.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much.

And, again, thank you all for coming.

Now we will get to the votes on the supplementary estimates first.

I think all of you know the process. We will start.

There are four votes on the supplementary estimates. So if we could go directly to the votes....

I think you all know the rules on the votes, so we'll start with vote 1c.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Department

Vote 1c—Operating expenditures..........$1

Vote 5c—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........$1

Atomic Energy of Canada

Vote 10c—Payments to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for operating and capital expenditures..........$182,000,000

National Energy Board

Vote 25c—Program expenditures..........$2,147

(Votes 1c, 5c, 10c, and 25c inclusive agreed to on division)

Shall I report the supplementary estimates (C) to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

All right, now to the main estimates for 2010-11. It's the same process, and we have votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Department

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$805,869,000

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$15,134,000

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, I've submitted to the clerk a motion to amend the dollar figure in vote 10 in the amount equal to the amount of money that goes to subsidize a lobby group called the Chrysotile Institute, formerly known as the Asbestos Institute. With your permission, I would like to move that motion, having served notice of it, although I believe it's in order and that I don't need to serve notice of motion when we're on that particular vote. But I would like the opportunity to speak to the motion, briefly, before it's put to a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. Martin, and give the exact amount that you would like. It is in the motion, but maybe just read your motion, and then go ahead and speak to it.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I believe it's been circulated:

That Vote 10 in the amount of $1,877,636,000 be reduced by $250,000.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, go ahead and speak to it, Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chairman, you heard some of the arguments in favour of this motion when I was questioning the minister, so I won't be repetitious, but I would like to clarify a couple of the points the minister made in his speech that I didn't have time to address.

First of all, the minister implied that asbestos is banned in this country. Asbestos is not banned in this country. In fact, there's an active policy to use more asbestos in Canadian public works, etc.

I'd also like to point out that the minister suggested there was ample scientific evidence for a safe use policy for asbestos. I think it should go on the record, and for the information of members here, that there is one study that says asbestos can and should be used safely in this country and abroad. That was a study paid for by the Asbestos Institute at a cost of $1 million to one scientist named David Bernstein. He has no peer review. There's not a single scientist in the world who agrees with him.

In contrast, I've circulated to members of the committee a letter. It was addressed to Premier Charest, but the same letter went to Prime Minister Harper on January 28, 2010. The letter states that 120 scientists from 28 different countries, including Canada, including the Province of Quebec, say just the opposite. If I could read the opening paragraph, it says:

As scientists from twenty-eight countries, dedicated to protecting public health, we appeal to you to respect the overwhelmingly consistent body of scientific evidence and the considered judgment of the World Health Organization (WHO) that all forms of asbestos have been shown to be deadly and that safe use of any form of asbestos has proven impossible anywhere in the world.

Again, I've circulated that for people to look at.

I'd like to also draw attention to another piece of paper I've circulated, which is a letter dated today from the Canadian Cancer Society to you, Chair, Mr. Benoit.

Again, I will read it. It's dated March 17, 2010:

It is our great disappointment that we are having to write to you again this year to express our dismay in the fact that the federal budget allocates $250,000 to support the Chrysotile Institute. Chrysotile, like all forms of asbestos, is known to cause cancer.

The Canadian Cancer Society has officially joined the global ban on asbestos movement, even though the Government of Canada has not. The entire European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa—virtually all the developed world—has banned asbestos in all of its forms, yet Canada continues to be one of the leading exporters of asbestos in the world, at roughly 200,000 tonnes per year, dumped into largely India and other developing third world countries.

Another document I'd like to draw attention to, and I've circulated it in both languages, is a letter to Prime Minister Harper. The principal signatories work at Laval University: Dr. Fernand Turcotte, professor emeritus in public health at Laval University from the Faculty of Medicine, and Dr. Pierre Auger, professor of preventive medicine at Laval University. But it's also signed by Dr. Colin Soskolne from the University of Alberta, Dr. John Last from the University of Ottawa, Dr. Tim Takaro from Simon Fraser University, and Dr. Murray Finkelstein from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. They urge the Prime Minister, and by extension the government....

We are profoundly disturbed that your government plans to continue to fund the Chrysotile Institute in the new federal budget. It is our view as Canadian experts in epidemiology and occupational medicine and as public health advocates that the Chrysotile Institute is endangering public health by disseminating misleading and untruthful information about chrysotile asbestos, especially in the world's emerging economies.

These experts are appealing to this committee to take away this direct support for the Chrysotile Institute. We should say, as a side note, that this won't stop the Chrysotile Institute from operating, because they get tonnes of soft support from the government, as well as the direct federal subsidy. They are paid to go around the world on 160 different trade junkets in 60 different countries, according to their website, using Canadian embassies to push asbestos, through our trade commissioners.

I've travelled with you internationally, Mr. Benoit, to Indonesia and Vietnam, two of our largest customers, and I've spoken to the trade commissioners in those foreign embassies, with you present, about their policy to push asbestos. They shake their heads, but they dutifully follow the direction of this government to find new markets and push more asbestos.

In many ways, committee members should be conscious of the fact that the asbestos industry is sort of like the tobacco industry's evil twin, in that in the final days, the twilight days, of the tobacco industry, they survive by junk science and aggressive lobbying. The lobbying, in this case, is done by the Chrysotile Institute, subsidized by the federal taxpayer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Harris, on a point of order.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I just need some clarification from Mr. Martin on something.

You're talking about the trade officials in other countries. You say they shake their heads but they still do promotion. Do they shake their heads saying no, they don't promote it, and you're saying they do, that they're lying?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Harris, it's not a point of order. If you'd like to speak to the motion, you're certainly welcome.

Carry on, Mr. Martin.

We'll also have a comment or a question later by Monsieur Bellavance.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I don't think my colleague has a point of order, but I don't mind his question. As clarification, what I meant was that the trade commissioners who I spoke to shook their heads in regret that this is what they're asked to do, knowing full well in their own conscience that it's wrong. But they dutifully follow the direction of their employer, the ambassador of the country, to promote.

The Chrysotile Institute has fallen into disrepute partly because they're led by this thug named Mr. Godbout, a former head of the Quebec Federation of Labour. We call him, in the labour movement, a traitor to the working class for now showing no solidarity with the international workers of the world—in fact, putting workers of the world at risk by promoting this deadly toxin. The Chrysotile Institute calls the Quebec National Institute of Public Health “a little gang of Taliban”, “le petit gang de Taliban” de l'Institut national de la santé publique. Now that's an offensive comment by any standards, but when Clément Godbout and Bernard Coulombe are threatened by scientific evidence that puts the lie to their evidence, they accuse the Quebec National Institute of Public Health of being “le petit gang de Taliban”. I wish I could ask the minister if he agreed with berating public servants of Quebec in this fashion, but I find it offensive. But it is typical. It paints a picture. It's illustrative of the tone and the content of the material that this sham of an organization is out there promoting.

I pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that I myself worked in the asbestos mines in the Yukon Territory, and I should point out that the asbestos mines in the Yukon closed due to normal market forces, because nobody would buy this poison any more. The mines in B.C., in Ontario, and in Newfoundland all closed because the market was allowed to play itself out. The mines in Quebec are artificially supported because there's this bizarre, irrational affinity for asbestos in Quebec. It's tied to some nationalist pride or something, and it's subsidized aggressively and heavily, artificially. So we're exporting human misery, and supporting it by the taxpayer, because the legacy that we're exporting into these developing nations is horrific. We're spending tens of millions of dollars to remove every scrap of asbestos from the Parliament Buildings because asbestos is so hazardous that no MP should ever be exposed to a single fibre. That's the reasoning. Yet somehow, at the height of hypocrisy, we justify exporting hundreds of thousands of tonnes to developing nations and creating the exact same set of circumstances in those countries that we have to remediate in this country. Remediation of asbestos is one of the largest unfunded liabilities that this country faces.

The final point I would like to make before I yield the floor is that I sit on the government operations committee with my colleague Madam Hall Findlay. We're just about to enter a study into the government's latest announcement that they're going to freeze the budget of every government department right across the board. We're going to look at, in our committee, some of the difficulties that might cause. How do we justify giving a quarter of a million dollars to a lobby group on a frozen departmental budget? How do we rationalize this? It's not only morally and ethically reprehensible because of what they do; it's also not sound fiscal management to give corporate welfare out at a time when the rest of us are asked to tighten our belts. In the interest of fiscal prudence and probity, this committee should be deciding whether or not these estimates should stand the way they are or if we have enough spare cash to give Clément Godbout and his gang of thugs enough money to tour the world like a bunch of globe-trotting propagandists for a known carcinogen. The Canadian Department of Health lists chrysotile asbestos as a class A carcinogen, not just a risk.

The minister says, “Well, it won't bother you as long as you leave it alone in the attic of this building.” That's like saying land mines are safe unless you step on them. Sooner or later, somebody is going to disturb that material and it's going to be fluttering around--and there is no safe level of asbestos.

The last thing I would point out is that when I opened my remarks by saying that asbestos is the greatest industrial hazard the world has ever known and that 60% of all the occupational deaths in Canada are due to asbestos, that figure is 80% in the province of Quebec, because for some reason the province of Quebec allows a threshold limit value of exposure 100 times greater than the rest of the world. Everybody else says .01 fibres per cubic centimetre is an acceptable limit, although actually there is no acceptable limit. In Quebec, it is one fibre per cubic centimetre, 100 times greater tolerance.

There's an irrationality associated with our treatment of Quebec. I agree with Keith Spicer, the Canadian journalist who calls Canada's asbestos policy not only irrational but morally and ethically reprehensible.

We have an opportunity at this point in time to express our revulsion, or my revulsion and perhaps your dissatisfaction, at this irresponsible waste of money encouraging and propagating the damage that asbestos causes around the world by the simple gesture of—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Anderson.