Madam Speaker, I want to rectify a few things that have been said by previous speakers.
I think reading from a newspaper article to show that the minister is only pushing Bill C-94 forward as a project to save face is nonsense. The minister believes, as I and the Liberal government do, after much thinking and cogitation and the several weeks of discussion the bill has undergone, that for us it is the best choice.
There are two choices. MMT could be left in, riding on the back of the Ethyl Corporation which both the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party quote very extensively. The Ethyl Corporation has done a great lobbying job with the members. I am happy for the Ethyl Corporation that some members are convinced. At the same time, there is an issue of choice, an issue of whether we keep a heavy metal, which is what MMT is, in our future gasolines and cars, or whether we try to move toward more environmentally sound fuels.
I heard the Bloc Quebecois member question whether ethanol will one day be found to be just as bad for the environment as lead or something else is today. I would suggest that she read the testimony made before many committees of the House on ethanol and that she consult with people involved in the ethanol industry. Perhaps she should consult with those who crafted the clean air act in the United States. It was amended so that in the future more and more ethanol would be used because of its cleaner properties. The scientists are very clear that ethanol is a cleaner fuel because it is derived from natural, biological properties. Obviously, it is not a heavy metal.
When I referred to manganese as a toxin I was quoting from studies of scientists who referred to it. A statement was made by the United States House of Representatives Committee on Health and Environment at the EPA hearing on June 22, 1990. Reference was made that like lead, manganese is not only neurotoxic, it is an element, et cetera. We are talking about neurotoxic in the generic sense, not in the sense of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We are talking in a generic sense.
I will quote other scientists from the University of Pittsburgh, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the same hearings: "The page 15 appendix to their waiver application"-talking about Ethyl Corporation-"that deals with health nowhere mentions the neurotoxic properties of manganese".
The Department of Health and Human Services in the United States stated: "MMT can be absorbed through the skin and probably readily by the nose and lungs". Obviously they are talking in a generic sense about a heavy metal.
Perhaps the Bloc Quebecois critic should check with the deputy minister of the Department of the Environment who in a letter to our deputy minister in the Department of the Environment said:
In a letter dated July 7, 1995, the minister said that they were thinking of supporting the Canadian position on MMT in order to maintain the uniformity of car fleets and to take advantage of the environmental gains that will be made possible by the new motor vehicle emission control technologies.
The Quebec Deputy Minister of the Environment wrote to his federal counterpart that they were thinking of supporting the Canadian position on MMT in order to maintain the uniformity of car fleets and to take advantage of the environmental gains that will be made possible by the new motor vehicle emission control technologies.
This, of course, was denied in a November 2, 1995 letter from the Quebec Minister of Natural Resources, who disagrees. In any case, it is interesting to note that they agreed from an environmental point of view. It is clear that this issue has two components. We could argue, like the Reform critic, that once MMT is accepted in the U.S., the rest of the world will follow.
There is no evidence of that. There is no evidence that the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark or Japan, environmentally conscious countries, would join in because a court case was won by the Ethyl corporation in the United States.
Certainly the EPA opposed the court case all the way along. The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States also pointed out that several states of the United States would not be able to use MMT because they were using reformulated gasoline so that they could clean up their own air emissions faster.
It is a stalling tactic to try to kill the bill, to produce another amendment that is exactly the same as the amendment we defeated very fairly the other day. There was a similar amendment on second reading to defer it for six months and we defeated it. That is the democratic process. I am sure the same result will greet this amendment.