Madam Speaker, as we said in the motion, we are not asking for the bill to be withdrawn altogether but to be postponed for six months. The environment is of course a very important matter, and we support any measures that have a positive impact on the environment and that are environmentally viable.
However, as far as Bill C-94 on the abolition of MMT is concerned, we are not convinced it is a good bill. If we consider what has been done with respect to manganese, including tests by the automotive industry, the tests now being done by independent laboratories were ordered strictly by Ethyl Corporation which, on the basis of its tests, has demonstrated that MMT does not in any way affect the components of the antipollution system in automobiles.
I also wonder what the automotive industry is doing in this respect. If studies have already found that MMT causes pollution in the components of the antipollution system, why have these tests not been published? Did they actually do any tests? Do they intend to or did they never do any at all?
When I look at the government's position in this respect, is it possible that the government was pressured by the automotive industry lobby to the extent that it felt obliged to table this bill? It is quite possible. I do not want to accuse anybody, but we all know that there are two major lobbies here in Canada. The oil company lobby and the automotive lobby. As it happens, all the automotive industries are in Ontario, not far from the environment minister's riding. Maybe that should give rise to some questions.
However, the U.S. automotive industry is only beginning to test this product. The purpose of our amendment is for us to wait until they get the results of those tests before we make a final and definitive decision, because legislation is definitive. We must have some kind of proof and nobody has proven anything yet, not even Health Canada. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment said earlier-he read it, by the way, because it is in Hansard -that as far as health is concerned, tests have shown that there is no threat whatsoever to health.
I believe that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment made a mistake a while ago when he mentioned that manganese was a toxin. I am sorry, but if it were considered a toxic product, we would not be here considering a special piece of legislation such as Bill C-94 to ban it, because it would be covered under CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This means that any product considered toxic is automatically included under CEPA. This is not the case here. Manganese is not a toxic product since we have to enact a specific legislation to ban it. There has been a slight error which I wanted to point out and correct.
We have heard about a recent ruling in the United States, which I believe to be very important. The Ethyl corporation has been working for years to keep on manufacturing and marketing its product. Very recently, a few weeks ago, a ruling ordered the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the American equivalent of our Department of the Environment, to lift the ban on MMT.
In the United States, even the Environmental Protection Agency tells us when we call that it does not know if it is going to appeal, that it does not think so. We are told that this product could be reintroduced in the United States as early as the beginning of December. So what is the rationale behind Bill C-94?
We are also told that 50 per cent of American refineries are ready to use this product and cannot wait to do so. So if 50 per cent of these industries are ready to use MMT, again what is the rationale behind Bill C-94?
In the environment committee, we are always talking about harmonization, about trying to make the environment an international concern. I totally agree with that. Yes, I said many times that we have to avoid duplication and conflict and yet, with Bill C-94, we are creating a conflict with our neighbours, the Americans, who are a bit more powerful than we are.
So we are going to eliminate MMT from the market and ask all our refineries to transform their system, at a cost of several million dollars, because they will not be able to use MMT any more, and we may well have to reintroduce it in six months. It makes absolutely no sense at all.
What we are asking is not that the bill be withdrawn, but that we wait and see what happens in the United States. We are also asking to see the tests being done right now by the U.S. automotive industry, and I have the feeling that these tests will be performed a little bit faster than the ones scheduled to be done in Canada, because we will not be able to watch them. Once we have these results, we will have a complete, concrete and logical overview of the issue, and in six months' time, we can revisit the bill and make a decision based on logical arguments.
We are going through tough a period, in our economy, where we cannot afford to make mistakes. We are out of money. We are going through some hard times. Are we going to ask refineries to completely modify their process simply to achieve what we set to do as far as MMT is concerned? I know that MMT is an additive. But we are also talking about other additives now available on the market, such as ethanol. As you know, we have yet to see complete and concrete evidence that ethanol is neither toxic nor hazardous.
We may realize one day that ethanol is not that good for the environment.
I am not against the introduction of products like ethanol, but why should we replace manganese, MMT, which has been thoroughly analyzed for 15 years and has not been proven to be dangerous? On the contrary, it even helps to reduce the greenhouse effect by 20 per cent.
I am not saying that we should keep this product forever or that the bill is not good. What I am saying is that the product is now being reintroduced on the American market and that we should wait six months to see what the EPA will do or what studies the U.S. automotive industry will produce on this product before we make a logical and reasonable decision on this issue.