Madam Speaker, first I would like to make a point of clarification. I forgot that I was sharing my time with the member for Simcoe North.
Some of the comments by the member for New Westminster-Burnaby were contradictory. He said that in the United States there is a court case going on with regard to the banning of MMT, yet he says that MMT is used. If MMT is used then we do not have a problem. I suspect that there are times when we would have to do that. There probably are old fashioned cars that do not use the highways as much. Certain facilities are made in order for those people to operate their vehicles. That may be one of the reasons they are using MMT.
The basic thing we are looking at here is as the member for Davenport explained, there are 18 automotive manufacturers that say that MMT will foul up the onboard diagnostic equipment. We are talking about Canadian consumers, and we must understand that the on board diagnostic equipment sends messages to the computer. These are all little electronic devices. If they become plugged and turn on the on board diagnostic lights, it will cause these cars to be taken in for repair. The manufacturer is going to get fed up with it and pull the plug, which they said they would do, and stop using the light, which is so important for these vehicles as the technology advances to the stage where you know when your car is starting to pollute the environment.
In the United States they have stickers and at certain times cars go in to be fixed. But the on board diagnostics show right away when there is a problem. The MMT will foul them up and render them useless. By doing that it impairs the pollution device it impairs the fuel economy of the car sputter, and it makes the car sputter and not function properly. It takes away that protection from the consumer.
That is what we are trying to do. The hon. member does not want to spend any money. If the manufacturers of MMT want to push this product and make it acceptable to the automobile manufactuers then let them get their scientists to make sure it works in a way that it does not do that. Let them do that, but the Government of Canada should not be spending money for that kind of stuff.