Debates of Sept. 19th, 1995

Point Of Order

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion withdrawn.)

Business Of The House

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, were you to seek it, I think you would find unanimous consent that private members' hour this evening be cancelled but that all items on the order of precedence retain their position on the order of precedence so that we can proceed with item number one tomorrow.

[The Speaker]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

This concludes question period.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-94, an act to regulate interprovincial trade in and the importation for commercial purposes of certain manganese based substances, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The hon. member for Athabasca has approximately eight minutes remaining in his intervention.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I was interrupted by question period I attempted to raise substantive questions concerning the position taken by the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers' Association as voiced through the Minister of the Environment.

In continuing my presentation, I would like to talk about some of the difficulties that will be imposed on Canadians if this bill is to proceed and become law.

On April 25, the Minister of Industry stated that it was crucial to have uniformity of standards in gasoline formulation in the North American market because we exist in one North American market. I hope that the minister still agrees with that statement and still agrees that it is crucial to have uniformity of standards, particularly since the U.S. court of appeals has now ordered that the U.S. EPA grant Ethyl Corporation's application for waiver, paving the way for the use of MMT in unleaded gasolines in the United States. In fact, several refiners in the U.S. have provided written notice of their intention to use MMT in gasoline formulation.

Uniformity of gasoline additives within North America would now require that Canada maintain rather than restrict MMT. Certainly it should not mean that it is no longer crucial to maintain that uniformity of standards.

Also the refining industry has raised a number of objections to the initiative, basically that it would increase the cost to refiners and it will increase refinery emissions. A 1995 study by T.J. McCann and Associates Limited of Calgary concluded that removing MMT from Canadian gasolines would add significantly to the refinery cost for formulating gasoline and increase the severity of the refining process required to achieve cleaner burning fuels, leading to increased refinery emissions and higher oil consumption.

The Minister of the Environment made much of need to control pollution in this country. The study by Calgary based T.J. McCann and Associates and Environ International Limited of California showed the likely range of increase in nitrous oxide emissions if MMT were banned. The testing utilized Environment Canada's own criteria, Mobile 5-C data and Ethyl fleet test data. The study concluded that the banning of MMT would increase Canadian nitrous oxide emissions from its vehicle fleet by 32,000 to 50,000 tonnes by the year 2000, an equivalent of adding over one million automobiles to Canadian roads.

Last May, Environ California concluded that Environment Canada and the McCann study underestimated the annual increases in tonnes of nitrous oxide emissions that would result from the removal of MMT. Environ examined the inappropriate use and application of the Mobile 5C emission factor by Environment Canada and concluded that Canadian nitrous oxide emissions increases resulting from the removal of MMT would range between 49,000 and 62,000 tonnes.

Putting these studies in a non-technical format, removing MMT would increase nitrous oxide levels from automobiles by up to 20 per cent. I cannot believe the Canadian Minister of the Environment is pushing legislation that would increase pollution in Canada.

Almost all provinces in Canada oppose this initiative by the environment minister. In the interest of time I will quote Alberta's position. Ty Lund, Alberta's minister for environmental protection, said:

It is unclear that the removal of MMT from gasoline has net environmental benefits.

Alberta favours the design of a suitable, binding process to resolve the dispute in a fair and timely fashion. An open, multi-stakeholder review of the environmental and economic merits of MMT should be key to this dispute resolution mechanism to credibly solve the vehicle-fuel compatibility issue.

Further, Alberta is concerned that the actions of the federal government to affect the interprovincial trade of MMT appear to contradict the provision found in the energy chapter of the draft agreement on international trade. Article 1209, section 1 of the draft agreement currently states: "No party shall prohibit or hinder access to its petroleum markets or its petroleum products markets". It is our understanding that the intent of the federal-provincial agreement was to remove interprovincial barriers to trade in petroleum products.

I also have similar objections from Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

When we examine all the evidence before us and if we examine the evidence impartially we cannot help but to at least conclude there is some doubt to the argument and position put forward by the Canadian Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Based on that information it is only reasonable that instead of passing this bill the government should ask-in my mind there is no doubt-if there still remains a doubt and ask for an independent study to determine what the affect of MMT in gasoline is required in Canada.

The minister says she has seen numerous studies on the issue in Canada but those studies come from only from the automobile manufacturers association which has refused to release those studies or the minister has refused to table those studies in the House so that we might all have a look at them in order to decide whether they are legitimate studies containing legitimate evidence.

I challenge not only the Minister of Industry to reject this bill and vote against it, but I challenge Alberta's only representative in cabinet, the Minister of Natural Resources, who professes to support the industry and Alberta's position, to vote against the bill on that basis.

I am disappointed that Canada's environment minister has been unwilling to listen to both sides in this argument and judge the evidence from both sides. She chose instead to simply voice, as a political puppet, the concerns of the motor vehicle manufacturers association and carry it forward on its behalf instead of taking the interest of all Canadians into consideration on this issue.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about the minister being a political puppet of the auto manufacturers association, which is a very serious accusation. Contrary to what he stated in his speech, is he aware the minister met with the Canadian Petroleum Producers Association directly as representatives of the Ethyl Corporation on this very issue twice and that they twice flew in in the corporate jet to meet with the minister?

Is he also aware the minister has met with the CPPI on at least four or five occasions? I do not think the hon. member is fair when he says the minister never gave the Ethyl Corporation or its representatives any hearing. That is completely false.

If this is your information, I suggest you correct it. I do not think the minister is the type to be a political puppet of anyone I know.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Before I grant the floor to the hon. member to reply, I simply caution both sides of the House and all members to please make all interventions through the Chair and not directly across the floor to one another.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have been advised by Ethyl Corporation, one of the stakeholders in this issue, the other being the Canadian Automobile Manufacturers Association, that the Minister of the Environment refused to meet with it. That is the information I have to go with.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the member should, because he seems to have very close relations with the Ethyl Corporation, ask it to correct this misstatement. The minister has assured me personally that she met twice with the CPPI on behalf of the Ethyl Corporation to discuss this very subject.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the real issue here is not who has met whom and on whose behalf but whether both sides in this issue have had a chance to argue directly with the minister the question at hand and whether both sides have had an equal chance to produce unbiased independent studies on the issue, which has not been the case in Canada.

This issue has been studied to death in the United States. The conclusion by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been that MMT has no detrimental effect on the environment, on health, on the onboard computer equipment in cars. That should indicate at least some doubt in the minds of the Minister of the Environment and the parliamentary secretary to the validity of the automobile manufacturers association's evidence, which it have refused to provide to the public.

The very lease we should do is provide an opportunity in Canada for independent study, independent of both stakeholders in this issue. We should then make a decision based on that impartial, independent evidence. I do not think that is an unreasonable request.

[Julian Reed, Liberal, Halton—Peel, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Athabasca initially made what one would consider a rather unwise accusation in his speech. He suggested the government was succumbing to big powers or big business or the shakers and movers in the country and so on.

I listened intently when he talked about the wisdom of continuing to use this American produced product and I wondered where he was getting his information and the kind of thing he was reading into the record.

The first of three questions is who is turning his crank? Who is cheering him on to stand up and deliver his own set of figures especially when a perfectly valid Canadian produced substitute is available?

No oil refiner would feel threatened in any way to be substituting an oxygenate like ETBE or ethanol or whatever for MMT. Some refineries are in the forefront of that change right now. He suggested refineries have been reporting they would have increased emissions. Did all refineries say that? Some refineries are a way out in front.

He referred to the pollutant nitrous oxide. NOx is the one pollutant whose quantity increases without the use of MMT or with the inclusion of an oxygenate, but it increases from what? What is the base line of the pollutant?

If the pollutant increase were 150 per cent it would still be incredibly small. How does that tiny increase in nitrous oxide emission compare with the decreases in all of the other emissions when one takes MMT out?

Maybe it is not fair to ask the hon. member to deliver statistics but I want to get on the record the fact that NOx, while it is an admitted pollutant, is not the big ticket item here. There are other things.

In terms of the minister's supporting the industry she has supported the petroleum industry very well and has been written up. Her support has been publicized.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite perhaps sheds some light on the mysterious position of the minister and the government on this issue.

I was under the impression the issue here was one of a problem with onboard diagnostic equipment and environmental protection. He raises the issue of perhaps finding a way to force the refining industry to use a Canadian product rather than an imported American product. Perhaps that has something to do with the position the government has taken on this issue. Others would find interesting under the free trade agreement with the United States that it would choose to do that. That was not my understanding as part of this issue.

Certainly the people who turn my crank on this issue are my constituents and the Canadian people who are being sold a con job, a fraud job on this whole issue because the environment minister and the government refuse to do independent studies on the issue and to gather independent unbiased information. They choose rather to accept solely without question all the evidence presented by the one stakeholder in the issue.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of hours ago the Minister of the Environment indicated in the House her meetings with industry and the offers she made to industry in the period preceding the introduction of this bill. Was the member in the House when the minister spoke a couple of hours ago?

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly was in the House. I called into question her sincerity in offering to meet with all the parties involved in this issue. That is not my understanding of what has happened. I raised what I think is a valid question. According to my information, she consistently refused to meet with-

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

I heard her and I questioned the validity of that remark. I think it is a legitimate question and I will continue to raise it.

She also raised a lot of other issues. I might point to the one concerning sparkplug failure. In a very emotional manner she raised the issue of Canadians having to change their sparkplugs 17 times more frequently than Americans. However in an independent, valid and verifiable study it was concluded that was an absolute fraud. One particular sparkplug failed 17 times more often than others simply because of a flaw in the manufacture of that sparkplug. It did the same with MMT or without MMT. It had no significance.

If I am not allowed to raise questions concerning the validity of the comments made by the minister, then what am I doing here? I believe my question was valid and reasonable and I will continue to raise it.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, my support of Bill C-94 on the abolition of MMT in the gasoline we Canadians use every day comes out of a strong conviction.

For me it is not a question of backing this or that kind of production, this or that manufacturer.

I have no brief for the automobile industry nor have I a brief for Ethyl Corporation. That is not my business. I believe very deeply in the environment. I have always done so. I am convinced that the bill will go a long way to solving a very significant environmental problem relating to gasoline in our cars.

For me it is a question of pollution prevention. I have satisfied myself, not because I believe in Toyota, General Motors or any other company. Frankly I do not care.

Unfortunately there are more and more cars on the road. I wish we had cars that used ethanol, electricity and hydrogen rather than gasoline, but that is a fact of life. As long as there are cars the only way to ensure that they perform with the least damage to the environment is to ensure, first, that they are equipped with the latest technology and that they are inspected and maintained properly.

That is why all provinces across Canada have an inspection and maintenance service which ensures that the drivers of cars, especially older cars, go to inspection stations in order to verify that their cars are safe and sound for the environment. The idea of putting new technology on board the cars is to prevent damage before it occurs, to ensure that we have less need for inspection and maintenance stations and the cars will tell the drivers when the systems have failed.

I have satisfied myself that MMT does not help the systems. The fact is that the manufacturers in Canada have said that if we continue with MMT they cannot and they will not install the latest diagnostic systems in these cars. That is not hypothetical, it is a fact.

If we are conscious of the environment, and if we use a precautionary system, we have to make decisions in favour of what is the most environmentally and technologically sound decision.

Acting to ban MMT makes us uniform with the United States, paradoxically. The speaker before me was pretending that we should do exactly the reverse. He was quoting the Ethyl Corporation's many appeals to the United States' courts-which it eventually won-to force the EPA to permit MMT to be added again to gasoline.

I will correct the member because the EPA has still not agreed. Contrary to what the member stated, in August 1994 Mrs. Carol Browner, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indicated the EPA had concerns about the potential effects of manganese emissions on public health, especially in light of the broad exposure of Americans to car emissions.

A risk assessment on manganese emissions conducted by the EPA determined there were important unanswered questions about potential public health risks and that studies on health effects and exposures are needed.

The EPA has said: "Despite the appeals of Ethyl Corporation we want a risk and health assessment to be completed before we will okay MMT".

Some time ago, our standing committee on the environment and sustainable development held environmental hearings where Ralph Ferguson, a former MP and colleague, gave testimony on the MMT issue. He raised a number of points relating to health. I know that they will tell us that Health Canada has found that MMT presents no significant problem for health. This is their decision. Still, according to many experts we ought to be very careful. I would like to quote from this hearing we had on the environment, where Mr. Ferguson spoke of a hearing that the American EPA had held on June 22, 1990. Helen Silbergeld of the University of Maryland and the Environmental Defence Fund gave the following testimony:

"Manganese, like lead, is a cumulative toxin in that both its absorption and retention as well as its toxicity increase with time".

She also cited well-known Canadian scientists specializing in neurotoxicity, Dr. John Donaldson and Dr. Frank Labella and others who have carried out experiments at the University of Manitoba on the manganese question. Dr. Donaldson also stated the following at that same EPA hearing in Washington:

"I believe that manganese is such an age-accelerating toxin and I believe it is the answer to manganese's ability to produce biochemically, pathologically and clinically the picture that is very similar but not identical to Parkinson's disease".

Later on, the health and environment committee of the United States House of Representatives also appeared before the EPA. Its representative said:

"Like lead, manganese is not only neurotoxic, it is an element and thus does not degrade or lose its potency with the passage of time. As a result the manganese released into the environment through the use of MMT in a given year accumulates over time with all the MMT released in the next year and all subsequent years".

The University of Pittsburg, the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, said the following in a report to the EPA:

The 15-page appendix to their waiver application, parlant de la corporation Ethyl, that deals with health, nowhere mentions the newer toxic properties of manganese, nor does it attend to the

extraordinary risks to the brain of alkali manganese compounds. This document cannot be taken as a credible submission in support of this application. It is incomplete, biased and tendentious.

That is why Ms. Carol Browner, the administrator of the EPA, said as recently as June 1994 that many health questions remained unanswered and that additional assessments were needed before MMT could be approved.

So there are potential problems. I am not saying that it has been proven 100 per cent or 50 per cent safe, but if we feel that caution must be a guiding principle in health and environmental matters, we must be very careful indeed. If we really believe in climatic changes and are convinced that cars are the main source of air pollution in Canada, it is because it is a fact.

According to a recent study by all deputy ministers of the environment in Canada, cars are the main source of harmful atmospheric emissions. These figures are quite striking. Gasoline-and diesel-powered motor vehicles account for 60 per cent of carbon monoxide emissions; 35 per cent of nitrous oxide emissions, which cause smog; and 25 per cent of hydrocarbon emissions. I know we will be told that MMT reduces nitrous oxide emissions.

As stated by my colleague very recently in a question to the Reform Party, what is the basis of that? In fact our studies show in the Ministry of the Environment that the way this figure is contrived, used in test cars of Ethyl Corporation, in fact results in a completely insignificant factor when explained in actual ratio relating to all cars in Canada.

The gains produced by the use of onboard diagnostic systems in new cars are so much greater in proportion that the environmental advantages far outweigh any disadvantages by the removal of MMT.

We have been debating this issue for 10 years, since 1986. Contrary to what the member from the Reform Party said a few minutes ago, the minister sat not only with both sides, but talked to the Ethyl Corporation directly twice on this issue, and as she stated very recently in the House, offered Ethyl Corporation this compromise: "I won't put legislation through if you will agree with me to produce one type of gasoline blend without MMT to let the consumers make their own choice". Ethyl refused this very fair and open compromise because it did not want to let the consumers judge.

I ask the members here who believe that Bill C-94 is not needed, how is it that environmentally sound countries, leaders in the field, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Japan do not use MMT. How come it is only in Canada of all the countries in the world that is using MMT? Are we supposed to be the smart ones? The irony is that we do not even produce it ourselves. The Americans produce it but do not use it. Then we take the American product and use it on our own soil regardless of the fact that the rest of the world does not want any of it.

The Reform Party will suggest that we be uniform with the United States, co-ordinate so that MMT is used both in Canada and the United States when the EPA has been fighting tooth and nail for 18 years to ban MMT. The only reason they are now faced with the possibility of MMT being reintroduced is court case after court case after court case by Ethyl Corporation.

Does Ethyl Corporation care about the environment? No it does not care about the environment. It cares about its profits, about its existence. It cares about the Canadian market because it is the only market it has for selling MMT. If it was such a good product the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Finnish and the Japanese would buy it to put in their cars but they do not want any of it. Why should we be the suckers?

Instead of defending Ethyl Corporation and MMT it is time that we started to think, as my colleague from London stated so clearly, about using our talents, our brains, our tremendous resources to use environmentally sound products. There are additives which are beckoning us. We could use ethanol in gasoline tomorrow morning and it would perform even better than MMT and is completely environmentally sound. It is time we started to use ethanol fueled cars, electrically driven cars, hydrogen fueled cars. I do not have any grief for the Ethyl Corporation which fights for MMT and goes back like the dinosaurs into the past. I want to see the future.

Bill C-94 points to a change of habit. It forces all Canadians to look at a different way of doing things and not to accept the dictates of a big corporation that only wants big profits and could not care less about the consumer or the environment.

I am an environmentalist. All I care about is quality of life and potential health dangers if it is slightly possible that there are health dangers. I have read these documents and they prove that there are significant health dangers. Many universities and many doctors of repute have said to beware. They said it about lead many, many years ago and we never believed them.

As a result of what I have heard and because of the weight of evidence I have read, I say let us go with Bill C-94. Let us change our habits and make our gasoline cleaner. Let us go to the new generation of fuels, the clean fuels, ethanol and the new energy patterns of electricity and halogen. Let us live more cleanly. Let us put the environment first. The automobile industry and Ethyl Corporation can come last. I do not care.

To Canadian consumers I say Bill C-94 is one step forward and I hope we all vote for it.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, members on this side of the House are well aware that, according to certain documents, MMT is said to be a dangerous pollutant, while other studies say that it has not been conclusively proven to be harmful.

The member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis made comments about Ethyl Corporation which, over the years, has commissioned a number of studies on MMT. Consequently, I do not think it is appropriate to lash out at a company which, after all, did its homework. And if the courts made some decisions in favour of that company, it is because Ethyl Corporation did its homework properly.

As regards MMT, the problem is that the United States could re-introduce that product.

I am not saying that they will, but they are considering re-introducing it on the American market. Personally, I am just concerned that Canadian companies, including our oil companies, will have to make major and costly changes in order to stop using that product.

As you know, we agree with Bill C-94. Nevertheless, I ask myself this question, which I put to the hon. member opposite: Is this truly the right decision to make? Should we pass this bill that quickly, without knowing what the United States will ultimately decide?

Let us not forget that we live in North America. We could pass Bill C-94 only to find out two years down the road that the Americans are re-introducing MMT. In the meantime, we would have asked our oil companies to change everything so as to comply with this legislation. I am not convinced that MMT is harmful to our health. I have read studies. Ethyl Canada provided us with its studies and we also had discussions with the EPA.

We were told that it remains to be seen whether that product is truly harmful. Sure, we have to promote progress, environmental protection and sustainable development. We fully agree with that. However, we should wait for the decision of the Americans, because it is vital for us regarding this issue.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the points made by the hon. member for Laurentides were very constructive and they are well taken. I agree these are important matters that must be dealt with.

After a lot of soul searching, we finally decided that Bill C-94 was the answer. There was a decisive factor. The United States is of course looking into the MMT issue, following a number of appeals filed by Ethyl Corporation. However, the EPA is dragging its feet. Until June 1994, the EPA administrator was fighting very hard, but in fact they keep asking for studies and health impact assessments.

The United States might reintroduce MMT and it would then become legal. It is quite possible, but meanwhile, it is up to us as Canadians to take the kind of action that may also influence our neighbours to the south.

Today, we are part of NAFTA. NAFTA includes Mexico, and I think that we have to make decisions on the basis of their intrinsic value. We think that today, Canada could add ethanol to gas. My colleague has done an extraordinary study of ethanol. Today, we have an ethanol industry in eastern Canada. We have one in western Canada. The United States, because of the legislation, is now getting involved in massive production of ethanol. I believe that they want 10 per cent of the oil industry to be ethanol-based by the year 2000.

It seems to me we should start making an effort to seek additives that are more environmentally sound. I realize there are arguments for and against MMT.

I think the weight of the evidence would support a new process: gas without MMT. What strikes me particularly is that none of the countries that enjoy an outstanding reputation for the quality of their environment-the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and the Scandinavian countries-none of them uses MMT.

If tomorrow morning one of these countries were to opt for MMT, I would think again. If the United States had opted for MMT because it was environmentally safe, I would reconsider. However, the EPA does not accept it because it wants to but because it was a legal decision. I think we should go ahead with C-94.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that this issue is not terribly unlike the issue of the ethics counsellor. We need to have some distance between the person who is making a judgment and the people who are directly involved.

It looks to me that what we have here are two studies that were made and are being distributed by the principals of the dispute. I personally feel that we have a very strong reason to doubt the validity of the evidence.

I would like to become very personal here. I do most of my own mechanical work. I always have in order to save a buck or two. On Saturdays I change my own sparkplugs.

Not long ago, I turned out the plugs on my car in order to replace them because they had 75,000 kilometres on them and I had never touched them. It stood to reason that by then I should be changing them. I turned them out. They were almost as good as new. I cleaned them up, regapped them and put them back in and finally replaced them at 100,000 kilometres.

The studies we are asked to believe say that these plugs will fail 17 times as often using MMT. I am in an environment where as far as I know there is MMT in our fuel. If that is really a cause of sparkplug failure then either I was the recipient of a miracle or the studies are not to be depended on.

I have a tendency to think that it is the studies that are not reliable because I have many acquaintances and I talk to many people and not a single person has complained to me of premature sparkplug failure. That is a sample of I do not know how many thousands of people. I am sure that if that were happening, I would have heard about it as the representative from Elk Island.

If we cannot trust this study in the area of sparkplugs, why should we then trust the same study when it tells us that it is very harmful to the environment and has all these other dangers? It may or it may not.

I personally do not believe that these are to be trusted. That is why we need to call for a truly independent agency that is reliable and trustworthy to evaluate the merits or demerits of the use of MMT. Let us have the truth instead of a bunch of wildly stated causes and effects that may or may not rest in truth.

I would like the member who just spoke to respond to this. I would like to ask him also why there is a reluctance on the part of the government to submit this to a truly independent study.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lachine—Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have always considered that in these questions the government is there to make decisions after it evaluates both sides of a story.

The feeling is that only the automobile industry's case has been studied but that is not correct. I have letters from the deputy minister. There are evaluations made by the Minister of the Environment completely, impartially and objectively, including the minister's commitment to the Ethyl Corporation to suggest to Ethyl not to go with legislation, that the minister would prefer to have a compromise on this issue between the two industrial groups concerned and suggesting and offering to Ethyl to produce one type of gasoline without MMT to let the consumers judge and compare.

That is fair. It is objective. It is impartial. It is a fact. I know the minister made this offer. I know that this offer was turned down because Ethyl Corporation today has a solid market with MMT that it does not want to give up. It is a monopoly.

If Canada turns down MMT, there would be no MMT sold anywhere around the world. That is a fact. As I said before, if it is so good for cars why is MMT not used in the fuels in all the countries that are just as sophisticated as we are? I find that very strange. I am convinced that the step we are taking today is a step forward for the environment.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

While we do not have a great deal of time left, I know the hon. member for Mackenzie has been seeking the floor. I ask if possible the question to be as brief as possible, and the reply.