Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the motion to amend Bill C-94, an act to ban the importation of MMT.
My colleague, the member for Calgary North, proposes to withdraw Bill C-94 from second reading and refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Industry. I support this motion, because when we look at the facts it will become very clear that the banning of MMT is clearly an industry issue, not an environmental issue.
This bill revolves around an industry dispute, a dispute between the Canadian Motor Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, the MVMA, and the Canadian Petroleum Producers Institute, the CPPI. It should be referred to the Standing Committee on Industry.
The environment minister has Bill C-94 on a fast track through the House on environmental grounds, but there is no impartial evidence to support this approach or the minister's supposed environmental claims. That is the reason we are debating an interprovincial ban on MMT, as opposed to environmental concerns.
It concerns me that after a review of legislation proposed in Bill C-94 and of the scientific evidence or lack of scientific evidence presented both in support of the bill and in opposition to it, I am still left with one question: Why is this government proposing to ban MMT?
In the last session I asked the House to lay out the facts that support this proposed legislation. I am still waiting for those facts to be presented, which leaves me asking the same questions and drawing the same conclusions. The minister's decision to ban MMT is purely political. The fact is that the minister's decision has been influenced by the MVMA.
The MVMA wants the minister to ban MMT because it claims that MMT is responsible for problems with onboard diagnostic systems. However, there is a problem with this claim. Automakers are experiencing the same problems in the United States, where MMT is not in current use. Given this fact, and without any impartial evidence, it is difficult to understand how equipment problems could be the result of MMT's presence in Canadian gasoline. We have two different cases.
There are many things that do not make sense with this bill. For example, it is difficult to understand why this government is proposing to ban a substance when research has shown that removing MMT will increase vehicle emissions that cause smog and poor air quality by up to 20 per cent.
Over the last decade Canadians have worked hard to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide to meet international and domestic commitments to improve air quality. While we have been successful at freezing NOX emissions at 1987 levels, and we have pledged to do so with the OECD, can we now afford to consider increasing NOX emissions by 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes a year? This is what will happen by removing MMT from gasoline.
The government has yet to provide any answers regarding what will replace MMT in gasoline. MMT is the only fuel additive that has been scientifically proven to reduce emissions of NOX. Alternative fuels such as ethanol also benefit from addition of MMT, so this will affect their performance as well. Without MMT ethanol puts NOX into the atmosphere, but when MMT is added to a 10 per cent solution of ethanol blend it reduces emissions of NOX by 30 per cent.
In addition, the minister has failed to address what the health impacts of banning MMT will be. Air pollution can be a threat to public health and health costs. NOX is one of the leading contributors to formation of urban smog. Scientific testing has demonstrated that without MMT, emissions of NOX will increase by 20 per cent over current levels. That means additional production of NOX every year, which would be equivalent to adding a million cars to our roads.
Despite the environmental and health evidence, the environment minister still echoes the concerns of the MVMA that MMT in Canadian gasoline is causing problems for the onboard diagnostic systems in the new model American cars. The minister says she wants to ban MMT so that consumers will not have to pay $3,000 or more for their automobiles next year. However, there is no scientific evidence to support this claim. These claims were made by the MVMA's counterpart in the United States, and the U.S. court of appeals has determined they were totally unfounded. In addition, automakers are having exactly the same problems with OBDs in the U.S., and MMT is not currently used, so it cannot be the MMT that is causing the problem.
The environment minister has also stated that if vehicle manufacturers carry through on threats to remove OBD systems the result would be a tenfold increase in vehicle emissions. The OBD system does not reduce emissions. OBDs are monitoring systems, which provide drivers with notification by a dashboard light of a potential problem that could increase emissions. Removal or disconnection of the onboard system would prevent the dashboard malfunction light from illuminating, but it would not have the direct result of increasing emissions.
It concerns me that the minister does not appear to understand the function of these onboard systems, especially as she cited this as one of the major reasons for banning MMT. The environment minister also indicated that she has received studies from the MVMA that illustrate that MMT is the cause of onboard failures. I find this most interesting. If these studies exist, why has GM recently announced that it plans to conduct tests in the U.S. to determine the effects of MMT on the onboard systems?