Mr. Speaker, as the member for Lévis, I have the good fortune of having in my riding an extremely important business: the Ultramar refinery.
I would like to familiarize this House with the views of its executives. I do not feel impertinent in the least; in the past two days, what have we in this House heard from Liberal members, especially those from Ontario? We have heard them defend Ontario's interests with respect to ethanol.
In this debate, the government wants to ban the use of MMT as a fuel additive. I would like us to address this issue, but the amendment moved by my colleague, the hon. member for Laurentides, would defer debate for six months so that a scientific study can be carried out to prove that this product is indeed harmful. This is something that has never been clearly demonstrated.
I am referring to the arguments raised by Ultramar, which is a member of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute. I would like to put forward some arguments, since they must be heard in this House.
According to the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute and the Ultramar refinery, car manufacturers have never proved clearly and factually that MMT can adversely affect the operation of catalytic converters.
Health Canada formally stated in public and in writing that there was not a shred of evidence that MMT threatened the health of Canadians. This is not insignificant. This statement was made by Health Canada, the federal department of health.
Another argument is that adding MMT to gasoline helps reduce toxic emissions. As we know, since 1976, this much safer additive has been used instead of lead, because something must be added to gasoline. Furthermore, the other elements in gasoline are known to be somewhat toxic. So why MMT? To reduce the impact of toxic emissions.
Another argument is that two federal ministers, the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister for International Trade, have expressed reservations in this regard. According to the Minister for International Trade, this bill might violate the NAFTA agreement signed with the U.S. This is not insignificant as we could then be hit by a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
Bill C-29 banning the importation and interprovincial trade of MMT violates NAFTA, a point of view shared also by Gordon Ritchie, the former Canadian negotiator for NAFTA-far from being a nobody, this is the former Canadian negotiator-and for the interprovincial trade agreement.
Another argument we heard is that car manufacturers rejected the proposal of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute to have an independent organization investigate and report on the issue.
They formally committed to act on the conclusions of such an independent study. They really do want an independent study.
The last argument is that banning MMT threatens the competitiveness of the Quebec refinery industry and that would not be in the best interests of Canadian and Quebec consumers. This also is important. As we well know, the government never told us about the costs. They are not mentioned here either, but we know that it adds up to several hundreds of millions of dollars, a significant amount in these hard times.
As a member of the Bloc Quebecois committed to protecting the best interests of Quebec at all times, I want to remind the hon. members of this House that the Quebec National Assembly unanimously approved the following resolution: "That the national assembly request the postponement of federal Bill C-29 concerning the gasoline additive MMT as long as environmental studies have not been conducted in a conclusive manner".
If Quebec was the only one to make this request, it might not be enough, but at a energy ministers' conference, at least six provinces expressed the same view. Provincial ministers are not alone, the Premier of Saskatchewan, Roy Romanow, send a letter to Mr. Chrétien on September 16, asking him the exact same thing. We know that, in 1982, during the Constitutional debate, Mr. Romanow was a very close friend of Mr. Chrétien, who should now listen to him.
I will point out that the Minister of International Trade also wrote, on February 23, stating that he had problems with this bill, and yet the current Minister of the Environment is forging ahead.
As a member of the Standing Committee on Health, I looked more particularly at this aspect. I read the report of a study conducted in 1989 for Health Canada by the University of Montreal. It said: "It is difficult to assess the effects linked to the environmental exposure to Mn-manganese-coming from MMT due to the incomplete nature of toxicological data on long term exposure to small concentrations. Although the emission of Mn coming from MMT can be associated mainly with the inhalation of manganese oxide, a complete assessment of multiple exposure to manganese must take into account all means of absorption, including the oral route. Food accounts for over 90 per cent of all manganese absorbed by humans". We routinely eat manganese and all of a sudden the government is concerned about what can be found in car exhaust.
And this is not all: "With regard to drinking water, although its manganese contribution is less than 3 per cent of that of food, its assessment is critical to an overall evaluation of total exposure". Tests were conducted on animals, and the study points out that as far as they know, in humans, only one case of poisoning due to manganese in rain water is known. This case, involving very high concentrations of Mn, happened in Japan in 1941. The only known case was caused by water, not by an airborne pollutant. The only case was found in Japan in 1941.
This should lead government members to think it over and to track down other cases. I will not imitate Reform members who had horrible stories to tell. If they had any today, they could tell us about them, but only one case is known throughout the whole world, and it happened in Japan, back in 1941. The United States apparently had the same problem, the very same doubts, and we all know how they solved it recently. The issue was appealed and people who, like the present Liberal Party, tried to demonstrate the risk of MMT failed.
There is now an interest here in ethanol. We do not question its value, its importance, but we feel that, under the circumstances, a six month postponement would allow the government to establish its position more strongly, especially, as I said at the beginning, since the proposed amendment will lead to expenses of hundreds of millions of dollars for taxpayers.