Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for his speech, but I think it reflects, to some extent, the pressure exercised by lobbies and felt in this House since the bill was first tabled.
I heard a lot about the ethanol plant, which is located in Ontario. The hon. member is from that region, and I do not blame him for his position, however, I would like to go back to some important facts.
First, we asked the auto lobby and Ethyl corporation to submit studies.
Ethyl Corporation provided independent studies confirming that MMT is not harmful to health, and that it is not harmful to automobiles either. We asked auto dealers to do the same, but were told: "No, these are confidential studies. We cannot release them. It would be dangerous from a competition point of view".
The point is that six provinces out of ten oppose this bill. Once again, the federal government is getting involved in a field of provincial jurisdiction. It will even prohibit the interprovincial trade of manganese. This is another reason why we will vote against the bill.
In our amendment, we simply asked that the bill be read the third time six months from now. Again, we cannot be opposed to virtue. We ask that independent studies be done, so as to check the version of both sides and see if MMT is indeed dangerous and harmful, as claimed by some Mps and others, even though no conclusive studies support such claims.
All we have is a 1994 study from the health department itself, which concludes there is no evidence that manganese is dangerous or harmful to health.
There is another important point: manganese was just reintroduced into the U.S. market. The government talks about the North American market, but it wants to pass a bill to prohibit this product at home.
The result is that this government is now being sued by Ethyl corporation, to the tune of $201 million, in U.S. dollars, for presumably violating certain NAFTA provisions. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you have $201 million to invest in this bill, but I feel that, before making a decision like this one, we should do some thinking.
In conclusion, we know that an ethanol plant was built. We have nothing against ethanol, but who knows, maybe in five or ten years, this product will be considered dangerous. After all, it is also an additive. We are talking about additives. This may not be the best solution to eliminate environmental problems caused by greenhouse gases generated by automobiles.
Why not invest in a lasting technology such as the electric car? I discussed this option the other day. To replace an additive with another additive looks a lot like a response to big lobbies.