Mr. Speaker, I listened, as I always do, very attentively to the hon. member's dialogue on Bill C-29.
During her speech she referred to the fact that the government had been hoping that the automobile industry and the oil industry, and specifically Ethyl Canada as a subsidiary of Ethyl Corporation of the United States, would have come to some voluntary arrangement on the issue of MMT. That is what she said during her discourse.
What I found interesting in that is that 1984 to 1996, by my calculation, is 12 years. I would have thought that in 12 years, if this government and the government before had really wanted to do something to drive this to resolution, as she said, they would have insisted that these two opposing factions would have got together and had an independent study done, which is what the Bloc and the Reform have been calling for for a year and a half. Clearly we have had 12 years where we have had conflicting testimony and studies.
It is interesting to note, as an hon. Bloc member did before, that the automobile industry has been very reluctant to bring forward any proof of its studies and its findings. All they say is that they do find that MMT is harmful to the onboard diagnostic systems and to health.
I have two quick points. In the hon. member's speech she said, as did a preceding Liberal member, that MMT is harmful to the health of Canadians. Yet Health Canada does not support that, as the hon. member from Burnaby stated earlier in his remarks.
The second point is whether the hon. member is aware, when she makes the point about how MMT gums up the onboard diagnostic systems in new automobiles, that it is claimed by the automobile manufacturers that they are experiencing just as many problems with the onboard diagnostic systems in the new automobiles in the United States. In the United States MMT has not been in fuel for some years now. What is the problem down there?
If this government is going to blame the malfunctioning of onboard diagnostic systems on the use of MMT in Canadian gasoline, then clearly there should not be a problem in the United States. However, my information is that there is. Does the member know that?