Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Reform Party I extend to the victims of Chernobyl our deepest and heartfelt sympathy to them and their families on the 10th anniversary of this nuclear disaster.
We express our commitment to working with the former Soviet Union states and Russia in working with the international community to clean up Chernobyl and get it under control.
Chernobyl is only the tip of the iceberg. Massive dumping of nuclear waste into the Bering Sea has occurred in Russia, twice the amount of the other 12 nuclear countries in the world. Western Siberia is an ecological disaster. The people themselves have called western Siberia an ecological disaster as there are massive levels of long lived radionuclides, cesium-137, carbon-14, strontium-90. They have all existed and they are affecting humans with radiation. The fallout is affecting our arctic regions and is found in our indigenous peoples.
The result is that over the last 25 years there has been a 75 per cent increase in cancer rates and a 250 per cent increase in birth defects in children in this area. Our arctic does not have similar amounts and yet, as the minister well knows, the cancer and birth defect rates of aboriginal people living in the arctic are higher than they ought to be.
On the Kola Peninsula there has been a massive nuclear waste dump. Large parts of the peninsula are contaminated beyond what we have seen virtually any where else. There are high levels of these radionuclides found in the tissue of animals, plants and indigenous peoples
Russia is decommissioning its nuclear submarines. Over the next 10 years it will have to decommission 200 nuclear submarines and ships. Historically it has dumped most of its nuclear waste into the environment. This is not isolated in the former Soviet Union but it is something that affects us all.
We have to push together with the international community for a comprehensive test ban treaty and the enforcement of its principles. We have to push the non-signatories to the nuclear proliferation treaty, those with nuclear capabilities, to sign it. International co-operation will be required to do this.
We have to work with the former Soviet Union states to catalogue and identify these waste dump sites and also have international groups to monitor the clean-up and the fallout.
We must encourage trade and economic ties with the former Soviet Union states. By doing this we will push forward trade liberalization, movement toward democratic principles. We will dampen the rise of ethnic nationalism occurring with the likes of Mr. Zhirinovsky and dampen the rise of the Communist Party in the former Soviet Union. By increasing ties we do much for increasing international co-operation between our countries.
We have in the former Soviet Union an ecological and nuclear disaster which most of us do not know much about. It is the Chernobyls of the future that are waiting to occur. They will affect the former Soviet Union and our people through the ebb and flow of waters and through the movement of air masses. These nuclear materials will affect all arctic countries. Because these radionuclides spend so long in the food chain they it will affect Canadians with higher levels of birth defects and higher cancer rates.
I implore the minister to work co-operatively with the international community and the former Soviet Union states to develop methods to get this under control to avoid the Chernobyls of the future.