Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today to participate in this debate. The passing of this bill will benefit all Canadians and fulfils another red book promise made to Canadians.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Minister of the Environment for reintroducing this legislation and for pursuing its passage. The Liberal Party agriculture policy paper released on September 24, 1993 stated: "Liberals are committed to banning the use of MMT in Canadian automotive fuels".
The rationale for this legislation is twofold. It deals with the health and the environmental risks and the need for harmonized standards to ensure jobs and investment in Canada that flows from our integrated North American automotive industry.
Everyone in this House must know that the Canadian automotive industry accounts for 465,000 direct and indirect jobs across the country. The industry represents approximately 7 per cent of Canada's GDP and has invested more than $15 billion in Canada over the last decade.
As a result of the North American approach to vehicle manufacturing under the 1965 Auto Pact, more than two million vehicles were manufactured in Canada in 1993, of which 85 per cent were exported for sale in the United States.
In Windsor Chrysler, in partnership with the University of Windsor, recently opened the Automotive Research Development Centre. It invested $20 million and the federal government contributed $4 million.
Initially the centre will conduct a road simulation project, advanced engine design and alternate fuel research, creating 16 jobs for new researchers, placements for up to 20 co-op students as well as ongoing employment for 100 individuals in the design area. MMT will continue to be tested in Windsor.
If Canada is to attract these major research centres and maintain the strong presence we have in the automotive industry, we must keep harmonized sectoral standards.
However, harmonized sectorial standards require MMT free fuel. Contrary to the information others have spoken before us today, MMT is not widely used as a gasoline additive. Until last year Canada was the only OECD country that allowed MMT to be added to unleaded gasoline.
Although a recent narrow technical court ruling in the United States has forced the EPA to grant a waiver to allow Ethyl Corporation to use MMT, it is still prohibited in one-third of the American market, as it is still banned in 37 states including California, which I am surprised my colleague from British Columbia was not aware of, and in many major U.S. cities that require reformulated fuels under the U.S. clean air act.
As well, many of the larger petroleum companies, including Amoco, Anchor Gasoline, ARCO, BP, Chevron, Conoco, Exxon, Hess, Marathon Oil, Mobil, Penzoil, Philips, Shell, Sun and Texaco, have all stated they do not intend to add MMT to unleaded gasoline.
Although emission control equipment and monitors have been designed to perform in real life conditions, they do not function properly if they are exposed to metals and other contaminants in gasoline such as MMT. Experience in Canada has demonstrated that MMT interferes with the engine and vehicle emission systems.
In a recent correspondence to members of Parliament, the Motor Vehicle Manufacturer's Association states:
Automakers' concerns about manganese based gasoline additives, such as MMT, have been supported by third parties. Leading manufacturers of spark plugs, Champion Spark Plug Inc., and Robert Bosch Corp. corroborates vehicle manufacturers' findings that MMT in gasoline causes significant deterioration in the life of spark plugs, EGR valves, oxygen sensors and catalytic converters, which are integral to the advanced emissions control systems on all new 1996 model vehicles and essential to reducing exhaust emissions from cars and light trucks. Ward's Engine and Vehicle Technology Update of February 1, 1996 devoted a recent article to problems associated with MMT use in gasoline:
Auto Industry Leery of MMT Gasoline Additive''. Ward's quotes James Kranzthor, a senior product engineer at Chevron in San Francisco, as sayingChevron discontinued use of MMT in our gasoline sold in Canada last year due to spark plug fouling and because of concerns of Canadian auto makers''.
General Motors of Canada Limited has also written:
We would like to be able to offer a new technology, second generation "On Board Diagnostic" system in Canada. This technology, now on all U.S. cars, senses when a vehicle is beginning to demonstrate certain conditions (such a minor misfires) which may lead to higher emissions. This allows the customer to have the vehicle serviced
before there is an emission problem. Unfortunately, MMT impedes the effective operation of OBD-II systems and there is no way we know to design around it.
I am aware that for the first time since 1978, MMT will be allowed to be added to fuel in some U.S. states. However, this was based on a very narrow court ruling on the grounds that as MMT had been used in the U.S. before, MMT could again be employed in the U.S. before long term health risk studies are complete.
However, I would like to point out that in the United States the major auto makers, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Honda and Toyota, are now undertaking a $10 million research program with the U.S. EPA to provide the necessary evidence for the U.S. courts to have MMT banned again.
I would also like to quote from the head of the U.S. agency, Carol Browner, commenting earlier this year that the EPA believes that the American public should not be used as a laboratory to test the safety of MMT.
I would like to discuss the health risks associated with MMT. Dr. Donaldson, one of Canada's top neurotoxologists, was one of the scientists selected by the National Research Council of Canada to participate in its mid-eighties study entitled "Manganese in the Canadian Environment". Dr. Donaldson testified to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:
I believe that manganese is an age accelerating neurotoxin and I believe this is the answer to manganese's ability to produce biochemically, pathologically and clinically the picture which is very similar but not identical to Parkinson's Disease.
He also explained on CBC Radio on November 23, 1990:
One of the things which attracted me to manganese-was essentially its ability to induce neurological damage almost identical with Parkinson's Disease. And this is why I started to address how this metal line could possibly produce symptoms of Parkinson's Disease and also brain damage which was similar to Parkinson's Disease.
Ms. Ellen Silbergeld of the Environmental Defence Fund served on the EPA peer review panel on the EPA's health assessment document on manganese. She testified:
Regardless of the effects of MMT on emissions control, there is no dispute that manganese is neurotoxic to humans. It is on this basis that EPA should deny this waiver. Particularly since Ethyl has yet again failed to provide evidence on two critical points. One, that the use of MMT will not affect human health and two, that the use of MMT will not measurably add to the environmental loading of manganese in critical compartments directly related to human exposure.
We cannot ignore this evidence. We must act with prudence. I am equally concerned that we must act now rather than regret our inaction later.
Finally, I would like to take issue with the recent action taken by Ethyl Corporation to attempt to file a $201 million claim against Canada, trying to argue that under chapter 11 of the NAFTA this environmental legislation has violated its rights as an investor. This is clearly not the case. The president of the Canadian Automobile Association stated:
Bill C-29 is not about trade and commerce, it is about environmental protection and improvement. It would eliminate manganese based octane enhancers (such as MMT) from gasoline sold in Canada, regardless of their origin. Most gasoline sold in the United States and Mexico does not contain manganese based additives, so Canadian practices will be harmonized with our trading partners as a result of Bill C-29.
Bill Roberts, a lawyer for the U.S. Environmental Defence Fund, stated in reaction to Ethyl's claim:
For Ethyl to ask Canadian taxpayers to pay for lost profits on a product that could cause neurotoxic damage to millions of Canadian citizens is remarkably callous.
Finally, my message to Ethyl Corporation is that this government does not respond to corporate threats and it is the Government of Canada that sets policy in this country, not U.S. corporations.