Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce for introducing Bill C-249, an act to amend the Nuclear Liability Act.
If I am not mistaken, the purpose of this bill is to increase to $500 million the maximum level of liability for which a private sector nuclear facility operator may be required to have insurance coverage. This level is currently set at $75 million. So, the cost of a nuclear disaster exceeding $75 million would be borne by the Crown if, of course, it agrees to meet that cost.
Personally, I have no objection to increasing the insurance coverage required. I would even feel that $500 million is not enough.
We only have to consider what happened last summer in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region to realize that a figure like $500 million is not nearly enough when disaster strikes.
Another example more closely related to the nuclear industry is the Chernobyl disaster. Five hundred million dollars is not much considering the extent of a disaster such as Chernobyl. I am sure that accident cost billions of dollars, and I am not taking into account all the repercussions on the lives of the people affected.
In a country like the USSR, at a time when human rights and individual rights did not count for much, officials were able to come through all right.
Let us imagine for a moment that such a disaster should occur in Canada. Let us consider the impact on people and estimate the costs of such an accident.
I do not think Bill C-249 goes far enough. I agree that companies should have excellent insurance coverage, but is that the real problem?
Some may think an insurance coverage of $1 billion is excessive. They think so because, collectively, we do not think we could experience such a disaster here. Personally, I am convinced we could.
Since the beginning of nuclear power plants in Canada, a number of minor incidents have occurred. More recently, we have realized that certain components of our plants deteriorate faster than our engineers had expected. Moreover, those who run these plants in the public or parapublic sectors have only one goal: producing electricity at the lowest possible cost.
Some of you may agree with me, but they do not think companies would push it to the point of jeopardizing public safety. Again, I am a bit more sceptical. Collectively, when we have examined this issue in committee or when other bills have been put before the House, we have realized that if public safety is a goal, it is not necessarily assured.
In the nuclear industry, the situation is worse, because this form of energy is extremely difficult to control and a relative safety can be achieved only with the most advanced and carefully implemented technology.
And I do mean relative safety. Also, $500 million in coverage does not seem like much for the following reason. If an accident were to occur in one of our plants in Quebec, in Ontario or in New Brunswick, it could mean massive population evacuations, and depending on the direction of the winds, it would not be surprising if our neighbours down south were affected.
We know that several countries were affected by the fallout from the Chernobyl accident. Do you think that $500 million would be enough to deal with the problem? I do not think so. We would need to evacuate the whole population of some cities and towns, the sick, the elderly, the school children. Not to mention the unavoidable damages to the environment. The fallout could affect livestock, wildlife, the flora and all the food production over quite a large area. Add to that the destruction of whole service sectors in cities located near these facilities.
Man still has much to learn about nuclear energy. An oil spill can be contained. With much effort, the environment can be restored within a few years, but following a nuclear accident, it will be thousands of years before the environment is back to normal.
For example, such an accident in Canada would have a major impact on extensive forests, agricultural lands, and vast mining areas. Would 500 million years take care of it? In Ontario, with Ontario Hydro, in Quebec, with Hydro-Québec, in New Brunswick or elsewhere in Canada, I doubt any operator could deal with a major accident.
The introduction of this bill is another opportunity for me to raise the question of the development of nuclear energy as a source of power. I really think that, in spite of the assurances they give us as taxpayers, the leaders of all the countries in the world have made decisions in too great a haste.
We started to build nuclear generating stations without being assured of their total safety.
To conclude, we support Bill C-249 but we are still sceptical that $500 million will be sufficient in the event of a major nuclear catastrophe.