Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate today on amendments brought forth by the member for Sherbrooke to Bill C-27, the nuclear fuel waste act.
I agree with the member for Athabasca. The bill is not transparent enough, there is not enough accountability and it does contain too much ministerial and privy council discretion. That has been the position of the PC/DR coalition from the very beginning.
I want to speak specifically to the amendments. Several were put forth and a few were not allowed at this stage. I would have preferred to speak to all the amendments because I believe all amendments were very good. Although there are a couple of amendments that I will not support, they were put forth in a manner and a tone that was meant to improve the bill and to bring more accountability and transparency to the process.
I think it would benefit everyone if I were to review the bill and what it establishes. Bill C-27 would see the establishment of an independent waste management organization, or WMO, which has been referred to by other members, and would require the WMO to provide recommendations to the minister on long term nuclear waste storage possibilities. Some of those possibilities could be and are expected to be deep geological disposals somewhere in the Canadian shield.
The reports, statements and studies done by the WMO would be made public, and that is important. We fought diligently to make sure that occurred. The bill should ensure that Canadian taxpayers are not liable for the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, which again is extremely important. It is important to note that the industry players who fund the WMO, Ontario Hydro, Hydro-Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation, would not only put funding in place but they would have some say in what happens. These rates, however, would be arbitrarily established by the minister, which I do not think any industry player or any corporation in Canada would be comfortable with.
I think what needs to be said and what I will say again at third reading is that the bill does not preclude foreign waste from being deposited or disposed of in Canada. The bill does not require aboriginal, environmental or municipal representation on the advisory council. It speaks in a very general way that it would be nice and warm and fuzzy if there were representation from the aboriginal community, the municipal players and the environmentalists but it does not make that an absolute. The bill does not establish the WMO at arm's length from industry. I have some qualms about that. Industry is funding this so I think it needs some control in the process but the Seaborn panel did recommend that it be at arm's length from industry.
One of the really serious failings of the bill is that it would continue to place power in the hands of the minister and the governor in council, and provides little role for parliament in decisions on the long term management of nuclear fuel waste.
There could have been a number of things that would have improved this particular piece of legislation and I will speak to some of those amendments now.
Amendment No. 1, which was amendment No. 3, would prevent nuclear energy corporations, including Ontario Power Generation, Hydro-Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation, from being members on the waste management organization. As the bill currently reads, the nuclear energy corporation shall not only be members of the WMO but always remain members of the organization. It would allow one of the recommendations made by the Seaborn panel when it studied the issue of nuclear waste disposal. That was the arm's length relationship which I have already mentioned.
The PC/DR coalition will not be supporting this amendment, although we would have considered supporting it had it provided for some nuclear energy corporations to be members of the waste management organization. When the power companies appeared before committee, they were clear about the need for active involvement in the WMO, given that they were the ones supplying the hundreds of millions of dollars for the management of nuclear fuel waste. The coalition supports industry on that point and cannot agree with this amendment.
The other question becomes one of liability. If industry could, and I expect it will, have some liability in this process, for example contamination of ground water, then it should be more directly involved in the process. Maybe the process could be nuanced so that industry would not have all the members, but it should certainly have some representation.
We totally agree with amendment No. 2, which was previously amendment No. 6. The amendment would require the minister to engage in public consultations on the disposal method recommended by the waste management organization. That is quite a bizarre thought I am sure for the government to engage upon. However it would be a nice way to give Canadians a Christmas present that does not cost them anything, by letting them know that it is looking at the bill, that it wants to make the bill more accountable and that it wants to involve and allow Canadians to participate in decisions that will concern them. Therefore, members of the PC/DR coalition support this. We supported a similar amendment at committee and we continue to support it now.
The last amendment would see the act come into force on January 1, 2003, instead of a day to be fixed by order of the governor in council. I think the amendment is meant to allow a little more time in the process and I understand why the member for Sherbrooke put it in, but it is not an amendment that I would tend to support. There has been enough time, studies and work on this. The bill is delinquent in a number of areas, but I do not see the day that the act would actually come into force as being one of those areas. This would not be an amendment that we would support.
However, I commend the Bloc member for Sherbrooke for his participation at committee and involvement in the bill. He, like many of us on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources, has really quite serious doubts and problems with this specific piece of legislation, not the least of which is the fact that the legislation is just plain and simply poorly crafted, not unlike other legislation that has been gone through the House as of late. There has not been enough input from the parliamentary process and certainly not enough input from committee.