Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address this bill, as I did about a week and a half ago.
Bill C-27 was introduced at first reading on April 25, 2001. It is 15 pages long. In my opinion, this bill ought to trigger discussion at the international level, not only on the management of our waste but also on the use of waste as a productive source of energy in the world.
I stress this point, because a month and a half ago I had the opportunity to attend a major international conference in Marrakesh, namely, the seventh conference of the parties to the framework agreement on climate change, to follow up on the Bonn agreement on climate change.
A major development occurred at the conference, in that a consensus led to the drafting of a legal text to the effect that member countries of the conference of the parties—this is an international consensus—should abstain from using nuclear energy as a future source of energy in the world.
As my colleague from Sherbrooke has already pointed out, even though nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gases, it is a fact that using nuclear fuel waste poses a major threat to public safety. In this regard, I reiterate the Bloc Quebecois position, which would have preferred the term “abstain” in the Marrakesh agreement to have a more direct and legal meaning, closer to the term “prohibit”. This is why the discussion on the use of nuclear fuel waste should go well beyond the management of that waste.
As for the bill before us today, let us not forget that its purpose is, first, to require owners of nuclear fuel waste to assume adequate financial responsibility and, second, to require these owners to carry out their management activities in an integrated, effective and, I might add, safe global fashion, because the threats to public safety are, as I said earlier, obvious and real.
Let us recall that there are three kinds of nuclear waste: waste from nuclear fuel, low level radioactive waste and uranium mine and mill tailings. It is important to mention them, because the different types of waste must not be confused. We can also refer to residual waste, because my colleague from Sherbrooke is also experiencing a situation in which the Eastern Townships may be called upon to become the dumping ground for residual waste produced in the United States. The bill does not deal with this. It deals instead with the first type of waste, that is, nuclear fuel waste.
Let us recall also that in Canada most of this waste comes from nuclear fuel bundles that are currently located, or submerged, as they say, in 22 reactors, especially Candu reactors that use a technology from the end of the 1970s. This waste was for the most part produced towards the end of the 1970s. However, there is a problem today. That is the problem of storing and stocking waste.
Earlier I mentioned that there was an estimated 1.3 million spent nuclear fuel bundles currently submerged in what is known as cooling pools, which corresponds to 18,000 tonnes of waste being stored. However, there is a clear problem. These pools are currently overloaded.
As my colleague, the member for Jonquière, and I have said, not only are these pools overloaded but the infrastructure itself is aging and we most certainly need to make improvements in them.
Everyone agrees on one thing: the current method of storing waste does not constitute a long term solution for Canadians to ensure our public safety. For this reason, it is important to find a better and more efficient way to manage this waste in the years to come.
More specifically, of the 18,000 tonnes of waste currently being stored in Canada, only 3% is located in Quebec, most of which is stored by Hydro-Québec at the Gentilly plant. We have only 3% of the waste, while Ontario, through Ontario Power Generation Inc., with its 20 operational plants, has 90% of the waste. Once again, the 22 Candu reactors produced this waste in the late 1970s.
We must also remember that the New Brunswick Power Corporation, which has only one reactor, is responsible for 5% of all waste. Finally, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which currently has experimental reactors, is responsible for 2% of the waste. It all adds up to 1.3 million nuclear fuel bundles, 18,000 tonnes, 22 reactors, 20 of them in Ontario, one in Quebec and one in New Brunswick. The remainder of the waste comes from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's experimental reactors.
Storing the waste is not a long term solution. This is why the federal government has implemented a nuclear fuel waste management plan for storage over a 20 year period in the geological layers of the Canadian Shield.
This possibility, which is now on the table, has the support of certain experts. I am thinking of Don Wiles, a chemist at Carleton University, who felt as recently as September 23, and I quote:
—the best solution to the problem remains the burial of nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield—
According to him:
—such waste could be stored for 30,000 years without posing any risk to people or to the environment.
There are in fact some people who favour this form of storage. Let there be no mistake: this is long term storage.
Following the introduction of the federal nuclear fuel waste management plan, the federal government decided in 1989 to create the famous independent Seaborn panel, whose mandate the member for Sherbrooke has spoken to us about.
Basically this panel had two main objectives. The first was clear: to examine the technological merits of the solution proposed. What proposal? The proposal to store waste in the Canadian Shield.
The panel's second objective was to examine the criteria for evaluating safety and accessibility. This is quite a task. One can imagine an independent panel sitting and doing its work over a period of ten years. This represents extensive consultations. I will come back to the recommendations later.
One fundamental issue began to take on importance over the ten years of the panel's existence, and that was the issue of public consultation. I will come back to this in the recommendations. It began to overshadow the evaluation of the technical merits of the solution being proposed. Public consultation became an important issue.
All storage and security aspects of the solution proposed by certain scientists, including the scientist from the Ottawa University whom I quoted, were considered by the panel and through broad public consultation. This was one of the major and main conclusions, and I insist on that point, of the panel.
I will quote one of the conclusions:
Canadian public support is vital to the acceptability of the concept of nuclear waste management. Moreover, safety is only one of the vital elements of acceptability. It must be considered from two complementary angles, namely the technical and social points of view.
Therefore the panel did not limit itself to a simple technical conclusion. It considered all the societal implications of the project. Public consultation was the important aspect. And this is why we are disappointed.
I saw the work done by my two colleagues from Jonquière and Sherbrooke on this issue in committee and I know that my colleague from Mercier has moved amendments in the House which would have made consultation unavoidable under this bill. However, the government rejected those amendments out of hand.
This shows that this government cares about the management of waste only from the technical point of view but not in terms of societal implications or respect for individuals.
When hazardous materials are imported, and my colleague saw plutonium and MOX residue and waste imported into her own area, local communities come together to protest and take a common stand but this government refuses to listen to the people.
The minister and the government have been consistent from the beginning. Nuclear waste was imported into the riding of my colleague from Jonquière. Then this bill was introduced in last April and the government rejected all the amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois. If there is one thing we can hold against the government, it is that it refused to hold public consultations.
This the people of Quebec will long remember when they see projects like these cropping up in the ridings of our Quebec colleagues. Hon. members will recall how the public rallied around when there was talk of burying nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield and said no to this. The public has a right to be included in the solution. The proposed solutions must not be solely in the hands of scientists and government. There must also be respect for the consultation process and for the transparency Quebecers have a right to demand of their government.
The consultation aspect was therefore a fundamental element of the Seaborn panel, and this has been, basically, translated into the Bloc Quebecois proposals. It must be kept in mind that the Bloc was the direct conduit for the Seaborn conclusions. This government must realize that commissioners cannot be mandated to hold consultations and examine such questions for ten years and then the outcome of their consultations and their work just have brushed aside. This is a totally stupid way to proceed, and one that shows disrespect for the panel and also for the public, which has the right to be consulted and respected as well as included in the process.
We are therefore disappointed to see the government acting this way, disappointed as well to see that this bill includes one other aspect, the creation of nuclear management bodies via trust fund. Our regret, consistent as we are, is that it makes no sense for the energy companies to also be the nuclear management bodies. There must be transparency. Why could the public not be integrated with these management bodies? Why could local communities not be entitled to a seat on these management bodies instead of leaving the big energy companies to themselves to manage the waste they themselves have produced and are now responsible for? This is a disappointment.
It's a disappointment because the proposal these management bodies need to make integrates three important parameters and requires them, keeping in mind that with this bill the federal government will transfer to the provinces full responsibility for waste management while it is in large part responsible, and the energy companies in particular, to present a proposal that integrates, first of all, the method for burial in the Canadian Shield; second, the method for storage at nuclear reactor sites; and third, the method for centralized storage.
It is obvious to us that this bill opens the door to the importation of nuclear waste. We should not forget that under the leadership of my colleague from Jonquière the municipalities mobilized around special events and demonstrations against importing plutonium.
On June 21, 2001, Greenpeace, which is not in the habit of associating with political organizations, did so in order to fight against the importation of plutonium waste.
Since my time is almost up, let me remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois also has condemned the importation of plutonium waste. We fear, and that will be my conclusion on this bill, that this will open the door to the importation of nuclear waste.
I will quote from the conclusion of a press release by Greenpeace on June 21, 2000, “We cannot allow Canada to become a nuclear waste dump”. We too wish to avoid that.
We would have liked the government to support Bloc amendments for greater openness and better management to secure the future of civilization.