I would even say very shameful, and unacceptable. Faced with such poor judgment, lack of vision, and bad management of public funds on the part of this government, how could we decide to approve energetic choices which clearly promote nuclear fission?
I can hear members across the way saying “There he goes again with the theory of the plot and victimization of Quebec”.
I would like to be able to say that Quebec is well served in the Canadian federation. I wish every day I could say that. However, I am a sovereignist because the facts have unfortunately brought me to the opposite conclusion. In a situation like this one, had Quebec had all the financial resources of a sovereign state, one can easily imagine that it would not have abandoned an infrastructure as fundamental as the Tokamak of Varennes, because it would have been alone to make decisions affecting its future.
Half of the decisions regarding its future would not have been in the hands of another party that has little or no concern for its development. We can see that energy choices made by the government run totally counter to the Kyoto commitments, which it claims it wants to honour.
On the one hand, the government boasts about signing the Kyoto agreement and wanting to reduce greenhouse gases emissions in Canada and, on the other hand, it decides to cut off funding for a project which was costing it hardly anything. In fact, as I said earlier, it probably did not cost the government a cent. It even benefited the government in the end in terms of economic and technological spinoffs for Canada.
So the government says that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but at the same time it cuts off funding for a research project which was costing hardly anything while providing great benefits, and could have led to the bulk production of clean and safe energy. It did that to favour the nuclear fission industry in Ontario at the expense of an emerging industry in Quebec, namely the nuclear fusion industry.
That is the other reason why, as the member for Verchères--Les-Patriotes, I simply cannot support the bill before us today.