Mr. Speaker, Environment Canada has no statutory decision making role for the island cogeneration project.
This project was reviewed, assessed and approved in 1997-98 under the provincial environmental assessment act. Under that assessment process, Environment Canada officials provided review comments in relation to a number of issues in which the federal government has an interest, such as greenhouse gases that result in climate change. Environment Canada was satisfied with the greenhouse gas aspects of the environmental review.
The Sumas 2 power plant proposed for Whatcom county, just south of the international border in the Fraser Valley, is a controversial project notwithstanding the proposed use of some of the cleanest air emission control technologies available.
Many Canadians have expressed their opposition to that proposed power plant, as has the Minister of the Environment, because of concerns about the effect of air pollution on human health.
The island cogeneration project will have higher emissions of air pollutants that affect human health per unit of electrical production than the proposed Sumas 2 project.
Given this, U.S. businessmen, legislators and the media have begun to allege that Canadian opposition to the Sumas power plant project is hypocritical. If we wish Canadian criticism of U.S. energy proposals such as Sumas 2 to be credible, the clean technologies available, such as those proposed for Sumas 2, will have to be adopted and used at Canadian facilities such as Island Cogeneration.
This is the challenge the Minister of Environment has already put to the province of British Columbia and to the greater Vancouver regional district.
Look around outside. The air pollution is clearly visible. The health effects are insidious and hidden but real nonetheless.
The pollution affects not only our major urban cities but many smaller communities, particularly those in the valleys—