Mr. Speaker, this is another environmental issue. There have been many during the last eight years I have been here. Again we look at promises and at the politics being played with the issue of the environment.
I had the privilege of going to St. John's during a byelection. I saw the harbour and the history of the place. It is a beautiful spot. One of the things that I was shown in the harbour was the emission of raw sewage into the ocean. At first I did not understand. I could not imagine that in a G-8 country, in an advanced country called Canada, we would be dumping raw sewage into the ocean. I would expect that in developing countries. They have little choice. They have no resources to take care of sewage, but I did not expect that in Canada.
Then I found out that it is not the only place where we are dumping raw sewage. We are dumping raw sewage into the ocean in the beautiful city of Victoria. When we say we have a problem and there is too much sewage lying around on our beaches, the answer is that we put the pipe out a little farther into the ocean.
That is hardly sewage treatment. That is hardly something hon. members would expect in a country like Canada. As I mentioned earlier today in the debate about water, we sell our technology. We sell water treatment plants and sewage treatment plants to developing countries. In Canada we have at least two cities where we are putting raw sewage directly into the ocean. That is a disgrace.
In St. John's harbour, 120 million litres per day of raw sewage are dumped directly into the ocean, letting the tides carry it away and becoming someone else's problem. All members should be shocked by that kind of information. We should be reacting to it immediately. There are bacteria, pathogens, phosphorous, nitrogen, heavy metals, visible pollutants lying everywhere, and baby diapers, condoms and needles lying on the beaches.
The hon. member who raised the issue talked about the numerous cruise ships going by. What do they think about Canada when they see and hear about that sort of thing? There is not only the health hazard the hon. member has mentioned, but the shame and the embarrassment that we as Canadians have to live with.
I see the money that is wasted in planet Ottawa and some of the programs that are funded. It is shocking that we would even need a private member's motion on an issue as basic as water and sewage.
I see how politics are played. I do not say I understand politics in Atlantic Canada all that well. I hear how people are told at public meetings that if they vote a certain way the money will be made available for a sewage treatment plant. That is not the way the government should play with environmental issues. It is not a partisan political issue. Taking care of sewage is a basic thing that a country does. Whether Canadians vote Liberal, NDP, Conservative or Alliance should not matter when it comes to putting raw sewage into the ocean.
I also looked at the Sydney tar ponds, which our party has been looking at for eight years now. Again we see how little is being done and how much politics is being played. There is a face-off between the industry minister and the environment minister for who can have the dirtiest harbour. That is not something I would like to say I represented if I were either the industry minister or the environment minister. I certainly would not want to list on my credentials that my city's raw sewage is going into the ocean. It is certainly not something we would want to talk about.
How do we deal with environmental issues? Obviously the list could be very long. What we do or what we expect from our federal government is leadership. It should not pass the buck. It should not say that it is this level of government or that level of government. It must recognize that environment is a provincial issue and in many cases is a municipal issue.
What should be the role of the federal government? Its role should be one of leadership, of providing research money and expertise to the provinces and territories to help them help the municipalities.
We do not even know what our aquifers are and whether or not we are polluting them. We do not have nor do we use the technology to look at our water supply.
Sewage is another matter. We really do not use the most modern technologies in many cases. We do not have a set of standards for testing. Some have primary treatment, some have secondary, some have tertiary and some have none. Obviously, that is not the sort of Canada that most of us want environmentally. The federal government should provide leadership and initiative to deal with these kinds of basic problems.
The matter of garbage is a favourite of mine. I have been visiting garbage landfill sites in different countries to see how they deal with garbage for probably 35 years. I remember sitting next to the mayor of Vienna. I asked him casually over dinner what his city did with its garbage. I told him that I had looked at the garbage facilities in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Miami, New York and a lot of Canadian cities as well.
He told me that he would show me what they did. At 11 o'clock at night we drove downtown and came to a building that looked like an apartment building. Inside was a recycling facility and an incinerator.
Vienna's biggest problem is that it cannot get enough garbage. It is now purchasing garbage from surrounding communities and bringing it in train loads so that the plant is kept fully functional.
That is the kind of thing that Canadians should be promoting and utilizing whether for recycling, composting or incineration. The technology is there. The technology to handle the sewage problem in St. John's harbour is not rocket science. It is just a matter of getting the job done and being committed to doing it.
We should also look at our air situation. I will give an example that is similar to St. John's harbour or Victoria. There is an area in the Fraser Valley that is the second most polluted air shed in Canada. Southern Ontario is the most polluted and this area is the second.
California is short of energy. It cannot build power plants there because they pollute. Washington does not allow high tensile lines to go over the top of populated areas. Guess what they are going to do? They have decided to build power plants along the border on the Washington side. California gets its power and Washington gets the profit. Canada gets the pollution and the high tensile lines.
That is the sort of thing that Canadians cannot allow. We cannot allow raw sewage into the oceans. We cannot allow pollution to come across our border without raising a fuss about it. We have to deal with our sewage problem and modernize our garbage disposal.
Canada's environmental record needs to be improved. At the present time it is dismal. We need to stop playing politics with the environment and get on with the job of creating a cleaner environment for all Canadians.