Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that whenever I get into this specific topic I always think of the chair of the environment committee and the work he has done, not only with regard to the nuclear industry and the major advantages that we have created for them both by subsidizing and by favourable tax treatment, but also the work he has done with the fossil fuel industry. He is a national expert on this. I believe a couple of private members' bills and some reports have come out of that committee over the years. I acknowledge the work he has done on that committee.
What that work clearly shows is that we have subsidized the nuclear industry and the fossil fuel industry quite extensively. That does not show up in the cost. We have done that with tax dollars as a bottom line. We have subsidized those industries.
Unfortunately I do not have the documents to share with my friend and I will try to get them to him, but what is interesting is that the Canadian Wind Energy Association, which is an association of a number of companies and associations around the country, is trying to develop wind as an alternative form of energy. It was lobbying us in the spring. It was at that time I asked the Minister of Natural Resources for some commitment on alternative energy use.
What that association brought forth was some very interesting research that set out the specific types of subsidies we have had in those two other industries going back to the 1950s. We have not accorded those to solar or wind power companies that are trying to develop those as alternative forms of energy.
We always hear the argument from the nuclear industry that it would only cost so many cents--and it is always gets the amount down to pennies--for a unit of energy if we were to go to nuclear energy. It completely ignores the costs that we are talking about, which I think are minimal in this bill, but it does not show up in that accounting form. It is quite significant, arguably, tripling and quadrupling, if not more, the cost of nuclear energy if we were to seriously analyze what it would cost to deal with nuclear waste.