Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak to this bill. It might be useful to remind those who are following that we are studying Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.
The purpose of this bill is to relieve lenders dealing with the nuclear industry in particular, of the responsibilities of decontaminating sites. This means that if ever there are spills, problems or sites that are contaminated as a result of the development of the nuclear industry, the people who agreed to lend money for these projects will not be held accountable for the results and cannot be prosecuted. This refers to banks, but it could also include any other stakeholders.
For this reason, the member for Jonquière, seconded by the member for Joliette, has proposed the following amendment, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, be not now read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months hence.
This would allow the proposal to be studied again, to make it more specific, more concrete. As it is currently worded, it is unacceptable to us. I will read the wording that the government wants to modify. In the current legislation, it says:
—any other person with a right to or interest in, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination.
The amended text reads:
—any other person who has the management and control of, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination.
We can see that every word counts. We start with a text in which any person who had a right to or interest in, any person who was involved in making the decision about setting up this type of industry, had to ensure that they were not investing in something that could, in the end, harm society, quality of life or the environment.
With this bill, the federal government is attempting to exempt these people from the application of this act. In the area of nuclear energy, I believe that we must obviously be very specific and very cautious when it comes to decisions being made to ensure that we will in no way allow anything that could have irreversible effects in the future.
Nuclear energy development initiatives also address issues such as waste storage and recovery, which may be very expensive to put in place but even more expensive in terms of what consequences an error would have.
If we accept that the lender, the financial institution lending money for mechanical things, equipment, and the investments required to ensure a waste burial project can be carried out, no longer has any moral responsibility concerning the consequences of the decisions it makes, this takes an enormous weight off its shoulders. This opens the door to overly liberal decisions and, at the end of the day, everyone will wash their hands of any responsibility and we will find ourselves with an unacceptable situation. There is no area where we do not have to ensure that we are not dealing with charlatans. In the nuclear energy field as in any other field, there have been instances where equipment or radioactive material was stolen.
In this respect, in today's world where attempts are made to regulate the use of nuclear energy, we must make sure that greed does not lead major lenders to stop taking their responsibilities.
We need only look at the financial scandals, in the U.S. in particular, in the past year or so. They involve individuals who seemed above all suspicion initially, but who, out of greed, did things which, ultimately, have jeopardized many jobs and undermined economic stability, all because there were no safeguards tough enough to prevent reckless action.
Try to imagine the consequences for the management of nuclear waste and the whole nuclear energy issue if such action had been taken in the area of new technologies.
This is why the Bloc Quebecois believes that, in this respect, the federal government is moving a little hastily. It seems to me that it is just trying to make political hay, regardless of all the consequences its action may have. It would be in our best interest to review this bill.
It also strikes me as a bit odd that, at a time when many questions are being asked in Canada about energy choices, we would still be involved in making development easier by lightening up the regulatory framework on the whole matter of the use of nuclear energy. This at a time when everyone is calling for the development of soft energies such as wind energy, which I would like to see this government devote more attention to.
In my opinion, implementation of the Kyoto protocol requires initiative, innovation and government programs conducive to the development of renewable energies. I am thinking of such things as wind power. As we know, 50% of the Canadian potential for this type of energy is in Quebec, and 80% of that potential is in eastern Quebec.
There is talk of using windmills to capture the energy produced by air displacement, but the energy of tides and currents can also be captured. That seemed futuristic a few years ago, but today there is a possibility of developing this industry. It would be a matter of killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, improved environmental quality, and on the other economic development in regions that need it. The regions in question are a kind of tourist haven, with potential for ecotourism, and the development of a cleaner and greener economy based on the use of a source of energy that has been with us since day one and has been underestimated and undervalued.
It seems rather odd that we are today debating a question like allowing nuclear energy to develop within a less stringent safety framework, when we have the possibility of developing a whole range of softer energies. The federal government does not seem all that anxious to allow this kind of industry to develop and to come up with plans that will yield concrete results in terms of new energy use within 10, 20 or 30 years.
Let us look at both scenarios. What this bill does is to liberalize the creation of infrastructures using nuclear energy, with all the risks and nuclear waste management that are involved. The other scenario would allow us to develop all the new energies without any risks and without any dangerous implications in the short, medium and long term.
Why not provide the same funding opportunities for new energies? What would have been the impact of creating a level playing field from the outset and providing the same opportunities for everyone? We must all live with the choices that we make, and that includes lenders and other stakeholders. The change proposed by the government would give it too much leeway.
In the current context, and considering the specific interests at stake, I hope that the government will be receptive to our arguments and will agree to withdraw this bill and review it again in six months.