Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party we would like to raise our concerns when it comes to the debate on nuclear power in this country and for that matter around the world.
We support any amendment that delays this procedure. The hoist amendment is something we would most definitely support in this particular case.
When we discuss the concerns of nuclear power it is ironic that today the environment commissioner sent out a report, indicating that there are probably over 3,600 toxic sites throughout the entire country and probably many more that we are unaware of.
The answer we get from the federal government is that it costs money. Many of these sites were identified 13 years ago and the government said it was money. It has delayed and delayed and now these sites are worse than they ever were before. Now it will cost even more money than it ever has before. The legacy of the government will be the toxins left behind for our children.
In question period today the Minister of the Environment said very clearly it appears it will be up to our children and their children's children to clean up the mess. That is a disaster.
When we correlate that to the nuclear power industry, we must look at the situation in Point Lepreau, New Brunswick. It recently did a study there and it said it will be close to $900 million just to get that plant back up to speed. I say to my colleagues on my left here, it said that was a very conservative amount of money in that regard. The fact is it will cost much more.
The Alliance member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke who represents the Chalk River area says that nuclear power is safe and cheap. She is dead wrong on both counts. Nuclear power is not safe and it is not cheap.
The fact is that one little nuclear mishap can ruin this country's whole day, and for that matter and entire lifespan. We look at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and other disasters around the world. Nuclear power has not been well taken care of.
I am not saying that the nuclear power industry is not a good corporate citizen in this country. It does follow regulations and everything else, but it is highly expensive when we take in all the parameters of nuclear power.
The government should be cleaning up nuclear power sites. If we look at what was on the news last night regarding Uranium City, that place is a radioactive, toxic dump waiting to create even more damage in the long term.
The uranium from there was used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weaponry. It was not even mentioned last night about all the people who worked at Uranium City and have died prematurely because of the various forms of cancer. That was ignored in last night's report. If anyone wished to delve more into the situation they would understand that nuclear energy and the digging of uranium is a dangerous and hazardous profession and one that leads to dire consequences down the road.
It was the Liberal government, when Sergio Marchi was the environment minister back in 1995, that changed the laws literally overnight. It had the candles burning all night in order to sell China two Candu reactors and offer them a $1.5 billion Canadian loan to purchase those two nuclear reactors.
We were surprised when we sold other reactors to India and Pakistan and other areas of the world and then years later these countries developed the technology to develop nuclear weapons. We should not be surprised because we aided and abetted in that technology, whether we like to admit it or not. That is a shame on Canada's export record.
What we should be doing is whenever it is feasible and as quickly as possible to start to decommission these nuclear power plants and start reverting to more sustainable forms of energy, that is, solar or wind. We have the ability to do that now. It will cost money in the initial stages, but in the long run it will not only meet our Kyoto commitments, but it will save a tremendous amount of money for our grandchildren and their children after that.
That is important as we move, hopefully, in a cooperative manner toward a more sustainable future for our country and for that matter our planet.
One nuclear weapon going off in the wrong place can have disastrous consequences and now everyone is concerned about the so-called secretive North Korea developing nuclear weapon technology. That is not a secret. That has been rumoured for many years.
One has to ask the question: Where did North Korea get the plutonium, the uranium and everything else to develop that technology? Did it get it from China? Did it get it from other countries of the world? We are not quite sure. If we continue that trace we will probably correlate a lot of that uranium or plutonium back to Canada.
We have exported a lot of that technology for many years, so we should not be too surprised when we find out that so-called nations that are not of the greatest human rights variety would develop that type of technology and who knows what they have planned for that type of weaponry down the road.
All we know is that it is not a good thing to have nuclear weapons on our land or any other soil for that matter. What the government should be doing is reaching agreements around the world as quickly as possible to stand down these nuclear weapons and eventually decommission them so we could be rid of all nuclear weapons in this world once and for all. Anything that delays this type of procedure is good.
We must have further discussion and more clarification. We must have good consultation with Canadians across the country, with industry and with other power generating industries to allow them the opportunity to offer alternatives to nuclear power or nuclear energy. Those alternatives are in sustainable energy such as, wind, solar and many others.
We in Canada are still what is known as energy pigs. We still use far too much energy per capita than most other nations around the world. We as Canadians collectively have to turn off our lights, reduce the temperatures in our homes, reduce the use of our automobiles, et cetera. If we do not do that then we are continuously delaying the long-term environmental problems for our children. That is a legacy we do not want to leave our kids and we should not be doing that.
On behalf of our party we support the amendment to this particular bill and we hope it goes through. We would like the government to be a lot more responsible when it comes to the use of nuclear power in this country and also to the export of Candu reactors around the world.