Madam Speaker, in the beginning of the third reading debate a couple of hours ago, the Minister of Natural Resources made a statement which was intended to give reassurance about the purpose and the intent of this bill. It seems to me that the statement has raised more questions than answers.
Take for instance the reference by the minister to the fact that this bill would amend subsection 46(3), removing what is being called by the minister an anomaly which is keeping banks away from lending to the nuclear sector to avoid assuming potentially unlimited liability, which is the essence of this bill.
However what the minister calls an anomaly, is actually a practice which has proved to be a good one over the past few decades. Here we are instead told that what this bill intends to do is to remove the responsibility of the investor who decides to make funds available to a nuclear facility. I submit that this is not an anomaly. Actually what this bill intends to remove is a highly desirable measure that should be kept and not removed.
The minister has said, “Limiting liability to the owner, occupant or those who have management and control is normal practice in the federal government environmental law. Canadian law generally limits lender liability to those with management or control of secured assets”. The statement would be quite right if the investment were to be in a water bottling company or in a chain of food retailers, but not when it comes to the nuclear energy industry. We are in a completely differently field which requires a lot of careful thinking and certainly not a measure of this kind.
Then the minister went on to say that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would retain sufficient authority to protect health, safety, security and the environment. This statement would be reassuring, if there were a parallel or an insertion in the bill before us to that effect. Unfortunately though, Bill C-4 does not contain this kind of reinforcement of sufficient authority. One wonders on the strength of what knowledge the minister can make a statement of that nature.
Finally, the minister concluded by saying that the issue before us was not the safety of Canadian nuclear plants. I find a statement like that intellectually offensive because that is exactly what is before us. If we remove the liability of the investor in a nuclear plant, we certainly are toying with and raising some very serious questions about the safety of the nuclear plant itself.
Up until now, we have had legislation which says that the investor and the operator have a liability responsibility in the nuclear industry. This bill instead would remove that liability responsibility from the investor. It could be a bank or it could be anything. The question therefore is whether we are acting in the interests of the public by moving ahead with a bill of this nature.
One wonders whether the minister realizes that this bill is about liability. It is about public safety. It is about the inability of operators to become fully liable in case of an accident. What we should be discussing is not the removal of a liability responsibility from the investor. We should be discussing increasing the amount of liability. Our present legislation provides only $75 million. This is a very modest amount compared to the liability levels that are imposed by governments in Europe and in other jurisdictions, which are sometimes 10 times higher than ours.
For years parliamentarians have raised this issue in Parliament, drawing the attention of the minister to the fact that this level of liability ought to be increased. Instead we are moving in the opposite direction. We are doing that because we are under pressure from the Ontario government and investors, probably British Energy although I cannot prove it, and by investors in general who see probably an opportunity for investment in the nuclear industry and want to be absolved of their responsibility in case of an accident. I submit this is wrong. It is counter to the public interest and we should not proceed with the bill.
One wonders whether the minister himself realizes with this one page bill that he is absolving, with this measure before Parliament, investors from liability. One wonders whether the minister realizes that it is urgent that the matter of liability levels, the amount namely to which I referred before of $75 million, ought not to be addressed as a matter of urgency and within an approach to the entire management and legislation covering the nuclear industry.
Members are also aware of the fact that over the last three or four decades the nuclear industry has received yearly subsidies which now amount to over $5 billion. It is an industry that is constantly in need of public funds. Again, why should an industry which is chronically in need of public support now receive relief from a responsibility on liability for investors in this instance? We are obviously moving in the wrong direction.
I suppose Bill C-4 is before us because someone has concluded that the Bruce and the Pickering plants, which are being plagued by problems, need a considerable injection of capital. That is quite possible. I refer to plants A and B in Bruce, Ontario.
In addition to that, the investing company that has purchased this facility from the Ontario government and privatized it, namely British Energy to which other members have already made reference, is in trouble and has asked the Ontario government for some assistance. Since provincial governments do not have jurisdiction over nuclear matters, for which we must be profoundly grateful, then the Ontario government has to turn to the federal government for assistance.
According to a clipping, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen , British Energy is:
--is in imminent danger of bankruptcy and is seeking to borrow $3.9 billion, in addition to a $1.5-billion loan from the British government, to stay in business.
In addition it says that Bruce Power must put up something like $220 million in financial guarantees to renew its licence to operate with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
This tells us that there is a problem that ought to be examined in the broadest possible context and not by a six line amendment, which looks so innocent and harmless, in a one page bill. There is deep trouble and it needs to be addressed.
One day in the hearings before the standing committee on natural resources, the member from Windsor made a memorable intervention on this subject. We heard an NGO, called Energy Probe, say that in its estimates at least no private company could make a profit in nuclear energy, “without massive public subsidies and protection from environmental liability”. Bill C-4 asks us to go in the opposite direction. It does not make sense.
Then we have the report of the former auditor general of a couple of years ago warning Parliament that the costs of commissioning are not reflected or incorporated in electricity rates. This is a warning and an interesting message to all those who think that electricity generated by nuclear power is the cheapest on the market.
In addition to the issue of the commissioning raised by the auditor general, the fairly old and unresolved issue of storage. It is an item that has been the subject of panels established under the Environmental Assessment Act, if I remember correctly, and a study conducted by a former deputy minister, Mr. Seaborn, which made a specific recommendation. Yet 10 years later, the issue of storage has not been resolved.
I do not think I have much more to say on this except to express a certain degree of indignation, which I am not usually inclined to express. However, I find this measure very disturbing.
Therefore I concur with those who have said before me that this bill should be suspended. It should instead be replaced by an overall type of legislation that deals with the governance of the entire nuclear industry so as to bring the legislation up to date. Then we can examine also the facets and difficulties, including the ones brought forward and pointed to by the auditor general, and bring order to a rather messy situation rather than proceed with a measure that does not stand up to close scrutiny. This measure should be suspended.