Debates of Dec. 3rd, 2002

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I believe if the truth be known, the member opposite should perhaps look in the mirror. I believe he will find that he and his party voted against that particular piece of legislation.

Persons with Disabilities

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today at one o'clock the disability community held a press conference expressing their concerns about the status of persons with disabilities in this country.

Could the Minister of Human Resources Development share with the House what the Government of Canada has done to recognize Canadians with disabilities on this International Day of Disabled Persons?

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, the theme of this year's International Day of Disabled Persons was independent living and sustainable livelihoods, which was proposed by our own Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres and supported by our Prime Minister.

Today, I am pleased to release the first comprehensive report entitled “Advancing the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities: A Government of Canada Report”, and the preliminary results of the “Participation and Activity Limitation Survey” completed by Statistics Canada. Both of these documents will help Canadians better understand disability issues and help all stakeholders work together to eliminate the barriers, to full inclusions of persons with disabilities.

Organized Crime

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the past 10 years nearly 70 young members of the Indo-Canadian community in B.C. have died as a result of drug and gang violence. Most of those murders are unsolved.

The problem is so serious that almost every Indo-Canadian family in B.C. knows someone who has been a victim of violence. The public knows and the media report who killed who but still no charges are laid.

When will this weak Liberal government take the Vancouver gang wars seriously and give the police the resources they need to do their job?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, in the last budget there were moneys to give the police more resources to do their job. There is better communication, better infrastructure, better policing and there better cooperation with other police forces across the country. We are doing a better job of challenging organized crime in terms of its criminal activities.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are still no charges. The gang unit in Vancouver is vastly outnumbered by the criminals it is trying to catch. It is a small, specialized team of eight up against about 1,500 full time gangsters. Those are not very good odds.

Witnesses and people with information are reluctant to go to the police because they are terrified. They have no confidence in the system.

Why does the Solicitor General not lead and coordinate the three levels of government in tackling organized crime?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, that is what we are doing. At the federal-provincial-territorial meetings we did have a report on how we are doing on organized crime. We also had agreement with the provinces on ways of moving ahead.

We are in fact doing more and I think the member opposite should be congratulating us for doing that.

Dairy Industry

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade has just authorized the Canadian Dairy Commission to allow an additional 500 tonnes of cheddar cheese to be imported from the United States, in addition to the amounts already authorized.

How does the minister expect to be taken seriously, when at the very same time that the community is stepping up its efforts to save the Chambord plant, he is opening up the borders even wider to American dairy products?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, this is a decision that I made after consulting with stakeholders here. At the present time, we do not have enough milk to ensure the stability of the processing industry.

I authorized these permits after consulting with the industry, dairy producers and the Canadian Dairy Commission. I provided these permits to allow them to process cheese, because they need some stability in the milk supply.

Western Economic Diversification

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, could the Secretary of State for Western Economic Diversification tell the House why we need his department when Industry Canada already has a mandate for all of Canada when it comes to the industrial sector?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Secretary of State (Western Economic Diversification) (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)]

Mr. Speaker, Western Economic Diversification complements the work of Industry Canada on the ground in western Canada in implementing Canada's national industrial strategy of diversification and innovation. Western Economic Diversification is a catalyst for collaboration and leverage financing together with other governments, small start up firms, universities, research institutes and large established enterprise.

Innovation drives the new economy--

Presence in Gallery

[The Speaker]

I would like to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Jan O. Karlsson, Minister for International Development Cooperation, Migration and Asylum Policy of the Kingdom of Sweden.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

The House resumed from November 29 consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, be concurred in at report stage.

Nuclear Safety and Control Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the report stage of Bill C-4.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded division, government orders will be extended by 10 minutes.

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the House on the third reading of Bill C-4, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

Bill C-4 is a one clause bill which clarifies the wording in subsection 46(3) of the act. Subsection 46(3), as currently worded, has had the consequence of extending the potential obligation for site remediation, in the unlikely event contamination occurs, beyond the owners and managers to private sector lending institutions. This has in turn deterred private sector financial houses from lending to the nuclear industry.

Under the current wording of subsection 46(3), the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has the authority to order the owner or occupant of, or any other person with a right to or interest in, to take prescribed measures to reduce the level of radioactive contamination. The proposed amendment clarifies the subsection by deleting the words “person with a right to or interest in” and replacing them with the words “person who has the management and control of”.

Under the amended subsection 46(3), owners, operators or managers of nuclear facilities would still be liable for cleanup.

With regard to lenders, the amendment would quantify their risk. If Bill C-4 is enacted, a lender would stand to lose, at most, no more than the moneys advanced. The lender would not face a potential unlimited liability. However, a lender who went into management and control of a nuclear facility would be within the reach of this subsection. Canadian law generally limits lender liability to those with charge, management or control of secured assets.

Some members of the opposition have alleged that the bill represents a change in government policy. The answer is no. The change contemplated by the amendment would simply put the nuclear industry on an equal footing with other industrial and power generation sectors. No other industrial sector or power generation sector is encumbered by a federal provision of this nature that discourages access to bank lending.

Loans may be needed by the industry to refurbish, modernize and extend the life of nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry must have access to commercial credit to finance its needs, like any other sector. This amendment would allow the nuclear industry to attract market capital.

Bill C-4 is not and should not be misconstrued as a measure to provide favourable treatment to the nuclear industry. As I have already emphasized, there is no similar federal requirement for other industries. Amending subsection 46(3) would remove an anomaly which is keeping banks away from lending to the nuclear sector in order to avoid assuming potentially unlimited liability. Limiting liability to the owner, occupant or those who have management and control is normal practice in federal environmental law. Canadian law generally limits lender liability to those with management or control of secured assets.

I want to assure the House that Canada has a stringent regulatory regime for the nuclear industry. This would continue to be the case after this amendment. Canada's regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, or CNSC, would retain sufficient authority to protect health, safety, security and the environment.

The regulations of the CNSC require licence applicants to submit information on the effects of their operations on the environment. This information is used by the commission, in consultation with other federal and provincial regulatory bodies, to establish the operating parameters for a nuclear facility. The CNSC has a compliance program in place that confirms that these parameters are observed.

There are tough sanctions for offences under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. It is an offence to fail to comply with any condition of a licence. The CNSC can also suspend, revoke or amend a licence if conditions are not met. Licences can include the requirement for a financial guarantee to cover contingencies that may arise.

The issue before us is not the safety of Canadian nuclear plants. Canada has in place a stringent safety regime under the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The Canadian nuclear industry has a very strong safety record.

The issue before us is access to financing, financing that owners and operators of nuclear facilities may wish to seek to retrofit or modernize nuclear facilities and at the same time meet the stringent safety requirements of Canada's nuclear regulator.

I also would like to thank all hon. members and ask them to join me in supporting Bill C-4.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-4, the reincarnation of Bill C-57, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. The bill is necessary to correct a clause that prevents a debt financing by the private sector for the nuclear industry.

Lenders such as banks and other financial institutions are refusing to consider approval for loans to the nuclear industry because the section in the current act makes the lenders liable in the instance of a nuclear spill.

The passage of Bill C-4 is critical to addressing concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, that is if the concern on the part of the NDP and Bloc are genuine.

Opposition to the nuclear energy system stems largely from the lack of understanding of how it works. I shall do my best to demystify the technology.

In 1905 the great physicist, Albert Einstein, showed theoretically that mass and energy were equivalent. It was more than 30 years however before scientists discovered the immense energy that could be released by transforming matter into the fission process. A Hungarian physicist, Leo Szilard, took out a patent on a device that would develop enormous energy from the nucleus from a chain reaction based on a neutron capture process involving the release of more than two neutrons. Although he had no idea of whether this would work in practice, the concept was exactly how a nuclear reactor works.

Next came the discovery of the fission process itself. In 1938 two Germans, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, reported the puzzling result that when they bombarded uranium with neutrons, barium and crypton were always produced.

Shortly after, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Firsch noted that barium has 56 protons and crypton has 36, yielding a total of 92 protons, the same as uranium. This clue led them to deduce that the uranium atom had been split or had undergone a process known today as fission.

However there was something even more astonishing. In splitting the uranium atom, there was an enormous release of energy.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. While I do not dispute the profound knowledge and learned dissertation on the part of the hon. member, I doubt very much that the hon. member is addressing the bill before us.

[The Speaker]

While certainly the Speaker is not an expert in nuclear matters, but since the title of the bill is the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and the hon. member seems to be discussing something about nuclear fission or nuclear materials, I thought she was somehow hitting the mark. However perhaps she will draw the relevance of her remarks to the bill before us in a way that makes it apparent to the Chair that in fact her remarks are relevant, and of course to the hon. member for Davenport.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, part of the opposition to Bill C-4 stems from the lack of knowledge behind how the process works. That is why I am explaining it.

As I was saying, in splitting the uranium atom, an enormous amount of energy is released. In fact the splitting of one uranium atom releases seven million times the energy produced by burning one atom of carbon. The potential for creating energy from fission was immediately recognized then. The clues all came together, including Einstein's earlier theory of mass and energy equivalence.

The expression “splitting the atom” is a technical misnomer. What is actually being split or fissioned is the nucleus, not the atom. The total number of protons plus neutrons stays the same. That is both sides of the equation have the same number of nucleons. There are many different fission reactions for uranium-235. The material we start with is always the same but a range of elements can be produced.

The neutrons being liberated generally have high energy; that is, they are being released at a very high speed and considerable energy is released. This is accompanied by a small loss of mass in the system. This is in accordance with Einstein's famous equation which states that mass is a very concentrated form of energy.

Early scientists noted the neutron was what caused the fission in the uranium nucleus. They also noted that several neutrons were released during fission. If one of those neutrons could be made to hit another uranium nucleus, it could cause that nucleus to also fission. Then several more neutrons would be admitted that could cause more uranium atoms to fission and so on. This is called a chain reaction.

If fewer neutrons are being generated by fission than are being used to initiate fission reactions, the process is not self-sustaining, and is termed subcritical. This is the case with ore bodies. That is why we do not have nuclear reactions happening in nature. If exactly the same number of neutrons are being generated as are being used to split the nuclei, the nuclear reaction is said to be critical. In this case, a controlled amount of energy is constantly being released in a sustained chain reaction.

This is the process that nuclear reactors use. The energy is released in the form of heat which heats the cooling moderator and then generates steam which in turn turns the turbines which go to the grid which provides us with power to our homes.

One problem is that most nucleis absorb neutrons and this absorption removes them from sustaining a chain reaction. Thus any attempt to create a chain reaction must minimize the presence of neutron absorbers.

Chain reactions do not happen in ore bodies, for example, because the uranium in the ore bodies consists mostly of uranium-238 and that only has a low concentration of uranium-235. The ore body also contains too many neutron absorbing impurities.

It took large teams of scientists many years to discover how to achieve exactly the right conditions.

First, there needs to be a core of fission material, that is material that will fission. Uranium-235 is currently the primary material used. By a quirk of physics, the fission atom splits most readily if the bombarding neutrons are going quite slowly. As neutrons emitted by the fission process are going fast, the core needs to be surrounded by a material called a moderator that slows the neutrons down. Only a few materials are good at moderating neutrons without absorbing them. The more equal the nuclear mass of the moderating material--

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I fail to recognize the significance of what the hon. member is saying to the House because Bill C-4 deals with the financial aspect of the nuclear energy program. She should relate her speech to Bill C-4.

[The Speaker]

I have urged the hon. member to do that. On the same point of order the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis.