Debates of Feb. 22nd, 2002

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 64—

[John M. Cummins, Canadian Alliance, Delta—South Richmond, BC]

On the Skeena River system in in-river fisheries, excluding the recreational and lower river public commercial fishery, for each calendar year from 1990 to 2000 inclusive: ( a ) how many fish of what species were caught under the authority of Excess to Salmon Spawning Requirement licences; ( b ) how many fish of what species were caught under the authority of other licences on a per licence basis; ( c ) what groups or organizations harvested the fish caught under each licence; ( d ) how much of any catch was sold; ( e ) what was the value of the sales; ( f ) who purchased any fish caught; ( g ) who processed any fish sold; ( h ) what quantity was sold in fresh, canned, fresh frozen, pouch and other packaging; ( i ) what quantity of the fish was eventually sold in domestic retail Canadian markets; ( j ) what quantity of the fish was exported from Canada and into what markets; and ( k ) with respect to the funds generated from the sale of the fish, for what purposes were the funds used on a project-by-project basis?

Question No. 99—

[Carol Skelton, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

How many persons are working on a contract basis rather than a term or indeterminate basis for each department, agency, and government business enterprise (including crown corporations, the RCMP, and the Armed Forces)?

(Returns tabled)

Questions on the Order Paper

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from December 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-27, an act respecting the long term management of nuclear fuel waste, be read the third time and passed; and of the motion that the question be now put.

Nuclear Fuel Waste Act

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

Mr. Speaker, before question period in my debate on Bill C-27, I mentioned a local experience in the constituency of Surrey Central where radioactive material had been stored in the heart of the city of Surrey for 25 years. The government called it temporary storage. That was one local example. Another example in British Columbia is the 8,600 tonnes of dioxin laced hazardous toxic material which is moving into British Columbia from Oregon in the United States.

Those examples show that the government does not care how radioactive hazardous material is stored or that it is moving into Canada.

I asked a question about this situation of the Minister of Natural Resources during question period. He is the political minister responsible for British Columbia and even the environment minister was the former political minister for British Columbia. I asked the minister why hazardous material which is too toxic for the people of Oregon would be safe for British Columbia. I could not understand the answer.

It is important that nuclear waste, which has a lot of radioactive material, or hazardous waste is taken care of properly and stored in a way which is efficient, cost effective and safe.

In conclusion, Canadians are very sensitive when it comes to the nuclear industry. The safety, health and welfare of Canadians are of utmost importance. I stress that the Minister of Natural Resources must take every possible measure to ensure that the waste management organizations focus on results, not just on the process, the bureaucracy part of it or patronage when committees are set up. Focus on the results.

While I register my support for the trust funds created under the bill, I do so with some warnings to the government. Waste management organizations are long overdue. We must ensure that the waste management organizations act responsibly in the disposal of nuclear waste as it could be a potential threat to our security and could lead to terrorism in the future. To do this, they need to keep in mind the security lessons afforded by Russia's experience.

While I support the bill, I give fair warning to the government to act efficiently and effectively.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill before us today.

This is my last opportunity to deal with this very serious bill in the House. Obviously, the Bloc Quebecois cannot object to the management of nuclear waste that is stored on the site of nuclear plants in Ontario. It would be foolish. My colleague from Sherbrooke and I have asked for an appointment with the new natural resources minister to explain to him our party's objections to this bill.

The bill does no go far enough in setting guidelines to deal with the immediate problem and make further progress later on. The bill is lacking in that respect. Originally, it was based on the Seaborn report, which recommended extensive public consultations. I do not think the government travelled throughout Canada to ask Canadians for their input on this bill dealing with nuclear waste management.

It is in no way consistent with the priorities highlighted by the Seaborn report. We can say and do all we want, we cannot haul nuclear waste all over Canada while saying we are going to do this or that.

In 1991, the cost of such a facility was estimated at roughly between $9 and $13 billion for the permanent storage of nuclear waste. This was in 1991. Today, it would probably cost $20 billion to bury this kind of waste. Let us not forget that nuclear fuel waste has a half-life after being buried. Hundreds of millions of years of half-life will follow.

Nuclear fuel waste is highly radioactive and 90% of it is located in Ontario. The province opted for nuclear energy and is currently stockpiling waste on its nuclear plant sites. It is looking at burying it deep in the Canadian Shield. Let us not forget that the Canadian Shield covers 90% of Quebec.

All week long, we have been asking the Minister of the Environment to live up to his commitments under the Kyoto protocol. Does this mean he no longer wants to abide by the polluters pay principle? Should we Quebecers, who opted for hydro power, take in waste from Ontario and bury it in our province?

We account for one-quarter of the Canadian population. I am willing to manage one-quarter of Canada's waste on our territory, but not all of it. I would have liked to hear from the new Minister of Natural Resources what his stand is on this bill. Unfortunately, he has not answered my request to meet him.

This is very important. I took part in the committee work, together with my colleague the member for Sherbrooke. I want to take this opportunity to recognize him and congratulate him on his hard work and the amendments he put forward. Liberal members always attend committee in numbers for the clause-by-clause review of bills and, when we put forward amendments, all they say is no, no, no.

They do not even listen, but they say “no, no”, because that is what the parliamentary secretary, who is the spokesperson for the minister, has told them to say. We are willing to rise above political considerations on this issue, but not under just any conditions.

We asked for a real board of directors to be set up and to submit an action plan to the government, who would then consult parliamentarians, so that the governor in council would not be the only deciding authority. We asked for parliamentarians to be consulted, because we wanted a real board of directors with real responsibilities. We wanted some of the powers to be taken away from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, because that agency is overseen by the Minister of Natural Resources. We believe there is a conflict of interest, because the minister is caught on both sides of the issue.

We also agree that we have to manage our own waste in our province, but we wanted an amendment to ensure that we would stop bringing in waste from other countries. The House remembers the uproar in my area surrounding the movement of MOX from Russia and the United States. This highly radioactive waste was supposed to be burned in our area. We said, “Why should we become the dump site of the whole world?” Let us manage our own waste and then, if we develop a new waste management technique, we will be more than glad to share it with other countries.

However, the Liberal majority on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources said no, once again. It had strict orders to follow. Let us not forget that, in 1998, the Prime Minister of Canada had agreed to help Russia get rid of its nuclear waste. He had made an offer, but I do not think he had consulted with Canadians beforehand.

I think of our children and grandchildren. I do not wish to see Canada, let alone Quebec—one has to be a bit chauvinistic in life; after all, I am defending the interests of Quebec in this House—become the dump of the world. Yet, the Liberals would not listen to people with common sense who said they wanted to deal with their own waste and find a solution together. This is not, however, the way Liberals intend to go. They prefer to use the back door approach.

I am fed up with this government, which always slips major issues in through the back door instead of dealing with them in the open, in particular in the case of environment and our future. The actions we take today will have repercussions on our future. In 10 or 15 years from now, our children and grandchildren will say to us “You could have raised the issue, you could have done something then, but you only went half-way”.

We had a great opportunity to do so, to go the whole nine yards and to say that Canada as a country assumes its responsibilities but does not have to assume other countries' responsibilities. But they chose to ignore the good arguments of the opposition, those from the Alliance, the NDP as well as the Coalition. We were all gagged, which is unfortunate. The Bloc Quebecois will never support such a bill.

I do not like half-measures, half- bills, half-consequences or half-alternatives. We must take clear means, choose a clear way and drastic solutions to eliminate waste, though we should avoid doing so at the expense of future generations. This is the last opportunity I have to call upon the Minister of Natural Resources. It is still time to stop and say, “We will once more look at the bill and listen to the opposition”.

I wish to thank the people from Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean who listened when I appealed to them about MOX. They all got involved with me. They stood behind their member of parliament and said, “We refuse to have that in our area.” And we did not.

He would have had the support of people, had he asked them what they wanted. Unfortunately, he continues to do what this government does, that is act as if he is the only one to know the truth. I do not believe we can expect anything from them, but we will watch them and follow closely what they are doing.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, we have come to the end of the third reading debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste.

We cannot address this topic without being concerned, since this reality bluntly raises the issue of our collective responsibility toward the safety of our environment and our planet. Indeed, we are talking about our planet, about the future of life on this planet, and about the health of generations to come.

If, for a while, nuclear research held out the hope of a wonderful source of energy for humanity, this false hope has faded since, and the problem of waste management that it has created illustrates in a concrete way the difficulty of maintaining security and development and of respecting and protecting the environment. Developed countries are among those largely responsible for political decisions in connection with the proliferation of this waste. People who are listening to us will agree with me when I say that Canada cannot evade its responsibilities or underestimate the consequences of its decisions. Yet, the very essence of Bill C-27 suggests that this government is ignoring willingly this worldwide problem.

In good faith and no doubt very naively, the Bloc Québécois supported Bill C-27 at second reading. At that time, we were hopeful that it could be improved at committee stage, ensuring some damage control. But the Liberals rejected all our amendments. Therefore, we will vote against Bill C-27 and we are not reluctant in describing the government's attitude as anti-environment.

I will not be able to list all the objections we raised, to which the government did not listen. But the House will no doubt allow me to outline important amendments that were rejected indifferently.

Everyone recognizes that Bill C-27 is far from responding to the recommendations of the Seaborn panel. For nine years, this independent panel held consultations, carried out environmental impact studies and asked the public for input. The report findings particularly emphasized the fact that Canadians and Quebecers' support is essential for accepting the principle of nuclear fuel waste management, and that the safety of the management system is only one of the essential criteria for acceptability.

One of the suggestions made in the Seaborn report was to develop a comprehensive public consultation plan and to establish a reliable nuclear waste management agency. Another one was that the federal regulatory control with respect to the scientific-technical work and the adequacy of the financial guarantees be subject to regular public review.

Pursuant to clause 6(1), the Minister of Natural Resources will be solely responsible for establishing the waste management organization that will be asked to propose to the Government of Canada approaches for the management of nuclear fuel waste. The problem is that the energy corporations who produce the waste, like Atomic Energy Canada, will be part of the waste management organization.

Everyone knows that Atomic Energy Canada is a crown corporation reporting to the natural resources minister. So, obviously, the minister and the waste management organization will not be having an arms' length relationship. The Minister of Natural Resources will be judge and jury in the decision making process. If that is not a conflict of interest, what is?

To make the decision process more transparent and independent, the Bloc Québécois suggested that clause 2 be amended so that the environment minister be responsible for the act, instead of the natural resources minister. We do not accept the lack of transparency in this bill nor the chummy relationship between the minister and the energy corporations.

The Bloc Québécois believes that the members of the waste management organization should be designated by the governor in council on the recommendation of the House of Commons standing committee. Under Bill C-27, it would be up to the energy corporations to establish the waste management organization that will have to propose to the minister a long term management approach.

We condemn this decision and the Bloc Québécois supports the recommendations of the Seaborn panel that energy companies be excluded from the management organization.

How can we have any confidence in a management system with no new body independent from current producers and owners of waste, and one whose overall mandate is geared toward safety?

By refusing to amend clause 6(2) to ensure that no nuclear energy corporation can be part of the waste management organization, the government is clearly saying that public safety is not its primary concern.

Real public consultations are needed; in fact, they are essential. We deeply deplore the fact that the decision to use the Canadian Shield as a long term burial site for waste was not the discussed through any public consultation, and that the federal government decided to bulldoze any public consultation by limiting impact studies to three years for the future management organization.

We think that our amendment, to the effect that this organization should have ten years instead of just three, would indeed have allowed for an intelligent and thorough consultation. As members surely know, our proposal was ignored. The government is not only acting irresponsibly, it is also showing contempt for the public.

Moreover, Bill C-27 does not guarantee that the public will be consulted. Indeed, the bill provides that the minister may consult the public, the provinces and the aboriginals. The minister has the right, but not the obligation, to do so. Again, this contradicts the Seaborn report. The Bloc Quebecois, and the public, will not settle for bogus consultations like those that lasted 28 days on MOX.

In fact, the Bloc Québécois vainly tried to have Bill C-27 amended to ban imports of nuclear waste or MOX in Canada. Our amendment was defeated. The Liberals rejected our proposal. Bill C-27 ignores the indispensable support of Canadians and Quebecers in the whole issue of nuclear fuel waste management.

The amendment proposed by the Bloc Québécois regarding clause 15 was also ignored. We firmly believe that the House of Commons should imperatively be consulted on the management method chosen.

To whom does clause 15 give the final say in the selection of the nuclear waste management approach? How surprising: the winner is the governor in council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Natural Resources. Clause 15 of the bill should have been amended, so that the management approach would be chosen on the recommendation of the standing committee of the House of Commons.

The impact of Bill C-27 is all the more a cause for concern, since the management organization provided for in the bill will not come under the Access to Information Act. Openness was an essential condition clearly recommended in the Seaborn report. The Bloc Quebecois thinks all the documents created by the management organization, including environmental impact assessments, should be made publicly available if need be.

This is the reason why we have asked that the Access to Information Act apply to the management organization. But the Liberals rejected our amendment. Do they have something else to hide, besides their Canada Deuterium Uranium containers, also called CANDUs?

Quebec could very well be the first victim here. The geological formation chosen for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste is the Canadian Shield. As my colleague from Jonquière indicated, the Canadian Shield includes 90% of the Quebec territory.

I would like to conclude by saying that Bill C-27 is proof that for the federal government, a Liberal government to boot, the environment is a very low priority.

The Bloc Québécois thinks that the environmental challenge concerns all mankind. We will vote against Bill C-27 because of our concern for quality of life. We will continue to fight for and on behalf of future generations.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

All those in favour of the motion will say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Pursuant to Standing Order 45 the division stands deferred until Monday, February 25 at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties. There is agreement pursuant to Standing Order 45(7) to further defer the recorded division requested on the motion proposed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons concerning third reading of Bill C-27 until the end of government orders on Tuesday, February 26.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.