Madam Speaker, I listened closely to the comments of my colleague on the particular change to the act proposed by Bill C-57.
My colleagues from Athabasca, Sherbrooke, and although he did not speak yet, my colleague from Windsor--St. Clair, have spoken at length on a number of government nuclear policies and the importance of various pieces of legislation affecting the nuclear industry. We have agreed with many of the policies. I take no exception to the thoughtful comments made by my colleague from Sherbrooke although I expect that at the end of the day on this vote we will probably not be in complete agreement. That does not take away from the importance of what my colleague from Sherbrooke said.
Bill C-57, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, is almost a piece of housekeeping legislation. The difficulty, as has been mentioned already, with housekeeping legislation introduced by the government is that one has to go back and check the entire bill again because there is always something hidden.
In this case I do not think there is anything hidden. It is a pretty straightforward, uncomplicated change contained in a few words in subsection 46(3) of the bill.
The government House leader rose earlier and asked that we pass all stages of the bill. The Progressive Conservative Party is in agreement with that. However, it has been said, and needs to be said again, that this is not timely. The government had an opportunity to bring it forward and did not bring it forward. All of a sudden we have a bill on the table in the dying days of this sitting of the House.
Once again there is an unprecedented urgency that all stages of the bill be passed in unison. Because of the subject matter, I agree, but the point needs to be made that it is not the way legislation or changes to legislation should be brought to the House. We should be more thorough in the original legislation. Part of the problem is the absolute sloppiness of the legislation the government has been passing, and its absolute refusal to make amendments to poorly worded legislation.
Under proposed subsection 46(3) in the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, that measure can be interpreted to extend liability for nuclear site remediation, as it is worded now, to an owner, operator or any other person with a right to, or an interest in, the affected land or place.
Obviously that was a mistake in the original act that should have been picked up. Unfortunately it was not picked up and as a result of that clause banks or other financial institutions are reluctant to lend money to nuclear operators because of potential liability. The cost of the liability could exceed the initial financing to the operator and negatively affect the financial situation of the lending institution. This is unprecedented in any other section of Canadian law or legislation.
Even with the changes it is conceivable that a lending institution could still be liable if it owns the property. If for some reason the original owner forecloses then the lending institution could be held liable. That is a different situation and it is not unforeseen with the changes.
Under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is the nuclear control agency, is authorized to conduct investigations to see if nuclear contamination exists onsite if and when any site has been decommissioned. Under subsection 46(3) the commission can order that measures be taken to minimize or eliminate the contamination and that those measures be carried out in a prompt manner, as it should be. However, who is liable for the cost of that clean up?
It was mentioned earlier by my colleague from Athabasca that subsection 46(3) in the original legislation was a section carried over from the mining sector. It was not really meant to affect the operation and control of nuclear reactors. It was meant to deal with mine site reclamation, acid mine drainage and possible tailing ponds contamination to any area surrounding a mine or a smelter. There are ways to deal with that. It was not meant to hinder or control financiers of the nuclear sector.
This is not about whether one supports nuclear energy or not. This is not about all of the correct things said earlier about our responsibility as legislators to seek more avenues and opportunities for green power, hydroelectricity, wind energy, solar energy and thermal energy. That is not what this is about.
This is about taking away the liability of a lending institution from the responsibility for nuclear onsite contamination. That does not exist if, for example a lending institution suddenly became a service station with onsite gas or diesel contamination which needed to be cleaned up. The lending institution is not responsible for that, nor should it be. This change that has been asked for is not a complicated change.
The amendment to the Nuclear Safety and Control Act addresses a number of issues. The possibility of liability for lending institutions for site remediation impedes nuclear facilities from accessing debt financing. Barriers to financing place nuclear operators at a competitive disadvantage compared to non-nuclear operators where barriers do not exist. The amendment also addresses nuclear facilities able to produce electricity with minimal greenhouse gas emissions.
This is not about whether we are supporters or non-supporters of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is a fact of life. Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The government is trying to get public opinion on its side to sign Kyoto. There are good reasons to look at the agreements under Kyoto and it is the government's responsibility to look at those agreements. As Canada attempts to meet its commitments under Kyoto there is no question that we will have to turn to alternative sources of energy, namely nuclear energy.
It is not the job of government to stifle the nuclear sector or to prevent it from being a supplier of clean energy. Nuclear waste is still problematic and has not been dealt with. All opposition parties in the House voted against Bill C-27, an act respecting the long-term management of nuclear fuel waste, because it was a poorly worded, poorly crafted and sloppy piece of legislation. The government has not dealt with the long term storage problems inherent in the nuclear energy sector. However, that does not mean that we should not approve a small change to the legislation which would allow nuclear operators to access debt financing.
It is not apparent to me that there is the legislative intent in the original wording of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to extend site remediation liability to parties without management or control of operations. I certainly believe that statement. What has happened here is exactly what happened with regard to the storage of nuclear waste in Bill C-27. What happened was that a piece of legislation that was supposed to be housekeeping legislation, just a matter of tying a few loose ends together, became legislation because the government has a huge majority and a huge ego. It could not bear the fact that well-meaning amendments were needed to make that piece of legislation better and to make this piece of legislation better. The government simply voted down the amendments.
It is not about whether the amendments are good or bad, quite frankly. It is about whether or not the Liberals put their majority in place in the committee and vote down amendments because they come from an opposition party. I have made amendments to Liberal government legislation which were voted down at committee and then the government brought back to the House the exact same amendments with the exact same wording and passed them. This is not about passing good legislation. It is all about the ego of a huge majority government that has not done its job.
The next government to come to power will have to go back through all the legislation that the government has passed and improve it. It will not have to change every detail and every word of it but it will have to improve it.
The amendment to the Nuclear Safety and Control Act which we are dealing with today will change the wording of subsection 46(3) to limit liability to those with “management and control” of the affected sites. This will replace the reference to anyone “with a right to or an interest in”, which clearly puts the liability of any nuclear contamination upon the person with management or control of that site. There has been some opposition to the idea: that somehow we are helping out the big banks or the big financiers of the world. It does not exclude them from responsibility if in fact they have management or control of that site.
If there were a private nuclear institution, nuclear producers who actually found themselves in financial difficulty and went bankrupt, and the financiers loaning the money to that institution suddenly became the owners or were in management of or control of that institution, they would assume the liability, which they should. That is a different situation and that situation is covered.
However, for a regular institution loaning money, why should the government hamper and burden the nuclear sector under what is really a very strange clause that never should have been there to begin with and is there only because the government side of the House has not passed clear, consistent, well thought out legislation in this piece of legislation or in any other piece of legislation?
The PC Party will support this change to the legislation because it will provide operators of nuclear facilities with the opportunity to access debt financing from private investors. Clearly that is needed. It is important for a number of reasons. It is important to allow nuclear operators to compete equally with other electricity generators and operators and it is important to be consistent with other environmental legislation. We should not be singling out the nuclear sector as one that is somehow different from other sectors. We have a certain amount of and, I think, a very clear environmental responsibility, which should sit evenly on all sectors. The amendment clarifies the Nuclear Safety and Control Act and limits the liability of banks and other financial institutions providing funding to nuclear facilities, as I believe it should.
In closing, let me say again that this is not about nuclear energy or non-nuclear energy. This is about an amendment that should have been made in the original act, a change that should have taken place in the wording of the original act and never did. It is not about supporting or not supporting alternative sectors. I believe everyone in the House supports more clean energy, more green energy, wherever that green energy is from, including ways of improving the so-called dirty energy sectors, the oil generation, certainly even any hydrocarbon electricity generating stations and coal-fired electricity generating stations. There are many areas where we can do a better job and where we have a responsibility to do a better job. There are all kinds of tidal, wind and deep sea current energy that has yet to be harnessed or utilized in Canada. We can spend $66 billion, as has been mentioned earlier, to improve our capacity to burn oil. We spent somewhere around $296 million, which I think was the quote, on types of alternative energy. Something is seriously wrong. It is a completely lopsided agenda that the government has.
Let us take a look at the alternatives, but let us not stifle the nuclear energy sector while we are doing that. This does not take away the government's responsibility to deal with nuclear waste, which it has not done. This does not take away the responsibility of the nuclear sector to be a very good guardian of the planet, to prevent nuclear contamination and to prevent any form of radioactive contamination. However, for the purposes of the bill, for a very simple change in the wording, we support the piece of legislation. It is not timely, being brought in at the end of the session, but it is needed and the PC Party will support it.