Mr. Speaker, obviously I am absolutely opposed to privatizing nuclear plants. I believe we have enough problems as it is with nuclear plants.
I think of what happened last year, or several years ago, with Ontario Hydro. It was realized that the plants were poorly maintained, and that several of them were a risk because of aging and poor maintenance. Just imagine for a moment if it were a private enterprise whose sole purpose was to make money.
I have nothing against private enterprise, but when dealing with such a thing as nuclear energy, I do not believe that the state should withdraw and stop exercising very strict control, especially with regard to nuclear power plants built 15 and 20 years ago. They are aging very fast and in need of investment. I am looking at the situation in New Brunswick. We have just been told that the Government of New Brunswick does not know what to do any more and wants to turn to the private sector because otherwise it will cost a fortune. If it does not succeed in attracting investors, the government of New Brunswick will have to close the plant. It will have to forget about it. This is what it means.
With regard to using nuclear energy, when these plants were built, this type of energy was not well known and neither were the consequences that could result from building nuclear plants. Scientists were allowed to play around with this type of energy without knowing what the consequences would be.
As I am running out of time, I would just like to add one thing. With regard to nuclear energy, let us not forget that in the area of medicine, we used to talk about nuclear magnetic resonance. Today, people are so afraid of nuclear energy that this kind of equipment is called magnetic resonance. People have every right to be afraid of nuclear plants.