Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherbrooke for his question.
It is a fear that I have. I have it in a number of other areas with regard to the huge, black hole across the boundaries with the United States and its demand for power. We cannot pretend any innocence here. We actually consume more energy than the Americans do on a per capita basis, so we have a tough time pointing a finger at them.
It is a real concern around the whole issue of privatization. I see it not only with the nuclear industry, but quite frankly, and I feel this personally because of the region of the country I come from, I see it with the attempt on the part of the Ontario government to sell off coal-fired plants. I am concerned about that in terms of it being privatized because of the temptation for both those industries if the demand is there.
I want to be clear about this. The demand in the United States will be there and it will be at a value greater than what we are paying for energy in Canada right now. There will be great incentive for private operators to increase production in the existing plants. Corners may be cut in coal-fired plants where a number of those plants have alternative fuel sources. In some cases they will be able to use natural gas and in others they will use coal.
The demand will be there. For example, if Chicago were to have a hot summer Illinois Power would say to Ontario that it needs an extra thousand megawatts. We would dump more coal into those plants and crank it up, or if it were a nuclear plant, we would say that we probably should not be reactivating it because there are a couple of problems but we will do it anyway because we will make so much money.
There is a real fear that with privatization that type of conduct will be coming because of the profit incentive that is built into those private plants.