Madam Speaker, neither question is in the slightest way connected to the gateway bill.
Let me deal with the first question of the project to have a generating plant at Sumas just across the border in the Fraser Valley. The member is simply unaware. I must now tell the member, and he should understand this, that the way that project was turned down was on the basis of the science work done by Environment Canada. Without that work being presented in a dispassionate, scientific way, rather than as a partisan or political way, we would never have persuaded the authorities who were involved at the decision-making level to turn it down.
Rather than his statement that somehow or another my department that I was then responsible for was not involved, it was the key department. The member could get a large number of people who were quite willing to come to meetings, and there were plenty of them and I appreciate that work. They had a different role.
The role we had was critical in having it turned down. There can be demonstrations. People can stand up and say that they do not like an American plant across the border. If we do not get the right information before the decision makers, which in this case was the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council and the other bodies involved, including the NEB, and it is not reliable, then we do not get the right decision.
The member's position is simple, unfortunately, and I guess based on some of the comments made in a partisan sense in his area rather than on scientific information.
On the second issue dealing with Victoria, the issue has been looked at by scientists from Washington state. Unanimously, there is no negative impact on the environment. That is my riding. I do know it is surrounded by ocean on three sides. We have seven treatment plants. Wherever there is a situation that requires them we put them in. However, there are two outfalls in the south end, Macaulay Point and Clover Point.
The capital regional district is now spending some $630,000 to have a complete review on it done by an international organization with outside people. We have had that done before by Washington state scientists, Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists, and University of British Columbia scientists. We have never had a recommendation.
In fact, last week the capital regional health officer said there would be no health benefits from treating sewage in Victoria. Why? I will explain it to the hon. member. The fact is vast amounts of fast moving well oxygenated seawater moving through at anything up to six knots does what a treatment plant does artificially. It oxygenates the sewage. It eliminates the problem of pathogens. Essentially, we wind up with nutrients, just as farmers do in the member's riding who puts manure on a field. The two problems that we are always watching closely that are always very important--