Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment. In fact, he is correct. Three percent of Quebec’s energy is nuclear and it has only one power plant within its borders, unlike Ontario which has 18 or 22.
Certain places have been designated and Quebeckers know very well that the Canadian Shield is one of them. I do not believe that the people on the North Shore want to become the dumping ground for Canada’s nuclear waste, or perhaps even other countries’ waste, given that waste might be coming from abroad.
This is an important issue for Quebec. We are fortunate to have hydroelectric potential that enables us to produce electricity without generating greenhouse gases. We operate only one nuclear power plant. On this point, the Government of Quebec is currently studying various possibilities: whether to go ahead with rebuilding that plant or to dismantle it. That decision is now up to the Government of Quebec. In any event, the question of waste has always been an important issue for Quebec, particularly given that Quebec is a province where a potential location for burying waste has been identified.
The Minister of Natural Resources can rest assured that as natural resources critic I will be keeping a very close eye on this issue.