Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate and thank all of my colleagues who stood in this House to support Motion M-273, which I was proud to move on behalf of the citizens of Shannon whose lives have been turned upside down by the tragedy that struck their municipality.
The support and compassion shown by my colleagues in this House are invaluable to the former residents of Shannon, some of whom are here with us today.
As we know, many victims of this terrible tragedy are former or active members of our proud Canadian Forces. They have made many sacrifices to serve this country with dignity but now seem to have been forgotten or, worse, pushed away by the government.
This motion is incredibly important for the current and former citizens of Shannon, who have been seeking justice for many years.
The victims of the TCE contamination have suffered many losses and hardships through no fault of their own, and yet no one will take responsibility for what happened to them.
The victims of the TCE contamination of Shannon's water supply have still not been fairly compensated for their suffering, after more than 10 years of fierce battles. Even today, many people who suffer from illnesses linked to the intake of TCE, like cancer and the other illnesses mentioned earlier, still do not know why they are sick, because no one has told them about what happened in Shannon. This is totally unacceptable.
This government must act now, before the judge renders his verdict. This government must compensate the known victims of the contamination and their families, as well as those who have suffered or are still suffering without knowing why. The government has a moral obligation to do everything in its power to inform those who may have been affected by TCE contamination and to offer them the fair compensation they deserve, with a victim compensation fund for those who are not parties to the current class action.
My Conservative colleagues should not forget that the victims of the TCE contamination do not only live in my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, as was demonstrated by my colleague from Toronto—Danforth. As I have mentioned before, many of them were current or former members of the Canadian Forces who served at the military base in Valcartier in the past but have since moved away to serve in other bases across this country.
Many of the victims of the TCE contamination in Shannon now live in Conservative ridings and are expecting their members of Parliament to stand up for them and get them the justice they so rightly deserve.
It is extremely disappointing that the victims of the TCE-contaminated groundwater are once again being abandoned by their government, which has already indicated that it intends to vote against this motion. The government is still refusing to admit the crown's responsibility in this tragic situation and to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with the Shannon Citizens Committee.
About two weeks ago, we learned from the report released by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development that there are still several thousand contaminated federal sites across the country. The bill to fully decontaminate the affected sites would come to over $7 billion. On this excessively long list of contaminated federal sites is, of course, the municipality of Shannon, as well as the land on the Valcartier military base.
As my colleagues know, toxic chemicals, in particular trichloroethylene, have been dumped or buried since the 1930s on land that was, and still is, federal government property. These toxic substances have gradually leaked into the soil and contaminated the groundwater under the Valcartier base and the municipality of Shannon and as far away as Quebec City, including the Val-Bélair area.
A lot of work remains to be done in Shannon to clean up the water, but the most recent report by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development is not reassuring in that regard. In his report, the commissioner states that while many federal contaminated sites have been successfully dealt with, the remaining sites, like Shannon, will be much harder to clean up. There are many reasons to explain that reality, but I would say that one of the main reasons for this is that the Conservatives decided to cut over 60% of the remaining budget to evaluate the health and environmental risks and take care of the decontamination operations. In view of all the work that remains to be done, I think we can all agree that this was quite a bad decision.
Even though the contamination in Shannon was discovered in 1997, TCE, sadly, can still be found in the water, and unfortunately it seems that it will remain there for many more years.
Some decontamination efforts have been made in past years, but it is too little, too late, as government funding to clean up those toxic chemicals is insufficient and irregular at best.
Since the debate began, I have heard several arguments in favour of the motion, but the most important argument is about doing justice to the victims of the contamination and their families. They have suffered too much. Yes, some steps have been taken and we recognize that some efforts have been made in the past, but much more needs to be done.
I urge all my colleagues to do what is right and support my motion.