Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak about a very serious matter that I discussed with the Minister of Transport on November 29.
Unfortunately, even though the situation is serious and the concerns are shared by a majority of the population, the Minister of Transport gave an unsatisfactory answer. I spoke about it to groups working on this issue, that is the people who are really concerned about and directly affected by the red dust and contamination by various heavy metals, as proven by analyses.
I will not repeat in the House the comments I received because it would be too easy to accuse me of using unparliamentary language. However, that gives an idea of the tenor of the issue and the indignation of the people of Quebec City with regard to the response by the Minister of Transport.
I will distill the minister's response. He clearly said that the Port of Quebec is an independent organization that assumes its responsibilities. Whether the Minister of Transport likes it or not, the reality, as the Department of Transport clearly stated, is that the Port of Quebec is one of the Canadian port authorities under the supervision of Transport Canada, which is also responsible for compliance with environmental laws, in particular the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
According to Transport Canada, the department also oversees the environmental management of leased facilities. Port authorities have a certain amount of autonomy, but they are accountable, and the Minister of Transport must take responsibility for them.
There is something very disturbing about this whole situation. Since I raised this question, Véronique Lalande, the woman who warned the public, received her lab results and was able to take a closer look. The samples she sent for analysis contained potentially dangerous metals such as arsenic, copper, lead, zinc and nickel.
I will focus on nickel, which is a potentially highly toxic metal. It was present in very high concentrations and could be quite dangerous.
For the benefit of the Minister of Transport, I simply want to remind the House that nickel dust can be carcinogenic. It can cause lung and throat cancer.
In addition, the skin reacts to varying degrees after coming into contact with nickel. A significant percentage of the population is potentially allergic to nickel—some studies say as much as 12%. In Limoilou, thousands of people were affected.
First, I would like to ask the Minister of Transport again if he was aware of the problem. Second, I would like to ask him if he has really taken any action on this issue, instead of simply waiting for the situation to deteriorate.