Mr. Speaker, I wish I could have seconded the motion from the member for Kingston and the Islands just a moment ago. It was a good point.
As parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health and the member of Parliament for Milton, I am proud to rise to speak on Bill S-5. It is important to take some time to speak to the work that our government has done on modernizing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is our cornerstone environmental legislation.
In a nutshell, CEPA recognizes a right to a healthy environment, as provided under CEPA. It imposes a duty on the government to protect the right and uphold related principles such as environmental justice. It also requires ministers to develop an implementation framework within two years, and to conduct research to support the protection of the right.
It also is expected to support strong environmental and health standards now and into the future, robust engagement, new research and action to protect populations that are particularly vulnerable to environmental health risks.
On that topic, I think we would be remiss not to recognize that recently in Alberta, there have been tailings ponds leakages into the Athabasca River and various other tributaries that went unreported to communities that were affected downstream. This is exactly the type of activity that we need to prevent and legislate into law as unacceptable, to ensure that we are protecting people from these toxic substances.
In the previous speech, there were some numbers thrown around and I would just like to put into modern context a few of those numbers, if I could. I heard the member opposite refer to 500,000 pounds of material that would need to be extracted to build one car battery.
I completely accept that it requires mining to build a modern car battery. They are up to 1,000 pounds and they are certainly intensive when it comes to mining. That does not go without saying. To put that into context, though, 500,000 pounds is about 226,000 kilograms. That would equate to about 10 years of fuel, if one were to convert that to gasoline. An average car would use about 2,000 to 3,000 kilograms of gasoline every year. Do the math and, unless I have done it completely improperly, I think that equates.
What does it take to get gasoline? That is something that we did not necessarily have the opportunity to measure or consider.
In the context of the oil sands, that requires, every single time some fuel is removed through the process, four tonnes of sand and four barrels of fresh water just to make one barrel of synthetic oil. I will say that again: four tonnes of sand need to be excavated and then four barrels of fresh water need to be used and most of that is then stored in a tailings pond. It is important to recognize that those tailings ponds were never meant to be long-term solutions for that toxic substrate of the process, but they continue to be used in that form and fashion.
What do we get out of one barrel of synthetic oil? One would get 42 gallons of gasoline. That is 160 litres of fuel.
What did that require? It required four tonnes of sand to be removed. Four tonnes of sand is 4,000 kilograms of sand. We are now on a similar metric to what the member opposite was saying needed to be excavated to build one car battery, which would obviously be good for many trips.
I am fortunate enough to drive an electric car and I can say that I have driven 30,000 kilometres in the last year in that electric car without having to use any gasoline.
There is no question that the carbon footprint of one of these electric vehicles is higher on the first day that one drives it compared to an internal combustion engine, but the point is that it does not require any gasoline. If one compares the amount of sand that needs to be removed from the ground in order to produce one litre of gasoline to how much is required to produce a car battery, one realizes that, yes, cars require a lot of mining. We all know that. That is something we should know.
However, we also have to take into consideration how many acres and acres of boreal forest are necessary to clear for oil sands activity and how much water it requires in order to refine that bitumen down to a usable product.
Moving on from the topic of electric car batteries and gasoline, I would like to talk about how this bill, Bill S-5, strengthens the foundation for the management of chemicals and other substances that are found in our environment through industry.
The bill would require an integrated plan of chemicals management priorities, with timelines and annual reporting. It would implement a new regime for toxic substances of highest risk.
It would create a watch-list for substances of potential concern, and consultation on new living organisms that would allow the public to request assessments, and ministers would have to address risks using the best balanced and best placed act.
It is really important to recognize that this is creating a framework for the future that would evolve as technology evolves and as new technologies are implemented and new forms of mining are implemented in our mining sector to go after all of the critical minerals that new technologies would require. Bill S-5 would evolve with it.
This bill would also confirm a focus on assessment of real-life exposures, supporting the shift to safer chemicals, replacing and reducing reliance on animal testing, increased openness, transparency and accountability in decision-making. It would also include amendments that affect all of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, including information gathering, research authorities, reporting on indigenous reconciliation and other confidential business information.
I would like to take a moment to reflect on something a little more personal. When my father's family first came to Canada from Holland, they moved to southwestern Ontario and engaged in agriculture. One of my father's first jobs was picking tobacco around the Tillsonburg area, which was a very common practice. Thankfully, the tobacco industry has fewer customers these days and there are fewer people farming tobacco.
It was not actually the tobacco plant that led to harm to my family so much as the product that was sprayed on those tobacco plants, Roundup is a very common insecticide that is still, unfortunately, used in many agricultural applications these days. It is a herbicide. I thank the member opposite. I do not know everything about this, so I am glad that we are working in a place that allows for us to collaborate a little.
Whatever the pest, Roundup was attempting to prevent the infestation of those tobacco plants. It also causes neurological degenerative diseases, like Parkinson's, which my dad suffers from, I should say lives with these days. He does not like to say that we suffer from diseases. It is very well documented that Roundup causes neurological, degenerative disorders like Parkinson's. My dad has been tested for the type of Parkinson's that he has, and indeed it is associated with a high exposure to herbicides, as my colleague point out. Roundup is in that category.
These chemicals that we have used throughout—