Mr. Speaker, I too, in following along with our last speaker, would like to congratulate the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for bringing this matter back to the House. I know that the member has a commitment to private members' business and to the environment. As a result of that he has brought this bill back. After having said all that, however, I could not support this bill if it were votable.
We have to remember a number of things in the House. I heard the critic from the fifth party refer to the science of this issue. We have to read the bill and go back to recent history, recent history being 1995, 1996 and 1997, when a debate was held in this place on this very topic, specifically with respect to MMT. At that time a lot of preposterous things were said about it.
First, it was said that MMT was not used in third world countries such as Colombia, Venezuela and all sorts of other places. That is very true because in those countries leaded gasoline is used.
Second, it was said that MMT was prohibited in the United States. That is absolutely false. This is the same as saying Canadian money is prohibited in the United States or vice versa or that we do not use American money in Canada and what is wrong with that. The real point is the Americans had a much different process of licensing additives. That process has worked in the United States. In 1995 or 1996 the American EPA licensed MMT and today it is used in about 30% of gasoline sold in that country.
Many things have been said around this topic, which I would characterize at the level of grade nine science, that are not correct. Look at the bill and remember back in history as to what occurred in this very place under a government bill.
We talk about the environment, yet clause 4 of this bill issues a prohibition to import a product. How can we use an ostensibly environmental bill as a trade bill? The answer is quite simple. There is no evidence whatsoever that MMT is detrimental to the environment or one's health.
The argument was made before the American EPA that MMT brought a lot of positive attributes, one being it reduces NOx emissions. It lowers such things as sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions in the refining process. MMT boosts the octane rating of gasoline so less crude oil is used. There are a number of positive attributes. Canada has been using it since 1977 and has reaped the benefits of MMT usage.
I will go back to recent history. In 1995 a great crusade started in this place to ban MMT importation. This is what clause 4 of Bill C-254 would do. However, we really do not have any reason for doing it. If I go back to 1997, that bill became law.
In June of 1997 an interprovincial trade tribunal ruled that the bill which was passed in this place, in the Senate and received royal assent, was in contravention of interprovincial trade. The environment officials, who so vehemently defended the bill before House and Senate committees and who said they were following the political lead of doing the right thing, were forced to do a 180 degree turn.
In June of 1997, just as the dog days of summer were about to begin, the then minister of industry and the minister of the environment issued a press release and attended a press conference at which time they did three things. First, they said mea culpa, they were wrong. They apologized to the manufacturer Ethyl Corporation.
Second, they said that law could be of no force or effect.
Third, they were required to issue a cheque to Ethyl Corporation for about $18 million Canadian.
That is a pretty remarkable series of events done on the eve of summer. They had to do that because, first, what they did was wrong, and second, they would not listen. They would not listen to the science. It was Grade 9 science they were listening to. They would not listen to their provincial counterparts. Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Alberta objected to the bill. They thought it was a good product and did not want to be deprived of it.
The end result of that little exercise was that the Canadian taxpayer forked out $18 million and the Ministers of Industry and of the Environment said to Ethyl Corporation “We are sorry and we made a mistake and we will not do it again”.
Here we are and we are doing it again.
On that basis I would like to apply what is called the prudence principle: that is, it is prudent not to do what we know is against laws, mainly laws of interprovincial trade and under NAFTA.
I have a couple of final points. We have heard a lot about the precautionary principle and we have heard reference to the Rio convention and all other international accords entered into by Canada. If one assumes that the precautionary principle is to be applied in the face of lack of any evidence—in fact the evidence is quite to the contrary, but at that time, of course, the government would not allow a third party scientific panel to get involved and do an assessment—I would make the same suggestion that we could probably outlaw Tim Horton's doughnuts because if we eat enough of them they are bad for us. If we eat bacon every morning, it will probably kill us. The precautionary principle in the absence of any scientific evidence is not what Rio intended.
I would like to make a couple of comments with respect to the addition into the argument of the use of ethanol. I would concur a great deal with what the member for Athabasca had to say about that point, and that is this: yes, in the United States ethanol is used extensively, however, we have to look at why that is the case. The case is that in the United States a number of highly populated cities were having problems with CO2 emissions. The end result is that ethanol usage will decrease CO2. Of course it ups the NOX, but it is a bit of a balance of both. The Americans decided that they would use ethanol to cut smog. There were 11 centres in the U.S. where ethanol was mandatory at 10%.
How do they do it? The senators in some of the midwestern states got about to subsidizing corn production in a big way. If we want to subsidize corn farmers, and I am not making an argument against that, let us just say so. Or as the member for Athabasca has said, let us explain to Canadians why the price of gasoline is going up. Part of it is the price of crude, absolutely, but a bigger factor in all of this is what occurs in places right here and in provincial capitals where, as we saw last year, sulphur requirements were imposed upon the industry without its co-operation: we are seeing that the price of gasoline will rise.
In summary, I say that this is once again bringing in something that ought not to be declared a law, and it is not likely to be under the circumstances. Second, we have to be a little more frank and open with people when we start going on crusades in this place about gasoline prices. There have been 12 federal inquiries and one provincial inquiry in Ontario and what did they prove? Absolutely nothing. They proved that we are a contributing factor to the high price of gasoline.
