Mr. Speaker, it is a good time to get up and talk on this very important issue. Since we have been on debate for some time today, I am going to emphasize for those who might be joining in late to this wonderful debate today that Bill C-4 amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to limit the current liability provisions related to the cost of cleanup stemming from an incident impacting the environment.
As currently defined in subsection 46(3), any person with an interest in the affected land or facility is potentially liable for the cost of cleaning up any contamination resulting from incident. This includes not only the owner and operators but also the mortgage lender or holder of a security interest in the land. The proposed amendment would narrow the scope of potential liability to include only the owners and operators.
Some who have spoken here today have indicated that it just seems unfair somehow that we would hold the lender liable for lending a company money and that if there is a huge disaster the lender should not have to pay.
I would suggest that part of the reason this type of wording was put in the act initially is that there was an understanding, a recognition, that any type of nuclear disaster is far more detrimental than just the ordinary realm of liability that we might have in an investment in a clothing store down the street or, for that matter, a mine, even though I fully recognize, as my colleague from the Alliance has indicated, that after a mine closes down residue and tailings often are left, which affect the environment and the lives of those around the mine. I would suggest that absolutely there should be greater liability for the cleanup and who is responsible.
Under this act, though, I believe it was recognized that there was greater risk and that as a result there was greater need for anyone even thinking of being part of that type of operation to recognize that there was a really strong liability.
I would suggest that lenders to a nuclear facility are going to make a profit off the interest on that loan and as a result profit from whatever that business does, in this case the nuclear business. Whatever it does, the lenders are going to profit from it. Quite frankly, after the fact, after an accident happens, the people in a large area around the plant are affected. Usually in a nuclear accident it not just that little spot where the plant is located that is affected. Huge areas all around it, if not throughout the world, are affected. As a result, there is greater liability. For that reason, I believe, there was an intent, and a good intent, to see this as being more serious and to have a greater risk of liability.
I believe there is no question that the $75 million maximum liability that can be charged to the owner or operator of the nuclear plant at this point would hardly come close to being able to address some of the costs that would probably be there as the result of an accident.
The Chernobyl reactor incident a number of years ago in the Ukraine seems so far away. Somehow we cannot imagine anything like that ever happening here in Canada, but let us face it, the cost of the Chernobyl accident was beyond anything we can imagine. Certainly there was the cost to the environment, the land itself, the cost to businesses and other industries in that area, the cost of the numerous lives that were lost, and the cost of the medical treatment that has resulted for years and years afterwards as a result of the Chernobyl accident. These are not just some little business operations going bad and affecting their own little 40 acres. These incidents will affect a huge area and the whole country, if not the world and they cannot be seen in the same way.
Quite frankly, I believe the government would have everyone believe that this is just a little housekeeping incident, that we have to get this out of there, that it was never intended to be there.
I do not agree. I think there was an absolute intent for it to be there and it should stay as is. The government would have us fast track this and keep the public debate down as much as possible, and as a result, I believe,would put the Canadian taxpayers at risk for a huge cost. As I have indicated, should there be an accident, should there be liability and $75 million will not cover the cost, who would end up covering it? If it is a private, independent operation, the plant would go bankrupt. If it goes bankrupt, who pays? The operators could not pay any more. They could go off somewhere else under another name and keep operating or doing whatever. We often see that happening with businesses that get into trouble. Those who would pay are the Canadian taxpayers.
I am extremely disappointed that members from the Alliance would not wholeheartedly say that there is no way the Canadian taxpayers should be stuck with that kind of cost, that we must have something in place to ensure that the Canadian taxpayers do not end up bearing the brunt. I have not heard that from them, which is disappointing, because quite frankly every one of us here should be ensuring that the Canadian taxpayers do not have to pay for those kinds of disasters.
I feel the same way about mines or any kind of operation that will leave environmental devastation behind. We have seen a situation with a mine in the Yukon, I believe, where the owner claimed bankruptcy and left. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs took on the responsibility and the government ultimately ended up cleaning up the mess at taxpayers' expense after a whole bunch of shareholders made money over a period of years. The operator of the mine was probably proclaimed a wonderful person because he or she did such a great business job, but ultimately the taxpayers of Canada bore the brunt.
That says nothing about the numerous times when there is no environmental cleanup. It sits there because there is not enough money to clean it up, because there is not a fund in place to ensure that there is a cleanup after different operations are in place. Yes, there are plans, so that an operator has to close things up to make sure that if people walk by they will not fall down a hole. Those types of rules are in place, but as far as the long term environmental consequences of some of those mines, there is no cleanup.
I think we need to change that. In the shipping of oil there is a process in place whereby each company puts so much money into a sort of insurance plan. We will call it that for lack of the exact name. If there is an accident, those funds can be accessed to clean it up. Why we do not have that in place for numerous other businesses is beyond me, but it is not there. I think it will come as people become more and more conscious of the need to protect the environment, as they have as a result of climate change and as a result of our wonderful debate on the Kyoto accord. People are becoming more conscious of it and as a result want to do whatever they can to ensure that the environment is sustained for years to come.
Numerous colleagues of mine today have also commented on the alternatives to nuclear power plants. Certainly there are numerous alternatives now. Yes, we can pooh-pooh them all the way, but I remember the first time I ever heard about wind energy. I wondered how the heck we could ever put it in place. Then I started reading more about it. We get a lot of information as members of Parliament and numerous pieces of information on wind energy began coming in. I started thinking about it. It is not as if this is something new. We have had operating windmills in place for years, not with the magnitude of operations that we need in some areas, but there is real potential for wind energy. It is being utilized in a number of places. Certainly we should expand on those types of operations whenever we possibly can. Whatever method of clean energy we can put in place is where we should be directing our efforts.
I recognize that not all of them will have 100% perfect results. What we do know is that a number of sources of energy are not good to be using. I am not suggesting for one moment that we should say to heck with the whole fossil fuel industry. Quite frankly, as my colleague from the Canadian Alliance indicated, our fossil fuels will run out. By reducing, adapting and readapting our usage, we are not necessarily saying to heck with our fossil fuel industry, we are extending the life of that industry and, through that process, working on cleaner forms of energy and ensuring that we are doing what is best for our country and ultimately for the world.
Why we would want to bring forth a change to a bill that would risk Canadian taxpayers having to offset the cost is beyond me. If a financial institution decides not to invest in an operation because it is concerned about the liability, I think that is a good thing. If it decides to invest because it is a good operation, it makes sure that its investment dollars are protected and that those types of accidents do not happen. It also ensures that an agreement is in place and that it keeps tabs on that operation so no consequences could ultimately hit the institution. I think that is a good, sound way of doing things. That is being responsible. It has been in place for a few years now and it has not been a problem but somehow it has become a problem now in the push to privatize the nuclear industry.
I know there are those who believe that private industry is best and that the capital way and the market economy are the way to go, and in some instances we may have had some success, but in a lot instances we have not had success. We know that with cuts here and there proper safety methods are used.
In the case, I believe, of the Bruce plants, we see that there needs to be literally millions of dollars invested to bring them up to snuff, so to speak, to make them safe. One has to wonder how they were allowed to reach that point and how much a private company will continue putting in. I just do not have the faith that it will be done in a safe manner unless there is a strong demand from their loaning institution to make sure they do that. Usually they just walk away from it.
I would rather not get into the whole privatization-public argument, even though all we have to do is talk about Manitoba Telephone System, a public institution that was sold. I make no bones about this when I say that we certainly do not have as good a service as we had before it was sold, bar none. We would find very few people in Manitoba, who had service under the old MTS and now have it under the new company, who would say that it is better today, because it is not. It just is not. It just wants to make money where money can be made. It does not want to invest in the province as a whole. It does not want to look at the benefits for all the people. It just wants to make a quick buck and to heck with everybody else.
I do not think that is the way certain operations should be put in place. Certain things should be done for the benefit of everyone, which is how this country was formed. People recognized that they were here to support each other, province by province by province, in different areas when it was needed. The people in a unified country support each other.
I think we have lost sight of that. We have little areas where people want to protect their 40 acres and do not care what anyone else does. We have lost track of what is important, and that is building a country and supporting each other.
No one is suggesting that we totally wipe out any industry when it comes to fossil fuels. It is just a matter of balancing and putting things in practice so that we have long term sustainability, we have a country for which we can be proud, and we have a country where the environment is safe for numerous generations to come.
