Jocelyne Girard-Bujold

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, even if this is a very serious issue, my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, is such a humorous person that I cannot help but laugh; it certainly helps to lighten things up.

It is true that concentration keeps the people from opening their minds up to other ideas. When all our energies are focused on one point, we cannot see the forest for the trees. This is why the government should withdraw this bill and start all over again on the whole nuclear energy issue: storage, processing, development and alternative energies.

The government should draft a bill and rework the whole issue of nuclear energy, so that Canada can improve the situation. We have to get on with the greening of Canada.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the humour of our colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, is always recognizable.

It is true that we took part together in the consideration of the bill that put forward some means of getting rid of the waste that is now buried at nuclear plant sites. We know that, besides having a life, waste has a half-life of several hundreds of thousands of years.

Just imagine that. The government does not know yet—even after the Seaborn report—what it will do with the waste that is stored at nuclear plant sites. There is now almost 20,000 tonnes of it. This is huge. The government does not know what to do with it.

Imagine if, on top of this, through such a bill, the government were to allow people, providers of financing, to avoid being held responsible for the pollution that would result from further nuclear development.

Imagine all the waste that would be created every day, during all these years to come, yet the government does not know what to do with the waste currently stored at our nuclear plant sites.

As my colleague from Sherbrooke said, I hope, if the trend could continue, given all the green seats in the House, that the government will choose this colour.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Sherbrooke, and congratulate him for his performance in the matter we are dealing with today.

If we keep raising the issue, I hope it will become less and less unrealistic for this government to take a greener approach.

I hope the government will wake up. It has the power to change its way of doing things, with us, in the opposition, who are advocating the use of environmentally sound approaches, of new, green energies such as wind and hydro-electric power, which must be promoted.

I hope this government gets out of utopia and moves in the right direction so that we can finally take steps to improve our environment.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-57. As you know, nuclear energy is a very important issue to me.

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to see, during more that a month, how the Canadian nuclear industry completely ignored the people of the Saguenay on the issue of the importation of MOX.

I can only approach this issue with a very critical mind, particularly since Quebec has only one plant, the one in Gentilly. It is for this reason and for many others that I am so interested in this debate on Bill C-57, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, in order to change the category of people whom the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission can order to decontaminate a site.

As it now stands, the act says that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission may, and I quote “...order that the owner or occupant of, or any other person with a right to or interest in the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination”.

The phrase “any other person with a right to or interest in, the affected land or place” is quite broad. It means that any person with an interest may be made to pay in case of a spill or any other kind of problem.

A bank that would loan money to a plant could thus be sued and incur what would inevitably be very high costs. It is mainly to spare third parties, especially those able to finance the nuclear sector, that the bill was put forward.

The purpose of the bill is to replace “any other person with right to or interest in, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination” by “any other person who has the management and control of, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination”.

This amendment spares a whole group the obligation to decontaminate. It is not just a simple administrative amendment, as the minister would have us believe.

We must therefore ask ourselves: Why is the Minister of Natural Resources putting forward this bill? In fact, as he indicated in his press release of last Friday, “Companies that own and operate nuclear facilities must have access to commercial credit to finance their needs, like any other enterprise”.

“This amendment will allow the nuclear industry to attract market capital and equity. At the same time, we can continue to ensure that nuclear facilities are managed in a safe environmentally-sound manner”.

Two elements caught my eye when I read this document, namely “finance their needs” and “environmentally-sound”.

It is a well-known fact that the current government, led in that by the Prime Minister, has always considered nuclear energy as an incredible economic development tool. Moreover, in terms of respecting its Kyoto commitments, the government is very favourable to this kind of energy.

Here is an example. Two or three years ago, the current Minister of Energy was taking part in a meeting in Bonn, Germany, on Kyoto. At that time, he suggested that Canada should be granted greenhouse gas emission credits because it exported CANDU reactors. Everybody laughed at him, and rightly so.

As we know, nuclear energy is not clean. It produces so much radioactive waste that we do not know what to do with it anymore.

Yet, the Canadian government thinks differently. This is very serious. Indeed, the following can be read on AECL's Internet site:

Nuclear energy has many benefits, particularly in the area of environment. Nuclear energy emits no combustion by-products, no acid gases and no greenhouse gases. It is a clean, safe, and economical energy source that does not contribute to air pollution, global warming or acid rain.

This is quite the propaganda tool, albeit an incomplete one. What AECL does not say is that we are stuck with over 20,000 tons of nuclear waste in Canada and that it will cost close to $13 billion to get rid of it. This waste is currently located on the sites of nuclear plants. Again, this government agency is really not telling all the truth to the public, and it would have us believe incomplete and biased information.

Moreover, we must ask ourselves if nuclear energy is safe. Of course, the Chernobyl tragedy occurred because of the blatant lack of security measures in the former Soviet Union. The government claims that the Candu technology is the best in the world, as are its engineers. But what is the reality?

Here is an excerpt from a report that was broadcast by Radio-Canada on August 11, 2000:

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is concerned about the quality of the maintenance of the main reactor at the Chalk River plant, close to Ottawa. The commission fears that the departure of several experts and engineers in recent years may jeopardize the safety of the plant's operations.

These concerns are in addition to the controversy surrounding the use of the Chalk River reactor to test MOX imported from the United States and Russia.

Samples of MOX, which is a radioactive fuel, have already been sent from the United States to the Chalk River nuclear plant. Atomic Energy of Canada is waiting for more samples from Russia before undertaking a series of tests.

It was then that we people from the Saguenay led an all out battle to ensure that MOX imports would not travel through our region, because we know that it is not safe. The report goes on to say:

This project continues to generate controversy, but now the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is expressing concerns of its own. This time, it is not the movement of MOX that is the source of these concerns but, rather, the quality of the maintenance of Chalk River's main research reactor, the oldest one in Canada.

I am still reading from this Radio-Canada report.

The problem is that, in 1999, a great number of very well trained people have left the plant. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has made an assessment and concluded that Atomic Energy Canada does not invest all the resources needed in replacement personnel training.

Paul Lafrenière, who is the head of the nuclear facilities at the Chalk River plant, has stated:

Since 1957, we have been relying on a system of on the job training. The CNSC would like us to move to a new customized training.

We can see that what is going on right now in nuclear plants makes no sense whatsoever. The Bloc Quebecois has suggested to the government a number of different courses of acation with respect to the nuclear industry.

Recently, the Bloc made public an investment plan of $700 million over five years to promote the emergence of a wind energy industry in Quebec. It could contribute to the creation of 15,000 jobs in Quebec, most of them in the Gaspé peninsula.

We should not forget that in 1997, in Kyoto, Canada made a commitment to reduce, by 2008 or 2010, its greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below the 1990 level.

Reversing the tendency of increasing greenhouse gas emissions will limit the extreme weather occurrences like the ice storm and other environmental impacts like the low water level in the St. Lawrence River.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we should strive for greater energy efficiency and produce more with less. This is a great opportunity to encourage technological innovation and develop new structuring industries.

It is in that context that the Bloc Quebecois is proposing a vast federal program for wind energy in the Gaspé Peninsula. For the federal government, the only alternative to clean and green energy is oil and nuclear energy. It has put $6 billion in the atomic energy program alone.

As for financial assistance to the fossil energy industry, since 1970, the federal government has paid $66 billion in direct subsidies to the oil and gas industry. By comparison, businesses in the renewable energy sector received 200 times less from the federal government, which gave absolutely nothing for the development of hydroelectric power, a type of really clean energy that produces no greenhouse gases and no radioactive material. Quebec has been developing this type of energy for more than 40 years.

That is why we believe that Canada should abandon the development of nuclear energy and follow the lead of countries such as Germany, which will permanently give up nuclear energy in 2025 in favour of green energies such as wind energy.

I should point out that, over the last six years, the wind energy industry has experienced an average annual growth of 30%. Germany is the country that favours this kind of energy the most. The wind energy that it manages is 40 times greater than the total for Canada. Europe has almost 75% of the world's aerogenerators. The European Union wants to reach a target of 22% of its electricity from renewable energies, including a large part of it from wind energy.

Canada lags far behind the leaders, with a production of only 207 megawatts. Even the United States has significant incentives, such as a subsidy of 2.7 ¢ per kilowatt hour, to reach a capacity of more than 5,000 kilowatts hour.

Quebec accounts for 50% of this production, which is minimal considering its potential. According to experts, Quebec's wind energy potential, concentrated in the Gaspe Peninsula and the North Shore, ranges from 4,000 to 6,000 kilowatts-hour, which is about 60% of the total for Canada.

The U.S. department of energy says that wind energy creates more jobs for each dollar that is invested than any other technology, five times more than in the case of coal or nuclear energy.

The European Wind Energy Association has estimated that each megawatt of installed wind energy potential creates about 60 person-years of employment, or between 15 and 19 direct and indirect jobs. Therefore, in 1996, the newly installed 3,500 megawatts in Europe would have created 72,000 jobs.

As a confirmation of the association's statements, in 2001, the wind industry was providing employment to more than 30,000 people. In California, where over $5 billion have been invested in the wind power industry since 1991, 5,200 jobs depend on that industry.

That is why the Bloc Quebecois has always said that environment is important. Why is it important? The environment has been abused enough. We have caused enough damage to the environment and we must take immediate measures to protect the environment for future generations. Something has to be done; we have to go the way of renewable energy. Fossil fuels and nuclear energy must be abandoned.

That is why, from today onward, we must invest in energies that create jobs. Let us not forget that the goal is to create wind potential of at least 1,000 megawatts in Quebec, mainly in the Gaspé area. As we know, the Gaspé area has been hit headlong by major job losses, specially with the closure of the mining operation in Murdochville.

They have the expertise in wind energy. It would be important to create industries making wind turbine components. They have a huge potential to make Canada one of the three best wind energy producers in the world. At present, this government is stubbornly staying the course of nuclear energy.

The Bloc proposal would cost $700 million. This is not much compared to all the money that the government has invested in nuclear energy. Let us just compare this with what happened in Newfoundland, when the Canadian government invested money in the Hibernia project. The federal government invested a lot of money in this project.

Today, it tells us that it has no money. It has a budget surplus of $9.8 million for the fiscal year that just ended alone. It has the money; what is missing is the will.

The government tells us that it wants to help the regions. As you know, I am responsible for the regional development issue for the Bloc Quebecois. The government wants to help the regions but is not using the means that reflect the realities of the regions to provide them with the potential to develop. A huge number of jobs would be created in the Gaspé peninsula. This new approach would also allow this government to come out a winner.

Other aspects of the program could also be used. Bill C-57, as tabled by the natural resources minister, is more than an administrative amendment. It will bring about the further development of nuclear energy. It must stop. The government must stop going in all directions at the same time. It is always introducing small bills. It does not ask itself what the effects of its legislation will be. It seems that it is working in a vacuum when it introduces bills.

This bill affects many sectors, including the storing and treatment of nuclear waste that is presently stored in nuclear plants. The Seaborn panel proposed different approaches. Experiments were conducted in the Canadian Shield; there is nothing conclusive yet.

The legislation allows for the investment of more funds in the development of nuclear energy. Enough is enough. The government must stop. I am asking it to withdraw Bill C-57. This legislation does not address the nuclear problem, it allows for its development.

Consequently, we must understand that this bill is a lot more than the administrative change the natural resources minister referred to. The bill will allow for maximal development of nuclear energy. I cannot approve such a philosophy.

That is why, as the member for Jonquière representing people who are very concerned about nuclear energy, I am asking the government to withdraw its bill. If it does not do so, I will vote against it.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the member for Davenport.

The member for Davenport is right. Contrary to what the minister for natural resources seems to be saying, this is not a purely administrative amendment.

This bill, which we believe to be a mere housekeeping measure, will open a real Pandora's box. IWe are opening up the whole issue of nuclear energy and the storage and processing of the radioactive waste buried on site at nuclear plants. We are also opening up the issue of the proliferation of nuclear energy. We are wiping out any possibility of investment in wind energy and renewable energies.

I would like to ask the following question to my colleague, the member for Davenport, because of the important speech he just made and because of his great wisdom. Does he not think that his government should withdraw Bill C-57 and say “say that it will examine the whole issue of nuclear energy and start all over, in the interests of Canadians”?

[Competition Act, May 31st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-23, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, and the amendment proposed by the Senate.

As we know, Bill C-23 was made up of three private member's bills. There were some very interesting features. Before the proposed changes included in Bill C-23, only the commissioner of competition could file a complaint before the competition tribunal.

Bill C-23 now provides for a private access that will allow people to directly launch court proceedings, on their own behalf, regarding competition issues. This new provision of the act will apply to four areas: refusal to deal, exclusive dealing, tied selling and market restriction.

However, while these changes were interesting ones, they did not revolutionize the way of doing things in Canada when it comes to competition. The provisions of Bill C-23 remain weak, and they do not go to the bottom of the issue of competition in Canada.

In its 2000 election platform, the Bloc Quebecois said, and is still saying, that the Competition Act should be amended to guarantee competitive prices to consumers. This is the basis of the issue of competition.

It is all well and good to allow third parties to argue a case on their own before the Competition Tribunal, but if the Competition Bureau does not have the adequate means to carry out its investigations, what good does it do? We must not circumvent steps. Ensuring truly competitive pricing to consumers must remain the cornerstone of our actions.

For this reason, I had moved a motion in the House that would have reviewed the implementation of section 45 of the Competition Act and reviewed the word unduly. The current wording in this section allows multinational corporations to raise prices, particularly in the case of gas.

Allow me to give an example. On a street with five gas stations, the prices all go up at the same time, and at the same hour. Under the current law, the Competition Bureau cannot launch an investigation based on this observation. There must be written proof of collusion. This is virtually impossible to obtain these days. Unfortunately, Bill C-23 does nothing to correct section 45.

However, I have not lost all hope. The Standing Committee on Industry published a report on April 23, in which it proposed some good amendments to the section. The Minister of Industry should seriously consider these proposals.

The Standing Committee on Industry said the following:

That the Government of Canada create a two-track approach for agreements between competitors. The first track would modify the current criminal provision (section 45) in two ways and allow the criminal justice system to deal with “hard core cartels”, in other words conspiracies that have no compensatory social value.

This would remove the word unduly from the phrase “to lessen, unduly, competition”. As such, horizontal agreements between competitors should not have to limit competition unduly or deliberately in order to be considered a conspiracy against the public interest. Such an amendment would be welcome.

Therefore, I am pleased, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, to support this amendment from the Senate. It is very important, particularly since, from a legal perspective, the French and English versions are often different. As a result, it was important to make this change, and I congratulate the members of the other chamber.

This is also an opportunity to point out how much progress we have made when it comes to competition; however, there remains work to be done. I hope that the minister will take note of this and make amending section 45 a priority for his department.

[Community Television, May 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, all community television stations in Canada, and the independent community stations in Quebec in particular, are experiencing serious financial problems. The coming into effect of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations in 1998 is in large part responsible for this funding shortfall, because it withdrew the existing obligation for cable companies to provide proper funding for the community channel.

Can the minister of heritage tell us if she is aware of this problem and what solutions she intends to propose to those in charge of community television?

[Claudette Carbonneau, May 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate Claudette Carbonneau on her election yesterday as 13th president of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux. Ms. Carbonneau, who held the position of vice-president for 11 years, made history by becoming the first woman to lead the second largest labour federation in Quebec.

Her tireless commitment to the union movement and her willingness to serve the CSN have won her the trust of members. There is no doubt that her talents as a negotiator and unifying force will breathe new life into the federation.

I wish to assure the new president that the Bloc Quebecois will maintain its close co-operation in the defence of the rights of Quebec's workers.

On behalf of my colleagues, I congratulate Ms. Carbonneau and wish her the best of luck in her new duties as president of the CSN.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 30th, 2002]

The very best.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-55. I am eager to see the decision that you will hand down on the amendment brought forward by my colleague from the Conservative Party, since I totally support that amendment. It asks that this bill be scrapped, and I agree with the Conservative member on that.

This government never justified why we, in the House, should pass legislation that would restrict individual freedoms. It never justified why such harsh legislation was needed following the events of September 11. September 11 has become the perfect excuse for limiting the rights of citizens.

I want to congratulate my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville, who this morning received telephone calls from two women's associations informing her of their objections to Bill C-55. It is nice to see that, again, it is the women of this country who are telling these men who are in the majority in the House that they must stop restricting the freedoms of Canadians and Quebecers.

I want to thank these women and tell them that I heard their message and that, as a woman myself, I know that they are right. Restricting rights and freedoms is useless. We already have, in the existing laws, all the means we need to counter terrorist acts.

If the government were willing to enforce these laws that we already have here, in Canada, we would not be talking about Bill C-55.

Before oral question period, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord tried to fool everybody by saying that it is good legislation. Strangely enough, it seems that only this government is right. Many people, including editorial writers, Amnesty International and other organizations, said “This bill should suffer the same fate as Bill C-42. It should be withdrawn. And this government should do its homework properly”.

When a member from a party on this side of the House wants to become a government member, we see a radical change in his or her position. In that regard, I would like to quote what the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord said in a statement that he made on February 22, 2000, when he was in opposition:

The Liberals absolutely do not want to consult the public to find out what it thinks of this measure... Arrogance, contempt and indifference toward the House of Commons and toward all Canadians are now part of a behaviour that is beginning to spread throughout this government.

Curiously, when someone is in the governing party, he is at a loss for ideas. I thought the hon. member was right about the government, when he was in the opposition.

If he really believes in Bill C-55, why does he not consult the public before it becomes law? This type of legislation will lead us up a dead-end alley of repression.

We, of the Bloc Quebecois, have experienced the War Measures Act. I referred to that in my last speech. Some of my friends were arrested without explanation. They were held in very secret places and not told why they were being held.

The government will be empowered to designate controlled access military zones and a single minister, the Defence Minister, will determine the dimensions of these zones.

He will order defence staff to create military zones. He will be the one to decide. This is serious. A single person cannot be given the unlimited power to restrict civil liberties.

This government always says “Rights and liberties are important. We celebrated the anniversary of the charter of rights and freedoms. Canada is known throughout the world as a great democratic country”. With this bill, however, it is following in the Americans' footsteps, who have lost control over what they are because of the events of September 11. They put everything in the same basket and say “From now on I can do anything, even violate the rights and freedoms of people.”

Now, I do not belong to this country, namely because of the way this government considers the need to have restricting laws in Canada. This is why I want to get out of this country. If this is where this government is going, no way, I want no part of it. I say to this government “Go to the centre. Meanwhile, we will go our own way and respect the rights and freedoms of people”.

On behalf of the people of Jonquière, I say that such a bill should not be passed. It is a repressive bill that will never give the people from Jonquière the opportunity to express themselves. If the defence minister decides to create a zone around the Bagotville military base, we will never know whether we are in or out of that zone. Moreover, the minister will not even have to consult the provincial government to decide what should be included in that zone. He will not even have the courtesy to do it. He will only say “I am the boss, I am going ahead and I am making the decisions”. The people from Jonquière and from Quebec will never accept the government acting in such a way.

I ask this government to withdraw Bill C-55, to toss it out and to say “We will review all the legislation we have. We are convinced that we have everything we need to protect Canada from terrorist attacks like the ones carried out on September 11”. It is never too late to step back and say “I am wrong”. It is never too late to say “After some discussion, I admit that it is true”.

Oddly enough, we hear nothing from across the way. They are so silent. What is happening with this bill is serious business. Why are they keeping quiet? Like me, they represent citizens, and are here to speak on their behalf and to protect their rights and freedoms. It is odd that they have nothing to say. Does this mean they are so out of touch with the needs of their fellow citizens and are so much on a different plane that the things that affect people's everyday lives are of no importance to them.

These are very important questions and need answers before there is any vote on Bill C-55. I am therefore most humbly requesting that this government withdraw Bill C-55 and redo its homework so that it can introduce another bill, consulting the provinces and the mayors of major Quebec centres as well.

In my region, the Saguenay, there is one mayor who represents close to 148,000 voters. Our new mayor, Jean Tremblay, will not even be consulted. He will not be very thrilled about that. He has been in the visitor's gallery here in the House of Commons and he was far from a silent presence. They will have a hard time with him. I told them “Before you have to deal with the mayor of Saguenay, you might be better off to sit down with the stakeholders, withdraw your bill and see that what gets passed reflects a concern for the wellbeing and the rights and freedoms of all those who are in Canada at this time”.