Clifford Lincoln

[Bill C-310, September 21st, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I would like to withdraw private member's Bill C-310, which relates to resumption of work by certain workers at the ADM mill in Montreal.

The reason for the withdrawal of this bill is that the matter has now been settled. Therefore, the bill, for all intents and purposes, is now not necessary.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have these figures with me at present. I know the ministry and others, including several MPs here, have made extensive studies on ethanol and the cost of ethanol as an additive. I will commit myself to make these figures whatever we have available to the hon. member as soon as possible.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have always considered that in these questions the government is there to make decisions after it evaluates both sides of a story.

The feeling is that only the automobile industry's case has been studied but that is not correct. I have letters from the deputy minister. There are evaluations made by the Minister of the Environment completely, impartially and objectively, including the minister's commitment to the Ethyl Corporation to suggest to Ethyl not to go with legislation, that the minister would prefer to have a compromise on this issue between the two industrial groups concerned and suggesting and offering to Ethyl to produce one type of gasoline without MMT to let the consumers judge and compare.

That is fair. It is objective. It is impartial. It is a fact. I know the minister made this offer. I know that this offer was turned down because Ethyl Corporation today has a solid market with MMT that it does not want to give up. It is a monopoly.

If Canada turns down MMT, there would be no MMT sold anywhere around the world. That is a fact. As I said before, if it is so good for cars why is MMT not used in the fuels in all the countries that are just as sophisticated as we are? I find that very strange. I am convinced that the step we are taking today is a step forward for the environment.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I think the points made by the hon. member for Laurentides were very constructive and they are well taken. I agree these are important matters that must be dealt with.

After a lot of soul searching, we finally decided that Bill C-94 was the answer. There was a decisive factor. The United States is of course looking into the MMT issue, following a number of appeals filed by Ethyl Corporation. However, the EPA is dragging its feet. Until June 1994, the EPA administrator was fighting very hard, but in fact they keep asking for studies and health impact assessments.

The United States might reintroduce MMT and it would then become legal. It is quite possible, but meanwhile, it is up to us as Canadians to take the kind of action that may also influence our neighbours to the south.

Today, we are part of NAFTA. NAFTA includes Mexico, and I think that we have to make decisions on the basis of their intrinsic value. We think that today, Canada could add ethanol to gas. My colleague has done an extraordinary study of ethanol. Today, we have an ethanol industry in eastern Canada. We have one in western Canada. The United States, because of the legislation, is now getting involved in massive production of ethanol. I believe that they want 10 per cent of the oil industry to be ethanol-based by the year 2000.

It seems to me we should start making an effort to seek additives that are more environmentally sound. I realize there are arguments for and against MMT.

I think the weight of the evidence would support a new process: gas without MMT. What strikes me particularly is that none of the countries that enjoy an outstanding reputation for the quality of their environment-the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and the Scandinavian countries-none of them uses MMT.

If tomorrow morning one of these countries were to opt for MMT, I would think again. If the United States had opted for MMT because it was environmentally safe, I would reconsider. However, the EPA does not accept it because it wants to but because it was a legal decision. I think we should go ahead with C-94.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my support of Bill C-94 on the abolition of MMT in the gasoline we Canadians use every day comes out of a strong conviction.

For me it is not a question of backing this or that kind of production, this or that manufacturer.

I have no brief for the automobile industry nor have I a brief for Ethyl Corporation. That is not my business. I believe very deeply in the environment. I have always done so. I am convinced that the bill will go a long way to solving a very significant environmental problem relating to gasoline in our cars.

For me it is a question of pollution prevention. I have satisfied myself, not because I believe in Toyota, General Motors or any other company. Frankly I do not care.

Unfortunately there are more and more cars on the road. I wish we had cars that used ethanol, electricity and hydrogen rather than gasoline, but that is a fact of life. As long as there are cars the only way to ensure that they perform with the least damage to the environment is to ensure, first, that they are equipped with the latest technology and that they are inspected and maintained properly.

That is why all provinces across Canada have an inspection and maintenance service which ensures that the drivers of cars, especially older cars, go to inspection stations in order to verify that their cars are safe and sound for the environment. The idea of putting new technology on board the cars is to prevent damage before it occurs, to ensure that we have less need for inspection and maintenance stations and the cars will tell the drivers when the systems have failed.

I have satisfied myself that MMT does not help the systems. The fact is that the manufacturers in Canada have said that if we continue with MMT they cannot and they will not install the latest diagnostic systems in these cars. That is not hypothetical, it is a fact.

If we are conscious of the environment, and if we use a precautionary system, we have to make decisions in favour of what is the most environmentally and technologically sound decision.

Acting to ban MMT makes us uniform with the United States, paradoxically. The speaker before me was pretending that we should do exactly the reverse. He was quoting the Ethyl Corporation's many appeals to the United States' courts-which it eventually won-to force the EPA to permit MMT to be added again to gasoline.

I will correct the member because the EPA has still not agreed. Contrary to what the member stated, in August 1994 Mrs. Carol Browner, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indicated the EPA had concerns about the potential effects of manganese emissions on public health, especially in light of the broad exposure of Americans to car emissions.

A risk assessment on manganese emissions conducted by the EPA determined there were important unanswered questions about potential public health risks and that studies on health effects and exposures are needed.

The EPA has said: "Despite the appeals of Ethyl Corporation we want a risk and health assessment to be completed before we will okay MMT".

Some time ago, our standing committee on the environment and sustainable development held environmental hearings where Ralph Ferguson, a former MP and colleague, gave testimony on the MMT issue. He raised a number of points relating to health. I know that they will tell us that Health Canada has found that MMT presents no significant problem for health. This is their decision. Still, according to many experts we ought to be very careful. I would like to quote from this hearing we had on the environment, where Mr. Ferguson spoke of a hearing that the American EPA had held on June 22, 1990. Helen Silbergeld of the University of Maryland and the Environmental Defence Fund gave the following testimony:

"Manganese, like lead, is a cumulative toxin in that both its absorption and retention as well as its toxicity increase with time".

She also cited well-known Canadian scientists specializing in neurotoxicity, Dr. John Donaldson and Dr. Frank Labella and others who have carried out experiments at the University of Manitoba on the manganese question. Dr. Donaldson also stated the following at that same EPA hearing in Washington:

"I believe that manganese is such an age-accelerating toxin and I believe it is the answer to manganese's ability to produce biochemically, pathologically and clinically the picture that is very similar but not identical to Parkinson's disease".

Later on, the health and environment committee of the United States House of Representatives also appeared before the EPA. Its representative said:

"Like lead, manganese is not only neurotoxic, it is an element and thus does not degrade or lose its potency with the passage of time. As a result the manganese released into the environment through the use of MMT in a given year accumulates over time with all the MMT released in the next year and all subsequent years".

The University of Pittsburg, the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, said the following in a report to the EPA:

The 15-page appendix to their waiver application, parlant de la corporation Ethyl, that deals with health, nowhere mentions the newer toxic properties of manganese, nor does it attend to the

extraordinary risks to the brain of alkali manganese compounds. This document cannot be taken as a credible submission in support of this application. It is incomplete, biased and tendentious.

That is why Ms. Carol Browner, the administrator of the EPA, said as recently as June 1994 that many health questions remained unanswered and that additional assessments were needed before MMT could be approved.

So there are potential problems. I am not saying that it has been proven 100 per cent or 50 per cent safe, but if we feel that caution must be a guiding principle in health and environmental matters, we must be very careful indeed. If we really believe in climatic changes and are convinced that cars are the main source of air pollution in Canada, it is because it is a fact.

According to a recent study by all deputy ministers of the environment in Canada, cars are the main source of harmful atmospheric emissions. These figures are quite striking. Gasoline-and diesel-powered motor vehicles account for 60 per cent of carbon monoxide emissions; 35 per cent of nitrous oxide emissions, which cause smog; and 25 per cent of hydrocarbon emissions. I know we will be told that MMT reduces nitrous oxide emissions.

As stated by my colleague very recently in a question to the Reform Party, what is the basis of that? In fact our studies show in the Ministry of the Environment that the way this figure is contrived, used in test cars of Ethyl Corporation, in fact results in a completely insignificant factor when explained in actual ratio relating to all cars in Canada.

The gains produced by the use of onboard diagnostic systems in new cars are so much greater in proportion that the environmental advantages far outweigh any disadvantages by the removal of MMT.

We have been debating this issue for 10 years, since 1986. Contrary to what the member from the Reform Party said a few minutes ago, the minister sat not only with both sides, but talked to the Ethyl Corporation directly twice on this issue, and as she stated very recently in the House, offered Ethyl Corporation this compromise: "I won't put legislation through if you will agree with me to produce one type of gasoline blend without MMT to let the consumers make their own choice". Ethyl refused this very fair and open compromise because it did not want to let the consumers judge.

I ask the members here who believe that Bill C-94 is not needed, how is it that environmentally sound countries, leaders in the field, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Japan do not use MMT. How come it is only in Canada of all the countries in the world that is using MMT? Are we supposed to be the smart ones? The irony is that we do not even produce it ourselves. The Americans produce it but do not use it. Then we take the American product and use it on our own soil regardless of the fact that the rest of the world does not want any of it.

The Reform Party will suggest that we be uniform with the United States, co-ordinate so that MMT is used both in Canada and the United States when the EPA has been fighting tooth and nail for 18 years to ban MMT. The only reason they are now faced with the possibility of MMT being reintroduced is court case after court case after court case by Ethyl Corporation.

Does Ethyl Corporation care about the environment? No it does not care about the environment. It cares about its profits, about its existence. It cares about the Canadian market because it is the only market it has for selling MMT. If it was such a good product the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Finnish and the Japanese would buy it to put in their cars but they do not want any of it. Why should we be the suckers?

Instead of defending Ethyl Corporation and MMT it is time that we started to think, as my colleague from London stated so clearly, about using our talents, our brains, our tremendous resources to use environmentally sound products. There are additives which are beckoning us. We could use ethanol in gasoline tomorrow morning and it would perform even better than MMT and is completely environmentally sound. It is time we started to use ethanol fueled cars, electrically driven cars, hydrogen fueled cars. I do not have any grief for the Ethyl Corporation which fights for MMT and goes back like the dinosaurs into the past. I want to see the future.

Bill C-94 points to a change of habit. It forces all Canadians to look at a different way of doing things and not to accept the dictates of a big corporation that only wants big profits and could not care less about the consumer or the environment.

I am an environmentalist. All I care about is quality of life and potential health dangers if it is slightly possible that there are health dangers. I have read these documents and they prove that there are significant health dangers. Many universities and many doctors of repute have said to beware. They said it about lead many, many years ago and we never believed them.

As a result of what I have heard and because of the weight of evidence I have read, I say let us go with Bill C-94. Let us change our habits and make our gasoline cleaner. Let us go to the new generation of fuels, the clean fuels, ethanol and the new energy patterns of electricity and halogen. Let us live more cleanly. Let us put the environment first. The automobile industry and Ethyl Corporation can come last. I do not care.

To Canadian consumers I say Bill C-94 is one step forward and I hope we all vote for it.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the member should, because he seems to have very close relations with the Ethyl Corporation, ask it to correct this misstatement. The minister has assured me personally that she met twice with the CPPI on behalf of the Ethyl Corporation to discuss this very subject.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about the minister being a political puppet of the auto manufacturers association, which is a very serious accusation. Contrary to what he stated in his speech, is he aware the minister met with the Canadian Petroleum Producers Association directly as representatives of the Ethyl Corporation on this very issue twice and that they twice flew in in the corporate jet to meet with the minister?

Is he also aware the minister has met with the CPPI on at least four or five occasions? I do not think the hon. member is fair when he says the minister never gave the Ethyl Corporation or its representatives any hearing. That is completely false.

If this is your information, I suggest you correct it. I do not think the minister is the type to be a political puppet of anyone I know.

[Auditor General Act, September 19th, 1995]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My colleague should be given an opportunity to respond and there is very little time left to do so. The hon. member has embarked on a windy discourse that will leave no time to my hon. colleague to respond to his tale of woes.

[Auditor General Act, September 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises an important point which has also been raised by the official opposition. Obviously during the first two years the commissioner will have to set up the office and will have to organize the whole work of the auditor general's department relating to the environment.

Today the auditor general carries out a significant amount of work on the question of environment and sustainable development. The commissioner will take over this work and will assist the auditor general in carrying out this work further.

Also, the bill provides a very important function which cannot be lessened or minimized which is the power of Canadians to be able to submit petitions to the commissioner about government performance in sustainable development. These petitions from Canadians will certainly go forward and the commissioner will have to deal with them.

The two years are a very wise investment in time. At least the office will be well prepared to deal with infractions that will ensue and will also help the auditor general with his important work on environment and sustainable development.

[Auditor General Act, September 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. As an environmentalist of many years, as someone who has spent most of his political life standing up for the environment, I must say that wherever I go in Canada, whether it be in British Columbia, in Newfoundland or especially in Quebec where I laboured for most of my political career, including three years as Minister of the Environment, whenever I talk to environmentalists or environmental groups, I realize that they do not make any distinction between the federal government and the provincial government, when the environment is at stake.

All they want is for things to work out. All they want is a collective approach where everyone can work together.

I know there has been duplication and overlap at times. It is unavoidable in a government system like ours. But at the same time, given all the positive work that has been done for the environment these last few years, and the very fact that the Council of Ministers of Environment has become a worthwhile body which meets regularly, I think it would be a total exaggeration to say that the federal government is using the environment to infringe upon provincial areas of jurisdiction. In fact, I think we should put this issue aside and find ways to turn the environment into a major cause that could rally all of us, because for the sake of the environment, we must all work together. Otherwise, we are doomed to failure.