Lee Morrison

[Firearms Act, February 16th, 1995]

What about the 12,000 people who marched on Ottawa?

[Firearms Act, February 16th, 1995]

So what?

[Firearms Act, February 16th, 1995]

That is the question.

[Firearms Act, February 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I had digressed to the question of the political flip-flop of the Association of Police Chiefs on the question of the registration of guns. However, I would like to pursue my original debate with the hon. member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis.

He has at rather great length discussed the causes of domestic violence and suicide in the home as it relates to the registration of firearms. I fail to see, and I have tried very hard to understand, how a registered gun is any less lethal than an unregistered gun. If we want to solve the problem of domestic violence leading to death or of suicide with firearms, there is only one way it can be done. That is by totally disarming the civilian population.

I would ask the hon. member if that is his vision of Canada.

[Firearms Act, February 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I get the impression from the rhetoric over there, the violence of it and the great emotion I heard that this is exactly the type of approach to gun control that makes people in this country frightened. The reasoned arguments which were expressed by the justice minister, although I emphatically disagree with them, do not carry the same connotations as what came across the aisle from the hon. member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis.

If one is to take seriously what he was saying, I am quite convinced that this is the type of thinking, this rabble rousing, this fanning the emotions of people which will ultimately lead to the confiscation of private arms in this country. That is why people are so concerned.

The hon. member refuses to deal with real numbers. He says that he thinks registration will be a deterrent. Those were his words. We do not pass legislation of this magnitude simply because we think something.

He quoted the chiefs of police, as did the Minister of Justice. I would remind both members that when gun control was being discussed in this House in 1976, the police chiefs presented a brief to the Standing Committee on Justice. In that brief they emphatically stated that registration would serve no useful purpose in the control of crime. Whether the organization had-

[Nuclear Reactor Finance Limitation Act, February 14th, 1995]

It is a good idea to talk about privatizing AECL but it is not simple. We cannot do that in one quick step.

We must remember that more than 80 per cent of the nuclear industry in Canada is already private. The only parts that are still under government supervision and are still being subsidized by the government are the parts that do not make money, the research facilities primarily. Everything else is being operated by the private sector. There are 150 companies out there that compete with suppliers in client countries. They are efficient and they make money.

The Koreans have been so delighted with what we have done with the private end of the industry, the building of the reactors, that they have ordered three more. I would have to take issue with the hon. member who spoke for the Liberals. Wolsong 1 is probably a better reactor even than Point Lepreau. It has been up and running since 1982. They love it and they want more of them.

Let us get back to AECL specifically. Among the major crown corporations it is the only one that is seriously cutting costs. This formerly bloated entity has cut its staff from 4,500 to 3,700. Even more commendable is that it has reduced its Ottawa head office staff from 160 to 54, a two-thirds reduction.

I was out at Chalk River a couple of months ago to look the place over and what I found was quite a tight ship. There was none of the opulence that we have come to associate with government. It was nothing like the Department of National Defence, for example, or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This is an outfit that knows what money is for.

Let us take a look at the specifics of the bill. Clause 3(b) speaks of research, investigation, design, testing, construction, manufacture, operation, use, application or licensing of any thing or property of any nature that will be used in or for a nuclear reactor. If the world were only that simple. We cannot pigeon hole or categorize scientific research like that. Much of what is being done at Chalk River at the moment is pure scientific research which may or may not be applicable to reactor design.

The line between pure and applied science is very hard to draw. That is why privatization although necessary and desirable will be difficult. An entirely new company of researchers will have to be formed to sell their services to the people who have the reactors. That is going on now to some extent. They take in $86 million a year in fees for the work that is done at Chalk River on behalf of reactor owners. Eventually they will have to become self-sufficient and I do not think it will happen until it is privatized.

With all the pure science going on out there it is not going to be an easy sell. However we do not just kill the flagship of Canadian R and D. Let us remember the Avro Arrow, because this is the sort of thing we are talking about. Clause 4 would preclude provision to any person, any professional, scientific technical information or assistance that relates to research investigation, design, testing, construction, manufacture, operation, use, application or licensing of any thing or property of any nature that would be used in or for a nuclear reactor. In plain English, it would make orphans of the Candu reactors that provide almost half of Ontario's electricity.

The work being done at AECL that is not pure science is bankrolled by the utilities. As I have mentioned they spend about $86 million a year on it. It is to enhance plant safety, prolong operational lives and cut maintenance costs. If we want to remain in the forefront of an industry we have to do R and D and we have to do it continuously.

They are doing work out there now on the applications of computer technology to the construction and operation of plants, improving reactor fuel channels, better fuel design and so on. Bill C-285 would stop this cold.

Clause 5 says that the act does not apply to a nuclear reactor that has as its sole purpose the manufacture or development of isotopes for medical use. The hon. member for Kamloops should know that this function of AECL has already been privatized. Nordion was sold for $165 million. Incidentally the government of the day pocketed the funds into general revenue and did not leave a penny for the operations.

During his long harangue about the technical side of nuclear energy the hon. member for Kamloops reflected the anti-industrial primitivism that is so common among a small segment of his party, the people we refer to as the nuts and berries crowd.

We live in a climate of irrational fear of the atom because most people do not understand it. They do not have a vague notion of how a reactor works. Polls indicate that 10 per cent of the public actually believes that a reactor can explode like an atomic bomb. Vast numbers who at least know better than that believe a nuclear plant constantly emits streams of deadly radiation that will induce cancer, make them sterile or cause them to conceive defective children.

A few highly visible crusaders have seized upon the fears as a convenient means of attacking a social order that they find distasteful and have found highly successful careers as virtual cult leaders. When primitive man was troubled by fears of the unknown, he consulted the witch doctor or the shaman. Sophisticated modern man appeals to Amory Lovins, Ralph Nader or Barry Commoner.

The hon. member was engaging in a little shameless sophistry when talked about 4 per cent of the energy uses of Canada coming from nuclear. For God's sake that includes the use of fuel in cars. There are not very many nuclear cars. What it does produce is 20 per cent of the electrical energy that is used in the country and, as has been stated two or three times, nearly 50 per cent of Ontario's electrical energy. We used to have a bumper sticker out west that said: "Let those eastern bastards freeze in the dark". Apparently this is what the hon. member for Kamloops is suggesting we do again.

He mentioned the decommissioning cost of $13 billion. That is not bad for an industry that produces $4 billion worth of electricity annually over a period of probably 30 years of operational life for a plant. Remember, that $13 billion is not just for one reactor, that is for the whole shooting match. At least that is a number which both the pro and the anti-nukes agree on.

There has been a lot of talk about the waste. It is an insoluble problem. It will be with us forever. The nuclear priesthood will have to guard it. I am reminded of a quote from Goethe that the phrases men repeat incessantly end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.

If Canada went 100 per cent nuclear for its electricity each family share of spent fuel, or high level waste if you prefer that term, would be seven ounces a year. This stuff is put into the swimming pools at the plants. As somebody said, there are 21,000 tonnes of it around now. Within 10 years the radioactivity is reduced by 90 per cent. Within 1,000 years in dead storage the radioactive levels would be sufficiently reduced to make it perfectly safe to eat a few spoonfuls of the stuff.

You get these anti-technological myths about plutonium, because there is plutonium in the waste. It is the deadliest thing known to man. It is evil. God did not create it. That is garbage. That stuff is an alpha emitter, for openers. You could wrap it in a piece of tissue paper, put it in your pant's pocket and walk around with it with impunity because it emits no gamma radiation and no beta radiation. It is not dangerous. If you were to eat a bunch of it, it is 50 times less poisonous than ordinary arsenic trioxide. Mr. Speaker, you can look that up in any good journal of toxicology.

It has been studied in great detail. The toxicity of plutonium on a weight dose basis is much less than that of many items which are kept commonly around the home. It is lethal only if breathed into the lungs or directly injected into the bloodstream. Then it will kill you, and it will kill you quick, but not as quickly as botulism poison, for example, which is fairly abundant, and anthrax. Again, there are many natural toxins which are more toxic than this horrible stuff that we all have to worry about so much.

I see the Speaker starting to rise from his seat. I wish I could have spent some time on the technical aspects of this. As you have probably gathered I do have some knowledge of nuclear energy production. Perhaps another day.

[Nuclear Reactor Finance Limitation Act, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the millennium has arrived. We have just had an NDP member suggesting that we cut off subsidies to a major crown corporation. I thought I would never see the day. Actually what he is in effect proposing in the practical sense is the privatization of AECL.

If he wants to make the same proposal with respect to the CBC, the National Film Board and what is left of the government's stake in Petro-Canada, I will move over one seat and let him join us. We will make him a Reformer, an honorary Reformer.

[Petitions, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I have is with respect to the amendment of the human rights act and the charter of rights and freedoms to in any way indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or homosexuality. This petition is signed by 61 people primarily from the city of Swift Current.

[Petitions, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions today which it is my honour to table under Standing Order 36.

The first one contains 122 signatures mainly from the communities of Aneroid and Vanguard in my riding.

The petitioners state that whereas there is no evidence that the incidence of criminal or suicidal misuse of firearms is impeded by restrictive legislation, they call upon Parliament to desist from passing additional restrictive legislation with respect to firearms or ammunition. They also ask for the repeal of those sections of the Criminal Code of Canada pertaining to the firearms acquisition certificates. I endorse their petition.

[Petitions, February 9th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the second and third petitions are identical in content. One has 53 signatures from the Swift Current and Maple Creek districts, calling upon Parliament to ensure that the provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide be enforced vigorously and that Parliament make no changes in the law which would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.

The wording of the third petition is identical, also calling upon Parliament not to sanction assisted suicide. It has 32 signatures from the Coronach area.