Dennis Bevington

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, November 25th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, and welcome her to the NDP mountain time caucus. In the mountain time caucus we are geographically the largest group in Parliament but numerically we are not in the same position. It is great to have a voice from Alberta speaking in Parliament, in opposition and in our caucus. It gives Parliament the opportunity to hear the differing points of view that do exist in that wonderful province to the south of my riding.

Again, I welcome my colleague and I trust that her role as environment critic will be an excellent one in this Parliament. I have worked with her for some 30 years on environmental issues and I know that her breadth of understanding and commitment to them are very large.

She touched on the issue of the regulatory process. In the throne speech we heard the government talk about reducing the regulatory burden. In its pronouncements in the past year it talked about reducing the regulatory--

[The Environment, November 21st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we had a dire warning from scientists that the government is risking an ecological crisis in the north. The Minister of Natural Resources does not see global warming as a danger to the north. She sees it as an exciting opportunity. We cannot allow the current crisis to be an excuse for accelerating an ecological disaster. Northerners need a voice. We are not asking for massive deregulation.

I want to know if the minister will be using the Sarah Palin school of politics: drill, baby, drill.

[Carbon Tax Proposal, June 20th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberals announced their carbon tax plan, which can only be characterized as a won't get it done plan.

As the British Columbia minister of the environment said, “They really are not actually taking the bull by the horns”. As Dave Martin of Greenpeace said, “In our view, the [Liberal] plan really doesn't go far enough”

There are so many things wrong with this plan that it is hard to know where to start, but here are two. First, it has absolutely no targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; it does not even mention Kyoto. Second, there are no measures to encourage Canadians to embrace renewable energy.

All this plan would do is make Canadians, especially northerners and rural people, pay more, while large corporations continue business as usual.

This summer the NDP will be consulting with Canadians on how to best move forward with renewable energy. After listening to this, we will be putting forward a plan which would move Canada quickly toward a more renewable energy future, provide energy security, create new green collar jobs and, combined with our cap and trade plan, take real action to reduce greenhouse gases.

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 19th, 2008]

With regard to the world-class arctic research station mentioned in the Speech from the Throne opening the Second Session of the 39th Parliament: (a) what is the anticipated cost; (b) which Northern communities are being considered for the location of the station; (c) when will the final selection be made for the location; (d) when will the station be included in the government's budget plans; (e) what types of scientific research will be supported by the station; and (f) will the station be part of existing arctic scientific research facilities such as the Aurora Research Institute in Inuvik, Northwest Territories?

[Nuclear Liability and compensation Act, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the member touched on a number of significant issues and some of them deal with the directions the government is taking on energy.

What have we seen so far? We have seen a $2.2 billion investment in ethanol, in biofuels, which, in many respects, internationally is not considered to be a very good investment at all. If it does not have conditions attached to it, we may end up importing corn ethanol from the United States at a higher greenhouse gas emission rate than if we had just left gasoline in the tank. That is one of the things that the Conservative government has done.

The second is that it just put a quarter of a billion dollars into clean coal technology in Saskatchewan. The Conservative government in Saskatchewan is throwing in three-quarters of a billion dollars and industry is topping it up with $300 million. They are creating a 100-megawatt plant for $1.3 billion. This will never be cost effective.

The budget has $300 million in it for nuclear, once again subsidizing an industry that has been around for 50 years, to keep it on its feet and to try to make it work. We see the same thing with the MAPLE reactors. Big dollars have gone into it, with no results.

Perhaps my colleague could speak to this a bit. What is it about the Conservatives, supported, in most cases, by the Liberals, in their inability to look at energy in terms of all the options and really come up with answers for Canadians that will work?

Instead, we see this “I'll fund this project in your riding if you fund this project in my riding” approach that is going on right now in Parliament, with no cohesive plan. It is not being done on the best advice of our scientists. As BIOCAP Canada quite clearly said in its reports to us with regard to biofuels, that we are taking these actions without thinking them through.

Does my hon. colleague know why do the Conservatives and Liberals continue to do things in such an ad hoc, piecemeal fashion?

[Nuclear Liability and compensation Act, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am getting sort of a short shrift from my Conservative colleagues here in the House on this issue. If I can once again get the--

[Nuclear Liability and compensation Act, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for taking the time to address this issue and to ensure that she gets her point of view on the record.

I note that many of the other members of Parliament from the different parties have chosen not to speak on this issue. There has been this overwhelming silence in many cases from both the Liberals and the Conservatives about what this bill means. I say thanks very much to my colleague for putting forward her point of view.

When we talk about liability within the existing structure, as long as the Canadian government is the main owner of the nuclear facilities in Canada, in reality what that means is that there is almost unlimited liability for the nuclear industry because the government is backing it up. What we are doing with this bill is creating a situation where we are going to use the minimum international standard, so we can open up the opportunity for other companies to take on the responsibility for our plants or take them away from the government.

In the United States there are laws where if a company works in a country where the laws do not match the international standards, the American company may be judged by the American laws. That puts them in a situation where they would be judged under the liability of $10 billion.

By the government moving out of nuclear energy and turning it over to the private sector, we are actually limiting the liability that Canadians have. We are setting in many distinct rules which are going to make it very difficult.

[Nuclear Liability and compensation Act, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting when we talk about the expansion of the nuclear industry. Peace River is looking at a huge 4,000 megawatt plant. That is probably linked into the plans to develop transmission capacity in Alberta to Montana and on into the United States. Perhaps, if we look at it in a longer sense, what we would do is provide an opportunity in Alberta to develop nuclear energy, without the kind of safeguards and liability that the United States has, and then export that power to the United States.

In some sense, that project is still much in doubt. Saskatchewan has suggested that it would like to look at a nuclear reactor. I think what is driving this is its understanding now that clean coal with sequestration is an enormously expensive process, and it is going to get cold feet on that pretty quickly too.

The Conservative government threw a quarter of a billion dollars toward this project and the Saskatchewan government threw in $750 million. The industry has only put $300 million. They are going to produce a 100 megawatt clean coal sequestration plant in Saskatchewan. My goodness, that will never be cost effective. Therefore, perhaps they are going to the nuclear reactors because they do not see this is going to be, in the long term, a very attractive potential.

What we have not done is put it in context. If we do not do that, people will continue to propose projects and look at things in the short term, which may make no sense at all in the long term.

[Nuclear Liability and compensation Act, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting thing in Parliament that whenever one talks about the future, some tend to refer to the past. We need a debate on energy in Parliament. We need it now. We have $140 a barrel oil. We have many choices in front of us and we have to make those choices in a reasonable fashion, with Canadians understanding all the costs.

[Nuclear Liability and compensation Act, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, originally we were looking at the amount that was in place in the United States, our closest neighbour, of some $10 billion in liability. The Americans have a system of sharing the liability among all the existing plants. A system like that in Canada probably would have been preferable to this minimum liability limit. That is exactly how it was portrayed by the minister when he was in the committee.

He said that this was the international minimum standard that the government would go with because it would be accepted by the international community. However, places like Germany, where it has experienced major problems with nuclear reactors, has an unlimited liability for anyone wanting to put one in place.

The reason why the government will not go in that direction is it would make it less attractive to sell AECL. There is a higher liability limit on the plants in Canada. The true costing of the nuclear industry would be more evident in the cost in insurance.

What we see is a compromise to keep the costs down for the nuclear industry. At the same time, the government, in this budget, is recklessly throwing more money into the industry.

We really have not had a national energy debate where we can match up one new form of energy against the old ones.