Dennis Bevington

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member in her speech referred to the NDP as opposing the biofuel bill, but we are speaking to an amendment that would send the bill back to the agriculture committee for more work on these very complex issues surrounding the production of ethanol, the type of feedstock and the type of direction.

Does my hon. colleague have no sense of the need for debate about the direction we take with this policy, when right across the world the United Nations and some of the European Union leaders are saying they need to change policy? Why do you think this policy—

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned the solid fuel aspect of biofuel. Quite clearly, in my territory, the Northwest Territories, right now, because of the enormous cost of fuel oil, we are moving toward using solid fuel, biological fuel, in many applications.

If this policy were broad enough and had the correct kinds of conditions attached, there would be some incentives for this type of proposal as well.

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 13th, 2008]

With regards to aboriginal people living on reserves: (a) what is the government's policy as it concerns the reserves in the Northwest Territories; (b) what is the policy as it concerns reserves in the remainder of Canada; and (c) what is the rationale for differences between the two, if any?

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague really touched on some very important points in his speech, one of them being that we simply cannot deal with the nuclear industry in this piecemeal fashion, and that is correct.

We have many problems with the liability limits in the bill. We did not have a context in which to put that. We did not have a sense of providing leadership in terms of identifying the true cost of the industry to the consumer. This is one point for someone who is interested in the comparison of directions in which we have to go.

If we continue to hold the liability for nuclear accidents above $650 million with the Government of Canada, we are instituting a long term subsidy of the industry. We are not expressing the true costs of the industry in relationship to other potential new energy sources at which we may be looking.

Our amendment would simply create an unlimited liability for the nuclear industry, much as there is in many other countries. This would ensure that the cost to deal with it would be left with the industry. It would be reflected in the prices that the industry would charge for its product.

Is that not a better situation than continuing the liability of the government in subsidizing the industry?

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, whom I worked with on the committee, for her interest in this bill and for her interest in these issues generally. I share some of her concerns.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources suggested that the amendments would mean we would be back at the $70 million limit. No, the sum total of the amendments would mean there would be unlimited liability for nuclear accidents, much as there is in Germany.

We originally had taken a different position in the committee, but this is the position we could bring forward as an amendment, to have it as unlimited liability. If we take into account deletion of clause 21 and the deletion of the amounts referred to in subclause 21(1) in the two amendments, the bill would then refer to unlimited liability on the part of the operators for any damages incurred by their facility.

If there is unlimited liability, then oversight as to the amount of the liability is not required. The liability is set and continues forever as unlimited liability. It is up to the insurance company to understand the nature of unlimited liability. In the case of nuclear plants, there can be very different degrees of liability according to the locations of those plants.

That is the explanation and I hope that helps my colleague.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague on an issue to which he referred. He said that the bill appeared to be what the industry needs.

The concern we have in the New Democratic Party is not only what the industry needs, but what the citizens of Canada need. What do they need from a nuclear liability act? What do they need to protect them and ensure that when there is such a calamity in our country, that the compensation is done in a fair, open and prompt fashion and that the amounts geared to be put forward are adequate? How does the bill guarantee the rights of Canadians in receiving the kind of compensation that could be applicable in the event of a nuclear catastrophe?

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to impute motives as to why this bill has taken six months to come back to Parliament for discussion. Certainly we had a most active and interesting debate around nuclear safety during December and into January concerning the Chalk River incident. That heightened the issues in the minds of Canadians. The issues are still there. We see the same kind of concern today as we saw during December and January. I do not think any delay of legislation is going to change that.

On the other point that my colleague mentioned in terms of the nuclear industry and where it is going, we see many actions taking place here. We hear talk about the restructuring of the nuclear industry as part of what is going on. Once again I am not able to impute motives. My job here is to speak to the liability issues within the bill.

I wholeheartedly ask members to consider whom we are protecting with this bill. How the bill should work to protect whom is key to a lot of what is going on here.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 5th, 2008]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 21.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 22.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-5, in Clause 23, be amended by replacing lines 23 and 24 on page 7 with the following:

“contains nuclear material, financial security to”

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-5, in Clause 24, be amended by deleting lines 39 to 42 on page 7 and lines 1 to 18 on page 8.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 26.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 30.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 32.

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-5, in Clause 34, be amended by deleting lines 15 to 23 on page 11.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 47.

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-5, in Clause 61, be amended by replacing lines 23 to 31 on page 16 with the following:

“Majesty in right of Canada the total of all amounts paid by the Minister under this Act.”

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-5, in Clause 62, be amended by deleting lines 19 to 26 on page 17.

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-5, in Clause 66, be amended by deleting lines 3 and 4 on page 19.

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-5, in Clause 66, be amended by deleting lines 7 to 9 on page 19.

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-5, in Clause 66, be amended by deleting lines 10 to 12 on page 19.

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-5, in Clause 68, be amended by deleting lines 1 to 3 on page 20.

Mr. Speaker, after many months, the government is again bringing forward Bill C-5, the nuclear liability and compensation act. In the intervening times, different types of issues on the nuclear liability front have arisen and a full interest in this issue has been heightened over the period of time involved.

No one in any party wants to stand in the way of good legislation or to stand in the way of the things that need to be done for Canadians. While we supported the bill at second reading to get it to committee and to look at the types of issues that needed to be dealt with within the nuclear liability context, the results were less than what we felt were essential for Canadians.

As a member of Parliament from the Northwest Territories, the people I represent have had much experience with nuclear contamination over the years. Even though our numbers are very small, we have had that experience and we understand the results of that.

We have a community in the Northwest Territories called Deline. It used to be called Fort Franklin. It also was called the village of widows because it was on the shores of Great Bear Lake where the first mining for uranium took place in Canada on a large scale. The Port Radium mine brought lots of yellowcake out there. It was handled by the people in the community to a great extent. Even today we have not seen the end of this incident. We are in Port Radium cleaning up the mine. The people of Deline have gone through countless years of anguish over the results of what happened in that nuclear industry.

When we talk about nuclear liability and the need to protect individuals from the results of nuclear accidents and contamination spills, we in the Northwest Territories have a track record that we go back to. We know what the track record has been with other Canadian governments. The fact that we are still at a $650 million liability limit for nuclear installations in this country, in this day and age, strikes me as being the clearest indicator that work has not been done in this field.

As well, when it comes to more recent examples of contamination that have occurred in the Northwest Territories, I refer back to Cosmos 954 where we had a very small nuclear reactor in a Russian satellite that burned up over the Northwest Territories. The contamination from that unit was spread over 14,000 square kilometres. In fact, it required intensive searches by trained professionals throughout all our communities to locate very small amounts of nuclear contamination and eliminate them. It was a very expensive process.

What it showed us was how difficult it is to deal with nuclear contamination, how long the issues last and how long this goes on for in our society once there is a nuclear accident.

We felt that more work needed to be done on this bill. We put forward a number of amendments at committee but they were rejected by the Conservatives, the Liberals and, to a great extent, by the Bloc, which brings us here today with the amendments that we have in front of this House right now.

One of the key amendments that we are looking for is to take out any limit on nuclear liability. Unlimited amounts would probably be the preferred method to deal with it, just as Germany does. It has an unlimited liability on nuclear facilities. That means that whatever the costs are, when there is an accident those who are responsible for the plant will need to pay those costs.

The $650 million limit set in this bill pales next to that of our major trading partner, the United States of America, which has an $8 billion to $10 billion liability ceiling on its nuclear facilities. Most of our nuclear facilities are located in highly populated areas in southern Canada, areas similar to where the nuclear facilities are located in the United States.

Why should we think that our situation is remarkably different from the situation in the United States? Why should that be part of the equation? Is it because if we set the limit to where it should be, the nuclear industry would have to reflect the true costs of doing business in this country? If we set the ceiling at $650 million, would we be giving the industry another break and Canadians would not have a clear indication of the issues surrounding the industry and the associated costs?

The Conservatives are taking a very cavalier attitude toward nuclear safety. We saw that before Christmas. I do not want to denigrate the effort Parliament made with respect to the issues surrounding Chalk River, but it showed how much trouble we have working on issues around nuclear safety in this country. We saw the method by which these very serious issues were derailed by the government by its failure to pay attention to them. We saw the blame game that was played with the Nuclear Safety Commission.

Those things all stand out as stark examples of why we have to be very careful with the kind of legislation we are dealing with here today. We need to protect Canadians. The first and foremost job of this institution is to protect and enhance the lives of Canadians. This bill does not accomplish that.

Many of these amendments speak to the difficult time Canadians would have in trying to achieve compensation if there was a nuclear accident. Many of the proposed amendments would make it better for Canadians to get the compensation they should be entitled to receive. The amendments would make sure that all the issues surrounding a nuclear contamination incident would be addressed. They would assure Canadians about the compensation they would receive and that they would not be tied up in court forever trying to get that compensation.

Those are some of the issues that have brought us to this point. The NDP is not trying to obstruct Parliament. We are trying to get these issues out front for Canadians to make sure they understand what is at stake here with this nuclear liability bill. We are not going to simply push it forward so that some other restructuring in the nuclear industry can take place. We are not going to simply push it forward so the nuclear industry can be assured that it will not be judged by U.S. standards when there is a contamination accident and might be judged by these much softer Canadian standards.

These are all issues behind the legislation. These are all reasons that the legislation appeared when it did. We agreed that there was a need to move ahead with better nuclear liability provisions. We had hoped for a fulsome and useful debate in committee where we could put forward the correct type of amendments, but that did not happen, and that has brought us to this stage here in the House of Commons.

I urge all members to take a look at what we are doing here. I urge them to consider the amendments and to consider the spirit in which they have been presented.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, really and truly the report that we received from the agricultural committee was that the bill moved along much too fast. It did not take into consideration all the types of things that needed to be looked at. The purpose of the motion is to get a stronger scientific policy position from the agriculture committee and--

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member over there and the Liberal Party for doing the work with BIOCAP because it is a very respected organization. Unfortunately, its funding is not going to continue.

Having said that, the numbers are far apart. If the numbers were closer together, if there was some kind of fudge factor in the numbers, we could say they were at least close, but these numbers put the greenhouse gas emission reductions way different. They put the cost per kilogram of CO₂ reduction to the government at very different levels. Some of them are at factors of 10.

When I talk about scientific studies that show factors of 10 on the scale and when we are talking about what is logically good for the economy, I do not think I have to worry so much about the veracity of the precise numbers. These are very large differences.

When we talk about agricultural issues, I defer to the agricultural committee. These were raised in the agricultural committee. They were raised on very important issues that talk about what kind of land is used. Are we going to deforest land to increase the yield of agricultural production in order to make this change?

We see what has happened in the United States where the increased corn production has led to less soy bean production which has led to increased soy bean production in third world countries where the environmental conditions are not very good, where there is a lot of displacement of people off the land. We see the interconnection between land and the resources as the changes are made.

I am not an agricultural specialist. I come from a place in this country where there is not much agricultural activity. My grandfather was a farmer but I do not have that practical experience on the land. I defer to, in terms of what should happen with land, to the agricultural committee. I would expect that the committee members have reams of studies that suggest what should be done with land in Canada. If they do not, if they are just making this up as they go along, that is wrong.