Dennis Bevington

[Aeronautics Act, November 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-7 because I come from a northern environment where air traffic is essential to the very nature of the communities.

As well, I grew up on an airport. My father was an airport manager and worked for the Department of Transportation for 30 years. I think right now he would be very annoyed with me if I did not stand up and speak out on the issues surrounding air safety.

For my hon. colleagues in the Conservative Party who seem to think that a voice in the House of Parliament is something that is not important, that someone showing a side of Canada that perhaps is not fully represented here is somehow degrading to the House, is an unfortunate turn of words. I am here to represent my constituents as best as possible on a matter of serious significance to them.

When we think of aircraft safety, we think of maintenance safety, and when we look at those issues we can look at anecdotal examples. I can think of what happened last week in Sweden where corrosion on a part of the landing gear on one of our Canadian built planes resulted in the plane collapsing on the runway. Luckily there were no civilian deaths but it was a situation that happened because of maintenance schedules that obviously were not adequate for the situation the plane was in.

When we talk about maintenance schedules on aircraft, we have a great concern with that process.

I will give another example. I was at the Edmonton airport last year in the winter waiting to go north on a scheduled aircraft carrier. We all trooped aboard the plane and then we sat and waited. The pilot finally did an inspection and found a football sized dent in the rear aileron. This, obviously, was missed by the maintenance staff even though they did have a maintenance schedule in place. The plane was emptied and on we went.

I, as well as everyone else on that flight, would like to understand why that happened. With the absence of the proper ability to access that information we will not have those answers. Without careful attention to a regulatory and inspection process that can guarantee that we have high standards of maintenance, we can see this sort of thing occurring all the way down the line.

I will take a step backward and speak to the aircraft industry as a whole. In the north especially we are being impacted by changing climate conditions. This fall alone we have seen major problems in airport shutdowns in Norman Wells and in Inuvik for a whole four days. Our diamond mines lost four days of production.

We see these problems all over because of the changing climatic conditions and yet the past government reduced the federal government's role in maintaining aviation weather reporting. Many of our airports across the north do not have adequate weather equipment or observers on the ground providing information on a regular basis even though these conditions are changing. The travelling public is at risk.

Last year I flew out of Inuvik on a plane when the weather had changed. There is enormous pressure to fly in the north because people are trying to meet schedules, industrial activity is ramping up and everything is going much faster.

When the plane left Inuvik we flew 50 miles and never went more than 200 feet off the ground. I was not too concerned because I was flying over the delta where there are no hills higher than 200 feet. Although I knew it probably was not legal, we went along with it.

When we returned to the airport in Inuvik, I found the same weather system had resulted in a tremendous tragedy for that airline company about 200 miles away. One of its airplanes flew into a hill in the same weather system and under the same kinds of pressures to deliver passengers when the weather conditions were so difficult.

What we did with eight aircraft and weather safety as a cost cutting measure with Transport Canada when its policy impacted on us for many years is something that is an object lesson that we should apply to aircraft maintenance as well. We need to have a strong system in this country that is run by the government and one that guarantees aircraft maintenance is carried out in a proper fashion.

Of the 27 public airports in the Northwest Territories, only 6 have paved runways, the other 21 have gravel runways and 23 airdromes are certified. The others are registered airdromes.

The Northern Air Transport Association called on the government to increase the length of northern runways and to improve the instrument landing systems available everywhere. We may talk about northern sovereignty but most of our military planes cannot land anywhere in the north because the runways are too short. The instrument landing systems are not adequate. It is the federal government's responsibility to maintain a standard for all Canadians across this country. We have privatized airports. We have caused these issues by our relentless concern over the bottom line.

The Prime Minister is proposing a deep seaport at Nanisivik. He should consider that the airport at Nanisivik has difficulty with fog conditions many times during the year. Once again, the condition of aviation in the north has deteriorated with the changing climate. We need a different response other than the government saying that it is getting out of inspecting the maintenance conditions of aircraft.

In 2004, a total of 93,000 aircraft arrived and departed N.W.T. airports. That figure is up almost 15% from the year before and 25% from the year before that. We are seeing an enormous increase in traffic in the north and yet we have small carriers that rely on maintenance staff that are transient in nature. If we had a strong Canada-wide system, the transient maintenance system may not be that bad, but when we start breaking down maintenance systems by individual aircraft companies, when we start setting standards in a fashion where the technicians and mechanics who service these planes will need to re-learn every time they join a new company, these are difficult issues for aircraft maintenance and safety. Bill C-7 would create these difficulties.

We can say that we have kept some inspectors, and I understand that is the case, but if we degrade the inspection system in Canada by reducing the personnel, we will not have the same quality of system at the end of the day.

Yes, I stand up and ask questions about Bill C-7, absolutely. I support the work of our previous transport critic, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. In his discussions with me, he indicated that the bill was moving in the right direction. However, he felt that the work they had done in bringing the amendments forward at the last moment had changed. He felt that all the good words and all the goodwill that was on that committee evaporated at the end.

That was the problem last June. Our former transport critic asked us to stand up and talk about this bill because many of the issues that we had assumed would be included and taken care of through amendments were just not happening.

The level of air safety achieved in commercial aviation is, in no small part, the result of adding levels of responsibility. The delegation or devolution proposals of Bill C-7 go directly against this principle of redundancy. By removing regulatory oversight, we effectively remove a fallback position. However, that does not seem to be of concern to some members of Parliament, to the two larger parties that have such a strong principle of laissez-faire business in this country.

By reducing the inspection level and eliminating the ongoing development of a federally controlled and regulated air transport system, the government is going in a direction that we in the NDP do not consider appropriate. I am sure most Canadians would support us if they were to look at what the bill would create and the direction in which it would move us, just as we have seen in the rest of the deregulation of the aircraft industry across this country.

Transport Canada's own documents admit that the level of air safety has not substantially improved during the past 10 years. This is a reversal of the past history of commercial aviation where safety records were constantly improving. What is happening, why is it happening and how would this bill change that?

The bill is going to change it for the worse. It is going to continue the process that is going on now, where, through the deregulation of the industry, more and more of the decisions are being taken by people on the ground in situations where cost becomes a factor. How can we support this bill? How can we be assured that what we are doing is in the best interest of Canadians?

Studies have shown that the European community has an enviable aviation safety record and yet Europe has not and is not delegating or devolving its safety responsibilities to private designated organizations. The United States, which was the first to engage in economic deregulation, is not deregulating safety.

After Enron, Hollinger and WorldCom, governments are strengthening their regulation and enforcement of corporate governance. If we cannot rely on corporate directors and their audit committees to regulate financial activities with shareholders' money rather than when public lives are at stake, how can we count on the boards of directors of private aviation concerns, whose legal duties are to shareholders, to take full accountability for previously regulated areas of passenger safety? These are questions that the bill skirts. These are questions that Canadians do not want ignored.

There can be only one goal in aviation safety. It is not to understand how we can nickel and dime the system in order to provide a lower cost to compete with other carriers. The only goal should be the highest possible level of safety, which is what we are after and why we are standing up one after another speaking to the bill. It is not because we have any other interests at heart at all. It is not because we have the interests of large businesses or of large unions. It is because we have the interest of public safety in our minds.

Euphemisms, such as risk management, best practicable level of safety and commensurate with cost effectiveness, are not the kinds of words that we use. They are not the kinds of words that work for northerners.

We northerners have a difficult enough time travelling throughout the north. We do not want it made more difficult. We do not want our airline companies to be pushed to the limit even more through competition, through larger companies coming in, where they are taking risks that they know are risks and where they are taking risks that perhaps they do not know are risks.

This bill does not answer the questions for me. This bill does not answer the questions for northerners.

When we stand up here, we stand up for a good reason. We stand up for a purpose. We will continue to stand up on this. For all those who are flying in airplanes across this country and who may be listening to this debate, I urge them to speak to their MPs and ask their MPs to tell them whether this bill is going to increase their safety in the air. If those MPs can give them a good answer, then those MPs should be saying it here in the House of Commons.

[Aeronautics Act, November 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, am concerned about aircraft safety. It has been a part of my life through my years of living in the north and travelling through very many different conditions. However, that is not what I am focusing on here. I am focusing on what the guiding reasons were behind the development of this bill.

Was it to reduce the government's cost in providing a regulatory oversight to the industry? Was it to reduce the cost to the consumer? Was it to harmonize the Canadian regulations on aircraft safety in the industry across North America so that perhaps in the future we could see that our skies would be open within Canada to competition from foreign carriers?

What were the guiding principles that brought this bill forward at this time?

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this week's Auditor General's report on the Inuvialuit land claim, the third in a series, shows that no matter whether it is the Conservatives or Liberals, they are missing in protecting and developing the north. Right across the north, failure to implement claims has dragged down the progress of aboriginal people and the north.

The Auditor General's call for a strategic approach to building the north is important. So far, the government has taken an ad hoc militaristic approach.

How can northerners believe that anything will change with this Conservative government?

[Aeronautics Act, November 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on addressing the issues around the variations in the aviation industry across the country. One of the good things that we have in Canada is a consistent policy on aviation that covers the country. Mechanics and service technicians, whether they are in one part of the country or the other, are used to a system that is reliable, straightforward and transferrable across the country.

In many of our northern and remote locations, we rely on technicians and mechanics. They are not in a team and they are not in a group like Air Canada, which has thousands of employees. They are single mechanics. They are people who sometimes actually have to fly the planes as well. They are versatile. They are expected to do so much with very limited support, very limited access to spare parts and very limited access to all the things that make a successful aviation industry.

So what are we doing with this bill? We are destroying the conformity of the aviation industry across the country. I have a question for my colleague. When a mechanic in one of these isolated communities who is trying to fix a plane needs to understand the system, would he be better served by having the safety system distributed across the country without any central control, without the level of central control that we have brought to the system over many years?

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, October 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech in response to the question from my colleague, our experience in the Northwest Territories with industrial development, the responsibility for the clean up of contaminated sites, and the ongoing problems in human health has been almost non-existent.

What we have seen, what the past has given us, is not really all that favourable toward the industry. On the other hand, we all know that there are countless junior companies looking to explore for uranium in our region. We do recognize as well that the nuclear industry is an industry that is a well established industry in Canada.

To speak to what my constituents want is a difficult issue just as it is a difficult issue for everyone in the House. What we have to do is come to a rational understanding of the nature of the nuclear industry and the requisite amounts of liability that should be put in place that will put the industry on a level playing field with other energy sources in the country. To me that is a fundamental thing that should happen here. If we do not do that then as parliamentarians and as legislators we are not fulfilling our role but acting for special interests or acting in a manner that is not compatible with what Canada needs.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, October 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I go back to the American limit of $9.7 billion. The Americans had experience with Three Mile Island and they have had extensive experience with nuclear reactors. That is the limit they have set on their industry.

In looking at our industry, we have $75 million right now, so we obviously need to change. Where do we change to? If what the member is saying, that the likelihood of an occurrence of a large event with Canadian safety records and with the good work that Canadian engineers do we will not have a big event, I would suggest that might mitigate the charges that would go to accompany under any liability but does not necessarily mean that we need to limit the amount. The liability carried could be carried at a higher level regardless of what the anticipated occurrence cost is going to be. The occurrence cost is one thing and the liability is another.

When we look at the industry in North America and put it into context with what the United States is doing, where are we?

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, October 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if we consider it, a major nuclear catastrophe probably would not be covered by any sort of limited liability, whether it is $10 billion or $650 million.

There may be a requirement to create a nuclear liability regime of two tiers. The first tier would be liability insurance, which we are proposing here, but the second tier could be an unlimited amount paid initially out of the public purse with all the nuclear operators that are engaged in the same industry being required to pay back on a divided pro-rated basis. Therefore, we could have some protection within the industry as well, which might be one of the ways that we could expand the liability.

We are interested in the thoughts of members on this issue. These are potential changes that could be made to the legislation with the support of all parties.

As we have seen in the past, when we have gone forward with amendments that go beyond what the minority government wants, it simply does not bring the bill forward. We are concerned about that because it is not a useful situation in the work we do in Parliament.

We would like to see some frank discussions about the bill before we make our choice about how we vote on it.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, October 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the nuclear liability bill that is in front of us. It quite clearly has been brought forward in order to facilitate the development of the nuclear industry in Canada. In the original development in regard to nuclear liability, going back to the 1970s, we established that limit because private insurers of course would not deal with nuclear accidents. We set a liability limit of $75 million then.

Let us think of that number. We can refer to the American Brookhaven report of 1957, which suggested that liability for nuclear accidents could be in the $7 billion range in 1957 dollars. We can see that this limit was set very significantly to develop the industry. The industry has had a long tenure of development and has moved on. Now we are moving into designing legislation that will increase the amount of liability held by companies that develop or own nuclear plants.

Contrary to what the minister told us earlier, under this new act the liability for an operator for damage resulting from a nuclear incident is limited to $650 million. While small nuclear incidents such as the loss of a fuel bundle and the resulting contamination of an area of 400 metres, let us say, might be covered under this amount, certainly the larger scale nuclear accidents that we have seen in the world would not be covered.

We have a new bill in front of us in Parliament that is trying to catch up to something done in the early 1970s. Is it adequate? Has this bill been presented in an adequate enough fashion? Is the government willing to negotiate in an adequate enough fashion to make this bill acceptable? I have yet to hear that in the debate today. As such, NDP members will be considering what we hear as the debate moves along to the point of deciding to support or not support the bill.

I come from the Northwest Territories, an area of Canada that has had plenty of experience with nuclear contamination.

Let us think back to the 1930s and a community called Deline, which for many years was known as the village of widows because the men in the village serviced the development of Port Radium. They hauled the yellowcake on their shoulders in burlap bags which were put on barges and sent down the river to service the emerging nuclear weapons industry in the United States. There was no compensation for this. There was no consideration of this at the time.

There is a longstanding contamination issue. This year, finally, in Port Radium there is an ongoing cleanup effort at the mine site, some 70 years later. The mine site cleanup is not extensive, but it is costing in the tens of millions of dollars.

The nuclear trail from this contamination extends all the way down the river system. AECL came to my community in 1985 to examine the presence of nuclear material along the river system. My community was a portage point for all of the material that came out of the Port Radium site. At that time one could still find on the ground burlap sacks that had been dropped from trucks. The presence of the material after 70 years was still such that it could be detected quite easily and isolated.

That radioactive material was in the community for that many years, which suggests to me that when we talk about 30 years of liability for nuclear material in our environment, in our communities, we are talking about a number that perhaps does not match up with reality.

We also could talk about the Ray Rock Mines where there is still 71,000 tonnes of uranium mine waste. Ten families had to abandon their homes due to contamination from the mine. Radionuclides and heavy metals from the tailings have found their way into fish and mammals in the area. There has been no compensation. This is still part of the nuclear industry that we have in Canada.

We can see that in the Northwest Territories we do not have a great record when it comes to dealing with nuclear waste.

There is another incident of contamination that I would like to mention. It is about contamination that comes from an external source, one that is not covered in the bill. Canada has no liability coverage for external acts whereby contamination from nuclear waste comes from another country, but we live next to a very large country that uses a lot of nuclear energy.

However, I am talking about Cosmos 954, which in 1978 burned up in the atmosphere over the Northwest Territories. The nuclear reactor onboard a satellite is pretty small. It would probably fit in an average thermos bottle. My community was some 300 miles away from where that small nuclear reactor burned up in the atmosphere. The next year, I had officials from AECL in my driveway picking up identifiable pieces from Cosmos 954 and that nuclear accident. Those small bits of nuclear fissionable material spread over 124,000 square kilometres.

Therefore, when we talk about liability in the nuclear industry and the nature of what we are dealing with here, we are talking about a very serious issue.

I would like to refer to another matter that speaks to this as well. That is the Giant Mine, where in order to deal with an industry that has closed down, we now are dealing with 270,000 tonnes of arsenic. It is going to be left in the mine shafts. It is going to be frozen in there. This method of dealing with contaminated material is not to move it. It is simply to freeze it in the ground, right in the middle of the largest community in my riding.

Our record of dealing with contamination in this country, of dealing with the impact of industrial development that leaves behind material harmful to human existence, is not that great. It is not that perfect. Our record is nothing that we can stand up and be proud of in this country.

Therefore, when we speak about protecting working families in Canada with legislation, we have to be pretty careful about what we are going to do. We have to examine what we are doing here in great detail. We cannot just simply slap something through to make up for the 30 years of inaction by the government on this subject.

In 1957 the liability limit for a nuclear plant in the United States was $560 million. What is it today for our neighbour, the one we share so much with, the one the Conservative Party loves to harmonize with, the one the Liberal Party has worked so hard to harmonize with over so many years? It is now $9.7 billion. So what is going on here when we are setting our limit at $650 million? The public will have to pay for any amounts over the limited liability. Contrary to what the minister says, that is what is going to happen.

This liability level has to be increased. It has to be increased to a level commensurate with that of our largest trading partner, and not simply with signed treaties or conventions, but with the actual practical use of nuclear energy on this continent.

Limited liability was needed when the industry was getting started. The question is whether it should it be in place today. Do we put limited liability on a wind farm? Do we put limited liability on solar panels? We do not. Do other countries have limited liability? Germany does not. Germany, of course, lives downwind from Chernobyl and it has unlimited liability on its nuclear industry. Did its nuclear industry quit with that? No. Did the nuclear industry in the United States close up because it had a $9.7 billion limited liability? No, it did not.

What is different about Canada? How is Canada different from the United States? Why would our industry flee if we put a proper liability in place for it? It is a question that we can all ponder as we debate this subject.

The liability within the bill is too narrow. There are many more accidents of small amounts of nuclear material than there is from large plants and yet that is not covered in this legislation. Many times we have seen contamination coming forth from medical equipment, equipment that is used in the oil and gas industry and from various sources of radiation that are used in industry in our daily lives. Those are also things that should be legislated. They should be under some measure of control to ensure that the operators that use them dispose of them correctly and protect Canadians. Without legislation, people need to sue to get compensation from these types of actions, and that is not fair.

The definition of damage in the bill is also troublesome. Damage can be in the environment, as well as in one's building and in one's personal self. It can be long-lasting in the environment. I talked about it earlier in my speech. These are things that remain behind with the nuclear industry. The bill needs to have a proper definition of damage.

A damage definition could be expanded to include damage due to a loss of business or due to a fear of contamination like Japan. This could be part of the bill. We will be talking about this more as the days go on.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no particular protection for incidents that can happen from external sources of contamination from the nuclear industry, nuclear satellites, nuclear ships and all manner of the use of nuclear energy.

Germany provides this type of compensation and it has good reason to do so. It understands the issue.

If I may, I will bring this around to economics. What is it about setting a limit that is so much below the limit of our largest trading partner? What will that do to the industry? Does it subsidize the Canadian reactors over the U.S. reactors? Perhaps it does if they are built by American companies for export of electrical energy to the United States.

We could find ourselves in a situation where we are paying for the development of nuclear reactors for another country with our limited liability here, with our lesser standards for the use and development of this industry. Therefore, we need to be very careful about what we are doing in relationship to our major trading partner, the partner with which we engage in so many other harmonization activities.

The whole issue of the use of nuclear energy and moving forward with it should be part of a larger energy strategy. We cannot determine the future direction of the Canadian energy matrix without having everyone on a level playing field. If a level playing field means that the nuclear industry must carry the liability for its product, for its industry, for its demobilization and for its safe storage of hazardous waste, that should be it, that should be part of its equation. Just as part of the equation for the use of solar energy is the need to reduce the cost of manufacturing panels and just as the cost of wind power is the intermittency of its production, these are things that need to be put in context with each other.

We are dealing with the nuclear industry today. Let us deal with it and put it in a context that makes it fairer for Canadians for the future. When we make decisions about the direction we should take in Canada with energy, they should be made with the assurance that all is understood, that all is put into the equation and that it all makes sense. This is not the case right now. The bill does not go far enough to allow that to happen.

I want to hear what other parties have to say about this because is a tremendously important issue. We want to understand whether this is worthwhile to go to committee and whether we can get an acceptable result in committee for all the problems that we have identified in the bill today.

I have enjoyed the opportunity to speak to the bill because in many ways we need a frank discussion on the nuclear industry in Canada. We need to understand what it means to develop in this direction, what it costs and what we are leaving behind for our children and grandchildren.

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that it could only be a Liberal who would read the Conservative handbook that the right wing author has created. I would prefer to read something from Naomi Klein or somebody who actually has an analysis of the system that I could understand.

Canadian voters may make decisions. I have run in many elections. I have won some and I have lost some but I do not go around crying about it afterward. I accept what the voters say and I move on.

[Business of Supply, October 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in the last Conservative budget, it talked about fairness in taxation. I believe in fairness in taxation. I worked in the municipal system where we looked at fairness between various forms of tax bodies, which is what we need. We need to understand what we are delivering with the tax system. Yes, the GST is onerous and, yes, it applies to all of us, but at the same time we need the resources put back into Canadians.

With the failure to consider other forms of taxation, be it energy consumption taxation or corporate taxation, where do we go? We should go toward fairness. We should look at what we want to accomplish with the tax system and apply it accordingly in a fair and equitable fashion. That is how taxes should be dealt with in this country.

When the Conservatives say on the one hand that they can do this in the budget and it will be fair, why do they not apply it throughout the system? When I see actual effort on the part of any party to address fairness in taxation, I would certainly support that.