Jim Maloway

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up on the member's comments. Would she agree that an amendment could be introduced, if this bill were to pass second reading and go to committee, to increase the liability to an unlimited amount, which is the case in Germany and Japan? Even though we do not particularly like the bill and do not like further nuclear development, at least we would get some sort of structure in force that would be consistent with the highest standard, that being Germany and Japan, as opposed to some low standard here of $650 million, which hardly seems adequate given the situation in the world right now?

Does the member think that will have any real negative effect in the sense the companies may or may not be able to get liability insurance in an insurance market that keeps going up and down in a very inconsistent way?

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to note that we have a list of nuclear accidents, totalling some 81 over the years. These have caused untold damage to the surroundings.

We have no such record when it comes to hydro development. I do not think we can find any serious accidents in hydro development in Quebec, Manitoba or anywhere else in the country that have caused deaths and the disruption that nuclear accidents cause.

Wind development is catching on big time around the world and it is being developed in Canada. There are no serious ramifications similar to what we have determined with nuclear accidents.

In terms of the liability issue, are we making an assumption that Canadian reactors are going to be built out in the middle of nowhere? Whether a plant is developed in Japan, Germany or in the United States near an urban area or in Canada, why would we have a $650 million liability in Canada, $10 billion in the United States and unlimited in Japan and Germany? It makes no sense.

The bottom line is the taxpayers are going to end up footing the bill for this at the end of the day. If the accident is big enough, the company will declare bankruptcy and turn the whole mess over to the taxpayer. That is what we will end up with.

Clearly we should not be developing any further nuclear plants. We should keep the ones we have going as best we can and raise the limits for them. However, we should not develop new ones when we have such good opportunities to get into wind and hydro development.

We were told years ago that DDT was safe, then we banned it. We were told that asbestos was safe, then we banned it. Now we know that nuclear power is not really very safe. Why do we continue to ignore these warnings and want to develop more?

I was very disappointed when I heard from the member from Saskatchewan say that his government was considering new nuclear plants. There will be an election in Saskatchewan in a couple of years and I think we would like to fight an election on that issue, and see how it resolves itself. Therefore, I do not think the Saskatchewan government should go ahead and build many plants because it will get them half built and then they will be shut down.

There are many other areas we should be looking at, and I think the member is on the right track when she talks about wind development and hydro electric development. We should be proceeding with that and not developing more nuclear power.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, after listening to members of the Bloc, I do not sense that they are overly supportive of the nuclear industry or the development of more nuclear plants in the country. I, therefore, would question why they would be interested in supporting the bill when the responsible position to take would be to vote against it.

In Manitoba, we have a lot of hydroelectric power but we have only developed half of our potential. If we were to develop the rest of our potential and be able to transport it to the east-west power grid across the country, we could potentially close down all the coal-fired plants in Ontario. Instead, what we have developing here is nuclear plants being considered in Ontario and, evidently, in Saskatchewan and Alberta, which is clearly the wrong way to go for all the reasons that the member just illustrated, such as the storage of the material which is very expensive and has a risk for many years.

Huge deposits of nuclear material have been put in the oceans by the Russians and other powers over the years and we may never know what the long-term effects of that will be. It, obviously, cannot be good because over time those barrels will rust and the materials will be leaked into the oceans. I do not think we want to be promoting more of something that has not worked very well in the past.

I would ask the member to reconsider where he is going with this because I kind of like what he had to say and he was on the right track in his speech, but he has not really explained to me why he supports the bill.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that it should not matter where a nuclear power plant is located. Whether it is in Canada, or the United States or Germany, they should have pretty much the same limits of liability because, at the end of the day, the damages will be roughly the same.

It is my understanding that Germany and Japan have unlimited liability. I assume that if we cannot get enough insurance on the private insurance market, then the country itself will backstop the lack of insurance.

Insurance is a very fluctuating market. In some years we can get multiple millions of coverage and then just as abruptly over a period of a few months, the markets will dry up and we will maybe get half of what we had the year before, for four or five times the price. It is a very difficult thing to try to determine what sort of private insurance will be available at any given time.

It seems to me that we should be going to the highest standards here, not to the lowest. If Japan and Germany have unlimited liability, that is exactly where we should be as well.

I also point out that in the United States it is $10 billion, which is more than 15 times higher than what is being proposing in the bill. Clearly, something has to be done about this at the committee stage to rectify this problem.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, one of the member's colleagues from the Bloc spoke in recent days about an east-west power grid that would presumably allow power to be sold from Hydro-Québec into Ontario markets as opposed to simply running power lines from north to south. We in Manitoba have the same experience, where our power lines and power sales are all to the United States.

We have advocated for a number of years that we should build an east-west power grid. At this point, we have enough developed and undeveloped power to provide power for Ontario, so it could close down its nuclear plants. We also know that Saskatchewan is looking at nuclear plant development right now. I believe Alberta is as well. Likewise, the east-west power grid, if it were to be constructed, could solve that problem as well.

I think the member probably agrees with me. Would she comment on that idea and expand on how an east-west power grid would affect Quebec?

[Petitions, May 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition from approximately 200 people. It is a petition to stop the Canada-Colombia trade deal.

There is continuing, ongoing violence against workers by paramilitary forces in Colombia. It has been ongoing for some time. More than 2,200 trade unionists have been murdered since 1991, and there has been violence against indigenous people. There have been murders of human rights activists, which increased in 2008.

The trade deal does not provide effective protection and lacks enforcement mechanisms. All trade agreements must be built on principles of fair trade with respect to social justice, human rights, labour rights and environmental stewardship as prerequisites to trade.

The petitioners want this Parliament to reject the Canada-Colombia trade deal until an independent human rights impact assessment is carried out.

[Marine Liability Act, May 13th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, my question to the member once again deals with the adventure tour operators. It seems to me that one of the ways groups got around expensive insurance programs in the past was to develop their own self-insurance program. In fact, 100 years ago when Prairie farmers could not get insurance for their farms, they banded together and formed mutual insurance companies, like Wawanesa, Red River and all sorts of other well-known insurance companies, which are around to this day.

Perhaps the adventure tour operators, if they find insurance too expensive, should get together and self-insure and develop a pot of money that they could use to pay claims. Then they could insure—

[Marine Liability Act, May 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my follow-up question concerning Bill C-7 deals with the whole adventure tourism industry question.

I did sit in for a while at committee when the bill was being considered. It does not seem to me to be overly prudent to exclude the adventure tourism industry on a blanket basis and allow waivers to take the place of financial responsibility. I am really concerned that the public is not going to be protected with this measure.

I recognize that a lot of presentations were made at committee and that people have considered this whole option, but in spite of amendments being suggested that the member would support that would have helped this matter out, the committee decided to proceed with the exemption for the adventure tourism industry.

Is there some way other than making the industry take out insurance policies that the public could be protected? Could there be some sort of guarantee or a fund which the adventure tourism industry association could build up over a few years to pay for liability claims that result from certain accidents in this type of business?

[Marine Liability Act, May 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my question really was for the parliamentary secretary to the minister, but the member for Eglinton--Lawrence is extremely well informed on any topic he speaks to, so he could probably answer my question.

The member probably knows that insurance markets are international and they are also very cyclical. There are times, say over a three to five year cycle, when insurance companies cut premiums in half and expand coverage, and then just as abruptly they turn around and ratchet premiums up four, five or ten times the price and cut back the coverage.

We are taking a real risk when we pass legislation mandating something, expecting that somehow the insurance, while it might be available today, will be available two or three years down the road. What happens if the insurance markets dry up? In other areas, an extra option is given that if an insurance policy cannot be provided to the regulator, a monetary guarantee or some other alternative has to be put up if the insurance is not available.

Would the member like to comment on that? I have a follow-up question for him after that as well.

[Environmental Enforcement Act, May 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a further question.

This bill would eliminate the power of the courts by establishing, under legislation, minimum and maximum penalties. For example, by making a maximum penalty of $6 million, that is not a high enough penalty if a situation develops, such as an oil spill, where there could be a loss of $100 million or more. The penalty in that case would only be $6 million. That brings us into the whole issue of whether corporations should be let off the hook for what are essentially very small fines in relation to their overall revenues, as opposed to the heavier penalties that would be placed on individuals.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on that whole area and those two points.