Libby Davies

[Presence in Gallery, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the House now to revert to the two rubrics of questions on the order paper and petitions.

[Oil Sands Sector, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the reason that Atlantic Canadians are being turned down is so the big oil companies can move faster on their cheap labour strategy, aided and abetted by the Conservative government.

Yesterday we learned that Chinese temporary foreign workers in the tar sands were paid one-eighth of what Canadians get for doing the same work. Another report from B.C. found that migrant workers in Canada are “under conditions that amount to indentured servitude”.

Will the government commit to halting these exploitative programs and adopt the UN convention on the rights of migrant workers? Will it stop this atrocious exploitation of workers?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for rising to speak on her concerns about the bill and I am sure she will be speaking later on it as well at greater length. She echoes my concerns and those of the NDP. I would point out that Gordon Edwards, who is the president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, has said that any vote for this bill would be taken as an approval of nuclear power. It is a concern about the safety standards and the fact that the bill, as part of a larger privatization agenda that the government is so eager to rush forward on, is something that damages the public interest.

I am very glad that the member mentioned Bill C-7 which is the next bill behind that because it is exactly the same kind of track. It is a track of privatization. It is a track of deregulation. It is a track of putting the public interest below private interests and that is exactly what we do not want to see. A majority of Canadians believe we are here in this place to protect their interests, particularly when it comes to questions of significant liability around a nuclear incident and accident.

As the member has pointed out, people may be impacted by an accident and they may receive significant health concerns as a result, or that may manifest itself in a future generation if it were something that was very serious. People want to know that they have legal protection.

Yet, it seems to me the protection that is provided in the bill is really shortsighted. It is minimal. It is at the bottom of the international standings of what these protections are all about. Why would Canada, as is commonly phrased, be racing to the bottom? Why would we not be ensuring that we are leading the way with standards, whether it is on the environment, labour rights, or social standards?

This is part of a huge agenda that is taking place globally where we see a stranglehold of multinational corporations who want to advance the capacity for greater profitable gains at the expense of environmental degradation and a loss of standards for people who work in an industry. This bill is very much a part of that kind of agenda. Another reason we should say no to it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister of the Environment is too eager to get to question period. He cannot wait to go at it. We will get there in about an hour, but right now it is nuclear liability.

I would like to thank the member for Western Arctic because I think he has put his finger on it. What is presented in this bill is only the tip of the iceberg. It is a bill that is setting the stage for the privatization of the nuclear industry in Canada. It is setting the stage to limit the liability, so that it is easier for operations to happen.

If I could answer the member's question, I think that raises the most serious question as to whose interests is this bill in? For the NDP the primary interest is Canadians and the protection of the health and welfare of people in the local communities.

Yet, when we look at this bill and what its impacts could be in the future, if there were an accident and the fact that the liability is being limited to a paltry $650 million, which in nuclear terms is a nickel and a dime, then obviously we have a lot of worries about the bill. It seems to be pandering and catering to private interests to allow a desirable environment in which they can move. That is not necessarily good for Canadian interests. In fact, we would argue on the contrary, that it is very bad.

I think the member has identified one of the key concerns that we have about this bill, that it is only the very beginning of a much bigger debate that unfortunately we have not had. It is not for lack of trying to raise that debate. I know the member himself has been a very strong advocate for the need for a national energy debate, so that all of these questions can be related: the need for an east-west grid, the need to consider why it is we are moving so rapidly to build the capacity of the tar sands to supply American markets, how environmental concerns are being thrown out the window, and the fact that nuclear capacity and availability could be part of that scenario. We see that already as something put forward as a response to greenhouse gases.

There is a lot that meets the eye here. I thank the member for raising these concerns.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak in opposition to Bill C-5, An Act respecting civil liability and compensation for damage in case of a nuclear incident.

As the House has heard from other members of the NDP today, we are very concerned about the bill. We are on the second to last day of Parliament and the bill has been around for a while. Extensive work has been done in the committee. The NDP brought forward 35 amendments to try to make some improvements to it because we felt it was so significantly flawed. Unfortunately, we did not have the support of other parties for those amendments, so here we are.

Yes, in truth, we in the NDP are trying to stop the bill. We do not think it should go through. I am certainly going to put forward my two cents' worth today.

I am from Vancouver East, British Columbia. People in B.C. have always lived in an environment with the potential of nuclear accidents because to the south of us there are nuclear facilities. There is the Hanford facility in Washington State, which has been the site of serious accidents in the past. I know people in communities in southern British Columbia live with much concern about their future and the future of their children because of the nuclear industry and what happens when there is an accident.

Nobody wants an accident to happen and we need to have the maximum number of precautions to ensure none do. However, the bill before us deals with the question after the fact. What happens if there is an accident and what is the liability?

First, members of the NDP agree 100% that the current legislation, which goes back to the 1970s, is terribly inadequate. It set a liability limit of $75 million, which in today's terms would be nickels and dimes in liability for the nuclear industry. The new bill sets the liability limit at $650 million.

Some may look at that and say that it is a big improvement and suggest that we should go for it. However, when we scratch the surface of the bill and start to examine it in terms of international law and context, the limits contained in the bill on a nuclear operator of $650 million is at the bottom of the international average. To me that immediately raises questions. Why would we place ourselves at the bottom of an international average? Also, why is this bill being put forward at this point?

We have heard concerns from communities, environmentalists and people who are opposed to and worried about the nuclear industry. They say that the bill has more to do with the Conservative government's plan to sell off Canada's nuclear industry and then set up an insurance scheme, and it knows the current act and scheme is completely inadequate, that takes the liability away from operators and puts it in the public purse.

By setting the cap at $650 million, we know there is a provision where a special tribunal could be set up by the Minister of Natural Resources and if further funds were required, they would come out of the public purse. This basically means that a nuclear operator would have to pay out a maximum of $650 million and the public would be on the hook for millions and possibly billions of dollars in the case of an accident.

Right off the top, the numbers do not work. If we are going to amend the act, and it should be amended, then let us do it properly. Let us ensure we set the liability at a level that is within the context of what happens in the international community.

We are also very concerned that Canada is signing on to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and that this could turn Canada into a nuclear waste dump. There could be all kinds of contamination as a result of that as well. Some of my colleagues today, the members for Trinity—Spadina, Western Arctic and Windsor—Tecumseh, have spoken about what we see as the long term impact and effects of this bill. Let it be said that the $650 million is very inadequate.

We worked very diligently in committee to seek amendments to the bill. We put forward over 35 amendments to try to improve the bill, the accountability, the discretion of the minister, the level of liability and so on. It is a surprise to me that those amendments failed and here we are today with the bill at third and final reading.

When we look at the history of the nuclear industry globally, but certainly in North America, a long record of incidents have taken place. My colleague from Trinity—Spadina referred to a list of nuclear accidents that we have been referencing.

When we read that list, which is 14 pages long, it is pretty scary to know these incidents have taken place with a fair amount of regularity over the decades, beginning August 21, 1945, at the beginning of the nuclear age.

It was in Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, U.S.A., where a criticality accident with a plutonium metal assembly happened. Harry Daghlian was hand stacking tungsten carbide brakes around a plutonium metal assembly. The plutonium assembly compromised two hemispheres with a total mass of 6.2 kilograms, just short of bare critical mass. While moving a final brick, the experimenter noticed from neutron counters that the final brick would make the assembly supercritical. At this point, he accidentally dropped the brick onto the pile, providing sufficient neutron reflection to result in a supercritical power excursion. The experimenter quickly removed the final brick and disassembled the assembly. He sustained a dose of 510 rem and died 28 days later.

I do not know all the science behind it, but it seems to me it is important to reflect on these things because that happened in our modern day age. This is in the era of the beginning of the nuclear age in our world and we can see that these accidents have taken place, beginning in August 1945. Some of them are seared in our brains as we have watched images on television, particularly Chernobyl. I am reading from the list.

Even in Chalk River on May 24, 1958, there was fuel damage. Due to inadequate cooling, a damaged uranium fuel rod caught fire and was torn in two as it was being removed from the core at the reactor. The fire was extinguished, but not before radioactive combustion products contaminated the interior of the reactor building and, to a lesser degree, an area surrounding the lab site. Over 600 people were employed in the cleanup.

There was an incident at Hanford Works in Hanford, Washington on April 7, 1962. This is the one I am more familiar with, not that I was there but because Hanford is very close to Vancouver. It is something that peace and anti-nuclear movements in British Columbia have watched for a very long time because millions of litres of contaminants are stored in Hanford.

It is a vast area in Washington state. It is surrounded by security and fences. It is obviously not publicly accessible. There is an international boundary, the 49th parallel, but when it comes to a disaster, that boundary does not mean anything. These contaminants can get into the groundwater, wells, rivers and the air, so these are a very serious situations.

In April 1962 there was a criticality incident with plutonium solution. An accident at a plutonium processing plant resulted in a criticality incident. Plutonium solution was spilled on the floor of a solvent extraction hood. Improper operation of valves allowed a mixture of plutonium solutions in a tank that became supercritical, prompting criticality alarms to sound and the subsequent evacuation of the building.

Exact details of the accident could not be reconstructed. The excursion continued at lower power levels for 37.5 hours, during which a remotely controlled robot was used to check conditions and operate valves. Criticality was probably terminated by a precipitation of plutonium in the tank to a non-critical state. Three people had significant radiation exposures.

The list goes on and on.

Probably the most infamous one, and one that had global proportions, was on April 25, 1986, the complete meltdown at Chernobyl. This involved a mishandled reactor safety test, which led to an uncontrolled power excursion causing a severe steam explosion, meltdown and release of radioactive material at the Chernobyl nuclear plant approximately 100 kilometres northeast of Kiev. Approximately 50 fatalities resulted from the accident and in the immediate aftermath, most of those being the cleanup personnel. In addition, nine fatal cases of thyroid cancer in children were attributed to the accident.

The explosion and combustion of the graphite reactor core spread radioactive material over much of Europe. I am sure like many people, I remember the images of that accident and the fear the people felt. One hundred thousand people were evacuated from the areas immediately surrounding Chernobyl, in addition to 300,000 from the areas of heavy fallout in the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

An exclusion zone was created surrounding the site, encompassing approximately 1,000 miles, or 3,000 kilometres. It has been deemed off limits for human habitation for an indefinite period. I know there have been documentaries about what happened at Chernobyl by people who have gone back and filmed this vast area, which is now, in effect, a dead zone where human habitation cannot take place.

These are very serious matters and a bill like this gives us cause for reflection about the nuclear industry in Canada. The bill is setting the stage for expansion in Canada. In fact, I asked my colleague from Western Arctic earlier, because he is our energy critic and he is very knowledgeable on this issue, far more knowledgeable than me, what he thought about the bill in terms of what it meant for the future. He pointed out that Bill C-5 was really the tip of the iceberg.

We know nuclear energy is being looked at as a solution to greenhouse gas for producing energy sources. He informed the House of the situation at the Peace River nuclear plant being contemplated, with transmission capacity that could go to Montana. Again, we see a pattern of decision-making and privatization that is linking us with the enormous energy needs in the United States.

These issues are linked. What begins as a bill in terms of what appears to be a question of liability is linked to a much larger question as to where the government plans to take us in the nuclear industry and the kinds of expansion plans contemplated.

People in my riding are very concerned about that. People feel adequate safeguards are not in place today. We have had the whole debate in the House about what happened at Chalk River with the shutdown of the reactor and the crisis it created for medical isotopes. We saw the debacle that took place with the Conservative government when it fired the head of the organization. This is all part of a greater scheme of a privatization and a sell-off of these nuclear resources to put it in private hands.

On the one hand, we have to debate that. We have to examine that from a public policy perspective. On the other hand, we have a responsibility, as parliamentarians, to ensure the legal framework is put in place, whether we talk about public policy or private operations, and that the liability will be adequate.

I hope that I have provided information today to alert people to the fact that the bill really does not go far enough. It is something that will pass, we presume, unless we can hold it up and that is what we are going to try to do. I think, as we now move into new decades of nuclear expansion, it makes one wonder if we will be again back at the drawing board if we do have a significant incident in this country.

God forbid that that ever happens, but if it does happen, will the provisions in this bill have the capacity to deal with the claims that would result when people in a local community, businesses, livelihoods, people's health and children's health are impacted by such an accident?

It is interesting to note that in the U.S. the liability is $10 billion. That is actually shared among the plants. It is a joint effort. That is more than 10 times higher than what we are talking about in this country. Again, we have to question why has the limit been set at $650 million. It just seems to be woefully inadequate.

We would like to see the bill not move forward, not pass. We would like to see further consideration on this question of liability. We would like to see discussion and some really clear plans from the federal Conservative government as to exactly what its intentions are with the nuclear industry here in Canada.

While we would certainly agree that the current bill has to be changed because the liability is so low, we do not think this particular bill will do the job. It needs to be contained within a much broader policy debate about the nuclear industry. The paramount question in that debate and in any legislation that comes forward is the public interest.

It is not the interest of the nuclear industry. It is not the interests of the people who want to just suck up more and more energy and more and more capacity for energy, it is not the interests of U.S. multinational corporations who might be looking to Canada as a place where they want to do business. The primary concern is public health, the public interest, and the interests for future generations.

In that regard, the bill seems to be very short-sighted. I want to thank my colleagues, the member for Vancouver Island North and the member for Western Arctic, who have been our two primary critics. They worked really hard on this bill. They went through it, every clause. They figured out that it was very limited and it was something that we could not support. At committee, they went to bat and put in a number of amendments. It was very surprising that those amendments were defeated by the government and by the other parties.

I know the Bloc put a few amendments and we certainly appreciate that. However, at the end of the day, the bill has not been changed. So we move forward now with a bill that is very limited.

Therefore, we will be speaking on this and we will be pointing out these deficiencies. We want to draw people's attention to the fact that the bill is now at this very critical stage. We are going to certainly do what we can to make sure that it does not pass, not because we do not want to see a liability set but because we want to make sure that it is being done in a proper way. That it is going to be done in a way that protects people so that if there is an incident, an accident, that people will actually have the capability to make a claim and receive some sort of compensation. It will not be at the discretion of a tribunal that the minister sets up, but a due process and a fund will be created which will protect people. Surely, that is the most important thing that we are considering here today.

I urge my colleagues to consider those concerns that we have. I am very proud of the fact that we have taken the time to look at the bill and to come to the conclusions that we have based on what we believe to be in the public interest of Canadians, and that is why we will be opposing the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all it is unfortunate that the member for Mississauga—Erindale did not even bother to listen to the response from the member for Trinity—Spadina, given that he asked the questions.

I listened to the whole speech by the member for Trinity—Spadina. I want to thank her for sharing very personal information about her own life and the fact that she is a survivor of a thyroid cancer. I know that the member for Trinity--Spadina did an incredible amount of research and that is why she is very knowledgeable of the relationship between thyroid cancer particularly and the nuclear industry. As she has pointed out, thyroid cancer is one of the fastest growing cancers. I do not think it is always easy to share one's own personal experience, particularly when it comes to one's health and family. I want to thank her for being very open about that because I think the more awareness there is about thyroid cancer and other cancers and their direct relation to environmental concerns, the better. There are genetic links as well, but in terms of the environment, there is such a strong relationship.

The member pointed out that the Liberals had really done nothing to address this bill. I would like to draw to her attention that the member for Mississauga—Erindale said last year:

This is a very important bill and I will be recommending to my caucus and my leader that we support it and send it to committee. In committee we will be doing our job as the official opposition listening to stakeholders and experts, and we will review the bill in detail.

I am not sure that happened and so here we are. The NDP put forward 35 amendments in committee. We did not see any substantive changes from the Liberals to improve this bill which is seriously flawed.

Maybe the member for Trinity—Spadina would like to comment on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, when the member for Windsor—Tecumseh speaks in the House with his knowledge and depth of understanding on this and many other issues, I think we all listen very carefully.

I would like to raise with him a question that concerns us very much in our caucus. He pointed very well to the long term nature and impact of nuclear accidents, incidents, storage, spills and all the rest of it, which concerns us in terms of the length of time that we are debating and what the bill before us applies to in terms of liability, but we are also very concerned about where the nuclear industry is going in Canada.

We have the issue of the status quo and what we now know exists in our country, but there are also moves afoot by the government and possibly other governments in terms of supplying energy to the United States, which is a huge problem. We need to take into account, as we debate the bill, that we may see an expansion of the nuclear industry in Canada.

We need to ask a question. Will the bill be adequate? We know that the current bill that is being amended was clearly inadequate. Everybody agrees that a significant change was needed in terms of the liability but the serious question is whether the changes that are being brought forward in Bill C-5 would begin to address even the status quo.

With the increase or expansion in the nuclear industry and capacity in Canada, we may, unfortunately, see an increased risk in terms of accidents, spills and situations that are dangerous, and then this bill becomes very critical.

Could the member comment in terms of what he might see as we move toward the future and the dangers the bill has because it is so limited?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Western Arctic because I know he has paid a huge amount of attention to this issue. Because of his riding and the interest there, he is one of the people in this place, and certainly within our caucus, who pays very close attention. I agree with his comments. We need a proper debate and a context in terms of a national energy policy.

We see these piecemeal attempts coming forward that do not give us any grounding or context in terms of what is going to happen in Canada. One of the concerns we have, and what we have heard from the community, is the fact that the Conservative government has big plans for the nuclear industry in Canada and that it has been offered as a solution to the question of greenhouse gases. We see this in Alberta with the oil sands. This is not an existing status quo and it puts a cap on things.

The question of civil liability and compensation for nuclear industry damage is looming. Not only is it a serious situation in the status quo, but also where it leads us in the future.

Could the member for Western Arctic reference that in terms of what we might possibly face in the future in the expansion of the nuclear industry in Canada, so the question of liability will become an even greater issue?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would seek unanimous consent to go back to routine proceedings. I believe that people were leaving the chamber and they did not hear the motion. There was a lot of noise and people did not hear what the motion was about, and we were standing. I would seek unanimous consent that we return--

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe that we should be returning to routine proceedings.