Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise here today to speak to this budget. As the natural resources critic for the Bloc Québécois, I was looking for certain measures. Unfortunately, as my colleagues will understand after my presentation, I was very disappointed.
The Bloc Québécois toured Quebec extensively. We consulted various groups involved in economic issues, along with our finance critic and with our colleagues, and we presented a series of measures that would have allowed for some flexibility and some new initiatives in order to eventually achieve a balanced budget.
It is appalling that the Conservatives have once again missed an opportunity to meet Quebec's economic, social, environmental and financial needs. They are proving to us, once again, that as far as Canada is concerned, Quebec does not exist. This budget proves that federalism is simply not viable for Quebec and will never allow us to achieve our goals. The only way forward for Quebec is sovereignty.
With regard to nuclear energy, we have been through the famous medical isotope production crisis. The Conservatives, like the Liberals, literally dragged their feet on isotope production. These isotopes are crucial to detecting and treating a number of serious diseases. Because the core of nuclear reactors is exposed to extremely high temperatures and radiation, NRU reactors have a limited lifespan and must be shut down regularly. The Chalk River reactor dated from the 1950s, and clearly no one was surprised that it was corroded. The widely quoted joke was that it was not a matter of whether the reactor would fail, but when.
The Conservatives' failure to act forced the temporary closure of the Chalk River reactor in May 2009, leaving Quebec health care institutions and hospitals to their own devices and creating an unprecedented medical isotope crisis.
Quebec has been paying for the government's negligence and incompetence on this issue for nearly a year now. Despite the seriousness of the situation and lengthening wait times for treatment, the then Minister of Natural Resources, who is now Minister of Labour, even dared to describe the situation as sexy. The minister showed a total lack of respect for the patients and researchers for whom isotopes can sometimes be a matter of life and death.
Calls for help from doctors did not even rattle the government. The Conservatives committed to having the reactors up and running by August 2010. We have seen delay after delay, and now less than 50% of the repairs at Chalk River have been completed, over six months after the government's estimated date to have it running.
Jean-Luc Urbain, a doctor and president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine, predicted that patients would experience dark days waiting to receive diagnoses and treatment.
Atomic Energy Canada Limited, AECL, is now talking about starting up the reactor by the end of April. That would mean two more months of anxiety for patients waiting for diagnoses or treatment; two more months of having to pay for the Conservatives' incompetence.
It will soon be a year since hospitals have had a guaranteed supply of medical isotopes. We have yet to see any money to cover the cost of what the Quebec government has had to pay to manage the crisis, and we are talking about over $1 million. Our healthcare system has suffered greatly; waiting lists are growing longer and doctors are becoming impatient. Quebeckers want a long-term solution so that we do not lose any lives unnecessarily or put anyone in danger, and so that patients can get the treatments they need.
The government had no other choice but to invest in research and development for new technologies to produce medical isotopes, and it will invest in the TRIUMF technology.
But why did the government not take action sooner? Why did they take so long to find solutions, when we knew that this reactor, which dates back to the 1950s, would stop working?
Another problem with the nuclear industry has to do with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The Bloc Québécois believes that the federal government is currently in conflict of interest as both the shareholder of a corporation that develops nuclear power plants and the guardian of public and environmental safety.
In this budget, $300 million is earmarked to cover the anticipated commercial losses and to support the activities of AECL in 2010-11, such as pursuing the development work on the advanced CANDU reactor, safely supplying medical isotopes and maintaining reliable and safe activity at the Chalk River laboratory.
With so much investment in AECL, it is important that the government be transparent in its intentions for the future of this Crown corporation. The government is allowing rumours to swirl about the complete or partial privatization of AECL. We know that the National Bank of Canada did a value study of AECL. The government has to inform the House of its intentions at the earliest possible time: how is it going to use public money?
CANDU reactors, which the government wants to promote and develop on a large scale, currently are not very well trusted. The question is: why is a full scale verification of the safety of these reactors not being done, instead of this blind development?
The government is choosing to ignore the recommendations of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which proposes using a new type of low enriched uranium in the years to come. This would require a massive investment of public funds to the tune of several million dollars. This raises a lot of questions.
What can we say about nuclear energy, this supposedly clean energy? We are wondering why the government insists on considering nuclear energy to be as clean as hydroelectricity and wind energy, when the waste generated from nuclear energy has such disastrous consequences for the environment and the burden on future generations keeps getting worse.
We know that it currently costs more than $100 million a year to deal with this nuclear waste. Why does the government want to invest so much in one of the most polluting industries, and not invest a dime in hydroelectricity?
Funding for the industry is unjustified and unfair. Hydro-Québec, Quebec's pride and joy and a clean energy producer, has never received financial support from the federal government. Furthermore, Quebec refuses to become the dumping ground for Canada's radioactive waste.
That is why we tabled a motion passed unanimously in Quebec's National Assembly. It states that we will never agree to take in more waste than we produce.
Quebec chose clean, renewable hydroelectricity. The federal government's decision to promote nuclear energy will not benefit Quebec. The Bloc Québécois feels that the government should not promote nuclear power.
The government's agenda is clear to us: investment in nuclear energy will support exploitation of western Canada's oil sands. This budget is contrary to everything the Government of Quebec is trying to do to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Are we all going to end up paying the price yet again to fill western coffers? The government's attitude toward energy is irresponsible and unacceptable to Quebeckers. Once again, the west gets everything and Quebec gets nothing.
In closing, I want to emphasize that the Bloc Québécois will never consider nuclear energy to be clean energy. Investing so much money in technology that will only benefit Alberta oil companies is irresponsible and will have terrible consequences for coming generations. This budget should take Quebec's values and interests into account, but it does not.
For all of these reasons, I will be voting against this budget.