Peter Stoffer

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let me make it nuclear clear to the member from the Alliance party. It was his party that voted against the Crow rate subsidization. It was his party that voted against every assistance package to farmers between 1993 and 1997. One of those people is now the leader of the Saskatchewan party. That is the Alliance record when it comes to help for agriculture and farmers.

Having said that, I know the member is very concerned about his farmers and agricultural producers. He has every right to be, and good for him. However the member for Palliser, our agriculture critic, has also done yeoman's work in bringing the issues of farmers and farm families to the attention of the country.

The broader question is whether we trust this government, and that is a very good question. The government has had five years to discuss the Kyoto plan. It has had many years to deal with nuclear safety and it simply has not done that. When people who are either for it or against it ask questions or if they are ask questions just to find out more information, they are stonewalled.

It is unfortunate that the member had to go to the United States to get his information. He quoted a bunch of statistics but we would have to question from where those statistics came. What kind of study was done? What did they base it upon? That is something we need to discuss even further. He is absolutely correct that the government is derelict in its responsibility of explaining what we would consider the benefits of the package.

He also mentioned the fact that many workers in organizations through unions, such as the CEP, have ratified the proposal for Kyoto. The member said the reason why they did was because they did not understand it. Fifteen hundred CEP members recently held their convention. There are some pretty intelligent people who are part of that organization. To say to them that they did not understand what they were voting on would be naive at best.

The CEP is a very good organization and union and it has done an awful lot of good in representing its workers and in working with business and government to look after the benefits for workers and their families in communities across the country, and I support that. I know under careful reflection my great colleague from the Alliance party would do the same as well.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of lines above that it says the commission may or may not. In reality the commission may not do anything but just let it happen. It should say the commission shall impose that. However, when it says may, then it is up to the commission to decide whether it wants to do anything. I am not a lawyer, but I have it on sound advice from my colleague from Windsor, who is a lawyer, that the word shall would strengthen the bill completely.

Again it boils down to a matter of trust and confidence. Do we in the opposition, and for that matter many Canadians, have the trust and confidence in the Liberal government to do the right thing when it comes to the situation of a catastrophic problem with a nuclear power plant, or contamination of surrounding grounds or the downsizing or removal of a power plant?

We know that it is extremely expensive to get involved in this type of discussion. Who will pay for it? Who will be ultimately responsible for the clean up in the event something happens?

We saw other examples where a business had a serious problem and left its responsibility. Who was left to clean it up and take control of it? The government. Then that falls upon the taxpayer, and their dollars are expended to remedy the situation. That is simply unacceptable.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the federal Liberal government is at fault for not clearly explaining the positive aspects of Kyoto or even, as some people may say, the negative aspects of Kyoto. This deal was done five years ago. The government had five years to get the information out to all Canadians so they could make informed decisions on what this deal would mean to the long term future of Canada and its economy. The Alliance Party and Canadians are correct to raise concerns about that.

After looking at the Kyoto agreement myself, I firmly believe it is minimum at best as to what we should do as a country. I am very encouraged that many individuals and businesses have taken it upon themselves to retrofit their buildings, to reduce their greenhouse gasses and to reduce their energy export.

It is imperative that Canadians be informed. This has to happen. I agree with a full and open debate prior to Kyoto being ratified. That is why we would like get that debate going now, so we can move on this issue and move toward a much better society in terms of a cleaner and healthier Canada, as well as a cleaner and healthier environment.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating the bill regarding our nuclear power concerns and earlier I was discussing the Kyoto ramifications.

The events concerning Dr. Swann in Alberta are quite unnerving, quite surprising and quite pleasing. He is a medical doctor who stated publicly his concerns and support for the Kyoto accord. He sees firsthand the climate change concerns of his patients.

He was summarily removed from his position. We still do not have clear satisfactory answers as to why it happened. We could only speculate that his removal from that office was because of political interference from the provincial government of Alberta.

We know that Mr. Klein, the premier of Alberta, stated his case very clearly that in no way, shape or form does he want Kyoto ratified. To stop or not even to allow dissenting opinions within the pubic service of Alberta when it comes to a medical doctor, for example, is simply unconscionable. It should never be allowed in the country or allowed to happen again.

We are quite pleased that the hospital board reinstated Dr. Swann, but he will now have a tainted relationship with his employer, the board and the provincial government. It is a sin that this happened.

If we were serious about having a full and open debate on any aspect of Kyoto and nuclear power we would be able to do it without fear of retribution. We must be able to state our case for, against or whatever. That is why the House of Commons is so important, so that we can have the exchange and debate of ideas.

Our public services, be they federal, provincial or municipal, should also have the ability to express their opinion on various issues facing the country. They should not live in fear that their jobs are at stake. We have other examples of the federal health department and other instances of that happening.

When someone with the reputation of Dr. Swann of the medical profession of Alberta stated very clearly his support for the Kyoto accord, the Alberta government should have said that it may disagree and it would continue on its path. To remove him from his position was simply unbelievable.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague says we are going to need them. What we need in Canada is more alternative technologies when it comes to wind energy and solar energy, but just as important is our reduction of energy use. We are energy pigs in this country. We use more energy per capita than any other nation on the planet. That is a fact. Canadians are great people, but when it comes to energy use we are absolutely wasteful.

I want to get a little dig in at my good colleague from Fraser Valley who accused the NDP of sucking and blowing at the same time. I cannot let a comment like that go, particularly when I recall that it was that member who at one time was sitting to the left of me in something called the DRC. He did not know whether he was a Conservative, an Alliance member or an Independent, so he and a few others came up with this thing called the DRC. My colleague from Winnipeg--Transcona then gave one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard in the House, in which he said that this is the House of Commons, not a motel where one checks in under an assumed name. When the good member for Fraser Valley, whom I respect greatly, talks about sucking and blowing at the same time, all he has to do is look in the mirror and he will see who he is really referring to.

However, back to the matter at hand. The reality, as my colleague from Esquimalt said very clearly, is that even we ratify Kyoto we are not going to meet our greenhouse commitments. He is absolutely right. I do not have any confidence that the Liberal government will keep any of its promises or any of its commitments when it comes to the protection of the environment. Of all the budgets that were cut, of all the downsizing of departments since 1995, the environment department took the greatest hit. The government just assumed everything would take care of itself, but the reality is that our environment should be our number one concern, not only for this legislature but for all legislatures across the country. If people cannot drink the water, eat the food and breathe the air we are in serious trouble and nothing else matters. This is what should be our concern.

I want to commend all those companies and individuals that have taken it upon themselves, without direction, to reduce harmful greenhouse emissions, to reduce their energy use. I look at the great province of Nova Scotia and especially the city of Halifax, the Halifax Regional Municipality, which has instituted a very good recycling and composting program where in the span of three years we have reduced our waste by 50%. We are getting better all the time. Our recycling and composting program is a model throughout Canada, if not the world, of how waste and compost materials should be diverted from the general landfills. I encourage anyone who wishes to do the same to come down to the great city of Halifax and have a look at what we have done. They will be amazed. In fact, many people from around the world have seen it.

For my Alliance colleagues and others who disagree that the Kyoto protocol should be signed, all I ask them to do is talk with the workers. The CLC, CEP, CAW and many other union representatives, the workers who the business community says will be affected, have said very clearly after very careful sober thought and reflection that Kyoto must be ratified. These are the workers saying that. Well over 100 major municipalities in the country have signed an accord saying that Kyoto should be ratified. These people are not fools. These people represent labour, independent businesses, corporations, municipalities and everything else. These people do not just sit in a room, raise their hands and say “go for it”. They do this with careful consideration.

I think it is imperative for all members of Parliament to ensure that we listen to those voices out there, because Canadians are very concerned about their environment. They are also very concerned about what happens in their nuclear power plants.

One of the disasters when it comes to nuclear power plants in the country is the Point Lepreau fiasco, which goes on and on. It is a nuclear power plant in New Brunswick. A study has just been done on the Point Lepreau power plant. In order to get it up to speed, another $900 million is needed just to get it going again. That is a conservative estimate; some very good people have researched this and have said it may be even higher.

When people say that nuclear power is cheap, it is simply not true. Nuclear power is extremely expensive in the long run when all factors are taken into consideration. What the government should be doing is ensuring that we immediately go to alternative forms of energy, such as Denmark and other countries have done.

Europe has ratified the Kyoto deal and did it without the falsehood of credits. Again my colleague was correct when he said that the credit system used by the Liberal government is a shell game to slough off the major responsibility. He is absolutely right. Imagine giving taxpayers' dollars to another country and saying “Look at what we have done. Now we have met our Kyoto commitment”. It is simple nonsense. For five years the government has known that Kyoto had to be ratified. For five years it has sat on its hands and done nothing. Now the government is in rush mode in order to tell the provinces and have consultations and give the facade that it is really serious about Kyoto. If the government were really serious about the Kyoto protocol, it would ratify it today, in the House, right now. That would show leadership.

We hear about all the fear of what is going on. We heard those same fears about the legislation for using unleaded gas. We remember very well the leaded gas argument that it was going to destroy the auto industry, it was going to destroy jobs, et cetera.

That was contrary to the truth. The fact is that using unleaded gas is much better, but we need to go much further. If we are to leave any kind of legacy, and I love that word “legacy” for the Prime Minister, it will be not how much money is in our bank account but what kind of planet we leave for our children and our children's children. That should be the key legacy of any member of Parliament, any member of a provincial legislature or any member of a municipal council. What we do to this planet has long term effects down the road. To use scare tactics is not the way. Everyone knows it has to be done, so let us get it done.

I also want to congratulate our former colleague, Mr. Nelson Riis, one of the most respected members of Parliament ever to grace the halls of the House of Commons. He moved a motion a couple of years back which stated that businesses should be allowed to have a tax deduction if they allowed their employees to have a bus pass or a transit pass.

That motion was passed in the House of Commons but we are still waiting for the government to move on it. Many Liberals supported it; in fact, many on the front bench supported it but we are still waiting for the legislation to come forward. Imagine the leadership the federal government would show if it initiated that. All employees would be given a transit pass or bus pass; the employer would get a tax credit and the employees could leave their cars at home. That would go a long way with businesses across the country in meeting the Kyoto commitment.

My colleague from Winnipeg had a motion about energy retrofitting of public buildings which passed in the House, but we are still waiting. The government apparently owns 50,000 units across the country. Those buildings should be retrofitted now. An incredible number of jobs would be created. An incredible amount of energy would be reduced in the long term. An incredible number of small businesses would have the advantage of jobs and contracts from that. It is a win-win situation.

However, we are still waiting for the government to act. I ask the Liberal government in all honesty and gratitude, to turn around this credit system it plans to impose on the Canadian people which will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gases and move toward some constructive solutions that we in the NDP have already provided. We in the NDP have many more suggestions for the government which would not only reduce greenhouse gases but would create jobs and also would create and protect a lot of small businesses in the entire country.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for the opportunity to speak to this important bill and I thank as my colleague from Windsor for the work he has done in this regard.

We seem to have strayed away from the debate so for the record I would like to reinstate exactly what we are talking about today. The bill states:

Where, after conducting a hearing, the Commission is satisfied that there is contamination referred to in subsection (1), the Commission may, in addition to filing a notice under subsection (2), order that the owner or occupant of, or any other person who has the management and control of, the affected land or place take the prescribed measures to reduce the level of contamination.

That is basically the little change the government is making. The one thing that is offensive is the word “may”. The bill states the commission may do it, but the commission may not do anything and that is a major problem.

I was involved in the union movement for years and in doing collective agreements the word may was considered very vague and ambiguous. One wanted the word “shall”. It has legal meaning from what I understand, and my colleague from Windsor and others are lawyers. I suggest that the government change the word may to the word shall. If it did that, the bill would have much more meaning in ensuring that owners and people who cause contamination or whatever have a legal right to clean up that property.

I spoke on a bill of this nature during the last Parliament. At that time I said that in the end the privatization of nuclear plants will cause higher utility rates for consumers. Also, if something hits the fan, if something catastrophic happens, the owners will simply walk away because no corporation in Canada would have the funds necessary to clean up the mess and the resulting insurance liability.

What would happen? The people of that area would turn to the only place they could: their elected officials. If elected officials are required to assume responsibility in the end, then let us keep these things in public hands until the day comes when a New Democratic government is elected here and we can slowly eliminate nuclear power plants from the face of this country, and for that matter, the face of the earth. They are dangerous.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois for her speech. I know that the Bloc Quebecois in the House year in and year out has stressed environmental concerns and questions on behalf of its constituents. It should be congratulated for that.

One of the greatest fears I have of amending the Nuclear Safety and Control Act is that the Liberal government will continue on the path that it continues on all the time.

Mr. Speaker, you were here when Sergio Marchi was the environment minister and literally overnight changed the laws. Even though the Sierra Club took it to the Supreme Court and lost, the government changed the laws to where it could sell Candu reactors to China and at the same time give China $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars in order to assist in buying them.

This country has also sold Candu reactors to India and Pakistan. It is no coincidence that years later these two countries are testing nuclear weapons. If one were to stretch that argument out, there is a very good chance the nuclear weapons being tested by China could have a Canadian element to them.

I would like the hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois to explain her party's position on Candu reactor or nuclear sales to other countries around the world that may or may not have questionable dealings in nuclear missile technology.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on his rather great soccer play last night. For the record, members of Parliament lost to the European Union eight to one. We will get them the next time.

The member is absolutely correct when he says that even if we sign and ratify Kyoto the government will not have the courage to meet its commitments. I am in agreement with that. The fact is that anyone who has read Kyoto knows that at best it is the minimum requirements.

He knows very well that we in the western world make up 25% of the world's population. We eat up 75% of the world's resources. He is absolutely correct when he says that many companies are ignoring the government and going ahead with their own greenhouse reductions right now.

The member has a lot of people in his riding and he understands. We hear from the business community that Kyoto would be disastrous for the country and for workers. Yet he also knows that many workers and representatives of CEP, CAW and many others have agreed that Kyoto should be met.

Many of these workers are in his riding. Would he not agree with them? If the workers are ready to ratify Kyoto, why would his party not be ready to ratify Kyoto?

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, October 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, first, I wish to thank my colleague from the Alliance Party in regard to her comments on taxation on utilities. She is absolutely right. The GST on utilities is something that seniors or those on fixed incomes just cannot handle. However she also said in her speech that nuclear energy is safe and cheap. Unfortunately she is wrong on both counts.

When it comes to nuclear energy, we have to take in the cost of the byproducts forever. What happens to the nuclear waste? She may well know that there is the Point Lepreau nuclear plant in New Brunswick. Just to get it up to standard will cost close to $900 million, and that is a conservative estimates at best. Following September 11, nuclear power plants are more a target now than they have ever been in their history.

Could she reiterate why she thinks nuclear power is safe and cheap?

[Agriculture, October 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will let you know that my colleague from Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough and I are used to sharing our time in many other debates as well.

My colleague from Malpeque, Prince Edward Island said that there should be a program to help farmers. We on this side of the House say do it. Do it right away. Do not hesitate, do not talk about it, just do it.

Just sitting here thinking about what type of program we should have, a few years ago the government instituted something called the millennium scholarship fund. It put a couple of billion dollars into a fund and that fund generates revenues and those revenues are to help students. Unfortunately it only helps about 7% of the students in the country. However a program such as that would be much more effective to help all our farmers.

As was noted by my colleague from Brandon--Souris, this is the sixth emergency debate on agriculture we have had in the House since 1997. It is a telling sign when a member from the Bloc Québécois stands up for western Canadian farmers. The member from the Bloc deserves a real big hand for doing that. He and his party understand the difficulty western farmers are going through. It is too bad that although there are some backbench Liberals who understand it, the frontbench, the cabinet, still does not understand the devastation that is affecting our farmers.

A couple of years ago a farm lobby group came to Ottawa. We introduced it our NDP caucus. There was one young man who was about 12 years old. I think he was in grade six or grade seven. I asked him specifically if he was going to be a farmer like his daddy. He said no, absolutely not. I asked how many kids were in his school. He said about a couple of hundred. I asked him if any of the kids he knew were going to be farmers and he said, “Absolutely not. As soon as they can, they are gone”. When I asked him who he thought was going to feed us in the future, he just shrugged his shoulders.

That is the question I ask the government. Who will be the farmers of the future? Are we going to lose the capacity to feed ourselves? Very likely. We have heard reports of over 30,000 farm families leaving the farm over the last few years.

Coming from the east coast I know all too well the devastation we have in industry. We watched the 1992 cod collapse when John Crosbie shut down the industry and 40,000 fishermen were thrown out of work. The devastation to the farm families is just as real as what happened to the people on the east coast.

We have a crisis in our forestry industry. Those people who worked in the mills on Vancouver Island and elsewhere in British Columbia are feeling just as devastated as the fishermen on the east coast and the farmers in central Canada.

We have to ask ourselves, what does the Liberal government have against farming, fishing and forestry? I have not been able to figure that out. We would assume that these good people are well meaning and well intentioned. They must hear the same stories we hear. They must read the same newspapers we read. They must get the same phone calls that we get. Why are those traditional industries that helped build this country so devastated? I have a feeling I know why.

A former colleague of ours from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, John Solomon, was in France on an IPU tour. He met some agricultural ministers from the European Union. He asked the one from France about the subsidies to French farmers which were having a devastating effect on Canadian farmers. The man told my colleague, “John, don't even worry about it. If you think for one second that the French government is not going to support their farmers in any way, shape or form, you are kidding yourself. You are out to lunch. We are going to do everything we can every year to support our farmers. It does not matter about trade agreements, we are going to support our farmers. That is what the French government does”.

When John came back home he told us he could only imagine if that kind of spunk were in the Liberal government, that it would have the courage to support its farmers just as much, while at the same time working in the international community to reduce the international subsidies that hurt farmers around the world. It cannot be done alone. The United States farm bill has been completely devastating to our farmers.

Our government needs to act tougher and more unified with the provinces to stop that from happening. It is like Yogi Berra once said, “It's deja vu all over again.” I feel that I am repeating the same words we spoke last year on this.

While I am here I want to thank the member for Cumberland--Colchester and my Conservative colleagues in Nova Scotia for their effort in organizing and assisting, not only financially but manually, with the Hay West campaign in our area of Nova Scotia. I received a lot of calls from farmers within the Musquodoboit Valley and from the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture. They did a great job of quickly organizing and working with colleagues across the country to get whatever hay we could at that time, but it took a long time for the federal government to understand. Even for a photo op government members should have moved more quickly. All the farmers wanted was to provide the hay, ship it out and have the federal government provide the transport. It took a mightly struggle to get the government to listen to that.

The government must ask itself who the farmers of tomorrow will be? Will it be the big corporate farms run by other countries, and we as citizens will have to pay whatever the market will bear, or will we stand up and support our family farmers so that when they wish to retire from a farm they will be able to turn it over to their sons or daughters with pride?

If we can do that then we will have a legacy for our people in the farming industry. I ask everyone watching, and anyone in the House, to stop for a second before consuming their breakfast tomorrow morning, to say a little prayer and to thank farmers who produced the food that nourishes us.