Mr. Speaker, there are two fundamental questions we should ask ourselves during this debate on Bill C-29 to ban the use of MMT in Canada.
The first one is: Do the Canadian government and the Minister of the Environment have the authority and the right to pass an environmental act concerning the composition of the gasoline sold in Canada and, by the same token, to promote the use of alternative fuels, or should we give up this right for the sake of an American multinational corporation, that is threatening to take us to court for hundreds of millions of dollars?
I see that the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois have entered in a very interesting alliance. The Ethyl Corporation does not even need lobbyists with all the friends it already has on the other side of the House.
The second question is: Is MMT the safest fuel additive we can have or are there other alternatives that present no health hazards to Canadians? These are the two main questions that need to be asked.
In answer to the first one, I want to say that I do not support the Ethyl Corporation, a company that spends all of its time in court in the United States, that has spent years in court in the States to fight the EPA and that is now threatening to take the Minister of the Environment to court for $201 million, hoping that the Canadian government would soon retreat.
We are talking about a very powerful American multinational that, up until recently, only sold its product in Canada. Japan was not buying, Germany was not buying, Denmark was not buying, Sweden was not buying, no other country besides Canada uses MMT.
Everybody is wrong, except for us. But we now have come to realize that there are safer, more secure alternatives. In this battle, Canadians do not want to be used as guinea pigs by the Ethyl Corporation.
We do not want to be the guinea pigs of the Ethyl Corporation. In fact, EPA in the United States lost the battle in the courts but it certainly is still very much of the opinion today that MMT is unfavourable to Americans.
To quote from the head of the EPA, Carol Browner: "The Environmental Protection Agency believes that the American public should not be used as a laboratory to test the safety of MMT". Nor do we Canadians want to be the laboratory for the Ethyl Corporation in regard to MMT.
In the United States today, despite the court challenges on MMT and the fact that MMT got a reprieve, it is not allowed as an additive in reformulated gas in California, in New York, in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin. Almost one-third of the United States want nothing to do with MMT. These states use reformulated gas which includes additives which they believe are much safer for the health of Americans.
I hear there has been no conclusive proof that it is harmful to the health of Canadians, yet I have quoted several studies that raise the precaution that MMT can be potentially very dangerous to human health. I will quote again from a study I received before the last debate in November 1995. It was completed by three scientists: Kimberley Treinen of the Sanofi Research Division of Collegeville, Pennsylvania; Tim Gray of the Alnwick Research Centre in Alnwick, Northumberland, England; and William Blazak of Nycomed, Collegeville, Pennsylvania:
In summary, the data presented here indicate that a specific syndrome of skeletal malformation in rats was induced by MnDPDP, which occurred in the absence of maternal toxicity at four times the intended clinical dose. The same specific malformations were also seen with intravenous administration of equivalent or lower doses of manganese. Since manganese has been shown to cross the placenta (Jarvinen and Ahlstrom, '75; Koshida et al, '63; Rojas et al, '67) it appears that manganese is the active teratogenic moeity in MnDPDP.
If we wait to find out if manganese is bad for human beings, if it affects people's brains after it affected the brains of rats and other lab animals, is that the precautionary principle Canadians should use?
This is what we used to say about DDT when Rachel Carson wrote her famous book. This is what we used to say about PCBs; they were also safe. This is what we used to say about CFC gases. They were the intended gases that were the purest of gases until we found out they perforated the ozone layer. It is what we used to say about lead. We used lead in gasoline every day of our lives. Many people in the world used lead in gasoline until we found out that it causes cancer.
So do we wait until we have this final and conclusive proof that will satisfy my friends from the Reform Party and my friends from the Bloc Quebecois? When we find out, what happens if it is too late and the effects are irreversible? If there were no alternatives, they would have a case, but we have alternatives.
Before going to Montreal from Ottawa I stop at McEwen's gasoline station on Bank Street. It serves an ethanol blend of gasoline. My car runs just as well on that as it does on ordinary gasoline with MMT. In fact, as my colleague says, it runs better.
My friend from the Bloc Quebecois said this was a plug by the Liberals to sell corn in Ontario. I could introduce him to a big firm in Quebec that produces ethanol from wood. Ethanol can be produced from sugar cane remnants, from wood and from all kinds of things. It is not a plug by the Liberals to sell corn.
The time has come to say that manganese is not good for us. In the latest surveys in Canada, surveys about health and the environment, at least 75 per cent of Canadians consistently said that until we are sure, we should not use manganese. They said it should be banned.
The people who are for the banning of MMT are not just those involved with General Motors and Honda. They are those involved in the Asthma Information Association, the Canadian Institute of Child Health, the City of North York Public Health Department, the City of Toronto Public Health Department, the Environmental Defence Fund, the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, the Ontario Public Health Association, Pollution Probe and Sierra Club of Canada. They are not automobile manufacturers. They are all terribly worried about manganese.
I do not care about Ethyl Corporation. I do not care if it loses money, so long as the health of Canadians will be better off.
The challenge is: Do we let Ethyl Corporation threaten us? Do we let Ethyl Corporation dictate the policy of Canada? Why does it not sell its product in Japan, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Holland? Those countries believe in the environment. They do not use it. Why should we be the only guinea pigs in the world? Why should we accede to the threat of an American multinational which uses the courts to browbeat us into a policy that is supposed to be so wonderful? If it is so wonderful, why do so many countries in the world not want it?
The case is: the environment, the health of Canadians, the precautionary principle and the autonomy of the Government of Canada and of the Minister of the Environment to decide that yes, we will ban MMT and use better alternatives. That is the case and I make it today.