News / Brèves Energy of the Future / L’énergie du futur Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente MP from Chalk River area blames Trudeau key advisor for skyrocketing cost of electricity in Ontario 3 April 2014 (CRC)—Cheryl Gallant, the Conservative Member of Parliament for (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke), the riding in which Chalk River sits, defended nuclear power and took on both the Liberals inefficient wind turbines policy and the anti-nuclear NDPers in the House of Commons on Tuesday, March 25. [Important Notice to Readers: the notes [1], [2],[3] and 4 have been added by the CRC editor and linked to four articles. These articles are not part of MP Gallant’s House of Commons speech and do not reflect the neutrality of the House of Commons transcription of the House proceedings by Hansard.] Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC):    Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, which includes the Chalk River Laboratories of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, I say thanks on behalf of the almost 3,000 employees at the facility for the opportunity to discuss Bill C-22, Energy Safety and Security Act. It is an important piece of legislation that would increase accountability in Canada’s nuclear and offshore industries.   …What most hon. members might not realize is that Canada’s nuclear liability regime is already nearly 40 years old. Certainly, times and standards have changed when it comes to the nuclear industry in Canada. Therefore, this legislation clearly needs to be brought up to date.  When it comes to nuclear power, it is absolutely important to note that times have changed. Unfortunately, there are environmental extremists like Gerald Butts, [1] the principal adviser to the trust-fund-pampered Liberal Party leader. Mr. Butts is co-author of the so-called Green Energy Act in Ontario that is causing electricity bills to skyrocket out of control, and hollowing out the manufacturing sector in Ontario as business flees to places like New York State, which receives taxpayer subsidized electricity from Ontario [2]. These people, and others like them, are living in the past.  It used to be just the NDP that had its head in the sand when it came to economical, greenhouse gas-free nuclear power. With the dangerous presence of people like Gerald Butts, the Liberal Party has become a threat to the thousands of Canadians who work in our nuclear industry. Whenever the word “nuclear” is raised, informed Canadians, like the individuals in my riding who work in the industry, understand that the world has come a long way in 40 years when it comes to nuclear research.  When it comes to nuclear waste, the CANDU nuclear system, our Canadian nuclear success story, leaves behind a lower volume of waste due to its superior design utilizing more of the nuclear fuel than our competitors do with their light water reactors. As we work to perfect this technology, the end result is to reduce the radioactivity in spent fuel from the tens of thousands of years down to just hundreds of years or fewer, all the while generating emission-free electricity.  Our nuclear industry can supply this power, all at an economical price, compared to the industrial wind turbines that are bankrupting Ontario and making a few Liberal Party insiders rich. (1255)  ….. (1305)  [Expand] Mrs. Cheryl Gallant:    Mr. Speaker, I will probably have no more time than to focus on the first question that the member opposite asked.  My constituents are infuriated over the skyrocketing costs of electricity that are a consequence of the provincial Green Energy Act, which his brother [Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty –ed.] enacted under the authorization and architecture of Mr. Gerald Butts, who is now the key adviser to the Liberal Party leader.  If we want to have any idea of how energy costs are going to increase nationwide [3], we only have to look at what is happening to our hydro bills in Ontario to get a taste of that.  Further, this all started with the introduction of wind turbines [4]. One of the first companies to reap the windfall is now also the president of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is a way of funnelling good taxpayers’ money into government coffers, thereby funnelling it to their individual party interests. All the while, it is forcing Ontario taxpayers and ratepayers, hydro payers, out of their homes and into debt. They have to choose between heating or eating. For the complete text of MP Cheryl Gallant’s House of Commons comments, [click here]. Commentary from the Committee for the Republic of Canada: While we commend MP Cheryl Gallant’s defence of nuclear energy and her broadside against the deindustrialization policies of radical ecologists, there remains an unspoken truth about the lack of vision of the various governments over the last decades in Ottawa: No government has pursued an aggressive policy of nuclear R&D which would have given us not only 3rd. and 4th. generation nuclear fission reactors in Canada, but, we, like all countries, were always 40 years away from achieving a commercial fusion energy reactor! Indeed, Canada’s and the world’s only energy future must be fusion energy. For it is the only source of energy that represents a high enough increase in energy flux density capable of achieving a new Renaissance which, for the first time in Mankind’s history, will give us the possibility of securing the Inalienable Rights of Man for all Mankind. [The Editor] Notes: [1] Gerald Butts was the President and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund Canada for several years starting in September 2008. Prior to working for the WWF he was the Principal Secretary to former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, where "he was involved in all of the government’s significant environmental initiatives, from the Greenbelt and Boreal Conservation plan to the coal phase-out". [2] see “Ontario’s Energy Policy...Wastefully Foolish or Criminal?” [3] see TD Special Report on Green Bonds [4] see “The Astounding High Cost Of “Free Energy”