Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to again address the issue of ammonium nitrate storage in Enterprise in response to Mr. Handley's comments of February 22nd, where he stated, "Ammonium nitrate is not as dangerous as some people think it is."

Let me begin by giving an example of an ammonium nitrate storage facility in the city of Toulouse in southwest France. On Friday, September 21, 2001, a huge explosion occurred in the outskirts of the city. The explosion occurred in a warehouse in which granular ammonium nitrate was stored. The amount stored in this warehouse is said to be between 200 to 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

Let me describe the impact of the Toulouse explosion. The blast blew out windows in the city centre three kilometres away and created a 50-metre diameter crater more than ten metres deep. Experts said the explosion was equivalent to an earthquake measuring 3.4 on the Richter scale. More than 500 homes were lost and 11,000 students stayed at home after 85 schools and colleges were damaged. Twenty-two people were killed on site, six nearby, and one died in hospital according to the regional officials. An electrical goods store about 300 metres away from the storage facility collapsed about 45 minutes after the explosion.

Mr. Speaker, the exact cause of this terrible accident remains unknown to this day, although at the time a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Paris attributes this accident to an "incident in the handling of products."

Mr. Speaker, you can therefore well appreciate the concern and anxiety that the residents of the settlement of Enterprise have, given that Polar Explosives have recently built a depot in the centre of the community to house ammonium nitrate. This facility was built with no consultation or discussion with the community leaders and seemingly little scrutiny from the territorial government officials.

Mr. Speaker, my information is that the disaster in Toulouse resulted in an explosion from a warehouse that housed 200 to 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. A report in News/North on Monday, February 25th states, "Polar Explosives built the depot to truck 23,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate this winter to diamond mines in one tonne bags."

Mr. Speaker, if only one percent of the amount of ammonium nitrate that is being shipped over the course of a year is stored...