Transport Committee on April 23rd, 2009

Evidence of meeting #13 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ships.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Marine Liability Act and the Federal Courts Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Bruce Bowie President, Canadian Shipowners Association

Kerri Froc Lawyer, Legislation and Law Reform, Canadian Bar Association

Simon Barker Chair, National Maritime Law Section, Canadian Bar Association

4:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Shipowners Association

Bruce Bowie

That is not likely, no. We're not likely to buy our ships in Norway, and those agreements would phase out tariffs over 15 years. By the time that's phased out, we're out of business already, sort of thing, because of the age of our ships.

The main concern with respect to Norway is the offshore oil and gas business and the supply and support to that business, and business going down in the North Sea and a lot of ships being available to work in other areas of the world. That is where the key concern is with respect to existing ships, not new ships.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT

Thank you.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed

With that, I'll thank our guests for being here today. It has been very enlightening. We appreciate your time and effort to bring the committee up to speed on your points of view. Thank you very much.

For the committee's interest, appearing on Tuesday will be Minister Baird and Minister Merrifield, along with department officials. They've managed to give us 90 minutes, so I don't think I'll add the extra 30 minutes. We'll just go with a full 90-minute meeting with the ministers, if that is okay.

Have a good weekend.

The meeting is adjourned.