Transport Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

My question had more to do with the environmental assessment that port authorities might conduct and publish. However, I will not get into that since I suspect that Mr. Watson will stop me.

I'll go to another question.

We talked about liability. In the recommendations after the oil tanker safety regime review, one of the recommendations was that the current limit of liability per incident within the ship-source oil pollution fund should be abolished. Should we have unlimited liability?

[Michael Lowry]

Is that question for me?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Yes, please.

[Michael Lowry]

What they are talking about is the Canadian ship-source oil pollution fund, which has around $400 million in it. What the government has recommended is that there not be a limit, that the $161 million be removed so that you can access the entire $400 million of that fund. That was their recommendation.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

What about the response? Right now, if I understand correctly, there is a limit per accident in terms of liability from the shippers. Is the question of just eliminating that liability what we're talking about?

[Michael Lowry]

Let's go back and look at the three layers. The first layer of the liability is the shipowners themselves. They are required to have insurance depending on the size of the vessel. If we pass that amount, we then access the international funds. Then once the international funds are passed, that's when we get into the Canadian funds. What the government has recommended is that, once we are at the Canadian level, there be access to that entire $400 million. If that entire regime is exhausted, the government has proposed that a levy be imposed back upon the industry to recover any cost and that it be returned to the taxpayers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We will now move to Mr. McGuinty for five minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Whitworth, can I go back to some comments you made that elicited a couple of questions from the Conservative members? You made a number of comments. I asked you if this was your principal message today, and you said it was, which were comments you made related to the question of enforcement and the question of Transport Canada's capacity. You said it didn't have the budget nor the manpower—or person power—to enforce existing regulations.

I'm going to ask you, as the CEO of a major company employing 2,500 people going to 3,500 people, would you like to have the real facts about what's going on with respect to enforcement, capacity, inspectors, and audits? Would you like to know what's happening on the west coast in its entirety?

[Jonathan Whitworth]

I have a lot to worry about in running a diversified portfolio like Seaspan, with a multi-billion dollar shipyard project that's about to commence. What I would like to know is that there is action behind enforcement. To be honest, do I need to know everything that Transport Canada does and how they do it? I would dare say no. I don't have the time or the capacity to understand that.

What's important to us is that if Transport Canada has a budget and resources, and I know there are limits to both the budget and resources that any department has, that they identify areas where there is a gap that can be filled. All I'm highlighting today is that there's an area which in my humble opinion needs to be filled. I think one of your colleagues used the word “blitz”, and I think that's a good term. These safety and environmental and quality audits and blitzes should occur.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

As part of your responsibility as a CEO of a major company with multi-billion dollar contracts, you're going to want to know whether your competitors are being held to the same standard you are holding your company to, based on existing regulatory structures, aren't you?

[Jonathan Whitworth]

Right.

Again, a word that was used earlier was “consistency”. We believe in that. We should all be treated the same.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Okay.

The problem we're having here in Ottawa, and for the entire industry and marine safety sector, is that we don't have the information. We can't get the information. I wish we did have the information. Even testimony that was repeated here by Conservative members about funding levels is inaccurate. The only accurate funding level information we have is the information in the public accounts. That's the only information that the people of Canada, and you as CEO, and your shareholders, can trust.

The problem is that marine safety has been cut, according to those public accounts, by 27% over the last five years.

We're being told by the government that they're not going to tell us how this reallocation is supposed to have taken place and whether or not it has affected enforcement. That has a direct bearing on the competitiveness of your company in Canada and abroad. That's why I asked the question. I'm not asking you to crystal-ball gaze and say you need to know how Transport Canada runs its department. However, I would expect that as a major player in this sector, you'd want to know whether the information being provided by government is accurate.

Is that a fair assessment?

[Jonathan Whitworth]

No matter whether I'm reading a newspaper, a balance sheet, or a report, I want it to be factually correct. I want that in anything that I see, read, or understand. I don't hold Transport Canada or the federal government to anything different than I hold for our shareholders and our company.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Precisely. That's exactly the point that the Liberal Party has been making for some time about transparency, to make sure that we know for sure what's going on. The government has the right to make difficult choices when it comes to the transportation of dangerous goods and safety management systems. That's its prerogative. The problem is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada, a position created by all parties, can't get the information to assess the government's claims. I would expect that you, your shareholders, your employees, and the population that you serve, your clients, would want to know what's going on. They'd want to know what is really happening here, and whether this is having a bearing on safety and security and the enforcement of the existing regulations.

I want you to know, and I want your customers to know, that the problem we're facing here in Ottawa is that we have a government that will not open the books. No matter what you hear from Conservative MPs, spinning testimony from an official last week, you can't trust it. As Ronald Reagan would say, you trust, but you verify.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. McGuinty, your time is up, and you never asked a question.

Mr. Watson.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, what did the gratuitous comment about me not asking a question have to do with my round?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Well, I'm just stating that you're out of time.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

That's all you need to say, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I would have allowed an answer if there was a question asked, and there wasn't a question asked.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I appreciate that, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Actually, the Liberal Party did oppose the creation of the Parliamentary Budget Office, if I remember the votes exactly on that one.

Mr. Whitworth, I'll start with you. I appreciate your earlier testimony about both the Douglas Channel and the Second Narrows Bridge, and the safety record, for example, of transiting the Second Narrows. I transited that by water this summer on my visit out in Vancouver. I was in Kitimat and in Prince Rupert as well. I got to see the Douglas Channel first hand.

Those of us who live on the Detroit River have the Livingstone Channel that's about the same clearance width—450 feet—as the Second Narrows Bridge. They've been piloting 1,000-foot lake freighters up and down there without incident or problem for decades on end, so there is something to be said for the overall safety of marine transport, including the very large classes of ships, regardless of cargo content. So your comments are taken with appreciation.

Mr. Lowry, in your testimony you said you support a move to risk-based planning within response areas. I want to probe what you mean by that, and why you support that. Is that because it would allow your organization to either shift resources or response away from lower risk areas under your jurisdiction, or are you looking at this that in fact no area would lose resources as a result of risk analyses, but that you need to target higher resources to certain risk areas such that no area actually gets fewer resources? Or are you talking about an actual shift, fewer resources in one area and more to another within your operations? Can you clarify that for the record, please?

[Michael Lowry]

Right now we are mandated to have a 10,000-tonne maximum capacity for the entire coast, regardless of where a spill occurs. We have to position our resources so they will be able to access that potential large-size spill anywhere on the coastline, which is a challenge.

The federal government is commissioning a pan-Canadian risk assessment. This is happening right now. From that risk assessment they will break down the coastline into what we call area plans. Within those area plans there will be geographic response plans. The area plan will look at the risk for that area, determine the appropriate capacity that should be for that area, and determine as well the response times.

The other benefit—and this is what we'll be able to do before that assessment is complete—is that for those particular areas we're able to look at the sensitivities, whether that's economic, cultural, or environmental, and start developing actual booming strategies and staging locations for those particular areas.

There are numerous benefits to moving towards a risk-based plan.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I understand the structure of what area response planning and a risk analysis is about. I'm asking whether you support that because you foresee the potential of moving valuable resources out of certain areas because there is less or no risk, rather than leaving them in a geographic area because of some small probability that there could be an incident there. Or do you foresee this as an exercise that will say that no area will lose resources for response, but in fact we may need to have additional resources in a given geographic area?

[Michael Lowry]

I don't anticipate we'd be moving resources out of particular areas. We had already positioned our resources where the shipping traffic is heaviest, which is why the bulk of our current depots are along the southern shipping lanes. We're anticipating being able to use the scientific data to accurately reflect the appropriate resources for those particular areas.