Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the questions. I'll try my best to answer a number of them, and stop me and tell me which ones I miss, because I was trying to frame that. On proposed section 48.11, the polluter pays principle, it's just good practice from a jurisprudence perspective to draft in

Natural Resources committee  I'll start and I'll lean on my colleague as well to join in this one. The provision in the act related to harmonizing damage prevention regimes is really a preventative aspect of the regulatory framework that provides the legal frame for landowners and people who might be doing

Natural Resources committee  Sure. Thank you for the question. Just in terms of quick facts, for federally regulated pipelines, on average, since 2008 to present—so the last seven years—there have been 6.7 incidents per year in which oil has been spilled. The average volume released was about 1,200 barrels

Natural Resources committee  Correct.

Natural Resources committee  In absolute liability.

Natural Resources committee  That's correct.

Natural Resources committee  In terms of the highest cost that we're aware of, I will give you a ballpark. We don't have the exact figure because it's not a federally related one. There was a provincial spill in Alberta, near a lake and a water body, that was in the order of $70 million to $75 million.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's a fair comment. I appreciate the comment and the question. We benchmarked and looked at, as I said, a range of different circumstances. We certainly wanted to provide for the potential...and ensure that companies were capable of carrying adequate resources in the ev

Natural Resources committee  I would start by saying that I think we have an exceptionally strong pipeline safety system in Canada. The data demonstrates that. I think I've just walked through it with you. Certainly there are still seven incidents a year, on average. Those are seven too many, I think from a

Natural Resources committee  I'd say that we have a world-class system, and I use the words carefully, because world-class, I think, has different meanings to different people. I'd say there are elements of our system that I think are world-leading, in the sense that other countries don't have the same measu

Natural Resources committee  It would come from the Ministry of Finance, the Government of Canada.

Natural Resources committee  Taxpayers, correct.

Natural Resources committee  A public liability in what sense?

Natural Resources committee  In the extreme circumstances, the policy logic behind the taxpayers providing a backstop to cover this, one, would be to ensure that the individual landowners or the individual citizens or any other parties who might be implicated would not be held financially liable; and two, th

Natural Resources committee  That's a great question. I guess the answer would be it depends. To be completely straightforward about it, it depends on the nature of the incident and it would depend on the amount of money involved. If you, for example, imagined an incident that cost half-a-billion dollars, if