Bill C-7 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Marine Liability Act and the Federal Courts Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends Parts 3 and 4 of the Marine Liability Act to clarify certain rules of the limitation of liability of owners of ships for maritime claims and liability for the carriage of passengers, in particular the treatment of participants in adventure tourism activities.
It also amends Part 6 of that Act to implement the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, 1992 as well as the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, 2001. The enactment continues, in Part 7, the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund and modernizes its governance. With respect to Part 8, it includes general provisions relating to the administration and enforcement of offences under that Act and creates a maritime lien for Canadian ship suppliers against foreign vessels and establishes a general limitation period for proceedings not covered by other limitation periods.
Finally, this enactment amends the Federal Courts Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I want to extend a hand to the other side because I have known Liberal ministers who were much less available than the current Minister of Transport. It must be acknowledged that he has made himself very available. I would like to invite him and ask to meet with him for two hours, if that would be agreeable to him. I repeat, some Liberal ministers were much less available than he has been. If we can meet with him for two hours, all the better. I would like for him to know ahead of time the reasons why we are inviting him, i.e., to discuss planned expenditures for one hour and a half and Bill C-7 for the remaining half hour. If he agrees to that, that would be fine, but I would not want to browbeat him, because he could revert to the habits of the former Liberals. That would complicate things somewhat.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Monsieur Laframboise and I were around when there was the last shake-up. This committee dealt with Air Canada and Canadian Airlines at the time, although obviously the circumstances were a little different from those today.

In part Mr. Jean is absolutely right, that this is a completely private company and there's not a restructuring of the transportation system like that which occurred in the 1990s with Canadian and Air Canada. So we're not in danger of losing the infrastructure of transportation, but we are in the position that—at least for those of us on this side, and I hear the government side agreeing—with those workers dependent on a pension scheme they bought into and contributed to, if we now go belly up, this is something the Government of Canada will have to deal with. Whether it affects us as a transportation committee is another matter. It will affect us all as members of Parliament.

The second issue is that all of us are concerned that there are 23,000 employees who may be looking for an alternate company to employ them, if this is what happens. I don't want to be one of those who will scaremonger everybody into a place we shouldn't go to, and I'm quite capable of pointing the finger at those greedy people who took $2 billion and gave it to shareholders instead of topping up the pension system, as they were—I guess some people would say—obliged to do.

I would like us, notwithstanding the fact that the parliamentary secretary for the finance minister is looking at this, to keep ourselves open. I see that we might have some room on April 30 or whenever. If it comes to the point that we're close to seeing the kind of shake-up Mr. Jean suggests, then it becomes not just a finance issue but a transportation issue. We would at the very least be able to get some of the players around the room.

It's a question of informing members of Parliament, rather than anything else. We no longer have any legislative role to play; we do still have regulatory oversight. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Transport Canada is the regulatory body, whether they're private sector or public sector, and we shouldn't give up that particular jurisdiction.

I propose that we keep ourselves open for this, and as I said earlier with regard to high-speed train travel, we have a moving schedule and we have put in an extra day for Bill C-7, so if it comes to it, we would make the adjustment.

I don't know whether Mr. Bevington is okay with that, or Mr. Laframboise. If Mr. Jean is okay, then I think we can keep everybody happy about where to go next.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

You're saying we'll deal with Bill C-7 on April 28 and April 30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Right. I'm more just looking forward. Having looked at Bill C-7, which we will be dealing with on the Tuesday because we're having the minister come on the Thursday for estimates, may I propose that we keep April 28 and April 30 available for Bill C-7, and try to book them for May 5 and May 7?

We know Bill C-7 is here. We know that we're going to deal with it first.

If that's suitable, it just gives us time to finish that legislation. I'm not even sure if that's going to be enough time, but we're hoping.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Basically what we're saying, then, as we move forward, is that on April 21 we will do Bill C-7 with the minister and staff available. On April 23 we will have the minister here on estimates, and if he has the extra hour, we will have some infrastructure discussion at that time.

Mr. Volpe, did you have another point?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

The 21st is the Tuesday, with Bill C-7 being introduced.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Let's make it tentative for now as to whether it's one hour or two hours. I've been informed that this day fits his schedule now, because I anticipated this question. This would be the best one.

Then I was hoping we could deal with Bill C-7 on the 23rd and again on the 28th.

My only concern with Mr. Bevington's....

I'll just wait until he has a chance to listen to this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Duly noted.

Now, as was previously discussed—I know that some people have a little bit of a time restraint here—we have coming back to us, after the break, Bill C-7, which amends the Marine Liability Act. It has been sent to committee for study and review.

I think we can discuss this bill as a group. We're okay with that? It's pretty much the same. This is the steering committee at large.

We have Bill C-7 on the Marine Liability Act. I've sent a heads-up to the minister's office to invite him and his appointed delegates to the committee.

I know there were a couple of other things that we wanted to at least put on the agenda. Before we move to them, I would ask that if you do have witnesses you'd like to bring forward on Bill C-7, could you get their names to Maxime by the end of next week? Then we can certainly have them lined up to be here and available when we come back.

Is there any further business today?

Mr. Volpe.

Marine Liability Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's statements and I have a question for him.

Upon reading the bill, it seems to me that the current legislation gives equal liability treatment to passengers or customers whether they are riding a ferry or on a sightseeing trip. The same treatment is given to people who are involved in much more risky activities, such as whitewater rafting, kayaking, whale watching or Zodiacs. People involved in those sorts of activities are accepting a much higher risk than people riding ferries or on sightseeing cruises.

With Bill C-7, we are, in a way, giving preferential treatment. We are taking away the liability of the adventure tourism industry which, right now, are having to buy insurance policies to cover the liability.

If the member or his son and daughter were taking a trip on a ferry and there was an accident, they would be covered up to a certain level under the law and would be covered in the same way right now if they were riding in a Zodiac or whitewater rafting. This would exempt the whole group of adventure tourism companies and allow them to have waivers, which is not allowed under the current act, which means they would get away from buying insurance and protecting their passengers by having customers sign waivers saying that they are responsible if something happens to them.

I wonder whether this is something we should be taking a closer look at. We would be allowing a group to get out of the responsibilities it has right now. Insurance companies put tough requirements on industries, and maybe that is the way it should be. Should we be allowing an industry, which is riskier, to get out of providing liability, letting their customers sign waivers and putting the responsibility on children who may be hurt? The tourism operator will tell the tourists that it is their problem, that it will not pay out.

Does the member think we should be exempting operators and does he think that is fair?

[Gerard Kennedy, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-7, an act to amend the Marine Liability Act. This is not my riding's greatest concern, but it does show that I give thought to the bills that are important to this House.

I have reservations about the nature of this particular law as it brings out some of the dilatory nature of the government. This law is acting on a 2005 report.

It is important that the House and the government address some of the less glamorous sides of government. However, I think the laws that we have seen coming through the transportation and infrastructure committee of late are laws that could have been and should have been addressed some time ago and could have been and should have been part of some animated discussion in terms of setting standards.

I think they find themselves less subject to that because of the long time it has taken for the government of the day to actually address the business of the day. For people even lightly concerned with the affairs of the country, it has now become commonplace to recognize that the Conservative government has been very occupied with its own politics and its angling for power. The actual day-to-day running of government and moving forward with the business of government have lost out in very significant measure.

The bill before us today addresses some significant things in the sense of conventions to which Canada has made itself a signatory. It addresses a glaring gap in the liability coverage with respect to adventure tourism as it relates to the Maritimes, our various coasts and their ability to continue. People know that the whole move toward ecotourism in terms of employment and so on leaves those operators disadvantaged. The Conservative government has put a whole range of the public interest on a slow boat that will only come into harbour when it is in the political interest of the government, not the public interest. This is a hallmark of the government. It is not just the public interest, but some very specific parts of the country that suffer.

I predict that this is going to become increasingly recognized as a measure of some of the disappointment that people have with the government, because this is a signature. We can look at the relationship between laws like this one and others. Currently before committee is another law looking at Arctic waters and the extension of the 100-mile limit to a 200-mile limit. There was a consensus on that some time ago. There is also some work being done around changes to some of the remote airports.

A lot of these things could have been and should have been addressed by the House some time ago, but they did not fit the mode of the government. People may wonder is it not the job of the government to simply govern. That is not what the government of the day saw as its main reason for being here. Instead, led by the Prime Minister, it uses every opportunity and every ounce of its power and every aspect of privilege to introduce things that advance it in public opinion and give it a better chance to win government.

A year or two ago many reasonable Canadians would have called that something of an overemphasis, that that is not exactly how they understood the government and its particular brand of conservatism. I think it is now fairly well entrenched with the Canadian public that there is an opportunism that trumps the public interest.

We need to have some reasonable level of debate. For example, there are nuggets in this legislation that speak to levels of liability and adopting international conventions to establish them. Some of the ones that are fixed do increase, but this is a complex bill that addresses crafts of different sizes, from canoes or paddle-powered boats up to tankers weighing hundreds of tonnes and those that also carry bunker fuel for their propulsion.

This is a long overdue consideration of the pollution protections for our coastal waters and how well they conform. We can be fairly guaranteed that ships of a certain size will have registration and insurance once this law comes into effect and two of the international conventions that are waiting on this law come into effect in terms of guaranteed licensing and insurance. This is the result of a report in 2005 and we stand here in 2009 coming only to its first deliberation.

Again, it is important to consider that this is part of a pattern. To be reasonable and fair, we must take a look at the government's own accountability reports in areas like infrastructure. In 2007-08, according to the government's own report on infrastructure, there is a strong indication that only about 5% of the dollars budgeted for that year actually was distributed.

The government should have focused more on bills such as the one before us today, Bill C-7, on the actual running of government, actually getting dollars out, getting laws modified and passed, keeping up with the business of government, the unglamorous side, the non-political side. The ratio is what we have to fulfill if we are not going to end up gumming up the works, which is the situation I humbly submit the government of the day now finds itself in.

Not having been interested in running good government, it now finds itself with a backlog of public interest items that have to be reckoned with. Its agenda up to now has really been to sustain itself in power and hopefully propel itself into a majority, but now that agenda stands exposed. It stands somewhat weakened and instead of being able to play Whac-A-Mole with the various issues that pop up every day, there is a heck of a lot of governing that has to be reckoned with.

In not spending 95% of infrastructure dollars, in not bringing forward this bill sooner, Canadians have not been served well. That is the simple and clear matter of it. Canadians wonder why the government is not taking care of a variety of initiatives.

Canadians would be disturbed to know, for example, that some of the bills that have come forward to deal with some of the concerns, not just regionalized in places such as Vancouver but around community safety and so on, have been to this House before, have been offered consensus support by the parties before, but for its own agenda, incredibly for a government that would portray itself as having an abiding interest in some level of community safety, the government has actually held onto those bills. It has delayed them so that it could go to the polls and talk about them as not having been passed.

If we look at the various parliamentary manipulations around bills presented to this House, we will find that to be accurate and to be the case. It is a government again that has really broken new ground for the high ratio of incredibly intensive political considerations of its actions. There is no denying that every government that brings things forward needs to have a consideration for the well-being of the opinion of the public, but this is a whole different level that knocks out what many of the constituents who sent all of us here would see as reasonable or fair in the face of our overall obligations.

With respect to the Marine Liabilities Act and the Federal Courts Act that makes these consequential amendments, this says to the people who, for example, have been waiting for adventure tourism for these five years that we are going to get around to it, that this actually may be in the purview of the government to do some of the heavy lifting on some of the things that need to get done. We can also sense, as we have at committee, a certain lack of enthusiasm of the government for that job of finding where it is it can move things forward on behalf of Canadians.

The biggest illustration of this perhaps is in the recent business around the federal budget. The government, in its wisdom, thought it would bring in an agenda that would cut $5 billion, but it turned into an $18 billion agenda of deficit financing, of incentives and of stimulus. Whether it comes to that moment of the day or a bill like this one, I think all fair-minded Canadians are asking themselves whether the government really means it, if it is being compelled to do it, if it is not really part of how it has put itself at risk in terms of promises that it has made to Canadians, if it is really a sincere commitment on the part of the government to run the ordinary business.

Clearly Bill C-7 falls into the category of the ordinary running of government. This is the kind of thing we would like to think that parliamentarians out of the limelight would spend some of their time on, making sure that we get it right, making sure that Canada does not fall behind other countries, as apparently we have now, in ratifying the conventions, that we do not fall behind other jurisdictions, as we apparently have, in terms of promoting the ecotourism that comes with marine adventure tours and so on.

Quite frankly they have been unable, without our adherence to the convention, to find liability insurance to the same degree that would make that possible. It is actually a significant constraint on something that should be within a proper discussion of its impact. Every new industry has its ups and downs in terms of what it can do, but it is something that has been touted, quite rightly, as a way for some of the communities that previously depended upon resource exploitation, that have found that a less viable industry, to turn to that and to find themselves better supported in a way that is much more in keeping with the environment.

As the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca spoke about so eloquently earlier, there is an environmental tie-in here, but we can understand as well that there is a lack of enthusiasm on that particular front. This has not been a direction in which the government has tilted its hat. There has been minimal coverage of some of these things.

I want to say to the people who are keeping track of how Parliament is doing that this is a consistent feature of how we find the government. It is just covering the minimal bases and working every angle that it can to advance what its true agenda may still well be.

On this side of the House, we would like to believe there is a capacity in the government to hunker down to business, to look at things like Bill C-7, to look at its obligation to fund infrastructure projects, and to take some of the partisanship and political component out of it.

If one listens, for example, to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, one will know that is not the case. Of the times that the issue has been raised, whether it be here or in committee, it really is around a partisan element.

We hear a defence for the idea that most of the money should go, for example, to Conservative ridings. The government still, in its old-fashioned outlook, looks after its prerogatives even in this hour of need for Canadians. Last December 44,000 people lost their jobs in the construction industry. I do not have a comparable number in terms of how significantly people are affected in the ecotourism industry that is referred to in this bill in terms of marine adventure, but no doubt they would find themselves compromised for a time simply because they did not fit the bulls-eye of the government. That bulls-eye has in it a very high quotient of political self-interest.

We would hope that with the encouragement of Canadians with some of the events of recent months there could actually be some kind of learning in place by the government. That is what Canadians require. They require that the government, for the time that it is there, actually exhibit the capacity to look after a broader range of interests.

Later on today the government will have a chance to express itself with respect to a particular group of immigrants who have the wide support of Canadians as resisters to the Iraq war. They have come from the United States. They have given up an entire lifestyle and connection to their home country out of an ethical and moral crisis that they have experienced. These are people who have spent, as an example of people who live in my riding, as much as 27 years serving their country and their military. Yet, members opposite, because they think that simplification serves their agenda, are prone instead to mischaracterize these people in the negative and look at them as something less than the special case considerations they are.

Having a Canadian sensibility is something that needs to be worked for by a government that is prepared to roll up its sleeves and be open to the new ideas and occurrences that come, not from the people who occupy the chairs in this chamber, but rather from the Canadian public. Instead, for members opposite, that too often has been found lacking.

It is our hope that this bill will find at least some time in committee and that we will look at purposefully and weigh the balance by consulting with some of the groups that are affected by some of the liability coverages put forward in terms of the risks that Canadians have.

It is interesting that there is a whole range of things that still need to be done in terms of international shipping. I think most Canadians would probably sleep a little less easily if they knew that the amount of liability available, for example, for an oil spill is much less than the damage it could cause to our coastline and to our environment. That would be concerning. Yet, as I spoke earlier, there is a conspicuous lack of urgency in terms of driving the government forward to bring us this bill after four years.

There does arise the possibility of hope for how the government may conduct itself in this regard and more broadly. It is in that tempered hope that the government has been put on an effective probation as it needs to be.

We know that left to its own devices it would simply reproduce the record that it had in recent years of being unable to fund infrastructure projects and unwilling to put out a whole range of government actions. We saw in the last budget report a whole range of projects that went underfunded, unspent and unattended to by a government that is simply too concerned and spends too much of its time on its political interests and not enough time on the public's interests.

This bill is only one example of several that have started to slowly come out of the bureaucracy that is a necessary part of government. One can almost hear that word in disdain from the members opposite, but there is a part of governance that is not about what gets into the headlines. I understand there has not been a lot of media coverage of this particular bill.

Therein lies some of the reasons the government has taken so long to bring this forward. Nowhere in the coda of the government, of the ethics, of the way it expresses itself is a commitment to do government better, to actually see government work as opposed to castigated, as opposed to put a whole host of imagined ills on what happens to government, but the very idea that government could be made to function better, frankly, even in an enterprise way, to try different ideas and better ideas of making government work better rather than handing it off to some blurry version of the private sector that it has in mind.

Some of the members opposite served in the Mike Harris government in Ontario, the Conservative government in Ontario, and we found, in case after case, what happens when a government is not focused on making government work fully in the public interest. Every day there are people driving on highway 407 that was given off, handed away completely, to the private sector without due valuation for the public interest. It was sold for $3 billion and evaluated for $11 billion not even 12 months later. A complete giveaway.

People do not talk publicly about the justice project, in which some of the members opposite were involved, in terms of current ministers, and yet the justice project ended up with hundreds of millions of dollars spent by a private sector firm on developing a case management system. It ended up in litigation and got exactly zero for the government of the day and governments to follow.

There are other cases of billions of dollars wasted by a particular brand of Conservative that holds government in disdain. I guess what I want to say in terms of the Marine Liability Act, in dealing with the needs that are brought forward here, is an element of vigilance is required, not just on this side of the House but on the public's part as well. In order to understand the government of the day, it is important to understand this predilection that it has towards its own interest.

Some of that has become part of the public characteristic that people have attributed to the Prime Minister, whether fairly or not, but I think it has started to stick as what they see. Most recently some of the public opinion polls say that he is not trusted in terms of the direction of the economy.

I would submit, humbly, to the members opposite that this is part of the problem, that their leadership as well as individual members do not speak in this House about things like how to get infrastructure money to their own communities. They do not say that the gas tax method would get the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in some cases directly to their municipalities, directly to their local needs, because maybe, and I do not wish to ascribe motive, but it seems on the surface of it that they subscribe to the old style of in the back room, slicing up the piece of pie and hoping that their riding will get that. Well, even though there is a propensity to see that money go toward Conservative ridings, it does not necessarily mean that their riding will benefit.

I would submit that just as people want to see us address things, long overdue things like marine liability, they want us to reckon with how to get dollars out in stimulus, dollars that are being borrowed from their grandchildren. That is what happens when money is borrowed, that they would meet that higher standard, that in fact we would see those dollars land out there in products that are worthwhile.

We have yet to hear from a single member in the government party on that subject. In fact, they all voted against their local communities getting a fair share of those infrastructure dollars. Instead, they have submitted to an old fashioned application program that will allow somebody in the back rooms to put their fingerprints on it. They hope it will mean a bigger set of scissors and a bigger chance to actually cut the ribbons and so on, and take credit for it.

I would say to the members opposite, just as this bill should have been in this House some time ago, just as we should have been helping marine tourism previously, just as we should have been ensuring that our environmental protections are as strong as they needed to be in terms of moving us forward sooner, so, too, must there be a different look at how government operates.

There is an increasingly short period of time should the government not see, appreciate and understand that. I would look to the wisdom of the members opposite when it comes to the variety of votes and choices that are coming forward and the considerations they make in their own caucuses to tell the government, and its leadership, plainly, that it is time to look after the people of Canada and not to look after the Conservative Party of Canada over and over again in this place.

I look forward to the chance to dialogue further with members about this bill and obviously, even more important, about the priorities that this bill represents, not just the protection of our marine traffic into Canada, not just the modernization of what we are doing in terms of protecting the environment and advancing some of the newer types of industries, but having this House be effective on behalf of Canadians so that it does not take four years to get a functional bill in front of this House where members can put it in front of committee and bring in the groups that need to look at it.

It may trouble people who are observing us to know that we are not all tasked every day in terms of the government putting in front of us the important issues around the auto sector. We have seen nothing from the government about what it is doing in the auto sector, the forestry sector or infrastructure. It has simply does what it thinks is in its political interests and does not expose it to this House.

To give credit to the United States, it has shown the public what it is doing. The result is that we have no protection in terms of assets pledged for the dollars that we have offered to General Motors, for example, none whatsoever. It was all pledged to the Americans. We look forward--

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the hon. member's comments on Bill C-7. How will passing Bill C-7 help to promote marine protected parks and ocean dragging and stop climate change, about which he spoke so eloquently?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Marine Liability Act and the Federal Courts Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill. Three areas of my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca are surrounded by the beautiful Pacific Ocean. The Straits of Juan de Fuca curve around the southwestern part of my riding. It is truly a gorgeous part of the world and I invite everybody to come down and visit.

This bill is particularly important, not only to my riding but also to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It does have some good parts to it but I will outline some of the flaws, the neglect and the disinterest that the government has applied to our oceans and waterways since it came into power. I also will provide the government with solutions that will enable it to do the right thing and make changes that are reflective of the public interest with respect to the management of our oceans and of our navigable waters.

We know that our oceans provide life. Ninety-seven percent of the world's water is in our oceans, made up of 3% of salt, and 1.35 billion cubic kilometers of water exists in our oceans. From the phytoplankton that provides the cornerstone and the basis of the food pyramid to the larger mammal species, it is truly a remarkable thing to behold.

The oceans are also critically important to our lives. I will go through a number of things that will outline the problems and solutions that affect our oceans that only urgent action will address.

Before I go on, I want to deal with the changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act because they are extremely important to all Canadians. As I said before, navigable waters are designed, if one can navigate through it, it is determined to be a Crown property and therefore subject to federal regulation. To arrest that, the government, in parts of Bill C-10 that it put forward, eliminated environmental assessments with few exceptions for development products on Canadian waterways. Second, it allowed Canadian rivers to be separated into those that were deemed to be worthy of being protected from those that were not deemed to be worthy of being protected. These classifications would be made not in a public forum, but in cabinet, in-House with no public assessment and no public input, in secret. Fourth, these decisions could be made on political expediency without any effort to apply science, research and environmental protection.

In my view we need to, first, restore the existing environmental assessment requirements; second, remove the minister's discretion on major construction projects as listed in the legislation, specifically dams, causeways, bridges and booms; and third, remove the power of government to arbitrarily divide Canada's rivers into those it considers worthy versus those it somehow considers less valuable.

The free passage of Canadians on our waterways goes as far back in history to the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. However, in Bill C-10, the government ripped up that arrangement between the people of our country and their rights to the navigable waters of our nation. This will be a big issue in the next election. The government is now put on notice that it must make the changes or it will pay the price in the next election.

I want to speak to the issue of boats. In many of our ridings, people dump their boats into the ocean and walk away. There is no repercussion whatsoever for individuals who dump their boats into the ocean. These boats are an environmental hazard and a human hazard. In fact, a person in my riding was climbing into one of these boats and died as a result of it.

What the municipalities are finding is that the federal government will not take responsibility for the boats, nor will the individuals, and the province washes its hands. The municipalities now have an environmental problem with no ability to deal with it.

I call upon the government to deal with this issue and develop a process whereby the owners of these boats will be held responsible for removing them and, if they are not removed, the owners will be prosecuted. In my riding of Sooke, British Columbia, we have more than 20 boats that need to be removed because they are a hazard.

The largest boondoggle in Canadian history is about to take place in Victoria. It is a $2 billion sewage treatment plant that is not necessary at all and the science does not support it.

In British Columbia right now we have what is equivalent to secondary sewage treatment. The secondary sewage treatment happens as a result of the natural ebb and flow that exists within the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Contrary to the knowledge of some, sewage goes through, ends in an outfall and is sieved all the way through. Nothing larger than something that is six millimetres in diameter is actually released.

The problem that Victoria has, from an environmental perspective, is that its storm drainage system is fractured and it has become the source of the environmental hazards that we have now. It is a $2 billion infrastructure project of which the public will not get the gains that governments believe they will have. It will not remove the persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, toxins, pathogens and pharmaceuticals that we want to get out.

How do we deal with that? We invest in a storm drainage system and have better source control than what we have, and, for heaven's sake, do not pursue this $2 billion boondoggle that is about to happen in Victoria.

It is not by accident that I have on our side of those who are against this, six chief medical officers in the greater Victoria area who think this is a boondoggle. Eight of the top ocean scientists at the University of Victoria think this is a boondoggle. The responsible sewage treatment group is made up of six chief medical officers and more than ten top ocean scientists.

The government should listen to the science and to listen to the chief medical officers. They are the ones who know. They have the science. This current project is not following the science. I warn the government that it will run into a very serious problem of a $2 billion boondoggle that it will wear unless it deals with the science, listen to the facts and work together with the groups that can put forth the effective infrastructure projects that will deal with the problems that the government and those of us who live in Victoria are deeply concerned about. However, this is not the way to go.

On the issue of the Coast Guard, the government put forth a Coast Guard assessment for Victoria. I must say that the Straits of Juan de Fuca is one of the busiest shipping zones in the entire world. However, what is shocking is that Victoria has no close-by ability to respond with its Coast Guard to a crisis that will occur in and around Victoria. This is a problem that needs to be rectified.

The Coast Guard did an assessment. There are solutions that have been sitting there for years. A 40-plus foot boat is sitting in Sidney doing absolutely nothing. I urge the government to move that boat to Victoria to provide the rapid response that is needed for crises that can and will occur in the Straits of Juan de Fuca.

Ocean traffic is a very big concern for those of us who live on Vancouver Island. All of us know that if a tanker runs aground in the area we will have a catastrophic oil spill. We have had some misinformation and a lack of clarity on this particular issue. I strongly recommend that the government provide clarity on the use of double hulled ships in the straits and to provide an effective conduit for tankers so they will not go through areas that are narrow and where the threat of a tanker to run aground is very high.

That route needs to be established, clarified and communicated to the people of British Columbia. and it should be done as soon as possible.

The Arctic is a serious challenge. We know the government, justifiably, has a new interest in this, which we commend and applaud. However, there are aspects in the Arctic that need to be addressed. One of the central keystone species in the Arctic is a small Arctic cod. That Arctic cod is going to be fished by countries like Finland and that will have catastrophic impacts upon the other species that live in the region.

I will put this into context. This means that one-third of all sea mammal species are threatened or on the brink of extinction. This needs to be addressed because as these species are tied into the web of biodiversity that we have in our world, they are part of the chain of life. If we take out a part of that chain, then the rest of the chain can be negatively affected. We are a part of that food chain. I strongly recommend that the government deal with this.

The next point I want to make is on the issue of forestry practices. People in my province are cutting down trees right to the edge of salmon bearing streams. There is a severe lack of oversight and accountability and the impact is what we are seeing right now and one of the contributing factors of the collapse of our salmon species on the west coast. We do not want to see our fishermen in British Columbia fall to the same fate that happened on the east coast with the collapse of the cod fishery. We need to do things today to prevent the collapse of the salmon fishery on the west coast from happening so we can have a sustainable fishery within Canada on the west coast. I strongly urge the federal government to work with the provincial government to establish enforced forestry practices codes that do not allow companies to deforest right down to the water's edge.

In official development, we have an opportunity to deal with taking the forests of the world and indulge in something called REDD. REDD is a program that pays for critical habitats and forests to not be cut down. This could be part of Copenhagen, part of Kyoto 2. The minister could link up human development with environmental protection. There are solutions to that missing link and we will get to that, I am sure, after question period.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Marine Liability Act and the Federal Courts Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

As we have heard, this is a fairly extensive bill and some would say it is complicated. I am not sure it is completely complicated, but it is a rather extensive bill and it deals with issues of marine liability. I want to read from the summary in the bill to talk about some of the key things that are part of it. There is a section dealing with adventure tourism activities which is an important piece of this legislation, but it is not the part that I wanted to talk about specifically this afternoon.

The bill also amends part 6 of the act to implement the protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, 1992, as well as the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, 2001. It also deals with the ship source oil pollution fund and modernizes the governance of that fund. It also includes general provisions relating to the administration and enforcement of offences under that act and creates a maritime lien for Canadian ship suppliers against foreign vessels and establishes a general limitation period for proceedings not covered by other limitation periods.

I do not purport to be an expert on marine law or marine liability law, but I know that this is an area that is very crucial to Canadians and very crucial to how we protect our environment, how we protect our coastlines, how we protect animals and people who live near those coastlines who might be subjected to the ravages of an oil spill. Some say that this is a housekeeping bill, that it maintains currency with our international obligations and brings Canada's laws up to speed with the international treaties that we have signed and that it makes the language of our Marine Liability Act more up to date. These are important things that we do to keep on top of that, especially given the huge costs involved when there is an oil spill.

The ship source oil pollution fund is also something that is very important. It often applies when there is a mystery spill, when we do not know the source of an oil spill on our coastline or in our harbours in the waters of Canada. It is important that we have that fund, that it operate appropriately, that it meet the needs of our communities, of our coastlines, of our industries when there is that kind of oil spill.

This legislation increases the liability from an amount of $500 million to $1.5 million and that is a very important step. We have to make sure that the companies that cause pollution, that are responsible parties for oil spills and for bunker oil spills are held liable for their actions and that the principle of polluter pay is enforced in these important instances.

We know of the horrific damage that a significant spill can engender. We saw that with the Exxon Valdez, and on the east coast of Canada with the Arrow. We are lucky that we have not seen on significant tanker accidents on our shores as those were in recent years. We have seen many other spills along our coast and they do require our attention and laws to ensure that liability is properly assessed and that the responsible parties are made to pay the cost of cleanup. We must ensure that the responsible parties are made to face appropriate fines for activities where they are found to be liable for those accidents.

We know about the big oil spills, but a few years back after a smaller spill in Vancouver harbour, in Burrard Inlet, I asked for information about spills that happen on the coast of British Columbia. I received a document that indicated that through all of 2002 to mid-2007 there had been 4,130 oil spills on the coast of British Columbia. Some of them were very small, only a litre or so of oil, but some of them were much larger than that; in fact, 151 of them involved spills of greater than 1,000 litres.

Those are significant spills. Any spill of hundreds of litres at least is a significant activity. These kinds of spills happen all the time on the British Columbia coast. They are significant incidents, each and every one of them. They can affect industry on the coast. They can affect recreation. They can affect birds and mammals and other animals on the coastline of British Columbia. They can affect our enjoyment of the coastline and the environment. I am very concerned about the number of those spills.

It says something good about our reporting system that we know how many happened, where they happened and now much oil was involved in those incidents, but we have to work to ensure that they do not take place. However, if and when they do take place, we have to ensure that the system that is in place for dealing with them, the system for dealing with the liability caused in them, is the best it can possibly be. Proper consideration of this legislation will go some way to improving that system and improving the mechanisms that are in place.

Specifically, I want to talk about what happened off the coast of my riding of Burnaby--Douglas in July 2006. There was a significant spill into Burrard Inlet from a ship that was in Vancouver harbour. I got involved in this incident mainly because of concerns around some of the effects of what had happened.

I want to read a description of the actual occurrence that is taken from notes prepared from a meeting of the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spills Task Force in October 2006. A representative of the British Columbia ministry of the environment, Graham Knox, reported on this July 4, 2006 spill in Burrard Inlet in Vancouver harbour off the coast of Burnaby--Douglas.

Mr. Knox reported:

The MV André had spilled bunker fuel in Burrard Inlet on July 4, 2006. The spill volume turned out to be larger than first reported, and the [B.C.] Ministry [of the environment] was not notified promptly by the Canadian Coast Guard. Some birds were oiled, which raised an issue of Provincial vis-à-vis federal authorities. In addition, the wildlife organization hired to rehabilitate the birds was not paid for their efforts because the Responsible Party (RP) refused to cover all of the costs.

This report of the oil spill in Burrard Inlet on July 4, 2006 notes that there were some problems in the response to that oil spill, around establishing liability and around establishing the role of the responsible party in the cleanup. It is very important that we examine that and make sure that when these kinds of oil spills happen, the response is thorough and complete. This legislation we are debating today has a piece of that puzzle.

I want to talk about what the outcome of that was with regard to liability and the responsibility of the company that owned the ship. I am going to quote from a report on the InterShip Navigation Training Center website. It reports on marine incidents. It is used for training people in the shipping industry on how to appropriately respond to various kinds of incidents that shipping companies and their employees face.

This site's report on the incident in July 2006 states:

M/V ANDRE (Hong Kong, 17000gt)'s company pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $80,000 for spilling 7.5 tons of fuel oil in the harbor while bunkering in Vancouver BC in July 2006. Of the fine, $5,000 will go to the Canadian Wildlife Service for research and conservation at a migratory bird habitat. The HK owner is also responsible for cleanup costs estimated at $700,000. The reason for the spill is an open valve that should have been closed, -- a mistake by a crewmember.

This report is dated the 30th of November, 2007.

We can see the result of this oil spill in Vancouver harbour. First, the extent of the spill was not properly assessed by the Coast Guard and reported to the B.C. Ministry of the Environment. There were problems in establishing jurisdiction over some of the bird and wildlife victims of the oil spill. A court case resulted from this. A fine was paid and some of that money went to wildlife, migratory bird habitat conservation. There were also significant cleanup costs of $700,000 for what was a relatively small spill, but not an insignificant spill. It is good that the bill would raise the liability limits from $500,000 to $1.5 billion, particularly when we see the cost of this relatively small spill.

I want to talk about what happened with the wildlife in the case of the spill in Burrard Inlet. The problem arose when local Wildlife Rescue Association and Burrard Clean, the organization that comes into play immediately when there is an oil spill in Vancouver Harbour, came in. Burrard Clean would also contact organizations to take care of any birds or animals affected by the spill. It contacted an organization called Focus Wildlife, which began the rescue and rehabilitation of the birds and animals affected. The local Burnaby based Wildlife Rescue Association was involved in assisting Focus Wildlife in this operation.

The concern was that the responsible party, the shipping company, was unwilling to pay for the full extent of the cleanup related to the animals and birds affected. There was confusion and a lot of bickering back and forth about how much would be paid for, how extensive and when the responsibility for the rehabilitation of the animals and birds affected would end. It took a lot of pressure from the community, the local member of Parliament, myself, and from others to ensure that this cleanup and the animals affected were not abandoned completely.

It put Focus Wildlife in a very difficult position. The responsible party, the shipping company, was refusing to continue payment for the rehabilitation of the birds and animals affected to the point that international standards would require. It wanted out long before that stage was reached and before it was ensured that the animals had been fully rehabilitated and were ready for release back into the environment.

It was a serious issue and there was not a good resolution to it. It took a lot of energy of local people, the folks who were concerned about that, to continue the rehabilitation and rescue efforts for the birds and wildlife affected.

The fact that Focus Wildlife was not paid fully for its efforts was very significant. However, we appreciate the fact that it continued its efforts despite the confusion about how payment would be made,

At the time, I wrote to the minister of the environment to say that I thought the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada should cover the costs of Focus Wildlife, including any shortfall between the cost of its services and what the responsible party was willing to pay, including any charges after July 14, which was when the company wanted to pull out. That was ten days after the spill occurred. I said it was necessary that they cover those costs until the conclusion of treatment and rehabilitation of all the affected birds. International standards should be governed by that. We have to ensure that international standard is the full policy of the Canadian Wildlife Service with regard to such oil spills. The birds and other wildlife affected by this kind of environmental accident, environmental disaster, must be treated as the innocent victims.

The other thing is, in this kind of spill, it became a curious federal-provincial jurisdictional dispute where the province was responsible for non-migratory birds and the federal government was responsible for migratory birds.

In this circumstance Canada geese and cormorants were largely affected. However, the Canada geese in Vancouver harbour really do not migrate anywhere any more, yet somehow they were the responsibility of the federal government. Cormorants tend to get around a bit more even though they are considered non-migratory. They were considered the provincial birds. Therefore, there was confusion on that angle.

There was also confusion about what to do with the Canada geese. Some folks believed they were a nuisance in B.C. and it would be alright to let a few of them die off as a result of this accident, which I found to be a completely unacceptable approach. I would urge, and have urged, that all animals affected by such oil spills be treated as the victims and rehabilitated to the best of our ability.

We also need to have a clear policy on the euthanization of affected birds and mammals, as well, to ensure that every effort is put into their rescue and rehabilitation and that euthanization is used only when it is shown by veterinarians to be impossible to rehabilitate. It should not used for other reasons in this kind of disaster.

That whole incident led me to propose a motion in the House, and it is still on the order. It states:

That...the government should immediately strengthen the National Policy on Oiled Birds and Oiled Species at Risk, and all Oil Spill Response Plans by ensuring that: (a) the Canadian Wildlife Service has the mandate and authority to ensure that all migratory birds, species at risk and other wildlife affected by an oil spill are captured, cleaned and rehabilitated; (b) euthanasia be used only when medically necessary; and (c) the responsible party for an oil spill be assessed the full cost of the capture, cleaning and rehabilitation process.

This is an important aspect of marine liability and we need to be very clear about it in our policies and legislation. I hope, when this important bill, Bill C-7, gets to committee, these implications of marine liability will also be part of the discussion there.

We need the most up-to-date, modern and comprehensive marine liability laws that we can possibly have. I believe, and many people in my constituency would also agree, that birds and animals must also be part of the provisions of our marine liability legislation and any of the legislation or policies that flows from it. That is why it is important to also consider the question of the policies of the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada surrounding oiled birds and mammals.

While this is complex legislation, I do not think that complexity should be debilitating to members of the House or members of the committee. It is important that we understand the implications of the legislation. We need to update the legislation in light of our international obligations, and that is clearly something we should be obligated to do.

The increase of liability amounts is also very important when we consider the costs of oil spill cleanups, both major incidents and minor incidents. The example of the Burnaby oil spill and the Burrard Inlet oil spill in July 2006, being a relatively small one, also shows the huge expense involved even with a spill of that size.

We also need to ensure we enforce the whole notion of polluter pay, that responsible parties must be required to take responsibility for their actions and accidents they cause, that there be no way out of it and that they be required to follow through on this responsibility.

The universal declaration on animal welfare, in which Canada is not yet participating in its development, would be another place where Canada could follow through on some of the implications of this kind of policy.

As I said, it is important to get this legislation to the committee where it can be thoroughly discussed and reviewed. I hope the situation of the oil spills in Burrard Inlet is instructive for our folks on the committee. I hope we can ensure the legislation addresses all oil spills, large and small, that occur on our coastlines and ensure we have the best possible liability provisions in place should those kinds of accidents happen.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-7. It is a subject which I have spoken on in the last Parliament. I do not think this bill is an easy read at all.

As a preamble to this, I would like to indicate to members that when bills like this come before us and they have consequential amendments to other acts, it takes a fair bit of work. I think the other acts to which this bill would make some changes are probably another 200 to 300 pages worth of legislative material.

Some of the changes here are referred to as “consequential” changes. To consider a consequential amendment to another act means that one has to have an understanding of the context in which the changes are being made. More often than not, it would be something that members would have to consult upon.

With that bit of preamble, the conclusion is that this bill has some fundamentals which I think members will understand and they will look to their critics for some explanations. There are some subtleties within the bill which have some important ramifications.

We have just heard the debate on Bill C-2 where we were talking about a free trade agreement and one of the industries being impacted was the shipbuilding industry. Of course, there are many other industries which would have some favourable or unfavourable impacts depending on the sector that one is looking at. It is difficult.

There is no perfect solution, no perfect trade deal, but certainly we are a trading nation. I hope that members will consider that in the same vein that I hope they will consider the provisions of Bill C-7, which is an act to amend the Marine Liability Act and the Federal Courts Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

This particular bill clarifies the liability rules and regulations with respect to pollution damage from marine vessels and marine transport of passengers. It will provide greater protection for Canadians in the event of marine accidents.

Most of the changes in the act will codify commitments that we have made to international conventions, and there are many. For instance, in my years on the environment committee, in dealing with the Great Lakes and marine liability with regard to alien invasive species, even that isolated issue turned out to be very complicated when dealing with the international joint agency that deals with matters which occur on waters that are shared with the United States.

Issues such as liability of adventure tourism and adequate coverage in the event of marine oil spills are issues that we believe will need to be examined further by the committee.

Members will know that this is a bill which requires listening to what the experts have to say to get the basis of the areas of concern, the interpretation of some of the consequential amendments, and to look at the precedence as well as some of the risk areas which Canada faces. Certainly, in our history there have been some very serious matters with regard to marine liability issues as they relate to the federal courts.

This bill proposes to clarify and update the liability responsibilities of marine transport with respect to the carriage of passengers and oil pollution damage. The changes proposed will make our marine laws consistent with the international protocols.

Specifically, as I fan through the bill, the critical area is changing the liability limits for commercial and public purpose vessels carrying passengers to a capital limit of $350,000 per passenger. The amendments further invalidate waivers or any other contracts that might relieve operators of their liability to passengers. The bill also introduces regulations that may require operators of commercial and public purpose vessels to maintain insurance to cover liability to passengers.

As one can see, we can very briefly capsulize the significant changes that are being introduced in this piece of legislation and understand that once we have looked at the legislation in other jurisdictions and the protections referred to in various international covenants or protocols, we can understand why this is an important area for us to update our marine liability legislation.

The changes do make some exceptions for vehicles rescuing shipwrecked or distressed persons, inflatable vessels and vessels using paddles or oars, such as those used in adventure touring. These changes make our legislation consistent with the international convention of liability for maritime claims.

The bill also amends the Marine Liability Act to implement the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution. Compensation funds can compensate those damaged by oil spills up to $545 million per incident. The damage from oil spills, however, can be much greater. Bill C-7 allows Canada to join the international supplementary fund protocol that increases the maximum compensation for oil spill damages to $1.5 billion.

This is obvious in today's world with some of the history that we have had with regard to the transport of cargo, which has environmental risks, such as oil spills. We have seen the implications not only to marine life but in fact to whole ecosystems. The cleanup required is tremendously expensive. This bill would provide the mechanism whereby there would be the so-called insurance to take care of the extraordinary costs that may be incurred.

The international funds derive their funding from levies placed on ports importing oil. Canada's levies would increase to approximately 28¢ per tonne of oil received. So there is a participatory cost, but it is effectively like paying insurance. I believe this is probably a very important element of the bill which I think members would understand should be supported.

Bill C-7 also includes changes such as including damage compensation for bunker oil pollution and amending provisions related to administrative and enforcement of offences.

In the bill the proposed amendment will result largely from a maritime law reform discussion paper that was released by Transport Canada in May 2005 and the subsequent consultations that took place with many stakeholders in all sectors of the marine community.

Just as a side note, I should indicate that we have a large number of pieces of legislation which have had some false starts in this place, not being able to get through all the necessary stages of the legislative process. It is unfortunate because we do have important legislation which in fact is way behind where it should be.

A couple that are very dear to my heart are from our own Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Both the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act are 25 years old and have not been updated. With regard to the Privacy Act, and knowing the problems with identity theft and other cyber crimes, it actually came in when the best computer we could get at the time was the Commodore 64.

We need to be very vigilant about allowing legislation to languish because of Parliament having difficulty in keeping itself focused. We must ensure that essential changes that come before Parliament are dealt with expeditiously, as necessary, and get to committee in order to deal with some of the substantive questions that members will have and should have.

However, when it gets down to it, we cannot afford to delay legislation in this place, particularly when it has had false starts in the past.

With regard to the importance to Canada, Canada does have some of the busiest waterways in the world. For example, each year our waterways pass through 365 million tonnes of international cargo, 7 million tonnes of oil, 7 million tonnes of domestic cargo, 40 million passengers, 16 million automobiles on ferries and 1.5 million people on cruise ships. The liability provisions and the insurance provisions are extremely important to have in place for the protection of all stakeholders, individuals and businesses alike.

The intent of the legislation, according to Transport Canada officials, is to set limits on liability and establish uniformity by balancing the interests of shipowners and other parties. This is something that we come across all the time. It is very rarely that there is a linear approach to any bill. There are usually other stakeholders who have different forces on them. We saw that in the debate earlier on Bill C-2 with regard to the trade bill. There may be some benefits to one industry, like pharmaceuticals, but the shipbuilding industry would be at a disadvantage.

Balancing the interests of the stakeholders is always very difficult and it takes some time to understand the basic principles. However, in this regard, it is fairly straightforward. I know we will hear from other members about the importance of securing and protecting our transportation obligations with regard to safety, security and protection for all all stakeholders involved.

The government has presented this bill as an environmental protection act. In fact, it is not exactly that. In the event of an oil pollution spill, civil liability of the owner of the vessel, combined with Canada's participation in the international oil pollution compensation funds, can compensate those damages by oil spills by up to $545 million per incidence, as I said. Damage from the oil spills, however, can be greater and, of course, the supplementary protocol fund can provide that protection up to $1.5 billion. However, this may not be adequate for oil spills. The Exxon Valdez oil spill, for example, cost an estimated $2.5 billion to clean up. It was an extraordinary amount of money but in a very sensitive area. We can understand why there are still other considerations for us with regard to even the coverages that are available. Are they reasonable and does it make for good government?

The government seems to feel that this bill would better protect Canadians from oil spills and assure polluters actually pay for what they do. However, in the real world, whenever there are costs, like the levies for the international protocol and the supplementary coverage, those costs of a business are ultimately passed on to the users of the service and therefore passed on to Canadians. We cannot isolate this and somehow consider, as we often have, that all of a sudden the owners of vessels who transport people or goods and materials are somehow the bad guys and we can dump all the problems off on them. In the real world they exist because they are providing goods and services in the best interests of Canada, which includes in the best interests of its people.

I am not really buying in very strongly about how this would protect Canadians from oil spills, et cetera. It is not an environment bill but it would help to, I guess indirectly, provide the coverage to ensure there is a mitigating factor in terms of being able to remediate any of the damage that may be caused by some of the incidents referred to in the bill.

The last section has to do with amendments that provide for some exceptions to vessels using paddles and oars, such as those used in adventure touring. It is an interesting area and something that is somewhat frivolous but these kinds of vessels are a thriving industry in many regions of Canada. To impact them when the risks associated with high liability impacts by some accidents is out of line with the kinds of things that are contemplated by the bill and what motivated the bill itself.

Those are just a few of the issues on which I am sure members will be commenting. I hope members will be supporting the bill to go to committee where we should look at some of the issues related to the coverages and the consequential amendments to other acts. This is something, admittedly, that is very difficult for a member at this stage, at second reading, to have been able to do the kind of work that is necessary. Bills come flying through the House to us and to access those bills and look at the consequential amendments in the context in which they are meant makes it very difficult for an individual member.

We have good critics who take the time to do this work and have addressed the legislation and the number of schedules and annexes. I notice that there are some areas within the bill that would be enforced immediately on royal assent, but there are other sections that would be deferred or delayed until order in council comes up, which means there will be some regulations made that will need to be dealt with.

It is an interesting issue. I have often thought that members of Parliament are asked to vote on bills that require extensive regulations and yet those regulations are not even prepared or exposed to the members until after the legislation passes at all stages in both chambers. That is why there is a scrutiny of regulations committee. Every regulation that is made must be pursuant to an enabling provision within the legislation and it should not be a case of backdoor legislation, as it were, changing the intent or adding new elements to the bill that would constitute making law through regulations. Some refer to it as cabinet made law.

The scrutiny of regulations committee's job is to ensure that, as regulations come through, they are checked to ensure the regulations are properly enabled within the legislation. Therefore, members should not be overly concerned about that.

However, I would make one recommendation to hon. members with regard to regulations generally. In an area where it is unclear in the legislation as to the scope or the intent of the amendment to the legislation, members must have the opportunity to make either the recommendation or an amendment to say that such amendment must go to the appropriate standing committee for its comment or perhaps its approval if it is serious enough. It is something that has happened in the past with regard to the reproductive technologies act that we spent a lot of time on pursuant to the royal commission on reproductive technologies. It was going to take two years to do the regulations and all those regulations had to go through the health committee before they could be gazetted and promulgated.

We can see that if there are areas in which there are potentially serious consequences to regulations, members should make every effort to seek from officials clarification as to the timeline, the importance, the significance and whether there is other information that may impact our assessment of the effectiveness of the proposed legislation.