This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in December 2009.
John Baird Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
The House proceeded to the consideration of 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 reported (with amendments) from the committee.
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed, without debate, to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON
moved that the bill as amended be concurred in.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
(Motion agreed to)
When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?
Some hon. members
Agreed.
Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON
moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.
Brian Jean ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to begin the third reading debate of Bill C-7, the Marine Liability Act. Let me first begin by saying that this bill has found support among many members of the House and across all party lines. I would like to express my thanks to the critics from all parties in relation to moving this bill forward for the benefit of Canadians.
I was very pleased to see that we were able to work so productively at the transport committee phase and I hope that that spirit of cooperation and collaboration will continue here in the Chamber. I do believe it will. At committee, we heard concerns from the tourism industry and legal experts. In several cases, we moved to address those concerns and strengthen this bill to make it even more effective as a piece of legislation for the benefit of all Canadians.
Indeed, all parties understand that there is a need to move forward on this bill to provide this country with the most comprehensive liability and compensation regime while balancing the concerns of all impacted stakeholders. We heard that this will be of great benefit to the industry and will impact all stakeholders across the country. This bill will significantly modernize the Marine Liability Act and offer greater protection from the risks associated with marine transportation from coast to coast.
For example, this bill will do four major things. First, it will significantly increase compensation for Canadians from damages caused by oil spills, which I am personally very excited about. I know that people across Canada are very interested in hearing more about that. Second, it will guarantee compensation for passengers on Canadian ships through compulsory insurance for shipowners. Third, it will recognize the commercial realities under which the marine adventure tourism sector must operate and make sure that the sector remains viable. We heard this from experts as well as people in the industry themselves. Finally, it will protect the interests of Canadian businesses that supply foreign ships that do not pay their bills through a form of lien, much like a builder's lien or a logger's lien.
Bill C-7 is the result of extensive consultations with stakeholders. I am pleased to inform the House that the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities also conducted its own thorough examination of the bill. The committee heard strong support from a number of stakeholders and experts in the areas of marine law and maritime transport. It made appropriate changes where indicated in the bill. The witnesses before the committee spoke of the balance that Bill C-7 needs to achieve by protecting the interests of the marine industry and of the Canadian public.
We heard loud and clear from witnesses that it was time for Canada to move forward with this type of legislation and for Canada to join the rest of the world in its move forward as well. As I said, the most exciting part is that this bill addresses the gaps in the liability and compensation regime for oil spills. As Bill C-7 is a priority for this government and would significantly advance maritime law in Canada, we are excited about its passage.
I would again like to thank and acknowledge the hard work of my colleagues on the committee. I hope that through continued collaboration on both sides of the House we will be able to move this bill forward without any further delay. Together, we can take one more step to modernize this important piece of legislation and protect Canadians for years to come.
I would like to thank the members of the committee one final time because it has been a very appropriate bill to push through in such a quick nature. Indeed, with their help, we will move it through the House.
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-7. Before I begin, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary because we are in the mode of thanking and because it is the right thing to do, acknowledging the fact that parliamentarians from both sides of the House and indeed from all four parties worked collaboratively on putting forth legislation that is in the public's interest.
The parliamentary secretary wanted to talk about four things and he touched on them very quickly. During the second reading debate, I addressed some issues that I thought needed to be looked at in some detail in order to bring forward legislation that would be commensurate with the betterment of the Canadian citizen's interest with respect to the Marine Liability Act.
Some of those issues were touched in committee. When I say “some of those were touched”, it is because when we bring issues to the committee, the committee brings forward stakeholders and other witnesses, interested parties, individuals and experts in the field in order to illuminate the issue, so that members of Parliament can penetrate on matters in a much more significant way than their own preparation might allow them to do. Putting partisanship aside, that is in fact what happened in this case.
Yes, as the parliamentary secretary said, we did want to bring forward legislation that brought Canada into the same standards of international practice with respect both to marine liabilities, the carriage of goods and services, but primarily goods, and to make penalties for contravention of the act, especially when it related to environmental damage up to a standard that would provide a real penalty.
We did look at these things, and this particular legislation does increase the penalty amount, for example, on commercial or public purpose vessels carrying passengers to a per capita limit of about $350,000 per passenger. We did not find much difficulty in that regard. We were more concerned about a series of other practices that are associated with, and may come as a result of, some of the activities that are conducted on a commercial basis.
To that end, we brought forward to the committee a variety of interested parties, including, for example, the Canadian Shipowners Association and International Ship-Owners Alliance of Canada.
Interestingly, they did not have a great deal to offer with respect to changes on a format that they thought only brought them forward to be competitive. I might say from a very personal point of view, I do not think that the punitive component of insurance and liabilities on the marine side was all that onerous for them, but it seemed to be consistent with the international practices that the rest of their competitors were operating under, and in fact did not diminish the protections that Canada, geographically, and Canadians on an individual human basis would suffer from.
We accepted their positions and it would appear that in many respects this legislation does make it easier for our own producers of services to compete in the international marketplace, but the committee was really looking at the issues of environmental degradation as a result of accidents in Canadian waters.
We noted, of course, that the Exxon Valdez, was probably the most serious of these shipwrecks that created untold damage that will carry on literally for decades, and cost enormous amounts of moneys, billions of dollars, in order to clean up and mitigate.
We did not address that sufficiently in my view. The changes that would have been required in order to get this bill through the House would probably have caused the bill to drag on and be delayed for an excessive period of time.
The committee made a decision that it would accept the limits that are proposed in the bill, such as they were, as sufficient movement forward in order to give all of those ship owners and carriers the opportunity to see that we are certainly much more serious than we were before because we have raised the limits, notwithstanding the fact that some might say that those limits are not enough.
We have delivered the message through this legislation so everyone understands that we want more due diligence. We want protocols put in place. The liabilities are going to be a lot more onerous than they have been in the past. Therefore, they need be able to up their insurance, or establish a care for the environment, a care for our shores, a care for our waters approach to doing business as they carry their products through our waters.
There was a series of amendments that did not come forward, but that reflected the interests that many Canadians from all parts of the country but in particular in our northern waters wanted us to address. They deal with not only the passage of vessels through their waters but the manufacturers of said vessels.
As we know and as we heard earlier on in the debate on environmental issues and protection of the environment, global warming is a fact of life that people are becoming more and more aware is not something that we are going to change overnight.
One of the effects of global warming is that the Northwest Passage, our northern waters, may become much more navigable not in the immediate future but in the future measured by the amount of time it takes to build some of these huge vessels, ocean-going carriers, as well as ice-breakers in order to allow countries like Chile, Russia, even the United States and other countries that see the advantage of going through our northern waters from a transportation point of view, in getting their goods to market.
Whether those markets be in Asia or in Europe, it would appear that our waters may provide all of those shippers with an opportunity to have a huge savings on the transportation cost side.
Some of the members from my own caucus brought forward some views at committee that addressed the issues of our aboriginal population in northern Canada and the protection of the environment in the northern parts of Canada.
Some of those views, while expressed at committee, have not found their way through amendments in this House, so I raise some of them today. I think some of my colleagues from the north, especially my colleague from Yukon, may take the opportunity to enumerate them as he addresses this issue at third reading. I look forward to hearing some of those expressions once again.
In addition to addressing the environmental impacts, which are not solely addressed by the insurance costs and the penalties that are going to be imposed through this legislation, in Canada and around the world, quite frankly, there is the issue of prevention, delivering the message that shippers need to use vessels that are seaworthy, crews that are appropriately prepared, trained and ready to utilize their vessels in a safe and efficient fashion as they go through our waters.
That is the essence of what this legislation aims to do. At least, from members of the Liberal caucus at committee, this is the focus of our issues on this legislation. The legislation, as we dealt with it at committee, did meet those concerns, and as a result we felt a certain level of comfort in supporting it, not just at second reading before it came to committee but at third reading as well, as we now find ourselves.
There is a series of other issues where we had concerns and we moved some amendments in this regard. I want to share them with you, Mr. Speaker, because I know that you are going to be interested in ensuring that members of Parliament do the work they need to do in committee to address the issues that Canadian citizens individually and collectively want to have addressed by their parliamentarians.
While the legislation addresses the issue of liability, insurance claims, appropriate funds at play and legislation to ensure that people abide by the contractual arrangements they have made as they operate in Canadian waters and on Canadian territory, it appeared to us in the Liberal caucus that we needed to reinforce at least two other measures. One of them is associated with non-compliance of contractual obligations and the practices of some of the shippers and the ship owners--sometimes they are not exactly the same individuals--and the liabilities they might or might not accept or forgo as they move in and out of Canadian waters.
When the member for Brampton West speaks to this later on, he will itemize the way the liens were dealt with in this legislation. It was our view that Canadians are put at a commercial disadvantage by the way that liens are treated in this legislation. I leave it for members to follow his discussion when he rises in the House in the not too distant future, probably before the end of today and if not today, then tomorrow. It will be most enlightening.
Let me point to the fact that the Canadian Bar Association, the national maritime law section, and the Canadian Maritime Law Association were impressed by the amendments the member brought forward and ones that he addressed on behalf of our caucus and parliamentarians with respect to the position that Canadian businesses would have relative to businesses originating in other places. Everything is very mobile on vessels on water and in Canadian ports. He focused, as we focused, on protecting Canadian business interests. His definitions and concerns were unfortunately not viewed with the same kind of appreciation by members of the government or the other opposition parties. However, they did accept that it was a view that was legitimate enough to be heard.
Interestingly, the Canadian Bar Association and Canadian Maritime Law Association felt that not only were the points made by my colleague from Brampton West absolutely apropos, and I hope they will accept this little jibe in a friendly fashion rather than in a negative malicious one, but in true lawyerly fashion they felt that it would not matter if they were not accepted because there were remedies in other courts. Canadian citizens are more interested in making sure that the law is much more specific rather than saying, “I can find remedies if I can get a lawyer who may be expert, who can find a judge and who will be prepared in his turn to hold the ship until I get my commercial interests addressed”.
At any rate, Mr. Speaker, those amendments were debated hotly in our committee. I say this because I know that you are interested in knowing that committees do not just receive things and rubber-stamp them, but they actually do their work. Those amendments did not go forward unfortunately, so we found ourselves in a position where we either accepted the bill in its totality and what it was designed to do, i.e., to generate greater protection for the Canadian environment, greater protection for Canadian businesses and greater protection for Canadian citizens, either we were going to hold it up or start to move forward. We adopted an incremental approach, one that says we will bring our concerns forward, as we did in committee and as we will in the course of this debate, and at the same time accept the legislation for what it will be.
The second item that created some concern for us was the issue that I am sure other members will address but that the parliamentary secretary has already alluded to, and that is the issue of adventure tourism.
Representatives from Wilderness Tours as well as from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada talked in terms of the kinds of insurance that are not available to adventure tourism operators. In fact, adventure tourism operators find it impossible in some instances to get the appropriate insurance liabilities in place for them to operate. It is with some regret that I would say we have to accept what this bill is trying to do and what it concludes in doing, and that is, it eliminates their legal responsibility to their customers by essentially saying they no longer have to have insurance as long as they can get an informed consent and a waiver before a potential client engages in the activity.
There are some in this country who think that is okay because a consenting adult engaging in adventure tourism, which by its nature is highly risk-oriented, cannot really hold somebody else responsible if there is an accident or, God forbid, a death. The person's family or close ones would have no recourse to the courts for liabilities if the person had engaged in one of those activities.
Personally, I have a different view, but it is not the view that carried the day in committee. For me, it is an abrogation of a responsibility on the part of government to say that if someone agrees to take all of those risks, the operator will not be held responsible for anything. I realize that is a philosophical position and I am willing to accept that people have a different view, but I do not like it.
Where I think we have some serious challenges is in, at the same time, absolving operators who might operate without the appropriate preparation and training of their staff and without the appropriate publication of the risks associated with something other than adventure tourism, like whitewater rafting, et cetera, for passengers who are viewers or passive passengers in these kinds of activities, without any recourse at all. The operators would be entitled to be held safe harmless from any future litigation provided they give an indication, they publicize an indication or they verbally tell people that people who engage in that activity are taking their body and their life in their own hands and they absolve the operators of all liabilities.
One of the most compelling of the witnesses, a local individual, indicated that over the course of the last 20-some years, his operation had paid, I believe it was, in excess of $1.2 million in premiums to insurance companies and the insurance companies, over that entire period of operation, had paid out a grand total of $70,000 in claims.
There are probably a few reasons for that. One of them is that the individual operates in a safe environment. The other is that there are not that many accidents. A third one is that once there is a signed public waiver, the cost to pursue a legal action in court would grow exponentially, and a lot of people would make the decision not to pursue their claim in court because it would cost more to pursue the claim than what the claim would eventually get them.
These are the kinds of anomalies in the legislation that, as I say, after we debated them, the committee decided that those concerns were not sufficiently grave to accept them as amendments. I am of a different view, but the legislation in its total deserves support. Again, some of these issues will be raised by some of my colleagues and I welcome their observations.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, my question really was for the parliamentary secretary to the minister, but the member for Eglinton--Lawrence is extremely well informed on any topic he speaks to, so he could probably answer my question.
The member probably knows that insurance markets are international and they are also very cyclical. There are times, say over a three to five year cycle, when insurance companies cut premiums in half and expand coverage, and then just as abruptly they turn around and ratchet premiums up four, five or ten times the price and cut back the coverage.
We are taking a real risk when we pass legislation mandating something, expecting that somehow the insurance, while it might be available today, will be available two or three years down the road. What happens if the insurance markets dry up? In other areas, an extra option is given that if an insurance policy cannot be provided to the regulator, a monetary guarantee or some other alternative has to be put up if the insurance is not available.
Would the member like to comment on that? I have a follow-up question for him after that as well.
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member has suggested, his question would be best directed to the government that proposed this legislation.
As a member on the committee, I dealt with some of this. I think a member from his own caucus was present when some of these issues were discussed.
I cannot speak to the practices of insurance companies in part because I share his views about their practices and how they set their rates and deal with their own customer base. They really do hold many of their clients in a disadvantaged position. That was raised.
I referred to the adventure tourism business as an example. Those are small and medium size businesses and essentially family operated environments. They have a difficult time getting insurance coverage anyway. This legislation, in my interpretation and I think in the interpretation of others, makes it unnecessary.
When people such as the hon. member suggest that might not be an advantage for the client, he is right. I took pains to give the example in my presentation that was provided to the committee of a business that operated for 20 years, paid in excess of $1 million in premiums, but the customers only accessed $70,000 in payment for liabilities.
On the commercial side, presenters before committee, lawyers and I think insurance people as well, said all of these concerns are addressed by other laws, laws of the sea, liability, maritime, both national and international. It is all a part of doing business and it is all factored in when the shipper or the ship owner puts the vessel in the water or puts products into the vessel. That has already been considered.
This legislation would augment the amount of liability required for those having goods that may, if there is an accident, damage our coastal environment.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, my follow-up question concerning Bill C-7 deals with the whole adventure tourism industry question.
I did sit in for a while at committee when the bill was being considered. It does not seem to me to be overly prudent to exclude the adventure tourism industry on a blanket basis and allow waivers to take the place of financial responsibility. I am really concerned that the public is not going to be protected with this measure.
I recognize that a lot of presentations were made at committee and that people have considered this whole option, but in spite of amendments being suggested that the member would support that would have helped this matter out, the committee decided to proceed with the exemption for the adventure tourism industry.
Is there some way other than making the industry take out insurance policies that the public could be protected? Could there be some sort of guarantee or a fund which the adventure tourism industry association could build up over a few years to pay for liability claims that result from certain accidents in this type of business?
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member will know that Adventure Tourism is captured by the current legislation and that this legislation essentially took it out of what is called part 4. Therefore, it does not make it necessary for it to have to be captured by legislation in order to be held liable under other parts of the legislation.
I gather, because I cannot speak for them, that other members on the government side and other opposition members were convinced by that particular argument. I shared the member's views and presented amendments that were defeated by the government and the other two opposition parties, including his own. We presented what we needed to do in order to address those concerns without expressing any malice. The other two opposition parties and the government side were more convinced by the argument that said that just because we were taking it out of part 4 did not mean that we could not hold other people liable. I cannot say more than that. They were convinced by that argument and we on the Liberal side were not.
However, the legislation passed through committee because that is the way things happen. We need to vote on some amendments.
I am glad the hon. member still shares the concerns that I expressed in committee and that I put forward in writing through amendments. However, the Adventure Tourism business operators and tourism associations in general, I guess, made a compelling enough argument for the committee to accept the view that it is okay to take Adventure Tourism out of part 4.
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, Correctional Service Canada; the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East, Oil and Gas Industry; the hon. member for Random—Burin—St. George's, Revenue Canada.