Bill C-22 (Historical)

Energy Safety and Security Act

An Act respecting Canada's offshore oil and gas operations, enacting the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, repealing the Nuclear Liability Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act, the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act (the “Acts”) primarily to update, strengthen and increase the level of transparency of the liability regime that is applicable to spills and debris in the offshore areas.
More specifically, Part 1, among other things,
(a) expressly includes the “polluter pays” principle, which is consistent with the notion that the liability of at-fault operators is unlimited;
(b) increases to $1 billion the limit of liability, without proof of fault or negligence, to which certain operators are subject in the event of a spill or damages caused by debris;
(c) provides that an applicant for an authorization for the drilling for or development or production of oil or gas must demonstrate that it has the financial resources required to pay the greatest of the amounts of the limits of liability that apply to it;
(d) establishes a regime in respect of the development of transboundary pools and fields;
(e) provides for new circumstances in which information or documentation that is privileged may be disclosed;
(f) establishes a legal framework to permit the safe use of spill-treating agents in specific circumstances;
(g) harmonizes the environmental assessment process for projects for which the National Energy Board, the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board or the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board is the responsible authority, as defined in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, with the requirements of that Act, including by establishing timelines for carrying out environmental assessments and creating participant funding programs to facilitate the participation of the public in environmental assessments; and
(h) creates administrative monetary penalty regimes.
Finally, Part 1 makes amendments to remove certain discrepancies between the English and French versions of the Acts, as well as to modernize the language in the Acts.
Part 2 of the enactment repeals the Nuclear Liability Act and enacts the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act to strengthen the liability regime applicable after a nuclear incident. It also provides for the establishment, in certain circumstances, of an administrative tribunal to hear and decide claims and implements certain provisions of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Speaker's Ruling

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP also believes that polluters must pay. This reduces the liability of taxpayers, who should not have to pay for something that they did not do.

Could the minister explain to Canadians why the bill does not apply to the nuclear industry? I am referring to the 33rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources on June 3, 2014.

Furthermore, why does a company like General Electric, a reactor supplier, not have any obligation in the case of an incident? This question is in reference to the 34th meeting of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources on June 5, 2014.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while some countries have an unlimited liability limit, which would be Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Japan, in practice the capacity for operators to compensate for damages is limited.

For example, in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Japanese government stepped in to bail out its operator. This meant it was effectively putting the utility under government ownership in order to allow it to continue to supply electricity to its customers.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member pointed out the fact that the absolute liability for an offshore spill had increased from $30 million to $1 billion. That is a significant increase of $970 million, and that is a good thing. However, in the United States, for example, the cap on the absolute liability for a spill is at $12.6 billion U.S. Ours is going to be set at $1 billion Canadian and in the United States it is $12.6 billion U.S.

In 2010, the total cost for the British Petroleum spill in the Gulf of Mexico with the Deepwater Horizon is $42 billion U.S. and rising. That includes the total cleanup, the criminal penalties and civil claims.

The increase from $30 million to $1 billion is a significant increase, but is it enough?

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is signalling support for this industry as a whole. I had a chance to be in Newfoundland not too long ago where the palpable enthusiasm in economic activity in Newfoundland was very clear to me. The important role that we play in working with Newfoundland and Labrador on offshore activities, particularly in regard to this act, is significant in terms of striking that right balance between a liability regime that works for continued economic activity.

Canada's current absolute liability limits, as I said earlier, have not been updated since the 1980s. This bill seeks to ensure that Canada's offshore regime for oil and gas remains world class. The $1 billion absolute liability would place Canada's regime squarely among those of its peer countries. As I have said before in answers to previous questions, in the case of fault or negligence liability remains unlimited.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to participate in the debate on Bill C-22, an act respecting Canada's offshore oil and gas operations, enacting the nuclear liability and compensation act, repealing the Nuclear Liability Act and making consequential amendments to other acts.

I suppose I should begin by giving a brief synopsis of what the legislation is about, since it has now been some months since the bill was last before the House.

With respect to nuclear liability, Bill C-22 would update Canada's nuclear liability regime to specify the conditions and the procedure for compensation of victims following an incident at a nuclear power plant. It would maintain the principles of absolute limited and exclusive nuclear liability for operators except in situations of war or terrorist attacks. It would increase the absolute liability limit from $75 million to $1 billion. These nuclear liability changes would apply to Canadian nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants, research reactors, fuel processing plants, and facilities for managing used nuclear fuel. Moreover, the bill would extend the limitation period for submitting compensation claims for bodily injury from 10 years to 30 years to address latent illnesses, while maintaining the 10-year period for all other forms of damage.

With respect to offshore oil and gas liability, Bill C-22 purports to update Canada's offshore liability regime for oil and gas exploration and operations to prevent incidents and to ensure a swift response in the event of a spill. It would maintain unlimited operator liability for fault or negligence and would increase the absolute liability limit from $40 million in the Arctic and $30 million in the Atlantic to $1 billion for offshore oil and gas projects in both Arctic and Atlantic waters. Significantly, the bill explicitly references the polluter pays principle to establish clearly and formally that polluters will be held accountable.

As members may recall, my NDP colleagues and I supported this bill at second reading in order to get it to committee so that it could be studied thoroughly and so we could present amendments to fix its many flaws. As we indicated at the time, our support was premised on the promise made by the former Minister of Natural Resources that there would be plenty of time for public consultations. I guess we should have known better.

After the cabinet shuffle in the spring, the new Minister of Natural Resources simply ignored his colleague's commitment. Instead of comprehensive public hearings and detailed scrutiny of the bill, the natural resources committee was allotted only three meetings, for a total of six hours, to study this important piece of legislation. Two of those meetings were set aside to hear from witnesses and one meeting was for clause-by-clause consideration. To add insult to injury, one meeting designated for witness testimony was cut short because members had to go to the House for votes, and that lost time was never compensated for at a later date.

With apologies to Thomas Hobbes, this committee process was “nasty, brutish and short”. The whole process was a sham, entirely in keeping with the government's utter disdain for public consultation. The government's desire to get this legislation passed without any meaningful input was, of course, not lost on Canadians.

As one witness said before the committee, her family lives just shy of four kilometres from the Pickering nuclear power plant. Her neighbours know nothing about Bill C-22 going through Parliament, and the witness did not have time to tell people that Pickering residents' personal assets were currently being discussed in the hallowed halls of Ottawa. They have one newspaper that goes out Wednesday and Thursday. They could not even get real-time news during the ice storm through the mainstream media, let alone news about a bill rushed through Parliament.

Not surprisingly, this impassioned plea for more time to study Bill C-22 and its impact on Canadians and their communities did nothing to change the government's approach to dealing with this important file.

Just as Canadians got the brush-off, so did members of Parliament. New Democrats put forward serious amendments, buttressed by expert testimony, that would have significantly improved the government's bill. The amendments were reasonable and simply aimed to strengthen the bill by bringing fairness and balance to its approach. However, not a single one of our amendments was adopted, and as a result, the government missed out on enacting a truly cutting-edge piece of liability legislation for Canada's energy sector.

It is unfortunate that I have only 20 minutes in the House today to reflect on some of the powerful witness testimony that we heard in committee. Twenty minutes is wholly inadequate to explain the importance of some of the amendments New Democrats moved and to explain the deleterious consequences of the government's inaction with respect to their adoption. At a minimum, I owe it to those who lent us their expertise to give a high-level overview of the bill's serious flaws.

In a nutshell, here is what New Democrats attempted to accomplish with our amendments. First, we tried to establish the polluter pays principle, including the removal of a liability cap. Second, we wanted to see the sustainability principle adopted in this legislation by including non-use value damages.

Third, we attempted to increase the incentive for safety by making suppliers and contractors liable, not just operators.

Fourth, we moved an amendment that would increase the timeframe for submitting claims regarding bodily injury, latent illnesses, and death.

Finally, we tried to get concrete commitments for inclusive public consultations on a go-forward basis.

We moved 13 amendments in these five broad categories, but not a single one was passed. Let us look at them in a little more detail so that folks who may be watching the debate here today can truly understand the potentially dire consequences of the Conservatives' intransigent attitude on this file.

Let us look at what the bill entails. The single biggest flaw in this bill is that it continues to subsidize the industry by making taxpayers assume any financial risk in excess of $1 billion. It does this by failing to uphold the critical principle of polluter pays. In Bill C-22, absolute liability is capped at $1 billion, putting public funds and taxpayers on the hook for accidents that exceed this limit.

Witnesses repeatedly told the natural resources committee that the $1 billion cap is as arbitrary as it is inadequate. Here is just a sampling of the testimony we heard.

In a submission from the Canadian Environment Law Association, Theresa A. McClenaghan wrote:

...the amount of $1 billion is far too low to provide assurance of the ability to adequately compensate victims of a severe accident in both the offshore oil and gas as well as the nuclear energy sectors. In the offshore oil and gas case we saw the experience with the Deepwater Horizon spill where President Obama established a $20 billion fund which is not even inclusive of the environmental damages or state clean up costs. The potential consequences of a Fukushima large accident from the nuclear plants in Ontario could far exceed the amount of 1 billion dollars; this number would have to be assessed in light in property values in the GTA as well as the experiences at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The concerns about the reality of potential accidents are not academic concerns; an article written by Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette of the University of Notre Dame just after the Fukushima accident listed 26 unintentional nuclear core-melt accidents that have occurred worldwide since the 1950s; the most notorious of course including Chernobyl in 1986 and the three at Fukushima in 2011 . For Fukushima, the Physicians for Social Responsibility have cited figures ranging between $250 billion and $500 billion in consequences from the events there. The scale of these types of accidents far exceeds the billion dollar amount that Bill C-22 establishes for the absolute liability limit in both the oil and gas and the nuclear sectors.

Professor William Amos from Ecojustice echoed those concerns. He said:

I sense the $1 billion number is literally picked out of thin air. Conversations we had with the government were not dissimilar to the question of what's the right number. We said there is no right number; it should be unlimited liability. It seems to me that at a certain point there has to be a recognition on the part of the government that, if there is going to be a functioning free market, then entities that want to engage in risky activities, for example Arctic offshore drilling, they should be able to pay the full freight. I think it is unlikely that we could expect the crown to recover all of the damages caused, including non-use damages, if there were a worst-case scenario off any of Canada's coasts.

He went on to say:

The goal of any extracontractual liability regime is to make sure that an operator's actions in terms of prevention are at the highest possible level and to make sure that the company itself, not the Crown or the taxpayers, assumes the clear risks. Certainly, when a regime is based on the polluter pays principle, and when the provisions of the legislation require the company to pay a greater part of the damages in the case of a catastrophic spill, the company will take steps in advance to modify its behaviour. In this case, modifying the behaviour of those with a financial stake is most important.

Finally, I want to quote from the testimony of Dr. Gordon Edwards from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility:

We urge you, as elected representatives of the Canadian population, not to approve this Act for third reading without insisting on due diligence. First of all, why is there a need for such a limitation of liability? Shouldn't every enterprise be required to accept full responsibility for potential offsite damages?If the government has to ultimately step in to deal with a messy situation, such as that at Lac Mégantic, so be it—but why should the owner or operator have his responsibilities lifted from his shoulders ahead of time? Secondly, where did the figure of one billion dollars come from? This is even less than the cost of a reactor refurbishment. It is far less than the cost of onsite damages in the event of a severe nuclear accident, for which the owner/operator is fully liable and adequately insured.... Costs are mounting. Overnight, the estimated cost of the radioactive cleanup of Port Hope went from $800 million to $1.8 billion. Overnight, the $7 billion cleanup of Chalk River went up by another billion dollars.

New Democrats on the committee took that expert testimony to heart and introduced amendments to abolish the $1-billion liability cap. We agree that Canadian taxpayers should not be on the hook for cleanup and compensation costs beyond the $1 billion. The Canadian taxpayer is not the polluter and therefore should not be held liable for damages caused by the industry. Only if we legislate the polluter pays principle will Canadians get the protection they deserve.

Keeping on the theme of liability, let me quickly raise a couple of other issues we sought to address through our amendments at committee. First, as if it was not bad enough that the Conservatives refuse to lift the liability cap altogether, they added insult to injury by giving additional discretion to the minister to reduce absolute liability even below the already inadequate $1-billion threshold. In the absence of any credible rationale for providing relief from liability, we moved to have those provisions scrapped from the bill. We simply cannot trust the Conservative government to protect the public interest when it has a track record of abusing arbitrary powers. Not surprisingly, our amendments were handily voted down by government members on the committee.

Our efforts to create a more even distribution of liability met a similar fate. In its current iteration, Bill C-22 completely excludes suppliers from any liability. On the nuclear side, they are not held accountable beyond negligence, thereby limiting the possibility of a more even distribution of liability. Not incorporating the supply chain as part of the liability process places the entirety of the blame on the operator. This allows smaller suppliers to act in a hazardous way, increasing the likelihood of a nuclear accident, as companies down the supply chain may act with financial impunity for their actions.

Instead of leaving taxpayers on the hook for cleanup costs that a company could not pay, New Democrats at the committee submitted amendments that would include suppliers and contractors in the liability process. This would increase the incentive for implementing best practices throughout the entire supply chain and would therefore help to ensure the safety of Canadians.

A number of witnesses supported our belief that we needed to fix the imbalance in the existing legislation. Theresa McClenaghan, from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, addressed supplier and contractor liability this way. She said:

Both aspects of the bill channel supplier and contractor liability to the operator or the licence holder for that absolute liability portion, but only on the oil and gas side is liability ever possible against suppliers and contractors and their negligence. On the nuclear side, that's never possible. The nuclear suppliers to that entire supply chain never have to consider the consequences of the decisions they are making around risk, and on the nuclear side as well as the oil and gas side, decisions are made every day around risk.

In its brief, CELA said:

...we would recommend amending Bill C-22 to bring suppliers and contractors into the liability framework in the nuclear sector, just as it does in the offshore oil and gas sector, and to remove the cap on liability so that the nuclear operators as well as others in the supply chain are liable for consequences of their negligence beyond their $1 billion insurance.

I could not agree more. We should not be allowing suppliers and contractors to engage in the nuclear sector with full immunity from any and all liability risks. Nuclear operators should be facing the full consequences of any negligence on their part, just like they do in the oil and gas sector.

Shawn-Patrick Stensil, a nuclear analyst from Greenpeace, agreed. He said:

At this time, in terms of liability, a reactor supplier has no obligation if an accident occurs. That is how the law is worded and that is also true of the new version. In our opinion, this is not a good thing. In the case of Fukushima, it was demonstrated that the designer, General Electric, was aware of the reactor's problems not only in design but also in manufacturing. That was not what caused the accident, but it did contribute to the radiation leaks into the environment. In any other industry, the Japanese could have sued the company.We therefore recommend that there be a right of recourse in that respect.The operator is always the entity that can be sued. However, a negligent supplier could be sued by the operator as he is in the best position to do so and thus obtain the largest amount of compensation for the affected population. That is what we are requesting.

Sadly, even this most reasonable amendment was rejected by the Conservatives at committee.

The same is true for another eminently reasonable amendment dealing with the health of Canadians. We moved an amendment that sought to increase the time frame for submitting claims regarding bodily injury, latent illnesses, and death. The current prescription for claiming damages due to injury and latent illness is 10 years. Bill C-22 would increase this to 30 years, but there is no medical evidence to suggest that health issues manifest and are then able to be identified within 30 years. On the contrary, from what we know about the mutagenic effects of radiation release and exposure, the government should have used this opportunity to include an additional generation to the time frame for submitting claims.

In an effort to strengthen this part of the bill, New Democrats moved an amendment that would have simply extended the time limit from 30 years to 50 years. However, even something as straightforward as that was met with Conservative opposition. Protecting the public interest was clearly not at the forefront of the government's objectives when drafting the bill.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the Conservative members on our committee would also vote down our amendment seeking to create meaningful and inclusive public consultation on this file. New Democrats moved an amendment that would require the review of the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act to be made public, and that it be done in consultation with non-industry stakeholders and those not affiliated with the nuclear industry. Such an approach is crucial to transparency and accountability. As Dr. Edwards asked rhetorically at committee, “should there not be an opportunity for adequate public input and debate on the substantive pan-Canadian issues of equity that are involved? Shouldn’t citizens from provinces without nuclear power reactors be given the opportunity to comment on a bill that would potentially bind their children and grandchildren?”

The answer of course is yes; they absolutely should. However, that was not the answer we got from the Conservatives when we moved our amendment at committee. Those efforts too were voted down.

I know my time is almost up, but I do want to say just a few more things about the offshore oil and gas side of the bill. One of the cornerstones of the NDP's energy policy is sustainable development. It ought to be a guiding principle in all sectors of Canada's energy economy. However, as it is currently written, sustainability gets short shrift in Bill C-22. It de facto ignores those vital aspects of our world that cannot and have not been assigned a monetary value. The bill fails to provide any regulation-making provisions for the calculation of non-use environmental damages.

Here is what Professor Amos told our committee. He said:

...the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the availability at common law of natural resource damages, or damages which compensate for harm to non-use value...of the natural environment....However, natural resource damages claims at common law are currently subject to uncertainties. ...the process for assessing natural resource damages is ill-defined, reflecting a lack of baseline ecological information and the inherent difficulty in assigning monetary values to environmental values.

It is commendable that Bill C-22 includes the legislated imposition of liability for natural resource damages, including the explicit adoption of damages for non-use values. However, no regulation-making powers are included in Bill C-22 for the calculation of non-use damages. This is a serious gap, as significant regulations are needed to address the lack of baseline ecological information and the inherent difficulty in assigning monetary values to environmental values.

To close that gap, we moved an amendment to both quantify and account for the loss of non-use damages. We wanted to use the regulatory window to include the environment in assessing the scope and the cost of harm to the environment. Sadly, those provisions were never adopted, leaving the whole section on non-use damages deeply flawed.

None of our amendments were intended to tease the proverbial bears. We acknowledged that starting the debate on enhanced liability was a step in the right direction. However, failing to improve the bill represents a colossal wasted opportunity. We did not propose things that were radical or over the top. In fact, most of our amendments simply sought to bring greater fairness and balance to the legislation. Even our proposal to remove the liability cap altogether is not as radical as the government would like Canadians to believe. In fact, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, and Switzerland all have unlimited liability for nuclear power plants already. Even in the U.S., the absolute liability limit is $12.6 billion.

Do not let the Conservative response to that fool you, Mr. Speaker. Predictably, the Conservatives will try to suggest that an unlimited cap would encourage operators to claim bankruptcy instead of cleaning up after an accident.

However, that is looking at the problem upside down. New Democrats believe that liability has to be strong enough to ensure that a nuclear or offshore disaster never happens in the first place, and that operators will have to put the best safety measures into practice. That is how to protect the interests of Canadians, and frankly, they deserve nothing less.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the very important issue of liability. There is no doubt that Canadians as a whole want to see more accountability for corporations in terms of developing our resources.

The question I have for the member is specific to the offshore oil and gas industry.

One cannot help but think of the economic benefits that Newfoundland and Labrador have experienced through a lot of offshore development. However, it would seem that the NDP position, or at least what the member seems to be implying, is that with any sort of offshore gas exploration whatsoever, any interested private sector company would have to provide, up front, the potential liability insurance for any potential disaster that may occur.

Could the member provide some clarification? What goes through my mind is the impact that would have had on today's oil and gas industry in Newfoundland.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question from my colleague specifically about the oil and gas offshore industry.

The member referenced Newfoundland, but it would be equally valid on the west coast. I appreciate what he is saying about unlimited liability seeming perhaps too high a threshold, which I suppose is what he is suggesting.

I would remind the member that the offshore BP gulf oil spill of 2010 is expected to cost as much as $42 billion for total cleanup. What the current government is proposing is that the company be on the hook for only $1 billion. If this happened in Canada, that would leave Canadian taxpayers on the hook for $41 billion.

To suggest that companies who engage in these activities ought to be liable in a polluters-pay-principle kind of way for their operations off our shores is not an unreasonable position. In fact, I dare say even members of the government, well not elected members from the government, but certainly bureaucrats who work for the government would agree.

I will read what Mr. Jeff Labonté, Director General, Energy Safety and Security Branch, Energy Sector, Department of Natural Resources, said when he was before the committee:

...I think providing for higher levels of liability provides a better level of protection. The higher the level of liability, the more likely that industry and actors within the community will take broader measures to be more preventative to help ingrain the safety culture that's expected of the operations.

Surely Canadians deserve to have the safety culture ingrained in their operations.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for her very enlightening speech.

I have already had the honour of speaking to this bill in the House. What came out of the committee's work shakes me to the core and really scares me. I would like to quote Gordon Edwards, who had this to say about the problem of liability: “The exposure of the Canadian taxpayer is unavoidable under this legislation and it's unlimited. ...It is financial planning with no planning whatsoever.”

In other words, as with the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, the people responsible for those accidents will sneak away and the burden will fall on the taxpayers, the government, the provinces and the municipalities that may be victims of an accident.

Witnesses testified at only two meetings. I would like my colleague to tell me how those far-too-short meetings went and what the tone of the government representatives was.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to comment on that again, because as I said during my comments in the speech, it was ridiculous. We had three meetings set aside at two hours each. Two sets of two hours to hear witnesses and then two hours to deal with this mammoth bill and for clause-by-clause consideration.

We did not have nearly enough time to hear from Canadians. Those who made submissions to our committee actually commented on the fact that they did not have enough time to give us thoughtful and in-depth expert opinion.

We were fortunate that some of the members I quoted, from Ecojustice, from CELA, from Greenpeace, gave us superb testimony, but my goodness, when we are talking about legislation that potentially deals with the equivalent of a Fukushima-type accident, which happened in Japan and cost $250 billion to $500 billion for cleanup, surely we should have taken our time in making sure that we have this piece of legislation right.

This is not only about taxpayers being on the hook for cleanup, that for sure is part of the equation, but equally important, as MPs in this House, it is our responsibility to make sure that we have legislation in place that prevents those accidents, those spills, from happening in the first place.

I am proud to serve in the caucus of a leader who was the environment minister in Quebec, who has years of experience and a proven track record on sustainable development, on environmental protection.

We had expertise to give and the time just did not allow us to do that job as fully as we would have liked.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. member if it is not the NDP position, essentially, that in this country the nuclear sector should not exist and should cease to exist. Is it the NDP position that in the oil and gas sector there should be no more exploration? What is its position in relation to this kind of resource development on both these issues?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, of course we acknowledge that the nuclear industry will be with us in the foreseeable future. What we on this side of the House would like to see is the government actually getting serious about investing in a diversified, mixed energy economy. To that end we would like the government to actually invest in new technologies, in green technologies, which is something the government has not done at all.

On the contrary, we have lost the renewable power production incentive and the wind power production incentive. Even something as beloved by Canadians as the eco-energy retrofit program for people's homes was gutted by the government.

Yes, we acknowledge that the nuclear industry will be part of our energy mix for some time to come, but we desperately want the government to diversify that mix, and we have not seen any commitment from the government. On the contrary, we are now taking steps backward.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain for the way she summarized the shortfalls in the legislation. She was very thorough and she was eloquent in her speech as well.

I have also spoken on the legislation, and some of the immediate weaknesses in the legislation in terms of the absolute liability is the fact that it is not enough.

As the hon. member pointed out, there will be an increase in absolute liability from $30 million to $1 billion. That is a substantial increase, but when we compare it to other jurisdictions, as the hon. member pointed out, like the United States, for example, which has an absolute liability of $12.6 billion and where the case of the Deepwater Horizon, the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has a total cleanup bill so far of $42 billion and rising, we can see that the $1 billion this legislation points out is not enough.

I have two questions for the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain. First, do we deserve any less in terms of absolute liability than the United States?

The second question is whether or not the increased liability could enhance the prevention of nuclear accidents or offshore oil and gas accidents.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question because both parts of it are spot-on. That is exactly what we should be focusing on in this debate.

I want to say that we had ministry officials, the minister's own advisers, before the committee. I quoted Mr. Labonté before. Let me do it again. Here is what he said:

...recognize that our liability levels were less than our peers and thus, we wanted to keep up.

If we wanted to keep up, why are we so far below the liability levels of our peers even now, even under this new legislation? Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, and Switzerland all have unlimited nuclear liability for nuclear power plants in place already. Even in the U.S., as my colleague just rightly pointed out, the liability limit is $12.6 billion.

If we are taking this opportunity, the first in 40 years, to update the legislation, why not get it right? Why not do what the minister's own officials are suggesting and get us to the same level as our peers? We have failed to do that, and I think it is one of the reasons the bill is deeply flawed.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour to be here today, in the House of Commons, to speak to Bill C-22.

The Conservative government has failed, on numerous occasions, to follow through on prior attempts to update nuclear liability legislation and update the safety and security regime for Canada's offshore. I am pleased to see that this legislation has finally come to third reading. Past attempts were started and then the government would either call an election or prorogue the House and not bring the bill forward. We have seen that with various government bills, whether it be on the Criminal Code or a variety of matters. The government introduces a bill with great fanfare and then we do not see it for months. It disappears, and the government does not present it again in the House. It is nice to see that finally we are getting somewhere in terms of this legislation moving forward because it does deal with an important issue in terms of nuclear liability and the liability for spills offshore.

I want to thank the witnesses who appeared before the natural resources committee to talk about this legislation. We would have liked to have heard a lot more from them, had we not been cut off a number of times, and had we not had a limited time of three days to consider the bill. I appreciate that they were willing to share their expertise, provide insightful comments, and give us their sage advice. We should all be thankful when experts appear before our committees.

Unfortunately, as is the case with much of the work conducted in committees of the House, the government restricted the scope of the study of this legislation. We all know that the government has the majority on almost all committees and can determine not only what the committee will study but the terms and scope of the study. It was very much restricted in this case. In fact, government members showed a distinct lack of interest in what we should have been doing, which was to make every effort to ensure that we ended up with the strongest possible legislation on this issue. If we think about the role of members of Parliament and our responsibility to hold the government to account and ensure that legislation is as good as possible, in my opinion, that did not allow us to do the job we ought to have been able to do, which is what committees are for.

If a member is a government backbencher or a member of the opposition and not a minister or a parliamentary secretary, then that member has the responsibility for holding the government to account. When governments have been going for a while, I have seen some members on the backbenches start to realize that. However, it would seem that we have fewer than ever with the Conservative government and we need to see more of that kind of attitude. There is a lack of interest in legislation that is focused on more than just the economic side of the equation, as in this case when we are dealing with the economy and the environment. We must do better than that in future.

The development of our natural resources and the strength of our economy depends on having good policies that people can have confidence in, so we can get community support for the kind of things that are happening or might happen in natural resources. If the government is seen as simply a cheerleader, as not being a responsible regulator, then we are going to have a hard time convincing Canadians that we are going to do a good job of regulating the natural resource sector. That is the fundamental problem that the government has at the moment.

The Liberal Party supports the development of our energy potential in Canada. We recognize the positive contribution that resource development has on our economic growth and job creation, especially for the middle class.

We also understand, and this is essential, that resource development must be done in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner. It must be done through consensus building, which is something that is entirely lacking these days. The need is there to ensure that if an accident does happen, the proper regimes are in place to deal with an accident. Obviously a key part of that process is by making sure that legislation, like this legislation dealing with liability limits, is in place and that it protects our interests. With regard to Bill C-22, everyone in the House understands that there is a need to raise the absolute liability limit in terms of the offshore oil and gas sector and the nuclear sector.

Let us be very clear. Let us understand what this means. If we have a case where there is an accident, either at a nuclear site or in the offshore oil and gas sector, and negligence is proven by the operator, liability is then unlimited. The operator would have to pay for the entirety of the damages, whatever they might be.

What we are talking about is a case where negligence is not proven and the liability is absolute. This means that regardless of whether someone proves that the operator was negligent, it still has to pay, because the operator was undertaking this risky activity. That is what this is about.

That is the reason we have supported this legislation. It is going in the right direction. In the nuclear sector, it would increase the liability cap from $75 million to $1 billion, bringing Canada in line with the promises it made when it signed the international Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. In the offshore oil and gas sector, the absolute liability for companies operating in the Atlantic offshore would increase from $30 million to $1 billion, and in the Arctic, from $40 million to $1 billion.

With regard to the Arctic, as I was saying earlier when I asked the minister a question, there are still many unanswered questions. Is $1 billion adequate in the Arctic, where the environmental conditions make spill response efforts very challenging? There we are dealing with a situation where we are a long way from ports. It is a remote and isolated area, with difficult conditions.

We heard today that the minister has approved exploration licences, two of them in deepwaters in the Beaufort Sea. We heard at the natural resources committee a couple of years ago, at the time of the BP Deepwater Horizon well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, that the technology did not exist to clean up a spill in the high Arctic in deepwater under ice.

It seems to me that this is a very irresponsible decision by the government when that kind of cleanup capacity is not there, yet we did not have a chance at the committee to get into this because the scope of our study was so restricted. That is most unfortunate.

Why did we not also take the opportunity to look at our ability to respond generally, and to review our ability to respond to other events and accidents in shallow water in the Arctic, or any kind of spill there? We did not get to that.

As my esteemed colleague from Ottawa South said in debate on Bill C-22, the committee should examine the question of response capacity and incident prevention in the Arctic. That should have been examined by the committee. I hope that the member is recovering well from a broken ankle that he unfortunately suffered not too long ago, and I look forward to his quick return.

Instead of being concerned that the science does not always exist to confirm how long ecological damage will last, the government has rushed through those Beaufort Sea exploration licences that I mentioned. That is perhaps why the government decided that the scope should be so narrow for our committee study.

The member for Ottawa South also correctly pointed out that while looking at the issue of nuclear liability, the committee should have addressed the question of what has been happening around the nuclear sector in the past eight years. I suspect that government members may have been told to avoid any discussion of how we are no longer a world leader in the production of nuclear power capacity, as we have been in the past. They may have been told to avoid discussion of how the government ran down the value of the AECL and sold it off at bargain basement prices, and how it compromised Canada's future with regard to nuclear energy. This is not to mention the production of medical isotopes, which has been so important, and where Canada has been one of the world leaders.

Part of the discussion at the committee around suitable liability limits should have been focused on how we see the role of nuclear power as part of the energy mix going forward. The committee, for example, could have looked at how nuclear might fit in with renewable power options in the future, and other energy sources, like geothermal or tidal.

Wind is another area that is very interesting these days. My province of Nova Scotia has tremendous wind resources. I suppose some might say MPs have good wind resources as well, but that is another kind of wind resource. I am not sure if my colleague appreciated that remark, but he seemed to agree.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Lukas Swan, a professor of engineering at Dalhousie University. He runs the renewable power storage lab where they are working with various kinds of batteries. However, the important thing is not so much the different kinds of batteries, as the examination of the different kinds of conditions that happen with wind turbines. Sometimes there will be different speeds and fluctuations, with all kinds of variables. They are trying to find out what works best in managing the batteries so that we can have more capacity.

At the same time, there is a new study going on in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, involving a company called LightSail. It started because of the research of a young woman from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She is a graduate of MIT and has developed new technology to store energy, in air basically, underground cabins that compress air. Previously there were problems with that, and she has created a new technology where a very fine mist can be sprayed so that heat is not created. Heat had apparently been a problem in this technology until now. There is a major trial project going on in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, thanks to the brilliant research of this young person, who is 26 years old and from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. That is a marvellous example of renewable energy that is happening right here.

In fact, if we in Canada can get this right, if we can actually find a way to be successful with much better storage of electricity, we will overcome the problem of wind, which unlike the wind of some MPs of course, does not blow all the time. Wind does not blow all the time. Therefore variability is a problem when we want to have power. People want to turn on the television, a microwave, oven, or do the laundry, and not just when the wind is blowing. Getting this right so that we can even out the power supply with storage could make an enormous difference. In a place like Nova Scotia, it could remove the need for what we have now, which is power created by coal and natural gas, although more and more wind is playing an important role. We think tidal power is making very good progress, and we hope it will play a big role in the future.

It is unfortunate that the scope of the committee work was restricted. We did not get an opportunity to examine these important questions in a broader context. We could have perhaps ended up with a much stronger bill. It reminds me of a study that we did last year at committee on the cross-Canada benefits of the oil and gas sector. There is no question that there are benefits to that sector across this country. I am from Nova Scotia. We have natural gas off our shore, which is important. We have exploration by BP and Shell for oil, and that could have a positive impact on our economy. There are benefits across the country.

As I said before, it is the Conservatives who have majority at committee, so they have the ability to determine what a committee will study and what its scope will be. In having a study that looks only at the benefits, where we cannot ask questions about the cost, problems, challenges, or the downsides of an industry, we end up with a report that has no credibility with the public. It does not advance what we are attempting to do in creating a report that is credible, to tell of the impact across the country, both good and bad. Let us have a balanced approach and look at both of these things because there are benefits and there are costs that we need to examine. We need to make it more sustainable. We need to improve the performance of the industries. We have some that are good, but there is always room for improvement on the environment.

We all recognize that Bill C-22 is an important piece of legislation, particularly given some of the disasters we have seen recently around the globe. There was the devastating meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which is estimated by the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology to cost at least $31 billion; I heard a much larger figure earlier. The damages from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, in the Gulf of Mexico, are estimated at $42 billion.

While this updated legislation is long overdue, we do need to ensure the level of liability is appropriate in relation to the level of potential damage of either a nuclear incident or an offshore spill. It is also relevant to consider how frequently these things occur. We have to examine those things. If we do not consider both of those, we have the view of the NDP, which is that we would not have the kind of exploration we have had off Newfoundland and Labrador and not have the economic benefit we have had.

We have to have a good regime that protects our environment, but let us have one that makes sense. Let us consider all of these things.

We of course need to make sure that Canadian taxpayers are not at risk and that the polluter pays principle is maintained. That is why it is important that if a company is negligent, it pays the whole shot, obviously. Let us keep that in mind.

The real question before us today is this: do we think the limit of liability for the nuclear sector should be at $75 million, or should it be $1 billion? For the offshore, should it be $30 million in the Atlantic and $40 million in the Arctic, or $1 billion? Which is it going to be?

In my view, the answer is fairly obvious. This bill is by no means perfect; it could have been much improved; it should have had much more study in committee; however, the answer is this bill should be supported.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place on behalf of my constituents in Davenport in Toronto.

I have to say that I am just a little confused about the Liberal position on this bill. The member is comparing the liability in this bill to accidents that have happened, Fukushima being one of them, in which the bill mounts beyond the $30-billion, $40-billion, $50-billion range, so I suppose the question is this: does the member think that $1 billion is enough, given the fact that the liability in the United States is over $12 billion? Does the member feel or believe that Canadians should be protected to at least the level that their American neighbours are protected, or is he happy with $1 billion?