Bill C-3 (Historical)

Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act

An Act to enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, to amend the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 enacts the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, which authorizes the Minister of Transport to undertake to indemnify certain aviation industry participants for loss, damage or liability caused by events that are commonly referred to in the insurance industry as “war risks”. The Minister may undertake to indemnify all aviation industry participants, or may specify that an undertaking applies only to specific participants or classes of participant or applies only in specific circumstances. The Act also requires that the Minister, at least once every two years, assess whether it is feasible for aviation industry participants to obtain insurance coverage for events or other similar coverage, and that the Minister report regularly to Parliament on his or her activities under the Act. Part 1 also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 amends the Aeronautics Act to provide certain persons with powers to investigate aviation accidents or incidents involving civilians and aircraft or aeronautical installations operated by or on behalf of the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Forces or a visiting force. It also establishes privilege in respect of on-board recordings, communication records and certain statements, and permits, among other things, access to an on-board recording if certain criteria are met. Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 3 amends the Canada Marine Act in relation to the effective day of the appointment of a director of a port authority.
Part 4 amends the Marine Liability Act to implement the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010. Among other things, it gives force of law to many provisions of the Convention, clarifies the liability of the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund with respect to the Convention and confers powers, duties and functions on the Fund’s Administrator.
Part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to introduce new requirements for operators of oil handling facilities, including the requirement to notify the Minister of their operations and to submit plans to the Minister. It extends civil and criminal immunity to the agents or mandataries of response organizations engaged in response operations. It also introduces new enforcement measures for Part 8 of the Act, including by applying the administrative monetary penalties regime contained in Part 11 of that Act to Part 8.

Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off my remarks by congratulating the minister on her new post. I should also mention I will be sharing my time with the member for Western Arctic.

The minister talked about developing a world-class tanker safety regime for marine transport. She talked about job creation. She also mentioned that she would reach out to groups on the west coast that were concerned about marine safety. I would like to touch on those three things in my remarks and perhaps point out a few other measures she should take into consideration when thinking about the bill.

First, if the minister is serious about developing a world-class tanker traffic and marine safety system she should think about reversing the cut that was made to the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, which was shut down, as well as the proposed marine communications and traffic services centres, the MCTS. I am speaking specifically with respect to British Columbia, after a huge public outcry on the west coast regarding the shut down of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and the planned cuts to these safety centres.

I want to specifically talk about the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. This Coast Guard station has been recognized as playing a significant role in marine safety. In the last two decades in Vancouver, one of the busiest ports in the country, it has played a critical role in saving lives. It is estimated that the closure of the station will now double response times. As members know, in emergency situations time means safety. It means saving lives. Therefore, when we are talking about the doubling of response times because of the closure of the station, I really have to question if the minister is serious about developing a world-class marine safety system.

The Conservative government's short-sighted cuts to the Kitsilano Coast Guard station will put British Columbians at greater risk. The Kitsilano station is one of the busiest stations in the country. This cut will unnecessarily increase risk to British Columbians. The Coast Guard is essential for marine safety on B.C.'s coast and the action by the Conservatives who shut down not only the Kitsilano Coast Guard station but the marine communication and transport safety centres across B.C., and that is very alarming.

We have heard a lot from many groups that have spoken out about this cut and the risk to this. However, it does not seem that the government is listening. Therefore, I am asking the new minister if she will actually listen.

This was one of the busiest stations in the country. Over 300 distress calls went into this station a year. It is no longer there.

I will read what the Vancouver fire chief said about this closure. There were some actions by the government to fill in the blanks of what was left by the Kits Coast Guard station.

He states:

The temporary seasonal services announced for the harbour are no comparison to the professionally trained and equipped officers of the Coast Guard. This closure has put the safety of our harbour and waterways at risk.

This is alarming coming from the Vancouver fire chief when talking about the closure of this station.

The third point I raised was outreach. The minister said that she was willing to talk to and reach out to groups on the west coast. I will come back to that and ask specifically for her to talk to certain groups.

Let me first turn to tanker traffic off Canada's west coast. This is a critical issue in British Columbia as it is in Canada. Specifically looking at the north coast of Canada, British Columbia, I have a private member's bill that looks at banning tanker traffic off B.C.'s north coast.

There is a reason for that and there is a reason why other members have called for a ban on tanker traffic off the west coast. These are treacherous waters, with huge waves, the wind and the unpredictability of the weather systems that roll in. It is also an amazing marine ecosystem. These are reasons why we have to be extremely careful as to how much we want to open up that coast for marine traffic.

It is very important that we look at the safety of the men and women who are operating these large tankers, or vessels or fishing vessels that traverse our seas. I point specifically to the Queen of the North. That is a perfect example of why we need to have increased safety and our standards as high as possible so we can ensure the officers who traverse our seas in large ships are safe. The Queen of the North, which sank of B.C.'s north coast, is a prime example of just how treacherous these waters can be and just how important it is to have high safety standards.

I also mention the ocean ecosystem specifically in this area. I think many Canadians and people around the world know of the Exxon Valdez spill. That caused irreparable harm to the marine ecosystem on the north coast. The impact was felt for years. In fact, some say there are still impacts from that spill today. It just takes one spill or one accident to make a difference in the lives of men and women, of the officers, whether it is a fishing vessel, a large ship or even some of the recreational vessels used by men, women and families using these waters. We need to have the best safety and the best emergency response that we possibly can when it comes to dealing with the ecosystem in the north or the treacherous waters caused by weather in that area.

Canada is definitely not prepared for a major oil spill, especially of bitumen, which is what is being proposed by the government across northeastern British Columbia with the pipeline project by Enbridge, which would put an 1,100 kilometre twin pipeline to traverse bitumen, a very heavy tar-like substance. If that is filled into a tanker and there is a spill off the north coast, I cannot imagine what kind of damage that would do to our marine ecosystem. I also point out that we are not prepared to respond to a spill of that nature. This is a heavy substance. It is not something with which we are familiar in terms of response and cleanup, and B.C. is woefully unprepared for a major oil spill.

We know this because we have not even done a risk analysis of the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station to the MCTS stations off the west coast and the impact that will have on marine safety. I submitted an access to information request and this is the response I received in a letter dated May 10, 2013, “The Canadian Coast Guard has advised that there is no stand-alone risk analysis document”. This is unacceptable. We need to have a stand-alone risk analysis that can be vetted and shared with all parliamentarians and interest groups concerned about marine safety. It is unacceptable that we do not have a risk analysis document.

The minister mentioned she would reach out to the groups on the west coast concerned about marine safety. I hope she consults with the Province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver police and fire chiefs, the Jericho Sailing Centre, and so many others that are concerned about marine safety. In fact, if she does consult with them, she will find that they unanimously want the Kitsilano Coast Guard centre open, that they want the MCTS stations reopened, and that they want the reverses that the government has made in terms of the cuts to fisheries and oceans and the Coast Guard changed. They want to see an increase in resources and jobs, not the reverse.

I challenge the minister. If she is serious about a world class marine transportation safety system, she should start with reopening the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his remarks. Of course, he is also aware of the closure of the marine rescue centre in St. John's and the attempt to close one in Quebec as well.

I want to talk about oil spill response capabilities. Back in February, the environment commissioner talked about Canada’s lack of preparedness for a major offshore oil spill on its east coast and warned of a potential 300% jump in tanker traffic on the west coast. In June the B.C. environment officials warned the minister that even a moderate oil spill in British Columbia would overwhelm provincial resources and that industry requirements of Transport Canada are deficient in scope and scale.

I wonder why the minister is tweaking this bill and not doing a consultation across the country to find out what is actually needed to ensure that our tanker traffic, coastal communities, and waters are safe from the dangers that even a moderate oil spill would cause.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague very eloquently points out specifics of the reasons we are inadequately prepared for even a moderate oil spill response. I would add to the type of substance that is being proposed; a heavy tar-like substance, bitumen, is being proposed to be carried on these tankers.

My colleague mentioned a 300% increase in tankers off the south coast. If some of these projects go through, we could see the addition of 800 to 900 tankers a year off the south coast and over 300 tankers off the north coast. We do not have the resources to deal with even one spill, let alone the numerous spills that could occur from such a catastrophe. I mentioned the Exxon Valdez in my remarks, which was just one incident; there have been many incidents around the world.

Let us not make that happen in British Columbia or in Canada. Let us make a serious effort to consult with all stakeholders. I welcome the minister's input and I challenge her to get that input from the many interested stakeholders in marine traffic safety on the west coast.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is worthy to note that managing our waterways is critically important to all Canadians. When we talk about the waterways, we are talking about more than just the east coast, the west coast, up north, and Churchill. Even inland, there are many different issues that our waterways bring.

When we take a look at the legislation, two things come to mind. First, it is inadequate in that it does not do enough. Second, to what degree was there adequate consultation with the different stakeholders?

I wonder if the member might want to comment on those two specific points. From an economic, social, and environmental point of view, they are so critically important to Canada as a whole. Why does the member believe, or does he believe, that the government has fallen short in what it could have done within this legislation?

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a critical question. The government should be taking a serious look at all the impacts to marine safety. Yes, there is an obvious focus on the west and east coasts and the Arctic, but we need to look at all the waterways that will be affected by marine shipping right across the country.

We need to look at the MCTS stations in St. John's, St. Anthony, Saint John, Rivière-au-Renard, Montreal, Thunder Bay, Vancouver, Tofino, Comox, and Inuvik. These are centres that will be affected right across the country. Therefore, it is important that the government consider all the impacts and do a full and comprehensive look if it is really serious about developing a world-class safety system.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to the bill. I will stick with the Marine Liability Act amendments, because they would have a direct impact upon my riding in the Northwest Territories.

It takes me back to seven years ago when I first came to Parliament and proposed that we change the motto from “from sea to sea” to ”from sea to sea to sea” because the importance of the Arctic waters is increasing dramatically. Within those Arctic waters we need protection. We need to take care of them, and it is a complex issue.

We have in front of us the Marine Liability Act, which in some ways is the end state of protection of waters. The beginning of protection of waters lies with regulation, and right now at the Arctic Council we should be dealing with Arctic shipping regulations as internationally accepted. That is the body that can deal with that issue. In that way we could create regulations that would allow proper vessels to enter into the Arctic. Those are things that we should be doing right now. Those are things that should have the highest priority with the current government and with other Arctic governments.

However, that is not the case. Our environment minister, the chair of the Arctic Council, has chosen to highlight economic development as the main ticket in the Arctic right now, while we need to work on regulations that could protect the Arctic and could set the stage for the responsible use of the Arctic in the future.

Let us look at some of the ways that the Arctic is being proposed for use.

We are going to be shipping oil to Churchill, Manitoba, by tankers, through parts of the Northwest Passage. These are uncharted waters. These are waters that are heavily influenced by moving pack ice. What kind of regulations do we have in place to deal with that? What kinds of policies?

The second stage in most efforts to ensure protection of the environment is good policy, meaning we invest in the right places and make the right decisions in government to slow down the frequency of accidents and try to avoid oil spills. This is the second phase of any protection of waters.

The third phase is infrastructure. Right across the country we have heard that infrastructure is sorely lacking. In fact, in the Arctic we have no infrastructure for taking care of large-scale oil spills. In fact, the science does not exist today to remove oil from ice-filled waters.

What we do have in this situation is a failure to act in a sequential manner to provide protection to waters. Instead, laudably, we are putting liability forward as part of our primary objective. Whatever happens, we are going to ensure someone pays for some of it. That is the goal of the government right now.

However, where is the planning? Where is the planning that actually talks about reducing the potential for accidents that cause liability to companies and upset the system and destroy the environment? Where is that work? That is the most important work here. That is the work that would actually protect waters.

What we have is a situation in which we are bringing forward liability as the answer, and it is simply not adequate.

It is typical of the government to look at simple solutions, especially cost. Concern for taxpayers is always laudable, but without planning, we are really putting the taxpayer in a position to have even greater losses when liability cannot be covered by the insurance claims that companies are allowed to make.

How is that a sensible and practical approach to improving the safety on our three oceans? It is not there. It is not there because we are picking the last piece of the puzzle rather than outlining the whole picture of what is required to protect the waters of Canada's three oceans.

When I asked the minister a question about the scope of this bill, it seemed that she did not understand it clearly. However, it is pretty clear to me that the scope of this bill covers all of our waterways and the potential impact of ships on any rivers that reach the oceans. It perhaps has a greater significance in the Great Lakes area than in northern Canada, but theses are all issues that we need to look at and understand.

All across the north—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The member will have four minutes remaining to complete his speech when we resume debate on this bill.

Statements by members, the hon. member for Calgary East.

The House resumed from October 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-3, An Act to enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, to amend the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to finish off my comments on Bill C-3, an act to enact the aviation industry indemnity act, to amend the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

To put the debate in context, the last time I spoke to this bill, I talked about the fact that while the Marine Liability Act amendments are important, they are really not what we are looking for from the government in terms of the protection of marine areas. Liability implies problems; it implies accidents.

We are looking for regulations, enforcement, and investments in coast guards around this country to prevent and alleviate accidents before they happen. We want to ensure that what we are doing in our marine areas is the very safest for Canadians and for the protection of the environment, people, and property. Those are things that come first. Liability is important, but it simply does not give the protections we are looking for.

In its past budgets, the government has cut coast guard stations, including the coast guard station in my riding, in Inuvik. The station that was in place for many years has now been removed. We do not have a coast guard response capability in Inuvik.

There are companies looking at investing hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore oil and gas drilling in this region. The same thing is occurring in the Alaska region. We have no capacity for oil spill remediation. That does not exist for the Arctic to any degree. In fact, the ability of anyone to extract oil from ice covered waters has not yet been proven to the satisfaction of those who look into these matters. We are making the area more hazardous through less investment in infrastructure in that region, and that is a problem, moving forward.

The Conservatives have said over and over again that they are interested in exploiting the resources of the Arctic. They want to move ahead with economic development in the Arctic. They want to see the wealth of the Arctic being exploited.

Let us start with taking care of the Arctic by making sure that the regulations for shipping are in place and that we are conducting ourselves by investing in infrastructure that can deal with the issues that come forward in the future. Surely as we increase the risk for companies working in an area, we should respond with the kind of protection that can reduce the liability from people who may suffer from accidents, because we would have some way of dealing with the accidents. That is not the case now.

There are cruise ships moving through the Arctic. If we have a problem in the Arctic with a cruise ship, we have no way to deal with it. We have increased traffic through the Northwest Passage, a passage that has never been charted properly. We do not know where the rocks are, and we are putting ships through there now. When will the accidents happen? It will be soon enough. What will liability do to protect the environment? What will liability mean to the people of the Arctic?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech and his intervention here in the House. Clearly, he really knows what he is talking about—he knows it inside and out.

Ultimately, he reminded us that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. He clearly pointed out how important it is, in light of the changes currently under way in the Canadian north, that Canada have in place substantial accident prevention measures, instead of always discussing events after they occur. I would like the member to clarify his position on this.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, in the Arctic today there is pressure for development; there is no doubt about that. This development has been encouraged by the current Conservative government through the granting of offshore leases over very large areas of the Beaufort Sea. Drilling and exploration has taken place in other areas of the Arctic as well. We can look off the coast of Greenland. Our neighbours in Greenland are also permitting drilling in very hazardous waters.

What we need, across the whole circumpolar Arctic, are agreements on how to proceed with this type of work. This is so that ahead of time we have agreements in place and international arrangements.

Through the Scandinavians working on the Arctic Council, we have moved forward with emergency measures coordination. We also need to coordinate on regulation that can deal with how we develop offshore resources, if we are going to go in that direction, and the current government seems bent on making that happen.

We have a situation where the government is pushing ahead with development, but it is not taking proper care of the intrinsic nature of protection of the environment that is required to make the development safe.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point that the member for Western Arctic was making. The government should be investing its time and energy to make sure it does a proper job of protecting the environment, the coastline in the north, the oceans, lakes and so on.

While I was visiting the member over the summer, we learned from some of the co-management boards that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as a result of changes to the Fisheries Act, is no longer involved in vetting development applications. It is now the proponents that do the science and provide the evidence as to whether a particular development would have an adverse effect. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is no longer there.

The government is tying its hands behind its back with these changes in terms of its ability to protect the environment. I wonder if the member could speak to his concerns about this.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question because it gets to the nub of it.

We cannot simply use liability as a way to deal with companies working in these conditions offshore, or in the marine conditions around Canada, for that matter. We need to provide a network of regulation, infrastructure and policy that would ensure that what is happening in our marine waters is happening in the best possible fashion. That would also require international co-operation. We need to put that together. In the Arctic, we now have the opportunity with the Arctic Council to do that.

I certainly hope the minister who is sitting as chair of the Arctic Council will push forward with safe shipping practices for the Arctic.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share my time with the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord.

Today, we are debating Bill C-3, Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, which would amend five acts: the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.

My speech will focus on the maritime and marine aspects. I will start with the title of the bill: the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act. The purpose of the bill is to safeguard our seas and skies, but frankly, it really missed the target here. We have a problem with this bill, which is why, on our side of the House, we are willing to pass it at second reading, but only so that there can be a good debate when it goes to committee.

We had proposed that this bill be debated at a special committee before it go to second reading. We really wanted a bill that would truly protect Canada's coastal communities and marine habitats. Unfortunately, the bill as written contains a great many flaws.

I would like to mention one that is very worrisome to the people of the Gulf of St. Lawrence: under the legislation, oil carriers will not be liable unless there is a spill of 10,000 tonnes of oil or more. People may be wondering how much 10,000 tonnes really is. We usually talk about barrels or use other ways to measure oil if there is ever a spill. However, in this bill, the figure is 10,000 tonnes. For anyone who is interested, 10,000 tonnes of oil is equal to 75,000 barrels. That is a mere fraction of how much oil a tanker transports.

Tankers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence currently transport 150,000 tonnes of oil, not 10,000. A spill of 150,000 tonnes would be devastating for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Therefore, 10,000 tonnes is not enough. This bill does not go far enough to properly protect either Canada's marine areas or the coastal communities that depend on the marine areas.

Take, for example, the Irving Whale oil tanker, which sank off the coast of the Magdalen Islands in 1970. The Irving Whale was carrying 800 tonnes of oil, compared to tankers today that carry 150,000 tonnes. Yet 800 tonnes were all it took for oil to continue washing up on the beaches of the Magdalen Islands today, 43 years later. Every year, oil from the Irving Whale washes ashore and we are still cleaning it up, even though there were only 800 tonnes.

Furthermore, the Exxon Valdez was carrying 40,000 tonnes of oil and the spill is still not completely cleaned up. In 1989, that was a huge amount. Today, oil tankers are not held responsible unless there is a spill of 10,000 tonnes or more. I repeat that we still have not finished cleaning up after the Exxon Valdez spill. That number—10,000 tonnes—is simply not enough.

I would like to talk more about some aspects of the bill. An oil company will not be held responsible unless the spilled oil amounts to 10,000 tonnes. Only then will the company be responsible for cleaning up the mess or for paying into the compensation fund set up to deal with spills.

I would like to point out something about the ship-source oil pollution fund.

In March 2013, the fund was at $400 million. After the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the cleanup cost $40 billion, but the fund is at $400 million today.

The legislation leads oil companies to believe that, if the spill is more than 10,000 tonnes and they pay the required money into the compensation fund, they have nothing to worry about because someone else will clean up the mess.

That is all well and good, but the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development indicated that the coast guard does not have the capacity to clean up after a spill. That is what the commissioner said in his last report, before his position was eliminated by the Conservatives, in their rush to eliminate environmental protection in Canada.

As my colleague recently wrote, we do not have the capacity to deal with these oil spills. According to the report by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, on the west coast our capacity is limited and on the east coast it is inadequate. On the north coast, the east coast and to some extent in the west, winter is inescapable. I do not think there is any technology that makes it possible to clean up an oil spill in icy ocean waters. I think that the Conservatives will probably propose a method during the debate in committee and perhaps even before then. I would be very interested in learning more about it, but right now we do not have the capacity to clean up such an oil spill.

In his latest report, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development warned us that we are unable to clean up a major oil spill. He emphasized that marine oil exploration and development is bound to increase in Canada, and it is coming soon. We must ask ourselves the following questions. Do we have the technology to do it? Can we do it successfully? We cannot jeopardize the industries that are already there.

Because of the tourism industry and the fishery, which has suffered enormously since the 1990s, we cannot afford an oil spill in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We would not be able to clean it up.

Even if a company is able to compensate the compensation fund, the question remains: What should be done with the oil in the ocean? Spills have to be cleaned up.

The bill proposes that, if the coast guard is not able to clean up the oil spill, response organizations should be invited to do so. Subcontracts would be awarded to non-governmental organizations. Which non-governmental organizations are those? Who has this capacity? Throwing money at a problem is not enough; action has to be taken and the spill has to be cleaned up, but no one has the capacity to do it. Someone has to take the time to conduct a realistic assessment of action to be taken in the worst-case scenario, what to do if a spill occurs. It is completely predictable: there will certainly be another oil spill. It is not just a theoretical issue, because oil spills are highly predictable. Unfortunately, we are not able to clean them up.

I would like to invite all members of Parliament to think about the following. What will the coastal communities that depend on Canada's environment and marine areas do if their beaches are soiled with oil? What about fish habitats, and what will they generate if they are also covered with oil? We have often seen pictures of birds caught in oil spills; cleaning them up is not possible. This bill will not make that any more possible.

I hope all the members in this House will give this serious consideration. Do coastal communities and coastal areas in Canada deserve the government's protection? I hope that the answer is yes and I hope that it means this bill will be greatly improved.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for going through some of the history and the large liability issues. This bill, which is being referred to as “safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act”, was referred to in the media as having a new tanker regime. It has none of those things. Part 4 is the only part that actually deals with anything operational. It merely brings into legal effect the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010. In other words, the current administration signed a treaty, and it has waited until almost four years later to make the statutory changes that make the treaty work.

I agree with the member that there is much more that can be done, but this has to be one of the most overblown titles for any act. The “skies” part is not about pollution; it is about technical changes to the Aeronautics Act. I would ask my colleague for his comments.