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.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

No, no. The effect of Bill C-3, clauses 15 and 16, is they're deleting some sections of the previous bill. I'm just asking about that amendment, about why are we repealing. It's on the amendment, but it's more on the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We'll call our meeting to order.

As everyone knows, we're going through clause-by-clause study on Bill C-3.

First of all, I want to thank our witnesses who are here from the department. There may be some interchanging at some point, depending on the topic. We have some people here from the aeronautics industry as well.

Accordingly, if anybody has questions and we need to bring somebody to the table, feel free to do that at any time.

[John O'Connor]

First, I would like to say that my association deals with maritime law. With respect to the proposed amendments in the Canada Shipping Act to extend Mr. Wright's company's liability to his agents, mandataries, etc., we support that. The problem with the bill originally was that when Mr. Wright's company was there, they thought they were going to be doing the shovelling themselves. They since have realized it's much cheaper to hire other companies to shovel for them under their direction. At the time, nobody thought about agents, as far as I can recall, but I think it's good that they have it. That's number one.

Number two, his recommendation that we would move inland and when Mr. Wright's company is working at, let's say, Lac-Megantic, where they worked very hard this summer—not the western, but the eastern branch of his company, they worked hard—and give them the same immunity there, we have no real view on that. But you have to be careful because there are constitutional issues here. When they are cleaning up a spill from a truck that has overturned on a highway in some province, can Bill C-3 give them immunity for what they're doing on that provincial land, under that truck spill? I don't think you can. I would say you should be careful about getting involved in that.

I have no language to propose because we're marine anyway.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I'd like to ask Mr. O'Connor a question. I would ask Mr. Wright, but I will go directly to you. In terms of language and in terms of Mr. Wright's recommendation with respect to extending the liability protection to responders and their agents, can you tell us if you agree with the recommendation? If you do, do you have any language for that, or any specific advice on how to amend Bill C-3?

[Scott Wright]

I've submitted some of my notes, which will be translated and later distributed, but in clause 68 of Bill C-3 the term “agent” is being reinserted into subsection 181(2) and the term “oil handling facility” is being added to the definition of “response operation”. That is the specific matter in the legislation requiring to be changed or amended.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Professor.

Mr. Wright, still on the issue of responder immunity, you spoke about the importance of Bill C-3 fixing this important issue. Then you suggested that it be expanded to deal with situations when ships aren't present. What specific situations are you concerned about? Can you perhaps provide any examples of these situations occurring in the past?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Right. After looking at Bill C-3, are there any areas that you would recommend we further pursue?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Earlier witnesses talked about the importance of responder immunity and the enhancements under Bill C-3 to facilitate international responder immunity. Could you speak to that as well, Professor?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Bill C-3 helps to close the gap though. Okay.

Earlier, colleagues talked about the tanker safety panel. Do you have any thoughts or contributions with respect to their work from your perspective?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here this morning and for your contributions.

Professor Sumaila, I'd like to start with you, please.

I see from your resumé that you've done a lot of research around the world. You would be in a position to compare our safety regime under Bill C-3 to those of other jurisdictions. Could you do that? How does it compare internationally? Also, in your mind, are Canada's waters better protected as a result of Bill C-3?

[John O'Connor]

Thank you.

My thought on it is that the government has to decide what it wants to do, of course. You asked us to come here as a witness and to give our view on what we think should happen. We gave the same view to the tanker panel. If the government decides that it will go step by step and do this now, wait for the tanker panel, see what they say, and perhaps tweak it or adjust it later with a second bill, it's certainly not a decision for us, but for you. We have no comment on it, really, except to say that what we're saying here is the same as what we said to the tanker panel, which was I think well received.

It is true that they're going to file a report later in the year about HNS, not just about.... Their report is not going to be about Bill C-3. Their report is not going to be about liability. Their report is going to be about preparedness, about how we get ready for an HNS spill, like we're ready for an oil spill with Mr. Wright's outfit.

The government will have to decide how they wish to proceed, whether it's quickly or slowly, but one day, we suggest that you should come to our amendment.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

It's well appreciated. Right now if it were to occur, there would be simple general liability, and what we're trying to establish with respect to amendments to Bill C-3 is that we get that to $400 million.

We do have a world-class tanker safety panel that has been appointed to look at this. Effectively, what we heard from witnesses on Tuesday was that while they were also looking to the recommendations of the world-class tanker safety panel, both on HNS and on oil, to have a response, potentially even in this bill, they did not want this bill to simply try to prejudge that particular effort as well.

In fairness, the government hasn't had a chance to fully review the recommendations with respect to the oil regime. A response will be coming at some point, and I suspect we'll see more legislation in that regard.

Also, at some point, the panel will come back with HNS. Effectively, I think all of you are asking this committee to prejudge that particular.... It would almost seem to say, why have a panel doing the expert work. Should this committee move with Bill C-3 and get to the combined $400 million coverage, allow the panel to do its work, and allow the government to come back with additional changes that have been consulted on? The changes you're asking us to take a look at right now not only prejudge the panel, but haven't been consulted on widely the way the current bill has been.

Is there any problem with that approach we're taking?

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing not only in person, but by video conference. We appreciate your submissions.

I want to start by clarifying a few things here. First of all, Bill C-3 relates, as I sort of said in my intervention earlier, to establishing our compliance, our ratification if you will, of the HNS protocol of 2010. In other words, it's going to allow us now to move from what we heard Tuesday is a system of simple general liability in the event of an HNS spill to a much more robust regime of up to about $400 million in combined coverage.

This bill, which originated as Bill C-57 in 2013, actually predates the tanker safety expert panel's work, both on its recommendations on the oil regime, and on its continuing work on HNS. It's meant to plug a gap that currently exists.

Can any of the witnesses tell me what the most expensive HNS spill is on record? Is there one that has exceeded $200 million? We're not talking about oil such as in Exxon Valdez; we're talking about things like vegetable oil, potash, those types of substances. Can anybody name one that's over $200 million?

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Chair, while I appreciate the interest in the ship-source oil pollution fund, with respect, I'm failing to see the connection to the HNS protocol. Bill C-3 addresses gaps in the HNS protocol. It's not addressing the oil regime, if you will, at all. Unless he's tying it into the HNS protocol here, I fail to see the relevance of the line of questioning.

Maybe he's getting to it, but—

[Scott Wright, Operations Manager, Operational Response Readiness, Western Canada Marine Response Corporation]

Good morning. I am Scott Wright, the response readiness manager with the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation. We're the certified response organization on the west coast. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about responder immunity.

By way of background, we'll talk a little bit about two significant incidents that happened both in Canada and in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Certainly the Exxon Valdez in Valdez, Alaska was a significant event that involved cross-border resources, people and equipment responding to that spill. As well, there was the Nestucca, which happened on the west coast of British Columbia. That also involved cross-border resources, people and equipment working on that spill.

In 1993, there were amendments to the Canada Shipping Act that gave us limited responder immunity, so it gave the response organizations that immunity.

In early 2000, there was a rewrite of the Canada Shipping Act. In error, there were some words left out that sort of took us back in time and the responder immunity was not available to our potential U.S. mutual aiders and responders.

Part of our annual preparedness activities involve exercising with our U.S. counterparts, both in Alaska and in Washington state.

During those exercises, a significant amount of time is used up looking at how to resolve the responder immunity issue, rather than working on the incident itself and moving on and working on what we would do during those incidents together.

So it certainly does detract from the purpose of the exercise to work together on what the response would look like.

The fix, as has been discussed, is the amendments to Bill C-3. It's currently before the commons committee and this should correct the issues. However, Bill C-3 also needs to be taken a bit further. We believe it should also take into account umbrella legislation where we have responder immunity when there's a ship not present.

We have the resources to respond to marine incidents, whether it comes from a pipeline, rail, or a truck, and we believe we should be granted responder immunity if those events occur. We also support recommendation 22 of the tanker safety expert panel. We also support the recommendation from the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, which calls for the umbrella legislation for responder immunity.

That's my opening statement. I can take questions at your convenience.