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

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. This project focuses on five key initiatives: amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, the Marine Liability Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, and the Aeronautics Act. Today, I would like to speak specifically to the proposed changes to the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.

First, turning to the Marine Liability Act, the proposed amendments will implement the commitments of the Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea Convention, helping to ensure Canadians are adequately compensated for the damage caused by spills of hazardous and noxious substances from ships. For this reason, I highly encourage the passage of the bill so it can be adopted as quickly as possible.

The proposed amendments to the Marine Liability Act will fill an important gap in the current liability and compensation regime for ships, because they protect Canadians against the financial consequences of hazardous and noxious substances and spills from ships. They will also ensure that shipowners carry the appropriate amount of compulsory insurance for the risks associated with the cargoes they carry. Finally, they will provide Canadians access to an international fund to provide compensation beyond the shipowners limits.

Canada has an extensive history of seeking economic gains from international trade and, in particular, through international shipping which, worldwide, is responsible for the carriage of 90% of the world's goods. With the world's longest coastline bordered by three oceans and a wealth of natural resources, this will surely continue to be the case as Canada looks to move those resources to existing and new markets.

Given this, it is important to have in place the appropriate legislation and regulations to minimize the risks associated with marine transportation. Spills of hazardous and noxious substances from ships can be costly to clean up and this government is taking action to ensure that Canadians are insulated from these costs. Shipping is inherently a global industry and it is critical to the practical functioning of global commerce. With the international nature of this industry, it is important to advance an international framework and contribute to the uniformity of international maritime law.

Canada has had a long-standing tradition of multilateralism with regard to international shipping and Canada's heavy involvement in the advancement of the Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea Convention is indicative of that long-standing tradition.

The 2010 Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea Convention would provide roughly $400 million in compensation for a spill of hazardous and noxious substances, which is currently not available. It would establish strict liability for the shipowner and would introduce compulsory insurance for the liability for the pollution damage caused by a spill of hazardous and noxious substances from a ship. This is a major improvement over the current regime as, currently, shipowners are not required to carry insurance for their liability in relation to a spill of hazardous or noxious substances. Should damages exceed the shipowner's insurance coverage, the convention would provide access to an international fund that would pay compensation for pollution damage caused by such spills.

The international fund, once established, will be paid into by cargo owners. By sharing the responsibility between the two principal parties involved, this convention supports the very important polluter pays principle, one that our government seeks to enshrine in law whenever possible.

The convention covers a wide variety of substances, some 6,500 hazardous and noxious substances, that are carried in bulk packages and containers along our coasts and through our ports. We have a robust maritime governance regime and we have implemented some tough prevention measures, but, even so, in the unlikely event of a spill, these amendments would allow affected individuals to submit claims for compensation. This would include claims for cleanup costs, economic losses, damage to property, and environmental damages.

Through these amendments and by joining the convention, businesses that could be directly impacted by a spill would have access to compensation from the polluter. This includes the fishing and tourism sectors that are usually the most affected economically. It would also see that compensation would be available for environmental restoration.

These changes would also include loss of life and personal injury claims, ensuring that compensation would go to those who were affected in the worst possible way. People who are hurt, or worse, by an explosion of a hazardous substance on a ship, including oil, would receive proper compensation. This protection would be extended to both the crew on board the ship and any innocent people affected outside the ship. Currently, there is no such compensation available. Victims must pursue shipowners in courts.

When the bill was being discussed in committee, the members heard from many witnesses who strongly supported these amendments. It was well-recognized that this was an important step forward and filled a crucial gap in the current liability and compensation regime. Those stakeholders reminded us that this convention was a significant improvement over what was currently available, which we believe is woefully inadequate.

In the case of an incident involving hazardous and noxious substances today, the shipowner is not held strictly liable. That means victims are required to prove fault or negligence on the part of the shipowner. These amendments would remove that burden and guarantee that compensation would be available.

The shipping industry is supportive of the convention because it gives them certainty and the ability to ensure against a known risk. The convention is viewed as the most efficient way to offer coverage for a ship-source chemical spill.

Such conventions avoid negative impacts to the ability for ships to trade internationally, as these are mobile assets that trade across the world on a continual basis. Therefore, the convention pools the risk and the financing of paying compensation to victims among a large number of players. This minimizes the costs of insuring the risk. The access to the international fund allows higher amounts of compensation than what shipowners alone can provide. The international nature of the fund means that all major industries that trade in hazardous and noxious substances are sharing the financial burden of paying for compensation.

To attempt to do this nationally would mean that Canadian industries could never offer the same levels of compensation as the international fund could. Of course that would put Canada at a competitive disadvantage and consumers would end up paying for a system that is ineffective.

For those reasons, I highly encourage the passage of this bill, which contains these amendments to the Marine Liability Act.

The bill being discussed today is an important component of our government's plan to enhance the safety of shipping in Canadian waters and protect our marine environment. We expect our international trade to increase in the coming years as demand for our national resources grows. With this growth, comes higher volumes of vessel traffic.

For this reason, it is becoming more and more important than ever to ensure that Canada has appropriate measures in place to protect people and the environment from potential oil spills. That is why on March 18 of last year we announced our intention to create a world-class tanker safety system. It is a comprehensive approach. It is made up of several measures which are all designed to prevent spills from happening, ensure that proper response is there if they do occur, and make polluters pay.

These measures also include the proposed amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, that are now before the House as part of Bill C-3.

Since last March we have already taken action to protect people and the environment from potential oil spills. To give an example, Transport Canada has increased inspections of foreign tankers in our waters to ensure that they meet internationally accepted standards. Our government has increased flight hours for the national aerial surveillance program. This is a great program. It is a program that allows us to detect ship-source oil spills in all three of our oceans and the Great Lakes, and significantly contributes to our ability to hold polluters accountable.

In February, I had the opportunity to participate in a surveillance flight. I can assure the members of the House that this is a very effective program.

In addition, we appointed a tanker safety expert panel last March. It has submitted a report on ways to improve tanker safety south of 60° north latitude. Our government is currently consulting with all parties about these recommendations. Next fall, the panel will submit a second report. This one about the regime in the Arctic and hazardous and noxious substances.

These measures and others are an important part of how we plan to ensure that Canadians benefit from a marine environmental regime that is truly world class.

The proposed amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 that I am now putting forward for third reading are a key component for our efforts to build a world-class tanker safety system. These amendments were debated by the House during second reading. I am encouraged that members of the House generally recognize that our proposed measures would improve safety in our waters. They would enhance government oversight of industry, and they would increase our enforcement powers.

The amendments have also been reviewed by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, which heard directly from stakeholders, as it did with respect to amendments under the Marine Liability Act. I am pleased that the reaction from industry has been favourable. That shows that stakeholders understand the value of the measures we have proposed. Their support confirms that these changes are practical and they are achievable.

I would like to remind the House briefly to what these amendments relate: providing immunity for agents of response organizations, strengthen the requirements for oil handling facilities, and extend application of administrative monetary penalties.

Under the current marine oil spills preparedness and response regime, the polluter is responsible for cleaning up oil spills. The Canada Shipping Act, 2001 protects response organizations from civil and criminal liability as they carry out their work on behalf of the polluter.

The first proposed amendment will clearly provide immunity for certain certified Canadian response organizations when they respond to a spill that occurs when an oil handling facility is unloading or loading oil to or from a vessel. This would clarify that they are covered by the act when responding to these particular situations.

A further amendment would provide the agents of a certified Canadian response organization with the same level of immunity when responding to an oil spill in Canadian waters. These agents would be able to proceed with the cleanup and know that would they have the same level of protection as the Canadian response organizations that engaged them. This would expedite their response, which is a significant advantage in a case of an emergency. Since this coverage would also extend immunity to non-Canadian responders, this measure would increase Canada' s access to international resources.

If there should ever be a large-scale oil spill, these additional resources could really complement our own environmental response capacity, and that would help ensure the fastest, most efficient response possible, eliminating possible bureaucratic, jurisdictional hang ups that could further impact lives and the environment.

Bill C-3also puts forward amendments that would strengthen the regime governing oil handling facilities during the loading or unloading of oil to or from a vessel. Currently, under the Canada Shipping Act, oil handling facilities are required to prepare oil pollution prevention plans as well as oil pollution emergency plans, and they have to keep these plans on site. The plans have to detail who is responsible for taking specific action to prevent oil spills and to respond adequately if they do. The amendments would introduce new requirements for these facilities, and that would help enhance government oversight.

To give an example, we are reinforcing the requirements that the operator at the oil handling facility must ensure that its plans are kept up to date. We would also require that the operators of existing oil handling facility notify me, as Minister of Transport, of their operations. This is simple and it would help ensure that oil handling facilities set out in the regulations would be identified. This requirement would facilitate regulatory oversight and ensure that all of these facilities would meet a sufficiently high safety standard in their operations.

New facilities will also have to submit their plans to me before they begin operations, as would those who were making significant changes that might affect the loading or unloading of oil to or from vessels. Examples of this are changes to capacity, changes in equipment, changes in design or the type of product that they are transferring.

Under the proposed amendments, operators of oil handling facilities will also have to demonstrate how they comply with the act and the regulations.

In addition, the changes give me and any future minister of transport the authority to direct an operator of an oil handling facility to take the necessary measures to adequately prevent marine oil pollution. That is going to include the authority to require an operator to repair, remedy, minimize, or prevent pollution damage from these facilities, or to stop the loading or unloading of oil to or from vessels.

Taken together, these amendments will significantly increase oversight of the operation of oil handling facilities, both existing, and new ones as well. It will help ensure that oil spills are prevented whenever possible, and that appropriate measures are in place if a spill should happen.

Lastly, Bill C-3 addresses enforcement of the legislative regime to promote compliance. Enforcement should be adaptable to the seriousness of an offence. Marine safety inspectors in my department will be able to issue administrative monetary penalties for contraventions of part 8 of the act and its regulations. This ability, in addition to the existing enforcement powers under the act, only strengthens Canada's marine oil spill preparedness and response regime.

In conclusion, this is a bill that is an important step in our government's comprehensive plan to develop a world-class tanker safety system in Canada, and in particular off the west coast. I look forward to having all members of this House support the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for her explanation and her comments on the bill.

I was a member of the committee, and we heard from witnesses. I must admit that, as the minister said, there is a lot of support for this bill. Some of the people said it is a step in the right direction.

However, the Canadian Maritime Law Association made a suggestion that we, the official opposition, proposed as an amendment. We want to be sure that, at the end of the day, Canadian taxpayers will not have to foot the bill.

Yes, there is a system in place. However, if the damages total more than $500 million, the convention does not apply. The fund created by the convention cannot be used. Then who is responsible? Taxpayers, that is who. The government will do the cleanup and Canadians will be on the hook.

Given the importance of the polluter pays principle, as the minister pointed out, why did she not agree to our amendment, which would take the existing oil fund and allow it to be used here? It has already been created. It already exists and we could have used it to ensure that Canadians will not have to pay.

Why did the minister not accept the NDP's proposed amendment?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, we are following along with international convention in ensuring that we are complying to international rules, given the nature of marine transport.

The total amount of compensation under the convention that makes shipowners strictly liable for damages like pollution would be approximately $400 million for a single incident. We hope that does not happen. Above and beyond that, we would take this on a case-by-case basis, in terms of how we would effect pollution cleanup.

What this demonstrates is that we clearly do see the gaps that need to be filled. We have looked at it very carefully, and we are moving forward to ensure we are playing on the same level playing field as other countries in the world.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends a number of existing statutes, and it does touch directly on aviation, marine safety, and so on.

I want to ask a question. Because we have walked through the door with respect to aviation issues, I want to ask the minister a question that I think she would rightly expect from the Liberal opposition here today.

It is about the recent survey of aviation inspectors who work for your department at Transport Canada. I want to know whether this bill has any bearing on what we have determined from your own inspectors on aviation.

Eighty-five percent of them believe that air travellers have been exposed to higher risks as a result of your government's policies; nine in ten of your own aviation inspectors—

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order. I would remind the hon. member to direct his comments and questions to the Chair rather than directly to his colleague, and could he get to the question, please.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, and through you, nine in ten aviation inspectors in the minister's own department are now saying that her department's safety management system prevents the correction of safety problems in a timely fashion. Finally, two-thirds of the minister's own inspectors believe that Transport Canada's safety management system will actually increase the chances of a major aviation accident.

Can the minister tell us how the bill debated here today is going to address these issues?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member would know, moving to a safety management system platform was a decision taken many years ago. As the Auditor General has noted in his report in November, there have been difficulties at Transport Canada in terms of implementing oversight with respect to auditing as opposed to inspecting.

I think the hon. member is quoting from a survey that was conducted by the union, and, in that, the determination came forward that there was a discomfort with SMS. However, the reality is that safety management systems, or SMS, are internationally recognized as being the way forward. The chair of the Transportation Safety Board here in Canada has indicated that it is the right thing to do. It is what industry says is the right thing to do. It is what ICAO has said is the right way forward, in terms of ensuring that a safety culture is embedded. As a result, we can point to a decrease in aviation accidents in the past number of years of approximately 25%.

However, on the member's point, I think it is important for Transport Canada officials to take a look at the result of the survey and apply whatever skills we can to ensure that people are trained appropriately and that they have a culture in which they like to work. I know my officials take the matter very seriously in the management of their department day by day.

However, the concept of SMS is sound, and it will be implemented because it is the right way to go for our country.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be in Victoria, and I launched a great project that was funded with support from my department, Western Economic Diversification. It is around ocean monitoring and has a series of sensors, expertise, and a hub for collecting data related to baseline measurements up and along the B.C. coast.

Certainly I know that our government has invested heavily, not only in the infrastructure but also the research expertise and capacity, to help inform us and put together sound public policy around regulation in the area that my colleague is speaking to today.

I wonder if the minister can provide the House with some additional details on the level of work related to science and technology that our government has funded, and how it is has informed the policy that she has put forward to the House for debate.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed innovation, such as the minister has indicated, is really important to ensure that we are at the cutting edge in terms of prevention, response, and, at the end of the day, liability.

On the prevention and response side, these types of sensors that the member referred to will allow us to understand what is happening in the ocean. They will provide real-time information to vessels about dangers to them, to ensure we are preventing an accident from happening.

It is an incredibly smart project, and I am very grateful that the minister is funding it through her department. It shows that we have a whole-of-government approach when it comes to ensuring that our marine environment will continue to be safe, so that we can responsibly develop our resources here in Canada.

The only other item that I think is unique to us in Canada, and of which I am very proud, is the national aerial surveillance program. That flies out of Vancouver, the north, and the east coast. It is something unique to our country. They do not have this capability or this instrumentation in the United States. From 10,000 feet, it can see a spill of as little as one litre of oil on the water.

These are very important things that we can do to ensure we respond as quickly as possible to a spill and make sure we contain the damage, and of course the liability, as best we can. I am very pleased that we have expanded the coverage. We are providing more hours in the air and more coverage across the country in the national aerial surveillance program.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for the minister.

Before the bill was brought forward at second reading, the NDP made a request to have the scope of the bill broadened so that we could look at ways to make sure the environment is protected. For instance, we look at how the government has been acting with closing Coast Guard stations and cutting a lot of environmental protection measures.

Why did the Conservatives not agree with the NDP proposal to broaden the scope of the bill to better protect the environment?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we brought the bill for reintroduction, in October of last year, it was a bill that contained a number of items, as I have already outlined. However, these are all items that are practical, pragmatic, and have the ability to make a change now.

One of the examples I gave was that we are ensuring that aids to navigation, which are buoys, lights, and other devices to mark locations and preferred shipping routes, are installed and maintained. It is these kinds of practical, action-oriented devices that we want to accomplish, to make sure we are not studying, not waiting, nor contemplating; we are moving forward. We are getting action, and we are going to protect the environment in the short term, and not thinking about it in the long term.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-3.

Before I start, I would like to commend my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for the extraordinary work he has done on this bill.

It is important to take a look at what this bill does. It has a rather long title: 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. This bill involves a number of different acts.

Since the bill already involved a number of other laws, we requested that it be expanded and be a little more open, so that we could take a good look at what is going on with environmental protection.

The Conservative government has made cuts that affect the environment, particularly in western Canada, in British Columbia, but also in the east, where the government has closed rescue stations. The government's actions contradict its claims that it wants to protect the environment.

We lobbied, we wanted to talk and we wanted to see meaningful action. Unfortunately the government refused to listen to us.

Yes, this bill is a step in the right direction, especially in terms of marine protection and safety. That is why we will support the bill at this stage.

However, the committee heard testimony from a number of experts. We made very reasonable suggestions to improve the bill. Unfortunately, once again, the government refused any amendment from the opposition.

Unfortunately, this bill is yet more proof that the government does not have an open approach. Not only did it refuse to expand the scope of the bill, but it also refused to listen when we scrutinized the bill and made suggestions based on expert studies. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened.

The bill has four rather major parts dealing with separate issues. The first part deals with the aviation industry indemnity. This allows the Minister of Transport to compensate certain airlines for any losses, damages or liability caused by events known as war risks. We support what has been proposed on this issue. It is a solution to a problem that was there before.

The second part amends the Aeronautics Act to give the airworthiness investigative authority the power to investigate aviation accidents or incidents involving civilians and aircraft or aeronautical installations operated by the Department of National Defence. In the event of military-civilian occurrences, this part gives the airworthiness investigative authority the power to conduct investigations.

However, we have noticed a problem. In the past, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada used to carry out the studies and investigations. At the end of the day, since the board was responsible, the report was made public. In this case, the report will be submitted to the Minister of National Defence. The minister will be able to see the report, but he will not be required to make it public.

The NDP proposed to force the government to make the report public so that anyone who has questions can be informed and the public is reassured. Once again, unfortunately, the government rejected our amendment. However—and this is not in defence of the government—we heard that it is in the interest of the Department of National Defence to make these reports public.

They are telling us that the reports will be made public on an administrative level. If the information is confidential—for example, if the reports are talking about strategic or other types of military issues—we can understand why they would not be made public. However, nothing prevents the government from making these reports public. Even the officials from the Department of National Defence who testified in committee said that all existing reports on these types of investigations are made public.

Why did the government not take the NDP's proposal to make these investigations public? Our proposal took into account that the reports would not have to be made public if they contained confidential information or strategic national security information, and the government already has that right. This government already does it. Most of the time, when the public wants to see a report or investigation, only a part of the report will be disclosed—not the full report.

This is in the interests of transparency, which is very important to the NDP. Unfortunately the government did not accept our proposal.

I would now like to talk more about part 4, which we think is one of the most important parts. As the minister mentioned, this part will fix a problem that existed before with respect to compensation for victims or others who have to pay in the event of disaster. Here is what is going on. Canada was a signatory to the convention.

Canada was a signatory to the HNS Convention, and what we are doing here is actually implementing the convention. The reason for the convention and the reason we are supporting part 4 is that we are moving forward. We need to have these rules, these regulations, to make sure that the convention is applied. We want the convention to be applied here because it would actually allow us to access a fund. It is an international fund for HNS, hazardous and noxious substances. In case of a spill, we would be able to use money from that fund.

Also, the bill would actually limit the responsibility of the shippers. Just to make it simple, if a spill happens with HNS, the shipper will be responsible up to a certain amount, which is approximately $230 million. That amount changes. I will not go into detail about why, but that is the amount.

The information we have from the Library of Parliament is that the other amount will be covered by the convention. The fund will cover up to $500 million. In excess of that, what happens? That is the question we were asking. What happens if there is a spill that exceeds $500 million in terms of liability, in terms of damages? Basically, the answer from witnesses, and also now from the minister, is that it might not happen.

What if it happens? Before all the oil spills, we were saying that it was not going to be a problem. Everything was safe. However, when we saw what happened with the Exxon Valdez, for instance, and when we saw what happened in Lac-Mégantic, where in terms of insurance, the company did not have enough insurance, who ended up paying for it? It was the taxpayers. What is worse, the people who have to do the cleanup are going to be on the hook for that.

A fund already exists. Duties were taken for oil, so the fund exists already. We wanted to make sure that at the end of the day, it will not be the taxpayers who have to pay. We could use that fund to make sure that we protect Canadians. Unfortunately, again, the government refused our amendment.

It is really hard for me to understand why we do not want to make sure that Canadians are off the hook, especially when the government has said that polluter pays is really important. In this case, if something happens, again, Canadians could be on the hook.

It is an amendment we thought was reasonable and would make sure it was in the right direction. The response from the government was not satisfactory. We do not understand that position.

I would like to come back to the fact that the bill contains some good features, including part 5, which is an interesting part because it sets out further safeguards. Operators of oil handling facilities will have to meet some additional obligations, such as submitting an emergency or response plan to the department to ensure that they have a plan for their operations. When petroleum is moved from one source to another, be it by boat or by train, there is a transfer here, which is when we want to be covered.

In addition, a certain form of liability will provide some freedom to the first responders on site in emergency or problem situations. In other words, response organizations will be entitled to some immunity, which is important. Indeed, in committee, the first responders told us that this was important to them too, which is why we are supporting it.

However, we can do more and look at the government's way of doing things. I will make a parallel with what is happening in rail safety. There are regulations in this sector that the government says are strong. However, in practice, what we have is deregulation. Companies are increasingly being allowed to self-regulate and self-inspect.

The Auditor General clearly stated that Transport Canada did not have the resources needed for the inspections, which is what concerns me in this case. Indeed, we are taking a step in the right direction with the legislation by providing for inspections and an obligation to submit response plans. However, if we look at the budget and how the government is doing things, there has been no follow-up at all on that. For example, there was no increase in the last budget to ensure protection in rail safety.

Once again, inspectors are being given more duties without necessarily being given the resources they need. The Auditor General was scathing in his report. The department said that it would follow-up. We are waiting to see this follow-up to determine whether the government is committed to protecting Canadians first and foremost. Although this is a step in the right direction, the government's actions suggest otherwise.

When a response plan is produced, what co-operation will there be? What information will we have as interested parties to find out whether the government is doing its job?

It is easy to draw a parallel between this issue and rail safety because we started studying that issue in committee after the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, which concerns the same department, the Department of Transport. That is why we are trying to identify the real shortcomings. We have to admit that Lac-Mégantic opened our eyes. We saw that there were shortcomings not just in the measures implemented by the government, but also in how laws are managed and implemented.

Now, on the one hand, we are headed in somewhat the same direction by enforcing the laws and asking companies to submit a plan to us. On the other hand, we do not have the resources to ensure that these plans are safe.

Once again, I am drawing a parallel with emergency response plans. After the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada asked that these plans be put in place. However, we do not know if these plans will be put in place correctly because Transport Canada does not have the resources to check everything. We believe that is a problem.

Furthermore, there is a lack of transparency in the government's approach. If I am drawing so many parallels with rail safety, it is because we have clearly discovered shortcomings.

In this case, the same type of system is being put in place. That is where the problem lies. The government is presenting a plan. However, neither the public nor parliamentarians can obtain all the information.

We asked the government to ensure that municipalities, for example, have all the necessary information about dangerous goods transported by rail through their area. We were told that it would be a step in the right direction to ask companies to submit the list of dangerous goods, albeit after the fact. In other words, people will be told what has already passed through their area, but will not be told what is soon going to pass through. This would have allowed municipalities to have the information they need to ensure that they have the necessary resources in place.

Unfortunately, the minister at the time said that if the municipalities wanted that information they would have to use the Access to Information Act. That is just ridiculous. Once again there is a lack of transparency. We believe that this approach unfortunately does not show any goodwill on the part of the government or any concern for informing the public and working with the municipalities to ensure that everyone has the information needed to move things forward.

That is why I am making a comparison with rail safety. As I explained, that is what the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is now studying. In this case, we had very little time to study the bill. We had a few meetings. Still, we did make requests to flesh out the bill so that we could study other issues. This bill addresses some problems with liability. Implementing an international convention is a good thing.

However, there is nothing about protecting our coasts. Some of my colleagues are very worried about how the government operates and the measures it introduces. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The time for that is now. Unfortunately, the government is refusing to listen to what the opposition has to say and what its concerns are. Several MPs from eastern Canada, and many from western Canada, are very concerned about everything to do with supertankers. They are very worried about the coastlines. They are very worried about the government's approach, about the lack of transparency and especially about the government's failure to protect our coasts and the environment.

This would have been a good opportunity to study this issue. Since this bill already affects four other laws, why did the government not take the time to do something good? The minister replied that it was time to take action, not to do more studies or think long term. We are asking the government to take action to protect the environment.

Taking action does not mean cutting the services, resources and personnel that are meant to protect us. What we are asking the government to do is reverse those cuts because they have serious consequences. If problems come up after those cuts are made, the government will realize that it made a mistake. That is why environmental protection is so vitally important to the NDP. It is terribly unfortunate that the government did not listen to us. That is why we will continue to fight to protect our coasts and the environment.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech today.

For the benefit of the members in the House and the Canadians who are watching, I would like to present some simple facts and key points. I would like to share them with my colleague and see what he has to say.

We know from the 2012-13 public accounts that VIA Rail was cut by 15%, aviation safety was cut by 11%, marine safety was cut by 25%, road safety was cut by 5.5% and rail safety remained relatively constant. At the same time, we know that the Conservative federal government spends more on economic action plan ads than on rail safety.

Could my colleague comment on these cuts and explain the fundamental adverse effects they will have on safety in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, and I would especially like to say how pleased I am to work with him on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

The government is reducing spending to balance its budget and fulfill its 2015 election promises. However, what the government is not saying and what we are clearly seeing is that there is a direct negative impact on public safety.

I know that the Minister of Transport does not like it when we say that people are not as well protected, but those are the facts. When inspectors are not doing the job, when there are fewer and fewer inspections and companies are increasingly allowed to self-regulate and do their own inspections, at the end of the day, you have what happened in Lac-Mégantic. When the government chooses deregulation and abandons rail safety, that is what happens.

That is why we are concerned when all the government does is cut spending. Yes, it will amend the legislation and say there are more reasons to protect people. However, in reality, we know that inspectors do not have the resources they need to really ensure that the safety of Canadians is a priority.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Brossard—La Prairie for an excellent speech. I know that he is doing incredible work as part of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and I thank him for that. I am certain that many Canadians are appreciative of the fact that he is standing up to the Conservative government, especially on a topic as important as the one before us in the House today.

The NDP proposed very reasonable amendments to this bill to ensure that Canadians will not be held responsible for compensation and cleanup costs if there is a spill involving noxious and potentially hazardous substances, for example. We also asked the Conservative government to expand the scope of the bill. Unfortunately, the government rejected all of those requests.

This bill contains some extremely disappointing elements, and it does not go far enough. For example, it does not cover oil spills. I am thinking about my colleagues from British Columbia, which is home to many oil projects. I am also thinking about my colleagues from the east, in the Maritimes, who are seeing the same thing happen there.

What does my colleague think about the fact that the Conservatives do not want to broaden the scope of this bill or the fact that they do not want to better protect our environmental resources or the health of Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Alfred-Pellan for her very good question.

It is hard for us to understand why the government will not expand the scope of the bill to ensure that we are protecting our coasts and coming up with tangible measures.

I get the impression that the government does not want us to see all the negative things it is doing that go against protecting the environment and the public from these spills.

My colleague is absolutely right. Some very reasonable amendments have been proposed to ensure that taxpayers are not on the hook at the end of the day. Unfortunately, the Conservatives rejected our amendment, in favour of the oil companies.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General recently presented a report on rail safety. We learned that the self-regulation system has led to some unthinkable situations.

My colleague can confirm and make a case for this statement: only 23% of inspections are done. Verifications of these analyses indicate that everything was done incorrectly. Only 23% of the job is being done and it is done poorly. What is more, apparently Transport Canada did not do any follow-up. When it detected an incident or an irregularity, it contacted the company and did not verify whether corrective action was taken. Nothing is done.

My question is simple: after 20 years of using a system that produces such poor results, can we really talk about rail safety?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

As I was saying, a connection must be made with rail safety when we are talking about environmental protection and all the rest. We are talking about the same department and the same way of doing things. The government has introduced legislation that we support and that, on paper, offers better protection. However, in reality, Transport Canada does not have the resources necessary to follow up and ensure that the safety and protection of Canadians are the top priority, and that is a problem. We are not the ones saying so; it is the Auditor General. Even if Transport Canada wanted to provide Canadians with greater protection, the Conservative government is cutting those jobs. It is cutting inspector jobs and the department's budget.

The legislation says one thing, but in reality, the government is letting companies regulate and manage themselves, which sometimes results in catastrophe. That is why victims are suing Transport Canada. That is too bad, because it is time to take action and find solutions. Unfortunately, when we propose solutions, the government does not listen.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on two or three separate occasions, members of the NDP have unfairly characterized the notion of a safety management system as deregulation. That is not quite the situation. The problem, as we have learned from the Auditor General's important report on rail safety, is not the notion of a safety management system. The problem is the fact that one of the essential partners in the safety management system, Transport Canada under this government, is not doing its job. That is because it is, as Ronald Reagan might say, a question of trusting but verifying, with inspections and audits.

Therefore, I would like to get a better understanding on where the NDP stands on the notion that we can have co-operation between regulated sectors and the regulator, the federal government in this case, and be able to provide a safe environment for rail safety and other forms of transport safety.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question because it gives me the opportunity to highlight how the Conservatives' and Liberals' ways of seeing regulation are similar, and how they are heading toward the right direction.

I have heard time and time again in committee my colleague ask companies, like railway companies, whether they have read the Auditor General's report, or whether they think they should go forward in terms of making it safer. I do not think it is the responsibility of the private companies to self-regulate.

The real position, our position in the NDP, which is contrary to the Liberals' and Conservatives' position, is that the government should make sure that the rules are the strictest rules, to make sure that safety is the number one priority. What we have seen from the Conservatives, and the Liberals, is deregulation, letting the companies self-regulate.

What we have seen after that is that the Auditor General says the system, the way it is done, is not working because the inspectors do not have enough resources to actually look at what the companies are doing, so there is a problem, and it came from the Liberals.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a wonderful starting point for my speech this afternoon on this bill, Bill C-3, which is a follow-up to Bill C-57 from the last session of this House.

In truth, this is a bill that should have been dispatched some time ago. It was not, because of the very long prorogation brought in by the Conservative government.

It is a technical amendment bill in many respects. It makes a number of good, positive contributions to improving transportation. However, my remarks this afternoon will be couched in a broader context, and I think it is important for us to keep in mind how these changes are but a step forward in a transportation environment that is, in my view, in a very serious and precarious state in Canada today.

It is a conclusion I and our party do not come to lightly. It comes from many dozens of witnesses who have appeared before committee. It comes from the exhaustive and detailed report from the Auditor General on rail safety released late last fall, which can fairly be described a scathing indictment of the Conservative government's performance on rail safety over the past eight years.

In some respects, Canadians are not surprised, because this is the fifth minister in eight years. What we have had is a succession of ministers transiting through the transport portfolio. Whether they are transiting upwards or downwards or out is another question, but what it shows is that those five ministers have not been paying attention to their brief. They have moved through, and Transport Canada's systemic problems remain.

When my colleague from the NDP persists with his seatmates to point to the private sector as the bad guys, or the bad gals, what it really demonstrates is the fundamental problem with the NDP, which is that it has a difficult time with the free market and a difficult time with free market operators. It does not understand that in today's world in the 21st century, companies derive their licence to operate not from any one order of government—not from the federal government or a provincial government or a municipal government—but from the Canadian public.

It is a concept that is widely known as the social licence to operate, and woe befall a company that crosses the Canadian public. However, that said, the notion of a safety management system as put forward by the Auditor General and as put forward by many actors who participate in safety management systems is that it is a partnership, a partnership between the regulated and the regulator. In this case, the regulator is the Government of Canada, through Transport Canada, the department responsible for transportation and transportation safety.

It is a partnership. It takes two to tango in a partnership.

The thrust of my remarks this afternoon is as follows. One of the partners is falling well short of its responsibility in making sure the safety management system is working, whether it be in the marine sector, the airline sector, the rail sector, or the road transport sector. That partnership, that point at which the regulated company and the regulator come together, is why we are studying safety management systems at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities today.

Let us talk a bit about the role and purpose of government.

The NDP believes that there should not be this kind of partnership with the private sector. I believe that is a mistake. I believe there are efficiencies, good faith, goodwill, and many other drivers in the private sector that can be harnessed in a partnership to make sure that conduct is appropriate and that things remain safe.

On the other hand, the Conservatives believe that the real role and purpose of government in the 21st century is to withdraw government. I believe the Prime Minister is what I would describe as a constitutional purist. He does not believe the federal government should be involved in many areas where it is involved today, and he is—by stealth, by subterfuge, hidden behind the scenes—removing the federal government from very important areas. That is manifesting itself in this sector.

That is why, when we look at the public accounts for 2012-13, this is what we learn. The numbers do not lie.

The Minister of Transport will get up and say, for example, that the government has spent $100 million on safety since 2009. It sounds like a big number, except that it spent $600 million on advertising over those same years. It spent $550 million on outsourced legal fees. Let us set that into context and look at the public accounts.

The office of Infrastructure Canada was cut 17%. VIA Rail was cut 15%. Aviation safety was cut 11%. Marine safety, which this bill addresses most specifically, was cut 25%. Road safety was cut 5.5%. Rail safety has a very marginal increase at a time when we are seeing great stress and pressure on our railway system, particularly as it relates to the transportation of dangerous goods like oil and diluted bitumen. There is pressure from Canada's oil sands and from the Bakken oil shelf in North Dakota and from southern Saskatchewan. Many different sources are now putting lots of pressure on our rail safety system.

What would we expect of a government that believes in the role and purpose of government and believes in getting the big things right, such as safety? What would we expect it to do in full knowledge that there is increased pressure on our railway system and our marine system because of increasing traffic? We would expect it to invest more, not less, in safety. However, we have seen systematic cuts in investments in safety.

Crude oil shipped by rail in Canada has increased 32,000% since 2009. The government has known that for eight years. It was given this information when it received its briefing books when it formed the government back in 2006, so we have to ask what has happened since then.

The most definitive voice we can rely on, as Canadians would agree, is the Auditor General of Canada. That is the most trustworthy and objective voice we have so far. There will be more to come, I am sure, as more information is made available.

Let us take a look at the Auditor General's incredibly important report, because it has a bearing on this bill and whether or not this bill goes nearly far enough to deal with the crisis in rail safety.

Moments ago the minister stood and said, quoting the Auditor General, that the concept of SMS is sound. She is right in quoting the Auditor General. That is what he wrote. He wrote that the concept of safety management systems is sound, but then he went on to eviscerate, to make plain, to expose to the light of day the absolute failure of the Government of Canada under the Conservatives to make sure its side of the partnership is upheld in the notion of these safety management systems.

Here are the fundamental conclusions that the Auditor General of Canada has reached. This is undeniable. The government knows it, all members know it, and Canadians know it.

First, Transport Canada does not have an audit approach that provides a minimum level of assurance that federal railways have implemented safety management systems to manage their safety risks and comply with safety requirements. Wow. It does not have an audit approach that provides a minimum level of assurance. That is conclusion number one.

Next is conclusion number two, and it gets more serious as we move forward in the report. On safety, here is what the Auditor General said explicitly, in words in black and white. In speaking of safety, he said that despite the department's discussions with the industry, it does not have clear timelines. The report says:

...it does not have a formal process to set clear timelines for overseeing significant safety issues from the time they are identified until they are resolved.

The report goes on to state:

We found that the work plans are vague in terms of timelines for monitoring progress on important safety issues.

Conclusion number three is as follows:

...the Department was missing other important risk and performance data to supplement inspectors’ knowledge gained from previous inspections.

Unbelievably, here is the list. This is in the wake of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. This is what we learned.

We are missing the federal railways' own internal risk assessments. That is a fundamental part of the safety management system of our railway system.

We are missing information on the sections of track that are used in transporting dangerous goods. We are missing information on the condition of railway bridges, which are carrying tens of thousands of cars carrying dangerous goods, and we are missing the financial information of privately owned federal railways. That is not publicly available. Therefore, we cannot even assess the financial status of many of the companies that are being regulated and are participating in the safety management system.

There is something else, and it is perhaps the most egregious aspect. It really is shocking.

The Auditor General looked at Transport Canada over three years. It took 36 months. The report said that the department set up a three-year cycle for auditing the safety management systems of each federal railway. There are 31 federal railways, and that cycle is supposed to be completed once every three years for each railway.

In three fiscal years, Transport Canada completed 14 audits on eight federal railways—not on 31, but on eight. That is according to Transport Canada's own determination.

Inside, it says it needs to perform way more audits than it actually did. How many did it perform? How many did it complete out of the number it said it had to complete? It completed 26%. Just one-quarter of the audits that Transport Canada itself said had to be performed to keep railways safe were performed.

Just to set this in context for Canadians, four million passengers a year ride VIA Rail, and that is a good thing. We want to encourage people to use light transit. We want to work toward reducing our greenhouse gases and make our transportation system more efficient.

In the three years it was audited by the Auditor General, VIA Rail and its safety management system was not audited once. Four million passengers a year and not one audit was performed by Transport Canada. That is very serious business.

The Auditor General goes on to say at the conclusion:

These findings indicate that Transport Canada does not have the assurance it needs that federal railways have implemented adequate and effective safety management systems.

That is where this is falling down. It is the responsibility of the Conservative government to invest in the capacity it needs at Transport Canada to do its job, not to work toward fictitious and arbitrary deadlines for the elimination of deficits so the Conservatives can run on it in the 2015 election campaign. As they do this, we see behind the scenes what they are doing to transportation safety. It is undermined.

The Auditor General says that even the methodology being used to determine the number of inspections it is supposed to perform is outdated and flawed, and it goes on. This is how serious it is right now.

The Auditor General's office examined whether there were enough inspectors inside the department to perform the inspections they had to perform on aviation, on marine, on road, on rail, on all forms of transportation for which the government is responsible.

The Auditor General found, according to Transport Canada, that it needed 20 system auditors to audit each railway once every three years. How many did Transport Canada have on staff over the three-year period audited by the Auditor General? Ten. One half of the actual amount of inspectors and auditors it required to do the audit required is actually on staff.

It gets even more challenging. Not only does it have half of the inspectors it is supposed to have on staff, on top of that Transport Canada is now responsible for overseeing another 39 non-federal railways. That is 31 federal railways and 39 non-federal railways for which it has responsibility.

For the 10 inspectors it had on staff during the three-year audit, Transport Canada did not know whether the inspectors actually had the required skills and the competencies to do their jobs. It says that inspectors and managers are not trained in a timely basis. It cannot even warrant that the inspectors who are there are objective and independent because they come mainly from the federal railways that are regulated.

In short, we have a government that does not get it. It does not get the role and purpose of government in the 21st century. It is about cut and withdraw, and what happens? We compromise cherished Canadian public services and values.

It is the responsibility of a government to get the big things right. That includes safety in the transportation sector, but we have no evidence, and we have waited for it, that the government will take it seriously. I hope, beyond all hope, that it does not take another tragedy like the tragedy at Lac-Mégantic to get the government's attention.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

He spoke a lot about dangerous cars and rail safety. He also spoke a lot about the Auditor General's report.

As a result of an agreement with the Province of British Columbia that dates back 40 years, oil tanker traffic is basically prohibited off the coast of British Columbia. However, this agreement was never put in writing and now risks being abandoned by the Conservatives.

Do the Liberals support the NDP's request to impose a written moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the west coast in order protect the coastline?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party of Canada believes there has to be proper quasi-judicial regulatory bodies in place, properly resourced, to do their jobs. What we have seen under the Conservatives are changes, for example, to the National Energy Board, our national energy regulator responsible for pipeline hearings, interprovincial issues. What has the government done? It has done two things. It has made the test to appear in front of the National Energy Board much more difficult to meet because it wants to winnow away different voices, suppress them. It describes them as radical voices.

Second, the Conservatives have said that it that does not really matter what the National Energy Board decides. It has taken the power for decision-making away from the NEB and given it to cabinet.

Therefore, we are seeing the usurping of authority, no more arm's-length between the process to decide what should happen vis-à-vis our west coast, because big daddy government under the Prime Minister knows best. That is unfortunate. We have a tradition in our country of working with arm's-length organizations that have provided us with decades of very good service.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Ottawa South may know that the CN main line passes through my riding of Kingston and the Islands. I remember recently looking at the trains with my young daughter and telling her which cars contained what. I remember telling her that many cars were full of oil. The composition of the trains has certainly changed in the last few years.

Could the Liberal critic for transport tell my constituents in Kingston and the Islands what effect better regulations and better surveillance and auditing of Canada's rail system would mean to the people who live along that rail line?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his incredible service to Kingston and the Islands. He is a strong advocate not only for his region but for many of these safety issues.

It is important for us to remember a couple of things. Given the expansion of Canada's oil sands and given the expansion of the shale deposits in the Bakken field in North Dakota and southern Saskatchewan, we will see by 2024 one million barrels a day of excess oil that will not be capable of being transported by pipeline. Where is that oil going to go? The railways tell us it is going to go on rail. The oil companies tell us it is going to go on rail. The Conservative government tells us that it is going to go on rail.

The problem is that the government has not stopped long enough to project out where we are going to be, the importance, as my colleague suggests, of bringing regulation and enforcement. We need capacity to enforce, inspect and audit. That would make it much safer.

Finally, the government did a deal with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. It said that it would inform the federation 90 days after the fact that a dangerous substance went through, for example, Kingston. That is wrong. Advance prior notice should be given to municipalities so they can be best prepared in the event of a mistake, an accident or a tragedy.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not a new problem we are discussing. The policy allowing transport companies to regulate themselves in terms of safety was introduced 20 years ago, and after 20 years we have learned that this work was never done. This is not just about the government opposite. There has been a lack of governance for 20 years.

It gets worse. We are discussing transport companies, but first and foremost they are public services. I would like to remind everyone that at one time Air Canada and Canadian National were crown corporations. They were privatized later by the Liberal government. This government neither took the care nor had the vision to ensure that these companies would continue to safely provide public services. How is it going to fix this 20-year-old mess that the Liberals created? At some point, you have to stop criticizing others and take a hard look at yourself.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is where we really see the difference between the NDP and the Liberal Party.

There is no doubt about the fact that the NDP does not believe in the private market. No doubt about that. Apparently, the state has to own everything. In today's world, the private sector can believe in the role of government in the 21st century and want to work with the government. That is the difference between our two parties.

Progress definitely has to be made. By working together, we can make many changes. However, that takes the will to invest and put in place the means to ensure that Canada's transportation system remains safe. The Conservative government does not have that will.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to a few of the hon. member's responses and even parts of his speech, but his illustration seems a bit simplistic to me.

It is true that the problems have been around for 20 years. However, the DOT-111 cars were under the Liberals. What did they do? Nothing.

Now they are saying that they want to change things. However, they put in place a system whereby companies self-regulate. Even today, in committee, they are asking companies to make regulations. Instead of considering that the government is responsible for regulating safety, the Liberals are asking companies to create better regulations for improved safety. That is how they see things, and therein lies the difference.

The NDP believes that the government is responsible for ensuring that the safety of Canadians is the top priority. What the Liberals want to do is take a hands-off approach and hope for the best. That is the major difference.

What does my colleague think about the deregulation that started under the Liberals and is continuing under the Conservatives?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard not to chuckle, because first it is a mischaracterization of the position of the Liberal Party to suggest that we are asking private companies to self-regulate. That is false. I and the party believe that the most successful nation states on the planet today are those where government, NGOs, civil society and business work together. It is not an us and them; it is not a them and us; there is no bad guy or gal. We are all in this together. The New Democrats are stuck because they have difficulty dealing with the realities of a free market.

The important thing, going forward, is to ensure that we see the requisite investments we need in the capacity of Transport Canada so the good people who work there, including the inspectors, auditors, clerks, analysts and economists, are all together having the desired effect, and that is to ensure transportation in our country remains safe and safety is enhanced, particularly given the big challenges we face, as I alluded to earlier.

There is a fundamental difference between the New Democrats and the Liberals, and clearly it has to do with an understanding of and a willingness to work within a free market.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to 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.

The length of the bill's title would suggest that it is quite a comprehensive bill, but in fact, one of the opposition's primary criticisms of the bill is that it is too modest an approach. It was a missed opportunity here to broaden the scope of the bill to make comprehensive changes to protect our coasts.

As deputy fisheries and oceans critic for the official opposition, I have heard many concerns over the past years about how the current government has closed B.C.'s oil spill response centre and shut down the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and is shutting down Marine Communications and Traffic Services centres in Vancouver, Tofino, and Comox. Many of these closures fly in the face of conventional and practical wisdom.

During second reading of the bill, I spoke at length about the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in Vancouver. There was a lot of anger and frustration among British Columbians when the minister made this decision and shut the station down. This anger and frustration only continued as expert after expert stood up and said that this decision was a bad idea and was guaranteed to put people's lives at risk. These experts included the Vancouver police chief, the Vancouver fire chief, the mayor of Vancouver, and the premier of B.C. Yet the Conservative government chose to completely disregard the facts and the evidence. Instead, it sped up the closure and dismantled the station as fast as possible.

Put simply, it is increasingly difficult to trust that Canadians' concerns are being taken seriously.

In terms of the bill before us today, I acknowledge that there are some positive parts in it. The NDP is pleased to see a few new measures for increasing tanker safety, including increased inspections of foreign tankers, expanded aerial surveillance designed to monitor ship traffic and detect oil spills, a review of tug escort requirements, and expanded research into the science of oil spills. However, British Columbians are very concerned about the preservation of our coast and the way of life in coastal communities.

In 2012, our province was reminded of the very real threat of a catastrophic oil spill when two major shipping vessels ran aground on the west coast. Given the Conservative government's apparent desire to end the moratorium on north coast tanker traffic, the threat of a spill is something our province must seriously prepare for. That is why I introduced a private member's bill to ban tanker traffic in this important and sensitive area off B.C.'s north coast. It is why so many British Columbians are opposed to the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline proposal in the north and the Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal in the south.

If an oil spill or a spill of hazardous and noxious substances were to happen, Canadian taxpayers should not be on the hook for cleanup costs and damages following a spill.

The bill before us today would amend the Marine Liability Act to implement in Canada the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010, to which Canada is a signatory.

The HNS convention establishes a liability scheme that limits shipowners' liability to approximately $230 million. Damages in excess of shipowners' liability are to be paid by an international HNS fund, up to a maximum of $500 million. My concern is that in the event of a spill of hazardous and noxious substances, the cleanup bill is likely to exceed these limits.

The opposition has attempted to work with the government to improve this part of the bill. The proposed reasonable amendments are to prevent Canadian taxpayers from being responsible for damages exceeding $500 million. Unfortunately, the Conservatives rejected our proposal to make the bill more comprehensive.

I would like to read into the record a quote from the Union of British Columbia Municipalities' submission on Canada's marine oil spill preparedness and response regime.

Our members have a strong interest in the changes to the federal oil spill preparedness and response regime given the proposed pipeline and liquid natural gas projects in our province. B.C. Local governments have indicated that environmental protection is a top priority, and have supported several resolutions with respect to a polluter pay principle, environmental issues and restoration, working with local governments, and the need to increase federal agency staffing and training.

B.C. municipalities support the polluter pay principle, and they do not believe that current environmental measures are adequate to clean up damages caused by these types of large-scale spills or disasters.

The bill before us today is by no means ideal. Its scope could have been broadened to include more comprehensive measures to safeguard Canada's coasts.

Despite the bill's shortcomings, I intend to vote in support of moving it forward. I suppose a modest improvement in marine security is better than no improvement at all.

If the opposition had its way, the bill would have been vastly different. It would have reversed the government's reckless cuts and closures in marine environmental safety.

I should also mention that I am splitting my time with the member for Surrey North.

I have already spoken about the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and the three MCTS centres in British Columbia that are slated for closure. The NDP wants to see a reversal of these Coast Guard closures. We want to see cuts to the MCTS centres cancelled. We also believe the government should cancel the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spills responders.

A number of environmental NGOs have highlighted Canada's insufficient safety measures in regard to oil tanker traffic. Unfortunately, Bill C-3 focuses on administrative organization and is lacking in actual environmental improvements.

British Columbians are very concerned about maritime safety. The Conservative government has demonstrated time and time again that it does not take these concerns seriously. Conservatives ignore first nations. They ignore fishermen, and they ignore our coastal communities. I do not believe that the bill will serve its intended purpose of convincing British Columbians that the federal government takes coastal safety seriously.

While I will vote in support of this modest attempt to play catch-up with industry regulations, I would ask the federal government to start listening to British Columbians' concerns. Stop gutting marine safety resources and spending millions on trying to sell the people of British Columbia on risky oil pipeline projects that will see tanker traffic increase exponentially.

I held a series of town hall meetings in my riding of New Westminster—Coquitlam and in Port Moody. I heard these concerns. In fact, I had a follow-up focus group in Port Moody, which is right on the Pacific Ocean, in Burrard Inlet. They are very concerned about marine safety. They are very concerned about an increase in tanker traffic. They are very concerned about pipeline projects that are proposed for our area. In fact, a pipeline project is proposed to go through Coquitlam, and there is a staging area in the park of one of our sensitive areas. This is right on the other side of my riding, which borders the Fraser River.

These are very real concerns to the people living in my riding. They have concerns. They have expressed them to me. When I hold public sessions, when I consult, when I ask for feedback, I time and time again hear how important it is to protect our coastal communities, our way of life, and the concerns that are raised on these projects. I am trying to bring forward these I think reasonable and modest amendments to the government to make these changes. Unfortunately, we do not see the government listening and incorporating these changes.

I hope the government will listen to the people in my riding who have these concerns and make changes going forward. The way I think we could have a productive Parliament would be to have this exchange, and I am not seeing it. I hope the government will listen not only to the opposition but to the people in my riding. Those concerns are real, and they want to see those changes made.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from New Westminster—Coquitlam for putting so strongly the views of his constituents, which I must say are shared with, if anything, more enthusiasm by my constituents.

I have just been reading through the so-called Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain 15,000 pages of alleged evidence about how it can safely move, through tankers and pipelines, a substance called dilbit.

I do not know if the member has had time to dive into this yet, but let me just inform him and the rest of this House that their evidence on dilbit's behaviour in a marine environment comes from a couple of tanks the company set up in Alberta for 13 days. It put dilbit in with salt water. They say that they mimicked wind and wave action by stirring.

I do not know what the member thinks of a test on the marine environment based on tanks found in Gainford, Alberta. I wonder if the member would like to comment on what we know about the behaviour of dilbit in the marine environment and the threat to our coastlines.

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

Mr. Speaker, while I do not know if I have actually dived into dilbit, I certainly have done some research on how this substance can affect our marine coastline and our precious oceans.

Let me say that this is a big concern. It is a concern across the country. It is especially a concern on the west coast. In communities that live there and rely on getting their employment from the ocean on Canada's west coast, any kind of threat to that way of life is paramount to them. Whether it is for the fishing industry, tourism, or first nations, the way of life we have on the west coast is precious. We want to ensure that this way of life can continue, as it has for thousands for years on the west coast. We want to see that continue into the future.

Certainly in looking at the types of noxious substances that are going to be carried, either on rail or through pipelines, it is critical that we get that right.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. It is clear that he truly cares about his constituents' concerns.

Last week I participated in a waterfront cleanup in a park with some people from my riding of Pierrefonds—Dollard. It was great to see the public involved in cleaning up the environment and the waterfront.

However, the bill is not just referring to garbage being thrown out by people in a specific community. Should the public be responsible for the costs associated with toxic spills? The NDP does not think so, as my colleague mentioned earlier. We want those responsible to be held accountable, and Canadians or the people living in the communities affected are not necessarily those responsible.

I would like to quote Mr. Sumaila, a professor at the University of British Columbia and member of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit, who testified in committee regarding this bill. He said:

Who pays for this? We have mechanisms to cover up to $1.35 billion, but as I gave you in the example from the ExxonMobil incident, about $6.5 billion was needed to do the cleanup.

He does not think that the measures go far enough and thinks that we should ask ourselves why the public should have to pay the difference. I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, in my community, there are many efforts to be involved with river conservation, ocean cleanup and protection, and beach cleanups.

People are very concerned about making a difference in the community. They want to see that way of life protected. That is why I spoke in my presentation today about the importance of shifting the burden of responsibility to fund cleanups from the Canadian taxpayer, from public funds, to where it should be, and that is with companies. They should have the funds necessary.

This bill does not go far enough. The NDP tried, in committee, in an attempt to make changes, to make reasonable amendments. Unfortunately, the government did not listen. There are many experts who are saying that we need to increase the liability, the funds available, to make these cleanups happen, and we are just not seeing that. Unfortunately, we are seeing that transferred to the taxpayers. We find that unacceptable.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak on behalf of the constituents of Surrey North. Before I get to the bill I do want to mention something else that has come up. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, we have recently raised awareness about organ donations in our country. Organ Donation Week took place a few weeks ago, with Canadians signing up to donate their organs to have them available for those who need them at a particular time. One such drive took place in Toronto.

Members of the Amar Arts of Life Academy, with Amarjit Rai, who is a founding member, along with Balvinder and Amendeet Rai, and over 200 volunteers signed up over 1,200 members of our community to be organ donors. This is a huge accomplishment that took place in Brampton around the Vaisakhi Khalsa Day parade. I congratulate the Amar Arts Academy for taking this initiative and signing up organ donors.

It is a pleasure to speak to this bill. I spoke to the bill at second reading. At that time, I was hoping the government would listen to the opposition and critics to improve the bill. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the Conservative government has failed over and over to listen to the opposition and critics, academics and experts, to make the bill better so that our environment, our pristine waters off the coast of British Columbia that provide employment for hundreds of thousands of people throughout British Columbia and the rest of Canada, are protected and safe for travel.

Tourism on our waters is a huge industry in British Columbia. There could be an impact on tourism. Also, fisheries is a huge part of British Columbia. As the previous member, the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam, has pointed out, the government has not taken into consideration jobs related to our coast in British Columbia that could be affected by the bill. We wanted to broaden the scope of the bill to include a number of other initiatives that could be taken to protect our waters off the west coast of British Columbia and across the country.

I know I have a limited time, but I want to speak to a particular part of the bill that really concerns me. I will share that, not only with members in the House, but also with the audience of Canadians at home. This concerns part 4 of the Marine Liability Act, to implement in Canada the international convention of liability and compensation for damage in connection with the carriage of hazardous and noxious substances by sea. The HNS convention establishes a liability scheme designed to compensate victims in the event of a spill of hazardous and noxious substances. Basically, the shipowner's liability is limited to approximately $230 million and there is an additional fund available that caps the liability for these hazardous materials spills to about $500 million.

I brought up this story before, just to put it in perspective. A total liability of $500 million is not enough when a hazardous or noxious material is spilled, or there is a disaster. I talked about this before and I am going to bring an example from my family, from my young children. It will highlight that if a 7-year-old can understand the economics of disaster, why is it that the Conservatives cannot understand?

Here is the scenario. I have two children. I have a seven-year-old son and a seventeen-year-old daughter. My son is a typical seven-year-old. He likes to not take responsibility. He was playing around with his toys, they were all over the place, around our living room and the kitchen. He thought he would pull a fast one when mom asked him to clean up his mess. He cleaned up a bit of it, but he said, “No. My sister should do it. My sister should clean up my toys.” When he asked his sister she said, “No. It's your mess. You made this mess, you clean it up.” Both of them went to their mom and my wife understood that. She said, “Well, Jaron, it's your mess, you clean it up.” My seven-year-old understood that it was his mess and he should clean it up.

Therefore, if there is a hazardous material spill of a noxious or hazardous substance, here the government is only limiting the liability up to $500 million when we know that disasters cost a lot more to clean up. It is in the billions of dollars. The Conservatives want Canadian taxpayers to pick that up. If a seven-year-old can understand, I am sure the Conservatives understand that liability should not be put on taxpayers. That is of huge concern to me.

There are many other related issues that we could have addressed in this bill. We want to broaden this bill to address a number of issues that have been plaguing our coasts, east to west and up in the north. What are some of the things that the Conservatives could have or should have done or not made cuts to? They made cuts to the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. The summer season is coming up. There will be a lot of activities in our harbours. I know that Vancouver is a very busy place during summertime. We get quite a bit of traffic in Burrard Inlet. What did the Conservative government do? It cut the very measures that allow for safety in our harbours.

Those are the kinds of things that the government needs to address in order to ensure that we have safe and secure passageways in our waters. Time after time, we have seen the government step away from its responsibility to ensure that we have those waters off our coasts protected.

Another thing that the government has done is cancel cuts to the marine communications and traffic services centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and St. John's. We have heard stories where sailors in distress would pick up the phone and the call goes into some third country. We do not know whether the people who take the calls will be able to communicate in English or French. These are the kinds of cuts the government is making that are putting the lives of sailors, shippers, and leisure cruisers in danger. These are the kinds of steps the government can take in order to improve safety and security in our waters.

The government cuts include the closure of the B.C. regional office for emergency oil spill responders. We talked about the increase in tanker traffic in the last 10 years in British Columbia alone. That will have an impact on tanker safety. Therefore, we need to ensure that this government, at the federal level, puts measures in place to ensure the safety of our waters. Time and time again, the government is failing.

The list goes on. I can go on and on about cuts to environment, fisheries, and a number of other safety measures that we could have worked on and included in this bill. Time after time, we have seen the government shirk its responsibility to ensure our waters are protected, that we can protect jobs, that we can protect tourism, and protect fisheries.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. The time for government orders has expired. Consequently, the hon. member for Surrey North will have his five minutes for questions and comments when this matter returns before the House.

The House resumed from May 8 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 third time and passed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Surrey North had five minutes left for questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we are looking at the bill, we know there are still some concerns. We see that this is a bill that certainly goes in the right direction. However, because there has been a gap of time here, maybe my colleague can refresh our memories with respect to some of the concerns we see with this particular piece of legislation.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the bill would actually make very modest improvements to our marine safety issues, which are particularly important to British Columbia. Off the west coast of British Columbia, we have pristine waters that provide a lot of jobs for local communities throughout the coast, and we also have a large tourism industry that depends on navigation through those waters in northern British Columbia and along the coast in southern British Columbia.

If the government truly wanted to improve marine traffic safety in British Columbia, it would be looking at a number of improvements to which the Conservatives have actually cut funding; for example, the Kitsilano Coast Guard, environmental regulations, and emergency response programs not only in British Columbia but on the east coast of Canada as well.

Therefore, even though the Conservatives pretend that the bill would improve the safety of our marine life off the coast, it does not go far enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to refer to my hon. colleague's point about the bill making modest improvements. The bill would put into legislative form changes that have been anticipated for quite a while due to international agreements for liability in relation to maritime incidents.

However, I find that one of the more amusing things about the bill is the title, that it would somehow be safeguarding our skies. Perhaps the hon. member can refer to legislation, but as I recall, the only thing in Bill C-3 about the skies is changes to the Aeronautics Act, which are purely procedural and have absolutely nothing to do with environment, pollution, or anything one might conjure up with a notion of safeguarding our skies. It is hyperbole masking as a legislative title.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to give one thing to the Conservatives. They come out with these wonderful titles for bills that have nothing to do with the actual bill itself. I want to note the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands's keen eye to the title of the bill.

I have trouble with the bill. I will share a story about my children. I have a seven-year-old son and an eighteen-year-old daughter. My son makes a huge mess in the living room, but he wants his sister to clean it up. His sister tells their mom that she is not cleaning it up: it is his mess and he should clean it up. After some discussion, seven-year-old Jaron agrees to clean up the mess.

The problem with the bill is that the Conservatives believe that if there is an oil spill or a hazardous material spill, there is not enough liability attached to it. They believe that taxpayers should be cleaning it up. It should be the people who make the spill who clean it up. A seven-year-old understands that. Conservatives do not understand that. They have gutted the environmental regulations. Obviously they want us to clean that up. I can assure members that we will do that in 2015.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to speak to Bill C-3 today. I will be sharing my time this morning with the fabulous member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park. She deserves a round of applause.

This legislation seeks to enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act and make changes to many different pieces of existing legislation, such as the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act, and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.

Right now we are debating Bill C-3 at third reading. I want to mention at the outset that the NDP will be supporting the bill at third reading because, as my hon. colleague before me mentioned briefly in his response to questions, it would make marginal improvements to the situation we have at hand.

However, I must also note that during the committee study of the bill, amendments were proposed that came from suggestions from witness testimony at committee. The NDP moved seven amendments and the Green Party moved three. All 10 of the amendments that were put forward, based on expert testimony, were refused by the Conservative majority on the committee. Even though Bill C-3 would make modest improvements, even better improvements could have been made, and were put forward, but Conservatives on the committee made sure they did not pass.

Just briefly, I want to mention a couple of the general themes of the amendments we proposed.

One of the amendments required the Minister of National Defence to publish all reports from the studies of the disasters that happened, rather than keeping them as internal documents.

Another amendment was with regard to extending the ship-source oil pollution fund, the SOPF, to non-oil spills that could pollute our waters. Conservative members chose not to support that.

Bill C-3 was formerly Bill C-57, which was tabled in March 2013. That legislation died on the order paper when that session of Parliament was prorogued.

Bill C-3 appears to be part of a concerted effort by the Conservatives to correct their lack of credibility in areas of transport safety, particularly oil tanker traffic on the west coast, in face of the mounting opposition we are seeing across the country to the Northern Gateway pipeline, which was originally proposed in 2006.

I think the real reason why the government is finally pushing on this issue is that the bill would implement the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010, to which Canada is a signatory. The convention has not been implemented yet, so this legislation would allow for its implementation.

New Democrats believe that Canadian taxpayers should not be on the hook for the cleanup costs and damage that follow a spill of hazardous and noxious substances. In consequence, we have proposed that damages from a hazardous and noxious substance spill exceeding $500 million liability should not be paid by taxpayers. They should be covered by the SOPF, the ship-source oil pollution fund. Polluters should be responsible for the cleanup of oil spills, rather than taxpayers across the country.

Part 2 of the bill would give the military the AIA, which is the airworthiness investigative authority, the traditional Transportation Safety Board investigatory powers in the event of an aviation accident involving the military.

For example, if the military exclusively investigates a defined military-civilian accident, the Transportation Safety Board is no longer involved. The military investigator only reports the results of that investigation to the Minister of National Defence. Canadians do not know what is in the report, in the investigation or the outcome of that report. The New Democrats feel that our operations need to be far more transparent. One of the amendments we had put forward was to make these reports public, rather than them only being given to the Minister of National Defence. Canadians should know what is in those reports.

Other measures that the New Democrats wanted to see in a bill to safeguard Canada's seas included: reversing the Coast Guard closures and the scaling back of the services included in the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station; cancelling the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spill responders; cancelling the cuts to Canada's Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research; and reversing the cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response for Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia. We put forward many other suggestions to reverse many of the cuts put forward by the Conservative government that decreased safety on our coastlines and in Canadian waters. Many of these amendments were not accepted by the Conservatives on the transportation, infrastructure and communities committee.

We are now left with Bill C-3, which is, as I said at the outset, a marginal improvement, but not the best it could be. However, we do support the bill at third reading.

The two pieces that we really pushed for in committee were to not have Canadian taxpayers on the hook for large-scale hazardous and noxious substance spills. It should have been the polluters. The second piece was that there needed to be increased transparency regarding investigations and the reports that would come out of those investigations. We know how the Conservatives are with respect to transparency and accountability, so I will not go too much into repeating the fact that the government likes to keep things secretive and does not like telling Canadians what it is going on.

The context of Bill C-3 focuses on administrative organization, but lacks in actual environmental improvements. Ben West from ForestEthics Advocacy said of continuing on this path of safety cuts and emergency response closures, “...we have actually been aggressively moving in the wrong direction on this file.” I am concerned because this may have been on the topic of forest or coastline safety in British Columbia, which has a high level of tanker traffic.

My constituency of Scarborough—Rouge River is home to the Rouge Park. The government just introduced legislation in the House to create it as Canada's first urban national park. We are consistently seeing actions by the government that are moving away from forest safety and not ensuring the viability and long-term sustainability of our forests. Rouge Park is a grand forest that was created by community activists, including me. In the spring we go out and plant trees and bushes and in the fall we remove invasive species to ensure that our park, the people's park, will thrive and be a large, successful park.

It is great that the Conservatives have finally come on board, 35 years after the community and local activists started to work on this park, to make it a national park. However, we need to ensure that it is done in a sustainable way where we protect and respect the existing legislation and greenbelt protection measures. We also need to talk to the local first nations communities that have sacred burial grounds and a village there. We also need to talk to the local community activists who work on the ground in the community.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate my colleague's speech on this very important issue. Again, the bill would change five different acts. Would my colleague like to comment on what happens when we have omnibus bills such as this one?

The other thing I would like her to comment on is with respect to the environmental movements, such as the first nations that have been voicing their concerns on this. We have seen fisheries organizations, community organizations, even the tourism industry voice their opinions on this. A lot of them have a lot of knowledge and have done a lot of research on this.

We often hear the government say that it is willing to work with willing partners. Well, these are willing partners, albeit they have a different opinion than the government at times. However, everyone at the same time wants to see a sound bill and one that would benefit not just the industry but the safety of Canadians as a whole.

The member mentioned who would be on the hook in certain areas. Does she think that Bill C-3 addresses the needs and concerns of the communities I mentioned, especially when we look at first nations, the fishing industry and the tourism industry?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the member's question was about the government's continuous use of omnibus bills. As she mentioned, Bill C-3 proposes changes to many different acts. This is a constant behaviour we see with the government. It likes to jam many changes, some that may not even be related, into one bill. People do not necessarily see all those changes because there are far too many.

I only had 10 minutes to speak about these things. If I wanted to speak about all the changes that would happen, I would probably need three hours at least. We know very well, I do not have that time. What happens is important issues get overlooked because we have to prioritize and speak to what we can.

With respect to her second question, especially about first nations and fishing communities, I talked about the importance of preserving a way of life and the forests. I have a sacred burial ground of the Mississauga Huron-Wendat First Nation in my constituency of Scarborough—Rouge River. I want to ensure that it and the people's ways of life are protected, whether it is fishing, hunting, or whatever it may be.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting when the NDP members talk about omnibus bills. They love to chat about that in the opposition. The reality is that the bills they are referring to were first enacted in 2001. When a new bill like this is brought forward, it is only responsible and good government that would draw those other bills into play to ensure everything is brought current.

Could my hon. colleague address some of the issues that came forward in the new bill and specifically talk to a number of things such as: increased tanker inspections, which have been updated; expanded aerial patrols off our coasts; increased satellite protection; support of the Canadian Coast Guard to adopt an internationally recognized incident command system; and conducting groundbreaking research? Could she comment on some of the things that make the bill a really strong initiative put forward by the government?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, there are some things in the bill that are positive. That is why we will support the bill at third reading. It does make marginal improvements. However, we need to reverse the cuts to the Coast Guard at the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. We need to cancel the closure of the B.C. regional office for emergency oil-spills responders. We need to cancel the cuts to Canada's offshore oil and gas research centre. We need to reverse the cuts to the environmental emergency program. We need to reverse—

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

Order, please. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in starting my remarks, I would definitely like to thank my fabulous colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River for her remarks and for the great representation she provides for the constituents of Scarborough—Rouge River.

I am happy to participate in the debate 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.

As folks can well imagine, it does make a number of changes to a number of pieces of legislation. As my colleague has said, the NDP will be supporting this bill at third reading because it does make modest improvements to the existing legislation, although we did make some proposed amendments to the bill, which we thought would strengthen it significantly. Unfortunately, the government was not open to those amendments.

Let me just briefly describe what the bill proposes to do.

Part 1 would enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act to indemnify the aviation industry for the cost of damages in the event of what they call “interferences” for things like armed conflict or an attack, things that normally would be outside the normal operation of the aviation industry, a crisis of some kind.

Part 2 would amend the Aeronautics Act to provide the Airworthiness Investigative Authority with the 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.

Part 3 would amend the Canada Marine Act in relation to the effective day of the appointment of a director of the Port Authority.

Part 4 would amend the Marine Liability Act to implement, in Canada, the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea. That is a 2010 convention which basically establishes a liability scheme to compensate victims in the event of a spill of hazardous or noxious substances. It puts a limit to that liability, which the act details.

Part 5 would introduce requirements for operators of oil handling facilities, including the requirement to notify the minister of their operations and to submit plans to the minister.

The NDP supports this bill, but we believe there should not be a limit to the liability. We do not believe Canadians should be on the hook for clean-up costs and damages following a spill of hazardous or noxious substances.

The Conservatives have even refused reasonable amendments that would increase the liability. Canadians would ultimately be on the hook if the damages exceeded that liability.

Basically, the New Democrats are committed to preventing any spills on our coasts whatsoever. We want to ensure that we have an effective Coast Guard and that we have effective environmental precautions so our coasts are protected. We do question the government when it takes actions like closing down B.C.'s oil spill response centre. If we want to make the coasts safer, why would we close down the oil spill response centre? Shutting down the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and gutting environmental emergency response programs, these do not sound like the actions of a government that has the interests of the safety of Canadians as its priority.

However, as I said, there are some positive parts of this bill. The required pilotage and increased surveillance is a small step in the right direction, but the bill is very limited in its scope. New Democrats believe that the government needs to reverse the effects of the drastic cuts of last year's budget on tanker safety to really be effective.

If we are talking about tanker safety, let us take a look at some of the more recent statistics. Tanker traffic has increased dramatically and, therefore, has created an increased risk of an oil spill in Canadian waters. The federal government decreases marine communication traffic centres and environmental emergency programs even though estimates state that oil tanker traffic has already tripled between 2005 and 2010 and that oil tanker traffic is planned to triple again by 2016. Therefore, we are seeing dramatically increased oil tanker traffic, which would require stronger measures by the government.

Proposed pipeline expansion projects would increase crude deliveries from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels per day. We are seeing a tremendous increase in traffic and we should have the strongest precautionary measures possible. One of the precautionary measures is to ensure that the polluter pays, so that if there is a spill or a problem, which hopefully there is not and something we can prevent, the polluter pays for the damage caused.

We know what the government's record is when it comes to environmental protection. We have seen in omnibus budget bill after omnibus budget bill the extent of the cuts, such as the gutting of environmental protections and the changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. A major urban heritage river, the Humber River, runs through my riding of Parkdale—High Park. It is truly a national treasure, which is why it was deemed to be a heritage river. It has been delisted from the Navigable Waters Protection Act, all except the very mouth of the river. That is of great concern to conservationists, biologists, and the community at large. New Democrats are trying to get that river and many other rivers put back under the protection of the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

The government is also making changes in aviation safety, which is one of the issues addressed in this bill. In my riding of Parkdale—High Park it is home to many flight attendants and pilots, people who work in the aviation industry. One of the issues that is of great concern to them is the number of flight attendants on aircraft. We all remember, at least in Toronto we all remember, back in 2005 when Air France flight 358 crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. It was a horrific crash. When people first saw the smoke and fire, they wondered whether anyone would survive, but the full complement of cabin crew managed to evacuate all the passengers from that burning aircraft in less than 90 seconds. Talk about professionalism and dedication. They were exemplary.

We know from the history of aviation accidents that having more flight attendants positioned at emergency exits improves every passenger's chance of escaping and surviving in the event of an aircraft accident. We have seen the government previously attempt to reduce the number of flight attendants on aircraft. Right now, the ratio is 1:40. It is trying to reduce that by 25% and increase it to 1:50. I believe that is fundamentally wrong and it could be very dangerous for the travelling public.

While New Democrats support this bill, we have many other concerns about public safety and environmental protection. Frankly, the scope of the changes in this bill are very limited.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke to this bill at an earlier stage. It is clear that, in many respects, this bill has a piecemeal or what we might even describe as an incoherent approach to transportation safety policy in Canada.

At the transportation committee, of which I am vice-chair, we are seized right now, for example, with the whole question of safety management systems, rail safety, and other important foundational issues. We could describe this bill as a technical amendment bill, as it would amend so many statutes.

Underlying all of these, if we look at the public accounts, the important thing for Canadians to remember is the money, because they are wise and they know that they should follow the money. When we look at the money, which underpins transportation safety in Canada, the last set of public accounts that were rendered public are conclusive in that they are all being cut. The only area that is not being cut, with a marginal increase, is rail safety. However, road safety is being cut, marine safety is being cut, and air safety is being cut.

Could the member help us understand how the government can, frankly, have the audacity to describe this as the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act when, if we look at the money that underpins the audits, the inspection, the enforcement, and the follow-up, everything but rail safety is actually being cut?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do agree that we need to follow the money.

It is evident to those of us on this side of the House that the government's number one job seems to be to reduce the size of government. When it comes to public safety, that is not a good thing. Surely, a basic responsibility of government is to protect public safety. Whether it is our roads, our skies, our seas, or our rail, that is a fundamental responsibility of government.

My colleague referred to safety management systems. That jargon hides the fact that what they basically do is cut back on government inspectors, the people who go in and visit workplaces, and check up on the trucks on our roads and the trains on our rails. It turns much of the safety responsibility over to the employer. It is a competitive economy and people in business obviously want to make money and get business. They try to cut costs. Making businesses responsible for safety is a contradiction. We need independent government inspections.

I will just say one last thing. In my community of Parkdale—High Park, we are surrounded by railway lines, and we see hundreds of DOT-111 tank cars rolling through our community. People do not know what is in those cars. They do not know what precautions are in place. They do not know that safety inspections have taken place. They are kept in the dark. It is about time that we let some light in and increase public safety by letting Canadians know what is in these tank cars, and reassuring them that we have inspectors from the government who are going in and conducting the inspections to make sure that public safety is the number one priority.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some pleasure that I rise to debate Bill C-3 today. I want to underline the fact that it is today because as many Canadians would know, it is also today that the federal government will make its long awaited announcement on the Enbridge northern gateway project at some point this afternoon.

This was a decision and a burden that the Conservative government and the Prime Minister gave to themselves. Previously in Canadian law, any such decisions of this scope and magnitude were handled entirely by the National Energy Board, an organization that was meant to be arm's-length from government and was tasked with promoting energy exports. Some would offer that it might be a challenge or a conflict of interest at times because it is a panel that is tasked with promoting exports and encouraging that to happen, but is also playing the role of watchdog and protecting the public's interests. Sometimes, such as in this case, that has been challenging.

Today by midnight tonight is when the government has to make the decision on Enbridge northern gateway. The government has lost so much faith with the public when it comes to oil spills and the maintenance of the oil industry. My Conservative colleagues can chuckle, but the unfortunate thing is they are entitled to those opinions and not their own facts. The facts state that Canadian public support for transit of oil through pipeline and rail has dropped dramatically since the government took office.

One might ask why that is. I suppose Conservatives, from a particularly cynical line of political thought, thought that they could sort of pull one over on the public, that the public would not notice if the Conservatives since taking office have systematically undermined and downgraded environmental protection laws in Canada, have systematically taken out the major pieces of protection that Canadians have enjoyed for many years rather than enhance them.

Over the last number of weeks we have seen the Conservatives on a pipeline and supertanker charm offensive on both coasts, but particularly on the west coast, where Conservative minister after minister is swooping in to show the public that suddenly they are very concerned with oil spills and with protecting the public. I would argue that it is important to know the government by its actions, not by its words. If we judged the Conservatives by their actions, we would come to a very clear and concise opinion about who they think is really important.

I can say that the oil lobby is particularly thrilled, but Canadians, particularly those living on a pipeline route or under the threat of new or increased supertanker traffic, know the Conservatives are not on their side. This is the government that closed down Coast Guard bases, bases like Kitsilano that is one of the busiest Coast Guard bases in the entire country, handling an enormous amount of traffic.

This is the government that scrapped the Navigable Waters Protection Act, an act that had existed for almost a century in Canada. Excuse me, I misspoke, Conservatives did keep some rivers and lakes protected by the Navigable Waters Protection Act, but those are the lakes that exist in cottage country north of Ontario. Those are the lakes and rivers the Conservatives deemed to be important to protect. All of the rest were deemed not so important.

New Democrats have been standing in the House day after day, attempting to reintroduce those lakes into protection, reintroduce those rivers into some form of protection. That is what Canadians want because we are attached to our rivers and lakes. We are a nation of great expanse and imagination. We believe in the idea that Canada as a settled but wild place, a place where people can experience a country that is truly vast and magnificent, also has with it some responsibility to protect those spaces.

The government gutted the Environmental Assessment Act. According to the Auditor General of Canada, assessments in Canada ranged between 3,000 and 5,000 a year. That is 3,000 and 5,000 different projects a year, mines, pipelines, and whatnot, that went through some sort of environmental review. For those who have ever been involved, this is a public hearing where a proponent has to bring evidence and show in testimony and the public gets to ask questions.

The Conservatives have taken those 3,000 to 5,000 assessments a year and reduced them down from what the Auditor General estimates to between 12 and 15 assessments a year. All those other projects, hundreds and thousands of projects, thousands of mines and pipelines will simply not get an environmental review.

The few that do get a review, as we have now seen through new legislation and regulations the Conservatives have introduced, limit the public's ability to go to the hearings and cross-examine the proponents, the oil companies and the mining companies.

The Conservatives have so narrowly defined who matters, it is now being brought up in court, as is so often the case with Conservative legislation and laws. They make them so badly, and so often make them against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that Canadians are forced to go to court to protect that charter. The Conservatives spend millions of taxpayers' dollars trying to undermine the charter with these draconian pieces of legislation that take away values and the rights of Canadians, and they lose, time and time again.

It is at the point where the Conservatives cannot even get a judge nominated to the Supreme Court without violating some fundamental piece of our Constitution. It is incredible, the hubris, yet we can understand it with a government that has been too long in power. It grows in arrogance. It grows in the sense of entitlement. We have seen this movie before in Canada. It is lamentable, because the Conservatives came in riding the white knight of accountability, riding the cause and the celebrated idea of having a more open and transparent government. However, according to the ethics commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, all of the watchdogs of Parliament, the government has become, and is, the most secretive in Canadian history. It denies Canadians the basic right to information they have constitutionally protected. This is what the Conservatives have become.

It was also the Conservatives who gutted the Fisheries Act, one of the most fundamental pieces of protection of the fisheries in Canada, which has been an historical and important part of our industry and society. It said that companies can now go in and destroy fish habitat, where fish spawn, with no consequence whatsoever, without triggering any kind of assessment or any kind of public hearing.

That is okay under the Conservatives' world view. The private sector dominates all. They have limited liability across a whole series of sectors. What is limited liability? That is when the government comes in with a rule to subsidize and support certain industries. It picks winners and losers. There are certain industries that do not enjoy this favouritism from the government, but the oil industry is one that absolutely does. The Conservatives insert a liability cap on damages in the event of any major accident in which there are significant and serious costs, both for cleanup and to pay damages to those who have lost businesses or their homes. Heaven forbid, under the Conservatives' world view, that the company that causes the pollution, that causes the spill from a pipeline or a tanker, should pay for the cost of damages. The Conservatives use terms like the “polluter pay principle”, but only sometimes and only to a certain amount. That is the Conservatives' view of the world.

Limited liability, this reducing the risk for certain industrial players, causes all sorts of consequences. It is not just the idea that the public has to pay any expenses above. An example is that under certain of these acts, there is a $500-million cap for oil spills. People might say that $500 million is a lot of money, and maybe that is enough. However, the spill from the Exxon Valdez, which happened just north of my riding in northwestern B.C., hit $3.5 billion. Under the Conservative law, who would pay the remainder, the $3 billion or more? That would be the Canadian public.

For the Kalamazoo spill in Michigan, by Enbridge, that happened just a couple of years ago, it is $1.1 billion and counting. They have been at it for three years. They have dredged up the whole bottom of the river, and they are still paying. Under the Conservatives' world view, it would be the public paying for that incompetence by an oil company.

This is not to suggest that these oil companies do not have the resources to pay for this. I did not look at oil prices today, but it is somewhere north of $100, certainly. They are clearing massive profits, historically high profits. These folks can afford to pay for the operations they perform.

The second consequence, aside from the public paying, is that if an industry knows, as the investment industry knew in the United States that there was a certain liability protection they had and that certain banks were “too big to fail”, over time it encourages very bad, risky behaviour. Fundamentally, all of those investors knew that even if this thing went totally wrong, they would not be on the hook.

Imagine going to a casino or the racetrack and the government saying, “No matter what, you cannot lose money today. We will cap it at $50.” Most Canadians would pick a horse that is 100 to one. Why not? They would put $100 on it and put more on the next one, because there would be no way to lose. The only upside would be that we would get to pick long shots, which would encourage risky behaviour.

The companies will not admit to this, but that is human behaviour. Unless they have somehow changed the genetic code in oil companies to make humans into something we are not, if they encourage risky behaviour, over time humans will take those risks. At the end, we will wake up one morning and turn on the CBC news and hear that there was a tragic accident last night and there is oil spilling, as it does; in Enbridge's case, it has been 900 times just in the last decade. It is lamentable, and the homeowners are upset, and ranchers are worried, and fishermen are losing their business. When they do the investigation, it will turn out to be from human error, again. Who will pick up the tab? The companies will, up to a little bit. Everything beyond that will come to the taxpayers of Canada.

If we think of all of the industries in the world we would want to subsidize, the oil industry would not be on the top of the list. It makes an inordinate amount of profit. Gas prices in Canada today are $1.30 to $1.40 a litre. Some say it is doing too fine. It is certainly doing fine enough.

This is the Conservative government that shut down B.C.'s regulatory oil spill response team. The Conservatives cancelled that and fired everyone in charge of oil spill response on the west coast. They wonder why the public raises suspicions. This is a government that has a fund, as Liberal governments had previously, that shippers at one point had to contribute to. That fund has gone up to $400 million, having contributed to it since 1976, and the government is fine with that and believes it is enough money to handle all incidents of all the oil spills in the country, not just one. As I have described, some of these oil spills can be incredibly expensive.

In Bill C-3, the government made some small moves to improve a disastrous situation and make it less disastrous.

When people are in the process of potential rehabilitation for their actions, we want to encourage any small steps they make. Therefore, the NDP at committee encouraged the baby steps being made by the government and made amendments based on the testimony of the witnesses we heard. I know that is radical and may be contrary to the world view of the Conservatives, but we listen to witnesses who come to committee that know more about an issue than MPs do. We take their advice and write it up into nicely worded amendments as changes to a bill, but consistently, time and time again, the Conservatives reject them. One would think that at committee they would offer some alternative or say why they are rejecting them and that they have counter evidence that is better or more informed, but they do not.

All opposition MPs have witnessed it. We have all been there when we have put forward a motion and we stare at five blank Conservative faces across the way. When it is time for the vote, we make our case and say, “This is based on witness so-and-so. This is how it will help this bill and how it will help the Canadian public and protect the public.” The Conservatives just stare at us with nothing going on and vote against it. It happens over and over again.

If this is just a political exercise, so be it. People can choose to make themselves look ignorant. That is a choice others make. The fact is, this impacts Canadian lives and Canadian industry and uncertainty. I have argued for quite a while, although it may be a slightly counterintuitive position, that for reasons of social licence and the idea of winning over the public, the Conservatives have been no friend of the oil industry. We have seen this just recently.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the main lobby group in Canada for the oil industry, distanced itself from the Conservative position on a whole variety of things, particularly the ads they had been running. When the oil lobby abandons the government and says it would like to not be associated with it, we know that the government has a problem.

The Conservatives like to talk about radicals. That is what radicals look like in action. They so denigrated the faith of the public in government to protect our general and collective interests that the public has said that it no longer grants the government a social licence to operate.

When the Conservatives come out with their announcement this afternoon and give the green light and thumbs up to Enbridge northern gateway, we do not believe that the public will be swayed one bit, because the Conservatives have completely lost their faith. They have forgotten one very fundamental principle in this place, which is that governments can grant permits, but only people can grant permission. The government has forgotten that, and in forgetting that, we see the arrogance and bullying we have seen time and again.

People have raised concerns about the northern gateway pipeline going through northern B.C. It goes right through my home and the homes of the people I represent. The government has suggested that in raising those concerns, those people must be foreign-funded radicals. That is what the minister called them in a letter issued out of the Prime Minister's Office. He said that they must be enemies of the state. That is what they called me, my friends, and my community members for having raised questions about a pipeline that threatens our very way of life.

I do not think that is anti-Canadian. I think it is very Canadian to raise questions, to raise our voices, to stand shoulder to shoulder, first nation with non-first nation, community to community, to say that our voices count in the conversation of Canada, that we will not be marginalized, and that we will not be bullied by a government, any government, of any political stripe.

Conservatives should know this. The Conservatives used to decry the heavy-handed tactics of Ottawa when it comes to energy policy. Some will remember this. How does Ottawa know best for the west? I remember this. Arrogant Liberal governments came in and imposed plans that western Canada did not want, and western Canadians reacted.

Now we see it in the reverse: a pipeline that Canadians on the west coast of British Columbia do not want, at a level of 66% or more. We have 130-plus first nations that have told the government, ”Do not do this thing.” The Union of B.C. Municipalities and the B.C. government have all told the government, “No” and “What part of 'no' do you not understand?”

The government, in a few short hours, is poised to ignore all of that and say that those people must be radicals. They must be enemies of Canada. All those people, two-thirds of the province of British Columbia, the Government of British Columbia, 130 first nations and more, the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and the mayors and councillors of British Columbia must be enemies of Canada. That is the Conservatives' world view, because they have so attached themselves to one bad pipeline. The arrogance has grown so much with the current Prime Minister that he cannot imagine stepping back. He cannot imagine taking a breath and realizing that there may be other things that are more important.

Here is a secondary concern, as if all that were not bad enough. As I was talking to first nation leaders in B.C. over the weekend and again last night, they said that if the Conservatives force this project down the throats of British Columbians against the rights and titles of first nations in B.C., not only will this pipeline never get built, but it will so poison the relationship that is already in a terrible state between first nations and the Government of Canada that other projects, other industries, will also be threatened. The ability to get agreements and deals done in B.C. between industrial players and the first nations of B.C. will be jeopardized.

All that is at stake—the relationship between the crown and an important place like British Columbia, the ability to get other industrial development done, such as liquefied natural gas, mining, and other industrial projects—the government is willing to threaten for the sake of one bad pipeline. That is the equation the Prime Minister is going to make this afternoon. That is the test he is facing as a leader in this country this afternoon.

I lament that he will fail that test. I am saddened by the fact that he will fail this test of leadership because he is unable to see the forest for the trees. He is unable to see past his own belligerence and his own determination to have it his way or the highway. He is going to ram through all of those objections. He somehow thinks that we are going to back down; that the first nations, which have constitutionally protected rights and title in this country, are suddenly going to forgo those rights; that the people in B.C. who voted against this thing two-thirds to one-third are not going to show up at the ballot box in 2015 and kick Conservative MPs out who stand on the wrong side of this issue; and that the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the Government of B.C. are suddenly just going to walk away from their opposition to this pipeline that threatens who we are.

It is a most Canadian response. When threatened at a core level, at a values level, at the ability to raise our kids in a healthy environment and hope for their better future, it is a most Canadian reaction to stand up and resist. It is a most Canadian reaction to say to a government that has grown so arrogant and so content with its privilege and its power, whose members have become so accustomed to those limos that they cannot find a way--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

They can heckle, Mr. Speaker. They yell out to try to shut down the voices of real British Columbians who understand how to stand up for their constituents, rather than selling out to the oil companies, as they have so happily done. British Columbia MPs in this place know right from wrong. They know what this afternoon means. It is a decision point. It is a fork in the road. It is a place where Canada stands and says this is the future we want.

New Democrats will stand on the right side of that future and say that we want a prosperous, clean environment and jobs that will sustain us through the future, not a government so drunk on power that it has lost its way and has lost its ability to see anything at all other than the almighty buck from the oil companies.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that my colleague's passionate speech irritated some of the Conservative government members. They will either have to make a decision or accept the decision that is going to be made because it will have a major impact on the future of this country, and the west coast in particular.

I would like to ask a question. It is not about transporting oil specifically, but it is about the Conservative government's previous decisions to eliminate or cut resources at the Coast Guard, search and rescue centres and oil spill monitoring centres.

All of those cuts will have a major impact on future decisions, including the decision that will be made later today regarding the northern gateway pipeline, and on the future of marine transportation of oil.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the impact not only of these decisions, which he already addressed, but also of the cuts that have been made to organizations that monitor marine disasters and protect our coastlines and the people who live there.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is incredible. As I already said, it is more important to pay attention to this government's actions than its words. The cuts it made to the Coast Guard prove that this government is not concerned about oil companies. As my colleague said, between 2005 and 2010, the amount of oil shipped via tankers tripled, and it will triple again in the next five years.

Although faced with that reality, the government cut the resources required to clean up bitumen, which is practically an impossible task. That is what the Conservatives want.

I notice that there are many Conservatives here, but they are not asking any questions. I find it intriguing that they are so quiet even though they have the opportunity to discuss the future of oil and the west coast. That is the choice they are making.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech by the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I just wanted to get his comments.

In British Columbia, former NDP premier, Mike Harcourt, has torn up his NDP membership card because he knows that the NDP has strayed from its working-class roots, has become a party of downtown elites, and does not represent working people anymore. These are the words of Mike Harcourt. He said that they no longer appreciate where our resources come from and what they fund.

A former interim NDP premier, Dan Miller, wrote an article in which he questions where the New Democrats think that the resources come from that fund our schools, fund our hospitals, fund our infrastructure. He says that the resources do not come out of the air, but that they come from the interior of British Columbia, from LNG, and from everything the NDP opposes.

We saw Adrian Dix with a 20-point lead in the provincial election that he blew because he was too radical in opposing every natural resource development. The member can laugh as he does, but he knows that the NDP is out of touch with British Columbians. That is why the New Democrats continue to lose election after election in the province. Why does the member not stand up for the working-class people, the tradespeople who want to see these projects proceed in a responsible and safe manner?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am impressed that my friend has become such a fond friend of Christy Clark. I did not notice such support from my Conservative colleagues during the actual campaign in B.C. I remember them distinctly staying away from that election and showing no support for Christy Clark, who, by the way, does not support northern gateway.

If the Conservatives are so supportive of the B.C. government, one would think that support would be broadly felt. The B.C. government told the federal government of its five conditions, which have not been met, as the premier said two days ago. I would suspect that the Conservatives from B.C. would recognize that their premier has said there are problems. Even from the right wing, as my friend says, what about the other side of this thing?

We are neighbours. We come from northern B.C., and it is a resource-based part of the world. I had two resource companies in my office yesterday showing strong public support for their operations, mining operations, which we have helped navigate through the process.

It is interesting that what has changed in the 10 years that I have been here and represented northwestern B.C. is that companies get it. They understand we need first nations support. Creating local jobs is important, as opposed to the temporary foreign workers that Conservatives allowed in at HD Mining. My friend must have had an opinion on that. There were 200 Chinese workers allowed to come in and take Canadian jobs through a loophole the Conservative government created.

So much for standing up for B.C. So much for standing up for the resource sector and all the jobs. The Conservatives were only too happy to give those away, and 350,000 temporary foreign workers are working today, many of them in the resource sector, as Canadians in northeastern and northwestern B.C. are still looking for jobs.

If the government is actually interested in a resource debate, how about this: raw bitumen exports, which the Conservative government promotes, across the world. The Conservatives ask the United States to support the Keystone pipeline because it would create 40,000 jobs in the U.S. Well, if they can do that there, why can we not do it here? What happened to the courage, vision, and the idea that Canadian jobs could come from Canadian resources? What happened to those Conservative values?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his very passionate and important speech.

Many things are in the bill, but today, on the eve of the decision that the Conservative government is making with northern gateway, it is paramount for us to have this discussion. We really cannot trust the government to allow us to have this discussion anywhere else. I think about the amendments we wanted to bring forward in committee, which the Conservatives shut down, as usual.

I had the blessing of living in British Columbia for seven years. I think many people in my great riding of Sudbury would also say that it is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and we need to do everything we can to protect it. Unfortunately, we do not see anything in the bill to address oil spills.

One of the important things my colleague spoke to, which really resonated, is that the government is allowed to give permits, but it is the people who give permission. What we have in British Columbia is that none of the people, the first nations, or the communities in the riding the member comes from, are giving permission.

I would like the member to elaborate a little more on his statement because it resonates from coast to coast to coast with the importance of understanding what the social licence is as we move forward with this.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have done a couple of tours around B.C. in the last couple of months, through Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast, and the interior up to Prince George, because it felt important. The leadership in my communities has asked me to engage British Columbians on a question that implicates all of us, not just those who live in the northwest at ground zero where the pipeline is meant to go and 11,000 supertankers are meant to sail through some pretty treacherous waters. If people had any semblance of understanding of B.C.'s north coast they would know that this area is fraught with peril. Enbridge itself has admitted that there is at least a 10% to 14% chance of a major oil spill.

What was remarkable was the size of the crowd in places like Kamloops, Penticton, Prince George, and Powell River. A lot of these places are currently represented by Conservatives. Even more intriguing were the people who came out. There were members of the chamber of commerce and members of the local downtown business association.

One of the first questions that we often posed at events in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, and Victoria to counter this idea that this is a city versus rural debate was, “Why do you live here?” This is absolutely not a city versus rural debate. When people are asked that question in places like Courtenay, Comox, Campbell River, and Powell River, they say it is because of “the place”. These are some of the most remarkable places on earth, certainly within Canada. They are incredibly beautiful. B.C. attempts to marry the use of resources to benefit our communities and to put food on the table, with that natural and stunning beauty. That is the balance that the Conservatives' have completely left behind.

The hunting and fishing communities are coming forward. Wildlife groups are coming forward. It is the people who Conservatives have maybe traditionally relied upon and perhaps taken for granted who are joining arm in arm with first nations, with people who are concerned with the environment. This suggests that the Conservatives have lost their way and the balance has gone completely.

The way to tell whether we have a debate or something to say in the House is whether a member gets up and makes a speech about something or whether a member sits and heckles from the backbenches.

New Democrats know that we have the right side on this. We will take this question to British Columbians and we will see what they think about this.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

It is very important for me to be able to rise today and speak to Bill C-3. I will pull back a little bit and talk about some of the specifics related to this bill.

When looking at Bill C-3, we see it is something we will support at third reading because of the modest improvements in marine security that we have seen in this bill. However, it is important to recognize that, as usual, we try to bring forward some amendments at committee, really to make the bills better. That is what we are supposed to be doing. We are supposed to be strengthening the bills and laws of this country to make them better for Canadians. However, as usual and once again, the Conservatives completely voted against all of our amendments. It is unfortunate. These amendments did not just come from the NDP; they came from witnesses and stakeholders.

We really need to ensure that the government starts to listen. What we heard from my colleague just a few minutes ago is that it is not listening to first nations in British Columbia. It is not listening to the Government of British Columbia, which said no when it comes to northern gateway. It is also not listening to, I believe, 67% of the population, which is against northern gateway.

We needed to ensure that Bill C-3 had a broader scope. It is something we asked for. We asked that this bill be allowed to go to committee before second reading to ensure we were looking at ways of enhancing this bill and making it better, making sure we can protect our pristine coastline on the B.C. coast. Unfortunately though, that never happened.

Let me give members some key facts and figures before I continue. What we have heard about tanker traffic is that it is increasing the chances of an oil spill in Canadian waters, yet the government has decreased the marine communications and traffic centres and environmental emergency programs. It has done this even though the estimates state that oil tanker traffic tripled between 2005 and 2010, that tanker traffic is expected to triple again by 2016, and that the proposed pipeline expansion projects would increase crude oil deliveries from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels per day.

We need to ensure that we are protecting our coast, but again, this bill would not address it.

Let me talk a little bit about those amendments. We wanted to ensure that Canadian taxpayers are not on the hook for cleanup costs and damages following the spill of hazardous and noxious substances. We wanted to ensure transparency regarding investigation reports of aviation accidents or incidents involving civilians and the military. Those proposed reasonable amendments never made it past the committee.

Prior to debating Bill C-3, which I believe was the former Bill C-57 at second reading before prorogation, we requested that the scope of this bill be broadened by sending it to committee before second reading for a study that would aim to include a more comprehensive measure to safeguard Canada's coast. It would also, in part, reverse many of the cuts that we have seen from the Conservative government and the closures specific to marine and environmental safety. I believe that we sent a letter to the Minister of Transport back in April, 2013, to outline this request.

Bill C-3 would make amendments to five acts. I will touch on those briefly. The first part would enact the aviation industry indemnity act, which would authorize the Minister of Transport to undertake to indemnify certain aviation industry participants for loss, damage, or liability caused by “war risks”.

The second part would amend the Aeronautics Act to provide the airworthiness investigation with the powers to investigate aviation accidents or incidents involving civilians and aircraft or aeronautical installations operated by or on behalf of the DND, Canadian Forces, or a visiting force.

Part 3 would amend the Canada Marine Act in relation to the effective day of the appointment of a director of a port authority, in that the municipality or the port authority notifies the port ASAP.

Part 4 would amend 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, or as it is known, the HNS convention.

The liability scheme that was created for this talked about shipowners' liability limited to $230 million. Damages in excess of shipowners' liability were to be paid by an international fund, which is that HNS fund, up to a maximum of $500 million.

In part 4, the availability of the ship-source oil pollution fund to oil spills would exclude HNS spills. We wanted to ensure, at committee level, that this is broader.

Part 5 really looks at the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. It was introducing 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. There are some other segments to that as well.

I think it is important for us to then say that we believe, as I talked about in the last amendment, that Canadian taxpayers really should not have to pay the cleanup costs and damages following a spill of hazardous or noxious substances.

However, we have seen the government refuse reasonable amendments that may have prevented Canadian taxpayers from being responsible for damages exceeding $500 million.

It is also important for us to say that the NDP is committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen on our coasts. We have seen the Conservative record in the past. There was the closing of British Columbia's oil spill response centre, the shutting down of Kitsilano Coast Guard station, and the gutting of environmental response programs. This is making it increasingly difficult for us, and even for Canadians, to trust that their concerns are really being taken seriously.

Some of the things that we really wanted to see in this bill to safeguard Canada's seas include reversing those cuts to the Coast Guard and reversing the scaling back of the services; the cancelling of closure of the marine communication traffic service centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and of course in St. John's, Newfoundland, as well; the cancelling of the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spill responders; and the cancelling of the cuts to Canada's Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research.

Those are just a few of the things we really would have liked to have seen in this bill. Unfortunately, they are not there.

When it comes on the eve of the announcement on northern gateway, what we are really seeing now are the concerns and the worries of Canadians being ignored by the government. As I heard earlier, 67% of people in British Columbia are opposed to northern gateway. We have the government saying no. We have first nations saying that they do not want this, and that they need to have some type of discussion. I wish the government would listen to first nations and have that communication with them. Unfortunately we are seeing that this is not happening.

To put it into perspective, we are going to see about 1,100 kilometres of pipeline pumping raw bitumen through the pristine forest and rivers in northern British Columbia. That is about 525,000 barrels of raw bitumen per day. What is really scary is Enbridge's record on pipeline safety. We have seen over 800 spills between 1999 and 2010, resulting in over 16,000 barrels of oil going into the environment.

We can all agree that no one wants to see that in northern British Columbia. We need to do everything we can to protect northern British Columbia.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that the hon. member spent seven years of his life in British Columbia. They were, no doubt, the best seven years of his life.

He spoke briefly in his last intervention about social licence, which is a concept that is certainly gathering steam. It is tough to define how one actually gathers it. He comes from Sudbury, which was obviously built on the mining sector. It is not as big as it used to be, I understand, but that is what built the riding he represents, as did the transcontinental railway that went through there.

If we were applying today's social licence theories or practices, would any of the mines in his riding have been built; would there be the prosperity that currently exists in Sudbury; and would the transcontinental railway have been put through? Should we not be talking about the safest way to transport petrochemicals, not saying we should shut down large sectors of the economy, which is what I tend to hear from the NDP?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for the question and, of course, the acknowledgement that I lived in North Vancouver for seven years. Yes, it is one of the most beautiful places. Sometimes in the middle of winter when it is -40° and I am having to shovel snow in Sudbury, I wonder why I came back home. However, it is great to be back home and to be the representative for Sudbury.

In relation to the question he asked about mining, he is going back 100 years, but let us talk about the re-greening of Sudbury through the mining companies and what they have done. They have won awards from the United Nations on the re-greening, making sure that the environment is being protected. The people of Sudbury want to ensure that they have clean air to breathe, water to swim in, and that they can actually go fishing in downtown Sudbury. However, what we do not have, as he talked about, is the social licence to put through pipelines when people are choosing, voting, and standing up and saying no.

That is what is happening in northern British Columbia and throughout British Columbia. People are standing up and saying no. In Sudbury, we actually have the conversation, and the mining companies talk to and work with first nations. The current government is choosing not to do that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when I think of the northern gateway project, one thing that comes to my mind is risk. This is something we need to recognize: the risk to our environment and our economy. When we look at this particular project, we see that it is, arguably, an unacceptable level of risk in that region, and the resultant impact to the economy and the environment speaks volumes.

I am wondering if the member would like to comment just on the idea of risk and how this is an unacceptable level of risk that we are putting, at potential cost, by going forward with the northern gateway project.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, risk is paramount to this discussion, to this debate, and to the pipeline. We know Enbridge's record. There were 800 spills between 1999 and 2010, resulting in over 16,000 barrels of oil going into the environment. There would be 525,000 barrels of raw bitumen per day being shipped by massive supertankers along British Columbia's coast. The risk of one incident and the effects it would have on the environment are catastrophic.

Let us not forget about the risks that are related to the economy as well. There would or could be 45,000 potential jobs, according to statistics, impacted by a spill, from tourism jobs to forestry jobs. This is a huge risk, and with 1,100 kilometres of pipeline going through northern Alberta and British Columbia, I do not think the risks outweigh the merits right now.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sudbury for giving me a few minutes to talk about Bill C-3, which is about an issue that really matters to me. It is about safety and amendments to the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.

I am concerned about this issue and it is a personal one for me because there is a big debate about it right now. Our colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley and several others have talked about a number of things, including the northern gateway pipeline. However, TransCanada has a project called energy east. They want to build a pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to Saint John, New Brunswick. The pipeline would go through my riding, Témiscouata, and through the lower St. Lawrence. They would build an oil port in Cacouna, which is not in my riding, but which is nearby. Cacouna is about a 45-minute drive from Rimouski.

This is important because some parts of this bill, if it is passed, would result in the construction of an oil port where there is currently a commercial port.

In addition, Part 5 of this bill amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. It introduces new requirements for operators of oil handling facilities, which is what an oil port is, including the requirement to notify the minister of their operations and to submit plans to the minister.

I will not go into detail about this because I do not have much time, but I wonder why this has not always been the case. This bill seems to be a hasty response on the part of the Conservative government to implement measures that will reassure the public, particularly with respect to the northern gateway project, which has been on the agenda for a very long time.

Before the election, I worked briefly on the pipeline and oil transportation file in British Columbia. I picked up on people's concerns about security measures and navigation problems and risks along the British Columbia coast. This bill sets out to reassure people, but does not completely succeed.

We will vote in favour of this bill because it is an improvement over the status quo. However, I highly doubt that the bill has addressed everyone's concerns.

The reason is that the government's actions in the past—and I am not just talking about this bill, but also its decisions, particularly since 2011—have not really responded to the need for additional protection. Environmentally, these actions have not ensured that the work was done to protect Canadians and their livelihoods.

The people on British Columbia's coast still remember an incident that happened 40 years ago, the wreck of the Exxon Valdez. They were affected, and they now want to ensure that the coast is well protected, specifically the coast of the islands off British Columbia.

What have the Conservatives done since 2011, before we started discussing the bill? They have reduced Coast Guard service, including closing the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano.

They have made cuts to the marine communications and traffic services centres, including the centres in Vancouver and St. John's, Newfoundland. They have closed the British Columbia regional office for oil spill emergencies. Why? Why are the Conservatives not cancelling these closures?

There have been cuts to the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research, as well as to the main environmental emergency programs, including in the event of oil spills in Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia.

All the decisions made in this matter, before the bill was discussed, fly in the face of the need for additional protection under this bill. No one really knows where the Conservative government is going.

As an economist, I am very sensitive to externality issues and issues related to the principle we support, the polluter pays principle. This bill contains elements that are not in line with that concept.

Let us take a look at part 4, which has to do with liability in the event of a spill involving noxious and hazardous substances or oil.

In committee, specifically at second reading where I had the opportunity to speak, we proposed that public funds not be used in cases where a disaster is caused by a private company. The bill caps that compensation at $500 million. Beyond $500 million, taxpayers could end up being forced, through the government, to pay the cost of the cleanup and compensation for the people who lose their livelihood or source of economic activity. This makes no sense.

It is the company that should take responsibility for this. When it comes to externalities, if the company had to take more responsibility or even full responsibility for the cost of an oil spill or a spill of hazardous and noxious substances, then it would take measures to ensure its own survival.

Currently, oil companies have a profit margin of tens of millions of dollars for every shipment of oil. If they have limited responsibility for a spill, then they have no incentive to take the protective measures they need to take. Their main incentive is their reputation, and their ability to maintain good public relations to minimize the hits to their reputation.

That is not enough incentive. A greater share of the responsibility for compensation should be taken by the private corporations that ship oil and hazardous and noxious substances.

This bill does not go far enough. We announced amendments at second reading and we proposed them at report stage. Many witnesses supported the opposition on this. In fact, that is what the Conservatives are grappling with on this day when the decision on the northern gateway pipeline will be announced.

Many people from British Columbia, and not just citizens and first nations, are talking to the Conservatives. We know that the Conservatives are not used to negotiating with the first nations or acknowledging their concerns on these issues. Even witnesses who work at port authorities and others who work in the field told the Conservatives exactly what needed to be done. In fact, their comments were often consistent with those made by the official opposition. However, these demands have been ignored. No amendment was accepted. The current bill is the same as it was when it was introduced at second reading.

A responsible government that wants to be known for good governance would realize that it does not have all the answers and that the bill has weaknesses that must be corrected so that it can be true to its objective. Instead, the government is turning a deaf ear. It is refusing to listen and to accept very pertinent comments that address the concerns raised about the environment and liability when it comes to the transportation of noxious or hazardous substances that could be detrimental to the economic activity of much of the community affected.

We find it difficult to understand why the government is remaining silent and intransigent. I do believe that we were all elected by our constituents, in my case the people of the lovely riding of Rimouski—Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. We have the duty to debate and improve bills.

The government members are remaining silent about this bill. No one is rising to debate it and to justify the proposed measures. We have pointed out this bill's weaknesses, and we will continue to do so.

As I mentioned, this will not prevent us from voting in favour of the bill at third reading because it is still better than what is currently in place. However, I mentioned that I do not understand why the measures proposed in part 5 have not been implemented already. They seem to be very reasonable.

In short, we will be supporting the bill. However, we are very disappointed with the Conservative government's silence and refusal to listen at every stage, including study in committee.

If the Conservatives were to ask me a question about this bill, I would be very pleased to answer.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is one of the members across the way that I have learned to respect over the last three years. He is very polite, very cordial. I respect that of the member, and also that he is an economist.

We have heard a lot of comments today about raw resource development and developing our resources in Canada, especially British Columbia. However, we always hear from the NDP members what they would not do. I asked the hon. Leader of the Opposition, a couple of years ago now, what New Democrats would do, short of developing our resources. Would they refine it in B.C.? What else would they do?

The question I have for the pragmatic member across the way is, short of having pipelines and developing our resources to ship across the world where our resources are needed, what else would they do?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments.

I also respect him. I have had the pleasure of working and talking with him on a regular basis, and I am pleased to be able to return the compliment to him.

Indeed, on this side of the House and as far as our leader, the leader of the official opposition, is concerned, we clearly do not want oil sands or their development to be eliminated, despite what people often say. We are looking for something geared toward development that is sustainable in the true sense of the word. People often gloss over the meaning of the words “sustainable development”, but we want to see development that is truly sustainable, both economically and environmentally.

All too often we see that the environmental aspect is swept under the rug. One of the things some people forget is the polluter pays principle. This has to do with external factors, the costs that all of Alberta or even all of Canada might have to bear. TransCanada's Energy East pipeline project, with the pipeline that would go through my riding, is a telling example.

The oil port project is well received by a segment of the population because people see the potential economic spinoffs. However, this still jeopardizes the tourism industry, and many opponents and people questioning the project say so. Beluga whale watching brings significant tourism and economic spinoffs. Some people say the benefits are even more significant, in absolute terms, than the potential benefits of the oil port.

This is therefore a very complex issue, and the costs and benefits of every project must always be assessed. This is the type of development we want, development that is responsible when it comes to the oil sands.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it bears stating that the final decision on the northern gateway project actually rests with the Prime Minister's Office. We need to emphasize the fact that the Prime Minister has an opportunity to do what is right on this issue. We need to factor in the risk and look at the potential negative impact on our economy and our environment, taking into consideration our first nations, people of aboriginal heritage, and the many different communities on which this pipeline is going to have an impact. They have raised their concerns and objections.

I wonder if the member might want to comment on how important it is that the Prime Minister of Canada listen to what the people of British Columbia have to say on it, because obviously, the members of Parliament in the Conservative Party who represent British Columbia are not expressing the concerns that many of their constituents are no doubt advocating for them to do.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question, which gives me an opportunity to touch on an aspect of the bill that I did not address in my speech.

This is a matter of externalities, the polluter pays principle and the responsible development of our natural resources. We also need to talk about social acceptability. The government needs to ensure that it has the support of the residents and the first nations of any community where a pipeline will be passing through and jeopardizing the economic activity in the community that is not necessarily related to the pipeline or to the general transportation of hazardous materials or petroleum products.

When we hear that 67% of the population of British Columbia and basically every first nation in the province oppose the project, it is clear that the government did not do the work required to achieve that social acceptability. This is a reflex that all good governments should have but that the Conservative government seems to be lacking, the reflex of consulting with people and responding to their concerns. Given the current lack of support for this project, we can see that this work was not done.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-3, which is yet another omnibus bill that only affects five bills this time. We should be lucky. In finance we dealt with a budget implementation act that would amend some 60 bills, so having only having only 5 bills is a bit of a luxury.

It is not so much the process I want to talk about today, but the substance. We can do much better than this legislation, which we will be supporting at this stage.

I wish to advise you, Mr. Speaker, that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Churchill.

It is interesting and somewhat ironic that we are here today on the eve of what we understand to be the government's decision day on the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline. I had the good fortune of running in a by-election in my community of Victoria and Oak Bay coastal communities in British Columbia in November 2012. As we would expect, and as I am sure all members on all sides of the House will have done, I knocked on a lot of doors and met a lot of people from various walks of life, young and old. I did not meet a single person who supported the Enbridge northern gateway proposal, not one.

I have a duty and an honour to represent my coastal community, and I will do so to the best of my ability. However, I believe that if this bill is a bit of window dressing, greasing the wheels for this project, the Conservatives ought to know that it has met utter opposition in British Columbia. Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the opposition I encountered and observed was that it united British Columbians in a way that I had never experienced in my life. I have never seen aboriginal people leading protests of the kind and in the numbers. I have never seen retired teachers and bus drivers, people who are very young and people who are at the end of their careers and indeed at the end of their lives, all united in opposition to what the government intends to do, although I pray I am wrong.

I know the polls say that two-thirds of the population are opposed. However, if we scratch a little deeper, we will not find many people who think it makes sense to ship, in tankers the size of the Eiffel Tower along some of the most dangerous waters on the planet into Hecate Strait, diluted bitumen, a product of which we really have little understanding. We did not even know at the joint review panel whether it would sink or rise to the surface. That is the level of misunderstanding.

I taught environmental law for over a dozen years. People who appeared before that committee, fellow lawyers who cross-examined, said that they had never seen such dissonance between what a panel heard in testimony and what it concluded in its recommendations. It was two different realities. As well, the cost-benefit analysis that would say it is fine to potentially extirpate a herd of caribou, an endangered species, because it is in the national interest, with no evidence for that, is really quite shocking to British Columbians. It is also shocking that we would play Russian roulette with rivers full of endangered species, including certain salmon stocks that would never come back if there were a spill.

It is a product that is not heavy oil, but is diluted bitumen and it ought not to be confused with what happened with Exxon Valdez, which was bad enough as I will explain. That this could possibly be approved by the Government of Canada in the face of ferocious opposition by young and old, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, coastal and non-coastal communities, is frankly shocking to me. I just wish to reiterate that I will do, on behalf of the people of my community, whatever I can to ensure that this wrong-headed decision is never fully implemented in my province and in our country.

This bill deals with a number of matters that are somewhat germane to what I have been saying. Entirely, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act are three of the statutes that would be amended. Some of the regulatory changes are to be commended, and for that reason the bill will have our full support.

What the government has done in northern gateway is handed the industry a poisoned chalice. As one industry leader said very eloquently, we will get the permission perhaps from the government, but we will not get the permission from the people.

The phrase “social licence” has been used throughout this debate and I know exactly what that industry leader said. Even if government gives us the piece of paper, it will not have given us the legitimacy to proceed, because people know in their guts that this process is flawed. They knew that it was unfair and that a decision built on such a flawed process should not see the light of day.

It really is a poisoned chalice, and it is interesting that I see environmental organizations, first nations and industry holding hands around that phenomenon, recognizing that indeed industry will have been handed a poisoned chalice if the government were to proceed in the face of the ferocious opposition that is out there today.

At the second reading debate, the hon. Minister of Transport said a number of things about the bill, in respect of the proposed amendments to the Canada Shipping Act. She talked about the amendments that would increase marine environmental protection by strengthening provisions pertaining to pollution prevention and response. She said that the amendments would aim to strengthen requirements for spill prevention and preparedness at oil handling facilities by requiring certain facilities to submit both prevention and emergency plans to the Minister of Transport, to which I say “Bravo.”

However, when we do not have officials who are there to enforce those laws, who do not have the budget to insist on compliance, with the greatest of respect, it is irrelevant what the legislation says. We have seen the government consistently cut programs, cut offices that would deal with these very issues. It means nothing that legislation like this would contain pretty words, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, as Shakespeare would say.

This legislation, like so many Conservative initiatives, might look good on the surface, but if there is no personnel because it has all been cut, if there are no scientists because they have all been fired, if there is no office anymore, as in the case of the Kitsilano Coast Guard office, or spill prevention offices, who cares?

People are not being fooled. They know that what we do in passing pretty laws with no people behind them to enforce them and no political will, moreover, to enforce them, it really does not matter very much, and that is what is so frustrating. The Conservatives are full of sound and fury and really signify nothing in this kind of legislation.

On the amendment, if people do not, for example, submit those plans, what happens then? The minister tells us that the government has administered a penalty. There are $250 and sometimes even a range of $25,000 for a monetary penalty for some matter that may not have been complied with: a) we have to actually do it, we have to bring a proceeding; and b) we have to collect it.

Having worked on behalf of compliance with Canadian Environmental Protection Act, when I had the good fortune of advising the chief review officer under CEPA 99, these monetary penalties and these administrative regimes are excellent, but with no will to enforce them, who cares what they say, and who even cares what the amount is? The penalty amounts may sound impressive when they are increased but again, no will, no fines, no action, nothing. It is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I am not making it up when I say that the government has done so little by, in effect, closing the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station, by closing British Columbia's oil spill response centre and gutting the environmental emergency response program. Do British Columbians, do Canadians trust the government to look after their precious environment with these cosmetic changes? I think not, and I think we will find the members opposite, 21 of them, will face the wrath of British Columbians when they see if indeed, and I pray I am wrong, the government were to ever allow the monstrosity of the Enbridge northern gateway project to see the light of day.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point of view of my colleague. Not only is he from B.C., but he understands the issue. I think all of us have more concerns based on what happened in Lac-Mégantic not too long ago.

The fact is that we have a government that chooses to turn a blind eye when it comes to enforcement. The government can put in all the laws and change all the legislation it wants to say that it is protecting people, but at the end of the day, if it does not enforce them, then there is no security for Canadians. The communities and taxpayers are having to pay for the brunt of the cost for cleanup and reconstruction.

Not too long ago, just on this particular piece, the Minister of Natural Resources stated, “to protect the environment...tankers will have to be double-hulled”. Well, all tankers are required to be double-hulled by an international agreement made in 1993.

The member talked about fooling the public. Could he talk a little more about that “fool me once” anecdote? This is a government that seems to want to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians, but Canadians will not be fooled.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, polluter pays should be the backbone of the legislation, yet we still seem to have the Canadian people being asked to be on the hook after a certain amount of money for an oil spill cleanup. How much is a cleanup? It sounds like a lot of money. As my colleague for Skeena—Bulkley Valley pointed out, it could be hundreds of millions of dollars.

Professor Rashid Sumaila at the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Economics Research Unit asked the question about who paid. We have a mechanism to cover $1.35 billion, but look at the example of the Exxon Valdez, at $6.5 billion to cleanup. The Gulf of Mexico was much larger. For northern gateway, the cost of cleanup and losses could be up to $9.6 billion.

If there is no political will to enforce and if the government is not serious about polluter pay, it will be the rest of us Canadians who will foot the bill, and that is wrong.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his eloquent speech. He spoke a lot about accountability, which I think is important. He indicated, in a very articulate manner, that the bill serves as little more than window dressing designed to instil confidence in people, that it does not have enough teeth and that the government does not have enough political will to enforce it. That does not just apply to this case but also to a wide range of government activities related to oversight.

I would like to ask my colleague a question about the parallel that can be drawn with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which has standards to enforce. If there is not enough staff to enforce the rules or employees are not given the power to enforce them, then there are going to be more problems like the ones we have already experienced. I would like my colleague to compare what is happening with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with the changes to the regulations set out in this bill.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question, which raises the notion of monitoring activities and the failure perhaps to have the people there to do the monitoring. His example of what happened with the listeriosis outbreak and CFIA being essentially understaffed to do the job is an excellent illustration and exactly parallel.

This is another regulatory statute. There is no difference in principle among environmental regulation, health and safety, occupational safety, food inspection, railway safety, as my other colleague mentioned. These are all examples of when we put a regime in place, we expect people will be there to enforce those rules. If those rules are broken, we expect there will be some political will to go after the people who break those rules.

We do not have two of those three things. We have less and less people doing the job and we have virtually no political will to enforce our regulatory standards.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House and speak to 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.

I stand here with my colleagues, many of whom have spoken before me, who have made clear our position as New Democrats on this bill. It is a position where we recognize the modest improvements that have been made in terms of marine security, but we have also expressed concern about the amendments we proposed that have not been passed by the government.

We have been very clear in our concern that despite these acts, Canadians know that the current situation is one in which regulations, of the few that do exist on paper, are not able to be enforced the way they ought to because of the cuts that we are seeing in terms of scientists, the Coast Guard and inspectors that need to be in place to make sure that legislation and regulations are being followed.

When I was first asked to speak to the bill, I understood the connections with respect to the proposed Enbridge pipeline and the immense opposition that so many people in B.C. and across the country have to the pipeline, in part because they know the great risk to the environment, the environmental damage it poses. The fact is the government and provincial governments can do nothing to deal with potential oil spills to make them go away. I share that concern.

Obviously I am proud to be part of a party that is opposed to the Enbridge pipeline, that stands with Canadians and British Columbia and the rest of the country in opposition to this plan. I also want to share the voices of my own constituents who stand to lose as a result of the government's approach on the failure to enforce regulation and legislation when it comes to keeping our waterways and our rail lines safe.

I speak particularly about the proposal to ship oil through Churchill. For those who have not been to Churchill, it is well known as a real gem not just for my province of Manitoba, but also for our country. It is a small community on the coast of Hudson Bay about 1,200 kilometres north of Winnipeg. It is known around the world as the easiest place in the world for humans to be able to see polar bears. It includes a nesting ground for polar bears which is part of Wapusk National Park. It is a real treasure for Canadians.

We know that the community of Churchill in northern Manitoba benefits from the tourism industry, as people come to our region because of the polar bears. We also know that Churchill's economy depends on environmental research that takes place in the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. where researchers and scientists from around the world come to engage in climate change research and the impacts of climate change on wildlife, such as polar bears. We also know that Churchill depends on rail traffic and trade of which a good chunk is international trade.

Churchill has been going through a difficult time and will continue to go through a difficult time, because of the fact that the government got rid of its number one best customer, the Canadian Wheat Board. In getting rid of the Canadian Wheat Board, Churchill lost an important trade partner that had an ongoing and very positive relationship with Churchill.

The government then decided, because it wiped out an organization that was run by farmers and managed in the best interests of farmers, and despite its rhetoric that somehow the market was going to correct everything, to offer a major taxpayer-funded subsidy to some of the biggest grain companies around the world to do one thing that had already happened under the Canadian Wheat Board, which was to ship grain through Churchill. Sadly, this has not resulted in the figures that used to be under the Canadian Wheat Board. The people of Churchill and northern Manitoba are concerned about the future of the port, the future of trade through the port, and what it means in terms of bringing in revenue and investment into the port and the rail line that exists.

In the midst of a difficult and stressful situation, the company that owns the rail line and the port expressed interest out of the blue just under a year ago to ship crude oil from the Bakken oil fields, through the Bay line, up to Churchill and onto ships in the Arctic Ocean.

I do not think it comes as any surprise to anyone that people were taken aback by this proposal. The number one concern that was raised was safety. This occurred mere weeks after the tragedy that happened in Lac-Mégantic. We know that very similar crude oil was being transported in the railcars that blew up and killed so many people in that community.

People saw those images and what it could mean to our region. In recognizing that concern, people looked around to see whom they could work with to make sure they are protected. Sadly, when they looked at the federal government, what they saw is a government that has targeted regulation, particularly environmental regulation, that has cut back inspections in a whole host of areas, and has removed itself from taking leadership when it comes to safety.

In terms of rail safety, I want to recognize that in recent months, some measures have been brought in that are important to Canadians, particularly my constituents. However, we are particularly concerned about the potential of an oil spill if this shipment possibly went through into Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. That would be a devastating prospect.

We do not have the technology or the know-how to deal with oil spills in the Arctic. This has been raised in the context of drilling in the Arctic, but we do not even have to go that far. Simply transporting crude oil in the Arctic at the kind of volumes we are hearing about from this company is not something we know how to deal with.

In terms of the terrain, we know that if there were to be an oil spill into Hudson Bay, with it being a bay, it would remain there for a considerable amount of time. It would pollute the tributary rivers that come from Hudson Bay. It would actually move counterclockwise, the direction in which the water moves, into James Bay, and would pollute James Bay. It would then move straight up into the Arctic Ocean and pollute the various coastlines of Nunavut. It would have a devastating impact on the wildlife, including beluga whales. The beluga whale population of Hudson Bay is unique in that it has managed to withstand a fair bit of adversity and has shown signs of resilience that we do not see in other beluga whale populations. This is all to say that the reality of an oil spill is something which we cannot comprehend.

As the member of Parliament for Churchill and someone who is proud to come from the north, and proud of the way that first nations people, Métis people and northern people have been stewards of the environment, certainly where I come from, it troubles me that the federal government is not a partner at the table the way it ought to be when it comes to protecting our waterways, protecting our oceans, and protecting Canadians.

I am proud to stand here to raise our real concerns about this bill and to continue the fight for greater protection and fundamental leadership from the federal government, because Canadians deserve better.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, like a lot of Canadians, I did not know there was an ocean in Manitoba. I met with the Canadian Consortium of Ocean Research Universities and a very impressive professor from the University of Manitoba was there. I asked him why he was at the meeting, pointing out that oceans are on the coast. He pointed out, as my colleague from Churchill did so eloquently, that Hudson Bay feeds into the Arctic Ocean.

My colleague talked about the future of the port of Churchill and the concerns that the community has about oil spills and safety. Could she talk about the nature of the concerns that people have in the port of Churchill, whether they are economic or environmental, and to what extent, if at all, this bill would rectify those concerns?

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's sharing his incredulity that in fact we are so diverse. I extend a personal invitation to him to come and see our ocean first-hand.

I appreciate the member pointing out the cutting-edge research that is taking place in my province when it comes to its bodies of water.

There are concerns, both economic and environmental, and they are very much connected. Environmental pollution affects everything. It affects our economy, our tourism industry, hunting and trapping, small-scale agriculture. Whatever it may be in a region like ours, if the environment is polluted, it affects everything. It affects our livelihoods.

It is incredible that the federal government has turned a blind eye to its responsibility to provide leadership when it comes to environmental protection. Canada has gone from being obstinate in taking action on climate change to being obstructionist. The federal government seems to be encouraging others not to take action nor to play a leadership role on this front, and it maligns those who do.

This brings little comfort to people in my neck of the woods who are proud of their natural environment. They know their livelihood depends on a sustainable approach to our environment. They see that the federal government is nowhere to be found when it comes to environmental protection.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I did not want to pass on referencing Churchill and its impact on Manitoba's economy. It is fairly significant. I think of the golden boy who sits on top of the Manitoba legislature. He points north, to represent the province's future prosperity.

When many Manitobans think about Churchill, they think of the beluga whale, polar bears and all sorts of wonderful natural life. Its ecosystem needs to be protected.

When we hear about the possibility of oil being shipped and so forth, we have to ensure that we do something which the federal government has not done in regard to the proposed northern gateway pipeline project, and that is to work with our communities and listen to what they say, work with the different stakeholders, including the province of Manitoba and different municipalities, especially the Churchill municipality. In order to make good decisions, we have to work with people. For Churchill's prosperity, it is important for the government of the day to do just that.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what I would say to that is it is absolutely key for communities to be heard. At the beginning of the stages, communities directing the kinds of economic development they want to see is critical.

It is not enough to hear from the federal government that legislation and the emphasis on polluter pays needs to be there. That is a given. What we need is a federal government that partners with communities and with our provincial government to be able to make the best decisions. I want to say that on this front, I am very proud of the position that our provincial government is taking to oppose the proposal to ship crude oil through Churchill. I will also note that, sadly, we also have a legacy, left over from the previous Liberal government, that privatized the railway that we are now, with such great interest, trying to protect and support.

The conclusion here is that federal governments have an incredible role to play in every part of this country. They must do that role in conjunction with communities on the ground with Canadians directing the future of their region.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate with my colleagues on Bill C-3.

When we look at what it is trying to accomplish, it is, in a sense, part of a reporting mechanism, but it is also part of a risk-mitigating exercise as well. I think all of us would accept the fact that, inherently, in life there is risk. Getting out of bed in the morning is a risk. People are then exposed to the vagaries of life. They can step on the road and get run over by a bus. I hope that does not happen, but people learn certain things and mitigate the risks in life. They could also stay in bed, never get up, and die of starvation and lack of water. That would be a risk people would take if they decided to stay there. Clearly, we learn lessons over our lifetimes. We look back to those life lessons and ask how we can mitigate the risks that may be in front of us, so we can manage all of those things.

Business owners and many of my friends in the Conservative Party and other parties who have businesses mitigate risk. They figure out how to manage the risk. They find ways to ensure that whatever the risks are, if they cannot manage them, they limit the ability of risks to affect their businesses. When we talk about handling noxious and hazardous substances, there is a risk. The risk can be great because the eventuality of an incident has great repercussions to populations, environments, perhaps marine aquacultures, animals. It is an abundance of risk. The issue is what to do in mitigating it.

One thing the government has outlined before is that ships have to be double-hulled. No one can suggest that is brand new, because it is not. Ships have been double-hulled for a long time. It is a recommendation that was made many years ago. In fact, it was thought of decades ago, but double-hulled ships were not built because it was an expensive proposition.

My family grew up in the shipbuilding business. That is what my father, his grandfather, and his grandfather before him did. They all built ships, and at those times they were considered great big ships. They do not look like great big ships any more. Those ships literally look like tugs compared to the ships that are built today, but at that time they were seen as giants of the marine industry. They were built to withstand certain things. One of the things I learned from my father in all the years that he built them is that ships are at the mercy of the sea and the mercy of the captain. When they are at the mercy of the sea, it is guaranteed there will be an incident, because the sea is unrelenting. The sea shows no mercy. Therefore, when an incident occurs, it is a matter of how to avoid risk and mitigate it when it actually happens.

In the case of the captain, there are times when captains make decisions that are ill-founded and ships run aground, they capsize, or they run into other ships. We have seen over time that captains have been charged with crimes on the sea because of their inability to be the masters of their vessels in an appropriate and manageable way.

This bill, unfortunately, says it may potentially happen, so a few things should be done here and there and it should be tweaked it a bit here or there. We are no longer talking about vessels that my father built in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when, if there was a spill, it was manageable. They knew what the substance was, the hazardous and noxious substances were smaller cargoes in those days around the world than they are today and, ultimately, it was a small incident that had to be dealt with.

Now the scope and size of incidents are huge. Today's ships are now simply called very large ships because they do not have another name for them. They are football fields in length. They are phenomenally huge. When they carry bulk cargo, it can be noxious substances or oil. Most of them are oil carriers. If there is a major incident due to a rupture, there may be a leak. I am not talking 1,000 litres or 10,000 litres, but millions. That is the scope of the issue that we now have to deal with.

Unfortunately, the measures in Bill C-3, as much as they step toward the right direction, do not take into consideration the scope and magnitude of the spills before us today because they are of such huge proportions. If we have a catastrophic spill like we saw in the gulf, which came out of a well that lost its backflow preventer, the effects are equally transparent. Essentially, the top of the well head blew off allowing it to spew oil for weeks. Although the magnitude of that was seen across thousands of miles, the damage that was done to the ocean floor and elsewhere in the ecosystem is unknown because it has not yet been mapped out. We looked at the shoreline in Louisiana and up the gulf coast into Florida, down into Mexico, and a number of other different places, but we need to determine what the damage was to the marine aquaculture. It could take decades to make that determination.

We have one of the largest coastlines, if not the largest coastline, of any nation in the world: British Columbia. It is fair to talk about that since the northern gateway is on everyone's mind today, including the government's. The government should help out by sharing that with us now. It would unburden its mind of that decision and make it feel better. Like the saying in the evangelical movement “repent and thou shalt see the way and the light and the truth”, it should simply tell us what that is now.

My friend from Churchill talked about the fact that we have this huge internal waterway called Hudson's Bay. A lot of folks forget about this huge piece that goes right into the Arctic Ocean. Although we see it on a map, quite often we lose sight of that. I want to thank my friend from Churchill for giving us the opportunity to remember that. Oddly enough, many if not all of us live on or near a coast. For those of us who live in central Canada, it is strange to think about that. I live on the coast but I have two coasts to go to, the coasts of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The folks from Toronto and my good friend from Parkdale—High Park have the north shore of Lake Ontario. She lives on a coast. Many of us across this country live very close to bodies of water, as do our good friends in the Conservative Party. A body of water is often one or two blocks away from their home.

The impact of any of these kinds of catastrophic spills is not just substances that come up the St. Lawrence River and head into places like Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Superior because we heard our member from Churchill talk about how that would get out through Hudson's Bay. We have bodies of water throughout this entire country in front of us that have that potential.

It is interesting to look at the two furthest coasts. I will leave out the north for now, but if we look at the east and west coasts and we talk to sailors about traversing the north Atlantic and heading into Newfoundland, depending on the time of year it can be one of the most dangerous waters one could ever enter into. I have been on our far east coast as well as the west coast and have not had the opportunity to go to the Arctic yet. When we look at the north Atlantic we see the types of dangers that are inherent in it. Seafarers know all too well the inherent dangers of going to sea.

As a kid, I grew up on an island and it was natural for us to be at the sea. When one grows up in Scotland, which is an island, the coast is everywhere. There is no other land, just coast, and nearly all of us at some point in time take to the sea somehow. Whether we fish or are involved in other industries, we always seem to be at sea. In their hearts seafarers know the dangers of going to sea. It is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world.

I raise that because they know the inherent danger. They know that the likelihood of an incident just simply gets greater the longer they are at sea. Very few seafarers, very few sailors, ever run out an entire career not having an incident while on ship. It is just an inherent danger of actually being on a ship. Regardless how good the master is or how well the ship is built, it just happens. Some of it happens through negligence, sometimes, of the master of the ship and sometimes it is just simply the weather. We have heard of ships that just simply sunk, and people will ask how they could possibly have sunk because it would have been impossible for them to sink. When they get out in a gale or on the wrong sea, they can sink. Regardless how new these vessels are, how large they are, how sophisticated they are, with radar, sonar, and all kinds of navigational tools, when the sea is angry, the sea will conquer. The problem for us is that we face the consequences of what is left of that catastrophic mess.

Now, of course, with this, we are talking about who pays for that because, ultimately, this comes back to the risk. If people want to be in the business of moving noxious substances and oil and hazardous materials, they know the risk when they decide to go into that business.

How is it that these operators, the movers of this type of material, have figured out a way to download the risk to us? That is what they have done. Now they have decided to move them in huge bulk cargo carriers that are literally beyond most of our imaginations, unless one has actually been at port and seen one. How big are these things? They are gigantic. If they have a spill, it will more than likely be beyond the capability of the amount of these funds that they have to put up as a liability, and these companies that are moving this material have figured that out. They have now figured out how to download the risk to the Canadian public.

Other businesses do not get to do that. They do not get to download their risk to the general public and say that maybe it will cost $1 billion or $4 billion and they will pay the first couple hundred million dollars, maybe up to $500 million. Then other folks can carry the rest.

It is patently wrong. Never mind it being unfair; it is just patently wrong. No other business gets to do that. No other business gets to simply say to the Canadian taxpayer, “You carry the risk while I carry on making money.”

These businesses are why we say they should actually be held accountable for the costs. Yes, some will say we will put them out of business. That is the risk they took when they understood that this was a business where they could make lots of money. However, the risk is that, if they have a potential catastrophic spill and they have to pay for the cleanup, it might wipe them out. That is the risk that, in our view, they should accept, because there is a huge generator of wealth on the other side because there is a lot of money to be made in this type of business.

The other side of the coin is that they do it as well as they should. If they are unfortunate and the sea catches up to them and they have a catastrophic event and spill and sully the pristine coastlines of my great friends from British Columbia, the damage will be irreparable probably for the rest of the lifetimes of all of us who are in this House which, in some case, would be many decades. For me, it would obviously be a little less, as I am a little older. However, there are many folks in this House who are much younger than I who have many more decades to live. It will be like the Exxon Valdez, which is still not cleaned up, from what I have heard from my friends in British Columbia, in the sense it is still there decades later.

Now we are talking about new product that would come through the northern gateway, about which I still have not heard from my friends across the way what they are going to do there—somehow I do not think it is coming. Perhaps, of course, the Speaker knows and might share it with us when he stands.

Clearly, this type of product, this type of oil, which is now mixed with some other things, is a different piece from anything. With respect to the type of oil spilling into the Kalamazoo River, in Michigan, the American environmental agencies found a spill that they had no expertise to deal with because it sunk to the bottom of the river.

Oil normally floats, and gasoline floats and evaporates, not that either one is a good thing to have in the water. However, heavy oil sinks. That creates a new problem of how to deal with an oil that sinks to the bottom, be it the ocean or, as in this case, a river. The cost of that is probably not determinable as yet, and yet we have set a limit on folks.

I think it was my colleague from Victoria who said earlier that, while it is great to have fines, if there is no one to go collect them, then we actually would not get anything. If only traffic tickets were like that. If they actually wrote us a ticket for speeding but no one actually came to collect it, we would all just keep speeding. Getting a traffic ticket for speeding usually makes one cautious. We know we will have to pay it because, if we do not, our drivers licence will not be renewed; there is no denying it. Therefore, there is a cause and effect. I was driving too fast and got caught. The punishment was handed out in the way of a ticket. I know I will have to pay it, because someone will come and collect it. Unfortunately, in this regulation there will be a ticket writer, but no one is going to collect. People could just stick them up on the wall and say, “Yeah, that's number 48 and two more will make 50” and not pay them. What would it matter if they were not actually being enforced?

We end up in a situation where we have a regulation that is not being enforced, so why do we bother? We look at some of these regulations and we think they are not what we would do, in the sense that we would make them tougher, but they are there, so perhaps the government will hear us and will find a way to regulate them and enforce them so they actually get done.

One of the things I find quite incredible is that the bill talks about regulations: how we need to do this and that, laying down the groundwork of looking as if we are really going to be safe and secure, so that when the government this afternoon says yes to northern gateway—as I am sure it will—it will say it put all the safety regulations in place. There is Bill C-3 and some other things the government has done, like double hull tankers and other things it is talking about, inspections and all those good things. However, the government's budgets have literally closed Coast Guard centres right across the country on both shores. The Kitsilano centre is a prime example. I understand from my friends in B.C. it is the busiest security port of anywhere in the country. However, the government closed it because it did not think it was very important.

The government is actually saying that it is going to increase the number of ships up and down the Juan de Fuca, upside, inside, and in between Vancouver Island and the mainland, but we do not actually need any extra Coast Guard. It reminds me of someone saying that the stop light does not work, but there are only two cars so we do not actually need a traffic cop to control the traffic, and then saying that we will let 2,000 through there and we still do not need a traffic cop. Well, we do. If we are going to actually increase the amount of tanker flow in those troubled waters—I say troubled waters with respect to the fact that they are dangerous and hazardous—we need to put traffic cops there. The Coast Guard are not just a traffic cops; they actually save lives. They actually respond.

We see the same thing on the east coast with the closures there. I have heard my colleagues from Quebec talk about the closing of a Coast Guard office in Quebec that actually provides French language service. If I am not correct someone will correct me during questions. There are a lot of Maritimers at sea. We need that type of essential service.

Just imagine a Maritimer at sea making a distress call and he actually cannot talk to the person and let him know where he is, because of a language barrier, because he speaks French and does not understand English. He is stuck out in the North Atlantic somewhere, bobbing around, waiting for his ship to flip over and end up in the North Atlantic Ocean, where he will last about 18 minutes, simply because we did not provide a language service.

How do we answer to that person's family? How do we tell that person's family that we are really sorry we did not provide service in the right language?

It is time for the Conservatives to re-evaluate their cuts. Those places are essential for Maritimers, they are essential for our coast, they are essential for our environment, and they are essential for Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the amendments proposes to change our port authorities. We have about 18 port authorities in Canada, and they play a very important role in terms of economic activity for our communities.

There is an expectation that there is a role of leadership that will emanate from those port authorities. One of the changes just deals with the appointment and the timing of appointments. It is not earth-shattering in terms of changes. However, the reason I bring it up is that within the legislation there are some minor changes, and whenever we are afforded the opportunity to comment on some of those minor changes, it actually causes me to think about the bigger picture and the importance of our port authorities and the roles they play. I wonder if the member might want to take advantage of talking about the important role of our port authorities here in Canada.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North is right. Port authorities are important. They are critical pieces of infrastructure in making decisions about how ports will operate, whether they are safe, and whether they enact certain types of regulations.

It seems to me that it is incumbent, if we are actually going to do it and make appointments to port authorities, that we look at a few things. We should be transparent about it. We ought to vet people. If the last couple of appointments were vetted, I would like to know who the people were who vetted them; it is time for them to find something else to do. They ought to be capable and competent. What is the point of having people who really do not know what they are doing when it comes to a port authority?

I can imagine being the master of a vessel coming into a port and thinking, “I wonder if the chair of the port authority actually thought that maybe we should not put that pier there because I cannot get into the port now. Why did they build that there?” It is because the person in question who authorized it did not know anything about a port. He or she just said, “Well, we need some extra place to tie stuff up; we will tie another ship there.” The person did not think about the supertanker coming in and not fitting in that little aisle.

That is the great undoing for us in central Canada and the Great Lakes, the fact that the locks in the Welland Canal only take ships of a certain size. They take large ships, but they do not take the ships of today that are huge. Consequently, in a place like Port Weller in the city of St. Catharines, the dry docks, they could not build the ships of that magnitude. It is not because they are not capable. They are very capable, but they cannot get them out. They cannot get them through the canal, so they cannot sail them back into the North Atlantic. That is the unfortunate part of Port Weller being where it is, that the ship builders are not capable of getting a ship out after building ships of that magnitude.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Welland for raising some very timely concerns as we look at the so-called safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. As I mentioned before, it is the cobbling together of provisions for forensic studies of airline disasters and appointments to an aeronautics board, and calling it “safeguarding our skies”, and putting it in with provisions to enforce a hazardous products convention for the marine environment. These really do not go together logically, and the title is pure public relations.

However, because he mentioned tankers and how big they are, I say this for that member. Regarding the supertankers that are proposed for the Port of Kitimat—and we will find out later today what is going to be said about that—if they laid the Empire State Building on end, the tanker would be slightly longer.

A tanker holds two million barrels, and not heavy crude. It will hold something called dilbit, which is bitumen. It is a raw product being exported because we do not seem to want the jobs of refining it in this country. It is mixed with other toxic substances called diluent. That Port of Kitimat will have some tankers coming in with toxic diluent and different tankers will come in to take away the dilbit, which is also toxic, and no study yet has determined how dilbit will behave in real conditions in a marine environment. How reckless is this scheme? I ask this for my friend from Welland.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. When it comes to the size, I appreciate the scaling of the Empire State Building and the size of these ships, because they are huge.

I do not know if anybody in this House has, but I have actually been to a port when there was one. They are mammoth. I do not know how else to describe them. An individual is dwarfed by the humongous size of them. They are an amazing engineering feat.

I think the spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, pointed out the very nature of not understanding this new material. It is not a new material in the sense that we know what it is when it comes out of the ground as bitumen, but when we mix it, we do not really know what it does. We do know there is a negative effect. Nobody on this side would say that if we had a spill, it is a positive thing. They would all say it was negative.

The issue is how we would manage it. What do we do with it? We need science to tell us what we should do to manage a spill, because we will have one. It is not a question of it never happening; it will happen. There will be a spill. The issue is about when it will happen and how we will handle it, but we actually do not know the science behind what the material would do. We have WHMIS sheets in this province, hazardous materials sheets that describe what to do to protect ourselves if a material spills. We do not have them for this particular material, and that is a shame.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with the security of our marine transportation system and the fact that the Canadian Coast Guard is not equipped with super tugs.

If one of these supertankers were to have engine trouble in Canadian waters, it could not be towed by a motor boat. An auxiliary coast guard made up of volunteers, who are often equipped with fishing boats, would not help either.

It is a huge problem that the companies that have destroyed the environment and caused oil spills in Alaska, the Gulf of Guinea and the Gulf of Mexico are the same companies that are operating in Canada and asking us to trust them.

Could my distinguished colleague explain to us how these factors add to the risks?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we talked earlier about the size of the transporting vessel compared to the tow vessels. They are not even comparable any more. The tow vessels were built to a different standard and for different ships.

I am sure there are colleagues here, or perhaps people in their families, who understand the maritime industries. They would know that it is a different situation when a ship is being towed.

Recently we witnessed one of our frigates become incapacitated. It had to be towed back. It took a long time to attach the tow, and then it broke. Then it had to be redone. These are difficult things to accomplish at sea in any circumstance, never mind with a vessel that is basically not manoeuvrable and relies on tugs and tows to manoeuvre. Tow lines break. It is not like towing a car. To do that, we simply stop, put the chain on again, and away we go. In the case of a ship, it could take days, and by that time the ship could have run aground. If it is in the passage between Vancouver Island and the mainland, it will be on the rocks. They do not have time. That is the problem.

Towing a ship or using tugs to try to move it makes for difficult physics on the water. I could not actually explain it, because I do not know the physics well enough to do so; all I can say is that it is extremely difficult. Anybody involved in the industry would tell us it is extremely hard, and when it goes awry, it is really difficult to get the situation back under control.

If a crosswind was blowing across one of these supertankers and the tow line broke at the stern, the ship would literally turn sideways. It would then go backward. It would literally simply float backward. If it had lost a rudder or lost an engine and was not under its own power when the tow line was lost, control of the ship would be lost, and the other tows would not be able to right it. They might be able to hold it off if they were lucky, but if all the tows could not be restored, that tanker would literally be on the rocks.

Then we would have an immense catastrophe of a proportion that we have never seen in our lifetimes, nor would we ever want to. That is the dilemma. Those are the things we are trying to point out to the Conservatives that they have not taken into consideration.

If northern gateway is approved this afternoon—which, as a betting man, I would say will happen—the Conservative really need to fix Bill C-3, and they ought to do that in the Senate, since it will be out of here at third reading.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I get the opportunity to address this bill.

It is really important to acknowledge, right from the beginning, that it is unfortunate that the government has chosen such a piecemeal way of dealing with what is a very important issue for all Canadians.

What we are talking about with Bill C-3 is everything from marine transportation to rail transportation to passenger safety to the airline industry and more. Instead of comprehensive legislation that deals with the issues in a more tangible fashion, what we see before us is legislation that deals with the issues in a very piecemeal way.

We think it is really unfortunate that the government has chosen to take that direction when it had a much greater opportunity for a more significant impact on the industries we are trying to deal with today.

Nowhere more can that be highlighted than with the government's anticipated decision on the northern gateway project. In questions not only today but in the past, whether from the leader of the Liberal Party or from critics in our caucus, we have been trying to get the government to understand the importance of the issues surrounding the northern gateway project.

In trying to get the government to understand, what we are doing, in good part, is trying to get it to look at the different stakeholders. One has to question how effective Conservative members of Parliament are when they have been sitting on their hands and not doing much advocating for what needs to be happening on a very important issue.

The pipeline issue is an important issue to Canadians. What needs to be highlighted today with the northern gateway project is that the government has really dropped the ball. It is about the risk factor. Let us think about the economic and environmental impacts. The government is putting Canadians, particularly those in British Columbia, under these economic and environmental risk factors.

The government has not done its homework on the importance of that very issue. The northern gateway has an unacceptable level of environmental and economic risk to British Columbia and the coastal region. In fact, the University of British Columbia did a study in 2012 that revealed that an oil spill stemming from the northern gateway could cost in excess of $300 million. That is just the economics of it, and it does not include the long-term environmental impact.

One would think that the Prime Minister would want to work with the different stakeholders and listen to what the people of British Columbia have to say about pipelines, particularly in regard to the northern gateway project, but the government has fallen short. It has not listened to our first nations or people of aboriginal heritage or to the many different communities that have expressed legitimate, genuine concerns. The government appears to have made a decision that is not in the best interests either of the region or of all Canadians.

We have been putting the northern gateway issue forward for months. The response we have received from the government has been found wanting. It is a government that does not recognize the importance of getting our product from the Prairies to the coastline. It is a government that has failed to recognize that there needs to be a social contract, that it needs to work with the communities in order to make things happen.

The government has not been able to demonstrate that the northern gateway project is the project of the future. In fact, it has failed to demonstrate that it is the best route to go. As a result, many different stakeholders and communities are nervous about what we anticipate will be a likely decision. One has to question why the government has not listened to what people are saying about the project—

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order. The time for government orders has expired. The hon. member for Winnipeg North will have 14 minutes remaining for his speech when this matter returns before the House.

Statements by members, the hon. member for Ahuntsic.

The House resumed from June 17 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 third time and passed.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

When the House last took up this question, the hon. member for Winnipeg North had 14 minutes remaining in his time for comments on the question.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not usually at a loss for words. I understand that I have 14 minutes left to speak. I am just not too sure about the bill you actually called. I have some notes on my desk, so could you just refer me to the specific bill?

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The bill that was announced under orders of the day is Bill C-3, safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. We are at third reading, resuming debate.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the issues is that, when we adjourn debates, quite often what ends up happening is that we are in a situation where we will have the start of second reading on a particular bill only to find out that we might not actually have the continuation of that debate for weeks or months.

This is one of the problems in terms of the whole issue. I have talked about this in the past. I will just talk a little about the process. We do need to have more co-operation amongst parties inside the chamber. That would allow for a more even flow of the legislative agenda.

Then if we had a priority bill, it would be brought back within a few days, as opposed to having to wait for months. I think that is what has happened with this particular bill. The bill was brought in, and I do not have the actual date in front of me but if I were to speculate, my best guesstimate would be that it was likely several months ago when it was before the House. Then we find ourselves in the situation we are in today.

In my opening comments, if I were to give a little reflection, members would find that the principle of a bill is something in which it is always good to get more of the details. One of the advantages of the bill going to committee is the fact that we will do just that, going through the bill, listening to different stakeholders and the input they might have to provide. On any piece of legislation that would be very advantageous.

If I could provide a bit more specific information, what we are seeing in this bill is a piecemeal approach, or what we might even describe as an incoherent approach to the transportation safety policy in Canada.

When I hear about transportation safety in Canada, there is an endless number of examples and thoughts that come to mind. All I have to do is just talk about train transportation and the huge need and desire that Canadians have to deal with transportation safety, in particular with our railways.

Small things are trickling out in dribs and drabs from the government, without any comprehensive approach to transportation safety in the country to deal with many important issues. Even though I made reference to train transportation, it is important that we recognize, as this bill does, marine transportation and passenger safety, which goes beyond that.

We can look at how much Canada as a country has become urbanized. It has many train hubs, and with respect to Winnipeg, it is the CN yards out in the Symington area or the Transcona area or in my own back yard with the CP Rail expansion that has been taking place.

More and more, the quantity of goods actually being transported from coast to coast to coast using the rail lines—and the product that is in those trains and tankers—is going through major suburban and inner-city areas, all over our country.

It should be no surprise that Canadians are growing more and more concerned about the content of our trains as they go through municipalities. More specifically, what is the government actually doing to protect our communities? We are just hearing dribs and drabs.

We have a government that seems to want to react as opposed to being proactive in dealing with issues related to safety. I believe the government has a lacklustre attitude in terms of trying to provide strong and improved regulations, which would go a long way in making our communities safer.

There is an opportunity here to come up with a more coherent and comprehensive approach. To that extent, I would ask the government, particularly the minister responsible, to what degree they have consulted with the many different stakeholders.

Of course, we have the standard stakeholders within certain industries, whether it be the marine community or rail transportation. However, we should be taking into consideration the provinces, which have regulations within their provincial jurisdictions. We should be seeing what municipalities have to say. We will find throughout Canada that there are many progressive stakeholders who, if afforded the opportunity to provide direct input into the development of legislation, would be more than happy to do so. This is something I would suggest the government has not been very successful at. It is one of the reasons I believe there are so many deficiencies in the legislation.

It is critically important that when legislation passes the floor of the House of Commons and goes to committee that the government be open to listening to what is presented in committee and open to amendments. I know that has not been a highlight of the current government in terms of receiving amendments, particularly from opposition parties. Often we find that amendments brought forward by opposition parties would add strength and value to laws and regulations. I believe that is what Canadians want to see.

I believe that once we get this bill to committee, we will find ideas that will lead to potential amendments. Hopefully the government will listen and support where it can, even though the Conservatives' track record is not good. However, I am an optimistic person.

As I have suggested, we can do a lot better than this in terms of transparency, which Canadians are asking for and deserve. Even though the bill is mostly about technical amendments, the Liberal Party will be supporting the bill going to committee.

We have had some horrific accidents over the last number of years. I would suggest there are things government should have been doing to deal with some of the regulations that need to be changed.

I think of my backyard, where we have the CP tracks going through the heart of Winnipeg's north end. Common commodities such as wheat and oil and many other products are shipped.

We have seen serious devastation in communities where rail line accidents have occurred.

Bill C-3 is a bill that is mostly about technical amendments, and that is why, in principle, we will support it going through. It would have been a lot better if the government had taken a more holistic approach to improving safety on our rail lines, in our air spaces, and in our oceans.

The government of the day can choose the status quo and not come up with bold initiatives that would have an impact, but there is going to be a cost. What we have witnessed over the last number of years is a higher sense of public safety and protecting our communities, because every so often, when we hear about a rail line accident, there is a great deal of media attention.

I would suggest that we do not have to wait for accidents to occur. There is a way we can deal with it in a more proactive fashion.

Once the bill does go through the House at second reading and gets to committee, I look forward to the government having an open mind and allowing for some amendments to the legislation.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg North was quite mixed up at the beginning of his speech. He did not know which bill it was or what he should talk about. I think he is still mixed up, because we are debating third reading. It is not going to committee. That is over. We are at third reading, and the bill is not going to committee. I just wanted to help him a little bit.

At the same time, would he agree with me that the Liberals were in government for a long time, before the Conservatives, after the Conservatives, and before the Conservatives again? They were in government for many years. This is a problem that has existed for a long time, where government lets companies themselves be responsible for the security of people, then when an accident happens, it is too late.

The government has a responsibility to put the security mechanisms in place to ensure that people do not get hurt. That happened during the Liberal government, too. We should not be talking about this bill in 2014. It should have been there a long time ago. It is not the first incident that has happened in this country.

Would he agree with me that the Liberals failed to do that when they were in power?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments with regard to it now being at third reading versus second reading. It is very important that we pay attention as government bills are being called. Believe it or not, I do make some mistakes, and my apologies to members of the House if I might have given the impression that it was second reading. It is, in fact, third reading.

Having said that, I still believe that it is important to look at our current situation. There are many needs with regard to improving the system. When the Liberals were in government, did we have a perfect system? Likely not, but some significant improvements were made at that time. I suspect that in time, hopefully, the current government will be replaced, and we will once again have a more progressive government that will be able to look at the bigger picture in safety

Although I was hoping there would have been some amendments, I do not think there would have been, and that would tell me that there were lost opportunities. I am sure I will hear in questions whether there were amendments passed.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, this particular bill is mainly technical in scope, but the committee heard from a wide array of witnesses.

When we talk about rail safety, everybody is very much aware of some of the horrific accidents that took place, Lac-Mégantic being at the forefront of most people's recollections. We know that the Auditor General did an extensive study of all the events surrounding that accident.

I know that if we stand in the House during question period and ask the minister for particulars, the minister will stand and go on about how much money the government has spent specifically on rail safety. I would like to ask my colleague whether the minister is on solid ground when she says that. I guess that is the essence of my question.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport will say, for example, that the government has spent about $100 million on safety since 2009, but what is important is that we put that in perspective. It sounds like a big number, except that it spent $600 million on advertising over the same years, which is unbelievable. It spent $550 million on outsourced legal fees. Therefore, we need to put things in the proper context.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to help my colleagues from the Liberal Party to situate themselves a bit better. We are in third reading, but we are also in third reading of Bill C-3, which does not have much to do with railroads.

I will give the member the title, just so it is a little clearer in everybody's minds. It is 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. Rail safety is an interesting point, and it is important that we debate it in the House, but perhaps we should be a little more on point as to what is being debated in the House at the moment.

Perhaps the Liberal Party is confused, because when we sent this bill to committee after second reading, it did not present any amendments. Maybe it just missed this bill entirely. I do not know. However, we are in third reading of a bill that has to do with marine safety, and that is what I would like to ask a question about.

Seeing as the Liberals did not produce any amendments during the committee stage, I will assume they are in agreement that a company should only be liable for $230,000 in case of an oil spill.

I remember last summer that Conservative ministers suggested it should be as much as a billion dollars. That number has been substantially reduced. I assume that, because they have not produced any amendments, the Liberals are in agreement with the significant reduction in the liability for which a corporation would be responsible.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about safety, there is an element of rail safety within the legislation. It is an important issue for many Canadians.

If the member wants to downplay railway safety, that is fine. He can choose to do that. We recognize that within our transportation industry, we need to take safety into consideration, not only marine but also railway and sky. I would be a bit disappointed if he does not recognize the value that we have put forward.

Regarding liability insurance, I have heard all sorts of extremes. I have heard members of his caucus talk about having $38 billion to cover potential liabilities for offshore oil. Imagine if that NDP policy had been put in place. What impact would that have had on the development of oil out in the Atlantic Ocean?

The whole issue of insurance liability is very serious and it should not be taken lightly, because it does have a lot to do with our environment, our economy, jobs and so forth. The member tries to poke a bit of fun here and there, but at the end of the day, this is a serious issue and the legislation could have been improved. Even though I was not at that committee, the NDP did not get one amendment passed either.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the member does want to talk about railway safety, let us talk about the Liberals' approval of remote control technology for trains in 2003, and how that led to one-man crews on the railway.

Would the member agree with the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration and say that one-man crews, when toxic materials are being transported, are actually a dangerous practice? Will he apologize for the approval of the former Liberal government for approving such dangerous measures on the railroads?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Charlottetown brings up a good point, which is that the member is maybe stretching a bit here. I suspect the reason he might be stretching is because he is a little nervous. That is just a hypothesis on my part. I do not know for sure.

However, I would suggest, as I did about 15 minutes ago, that even when the Liberal Party was in government, it might not have been a perfect system, but there were efforts from previous Liberal administrations to take a more holistic approach at delivering a safer environment for all rail, air and marine transportation. The Liberal Party has taken this very seriously in the past and will continue to do so into the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to give my speech and my opinion on the bill before us. For the benefit of those present today, I will repeat that this is the third reading of 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.

This bill will amend a great many laws on marine safety, mainly with respect to the transportation of dangerous and toxic products, especially petroleum products.

A number of witnesses told us what they thought about the proposed amendments. The NDP proposed amendments to the bill that the government did not accept. That is very unfortunate because the current bill is a step in the right direction, but a far cry from what it should be.

To add context I would like to quote Canada's Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. He has repeatedly given us benchmarks so that we have an accurate picture of the state of marine safety with respect to the transport of hydrocarbon products. This is what he had to say in 2010:

The Canadian Coast Guard, the lead federal agency for responding to ship-source oil spills, has not conducted an assessment of its ship-source oil spill response capacity since 2000. While concerns have been raised regarding the state of the Coast Guard’s oil spill response equipment, given the lack of recent capacity analyses and the lack of up-to-date knowledge on risks, the Coast Guard does not know if its ship-source oil spill response capacity is appropriate to address those risks.

He continues:

In the meantime, Canada lacks a formal framework for responding to chemical spills, including clear roles and responsibilities.

I would like to remind members that he said that in 2010. It seems that the message was not heard. In 2012, the commissioner again pointed out the following in his annual report:

The potential impacts of an offshore oil spill in Atlantic Canada, such as seen in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, could be widespread and devastating to the environment, industry, and the livelihoods of many Canadians. As a result, it is essential that the offshore petroleum boards manage the risks and impacts associated with the oil and gas activities they regulate.

As I said, that was in 2012. The message still had not gotten through, so the commissioner brought up the problems yet again in his 2013 report, which stated:

The federal government has an important leadership role to play in protecting species and spaces and implementing a sustainable development agenda. Leadership means first identifying where the federal government can add the most value, finding the most cost-effective way to do so, investing what it takes to add that value, and finally, following through on commitments. Fulfilling current promises is critical, because commitments are only the first steps toward the research, protection, and recovery needed. Building on progress and successes such as the Habitat Stewardship Program and the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, for example, is also vital.

In 2013, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development once again reported that we did not have the equipment and were not ready to respond to spills at sea.

I would like to close with a quote from Danielle Giroux, spokesperson for the St-Lawrence Coalition, who expressed her opinion on the commissioner's comments. These quotations are from the David Suzuki Foundation website.

Danielle Giroux said:

As the governments of Quebec and Newfoundland prepare to open the Gulf of St. Lawrence to oil exploration, this report confirms that we are in no way prepared to respond to any incident related to this extractive activity. We do not have the technical resources to prevent or clean up the mess, nor do we have the financial guarantees to cope with it. This report is a cold shower for the coastal communities that depend on the health of the Gulf for their own well-being.

This bill is about financial liability in case of an oil spill. Compensating people if their industry is destroyed by an oil spill is all well and good, but what about rebuilding the industry if it is damaged by an oil spill? Remember the Exxon Valdez? Oil from that spill is still washing up on shore. The Irving Whale sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 30 years ago, and people in the Magdalen Islands, in my riding, are still picking up chunks of oil that wash up on the sand every year. A spill never really goes away; the fallout lasts for years.

We have to think about the long term when we talk about compensation. The fishing industry in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the Atlantic, off the west coast and potentially in the Arctic is a sustainable activity that can go on indefinitely. If an oil spill damages this industry, we need to make sure that it can continue to exist, rather than thinking about financial compensation. We need to think about what can be done to limit the impact of a spill.

Rather than talking about what type of insurance policy is needed to financially compensate people for a year's income, I would like the government to talk about what it is going to do to ensure that the tourism, fishing and seabed mining industries remain sustainable.

I would like to give some statistics that show the value of the industries we are talking about. In the Magdalen Islands, fishing and the related industries, particularly the processing industry, represent $100 million per year. In the Gaspé, lobster fishing alone represents $15 million per year. In 2010, in the Gaspé, the landing value of fishing was $85 million. Landings in the lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands account for two-thirds of all landings in Quebec. Tourism generates $280 million a year in my region.

In the bill before us, we are talking about an insurance policy that would provide $230 million in compensation. That is not even equivalent to the revenue generated in one year by the tourism industry. I would like to remind hon. members that if the beaches in the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands are polluted with oil, there will not be very many tourists. One year of compensation in the amount of $230 million will not restore the industry in my region. The region will be decimated. This bill does not meet the needs of my constituents; that is clear. If it does not meet their needs, it obviously does not meet the needs of constituents in neighbouring ridings either.

When it comes to cleaning up oil spills, the bill indicates that companies will be responsible for cleaning up up to 10,000 tonnes of oil. In eastern Canada, there is currently talk of a project in Belledune that could involve the marine transport of four times that amount of oil. There is also talk of a potential project in Cacouna, not far from Rivière-du-Loup, involving the marine transport of almost 10 times that amount of oil. Today, the marine transport of oil in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is equivalent to approximately 82 million tonnes per year. The bill stipulates that the company would be responsible for cleaning up only 10,000 tonnes. That is not enough. It is not nearly enough.

Today, an oil tanker carries at least four times the quantity proposed in this bill in the event of a spill. A standard Suezmax or Panamax oil tanker may contain at least four times more than what this bill is proposing. If one of these ships is involved in a spill, the company would be responsible for just one-quarter of it. Who will be responsible for the rest? Canadians.

Once again, Canadians are being asked to assume the risk socially, while the benefits are being privatized. Companies will get off the hook and make huge profits. Everyone knows the oil industry is very profitable. Canada's oil exports have tripled in the past five years, and they are expected to triple again in the next three.

Huge quantities of oil will pass very close to our coastal communities, which depend on fishing, forestry and tourism, all traditional and sustainable industries. As for the oil industry, we are not equipped for a spill, period.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of Canada's main oil transportation routes, and it freezes in the winter. It ices over. What will happen if a spill occurs on the ice? We are not equipped to clean up a spill like that. Let us take things one step at a time.

It is all well and good to want to make companies liable for up to $230 million, but it is nowhere near enough. It is better than what we have now, where companies are liable for $35 million. At least that will go up to $230 million. A year ago, the Conservatives were talking about $1 billion, but they decided it was too much.

I would remind the House that some countries put no limit on a company's liability. Norway, for example, has no limit. Companies responsible for a spill are responsible for the cost of cleanup, period.

By the way, Norway's oil economy is not suffering. Growth is good and the industry is doing well. The country has money and is protecting the environment at the same time. Both are possible. I do not know why we in Canada cannot understand that companies need to be accountable. If the polluter is not liable, someone else will be, and that will be us, the taxpayers. I think taxpayers have paid enough already.

The government keeps saying that taxpayers are paying too much. Frankly, if the government is trying to tell Canadian taxpayers that they should be subsidizing oil companies, Canadians will be left scratching their heads and wondering why they should have to compensate them.

Those companies have plenty of money, since that industry is extremely profitable. I think they can start assuming liability for any pollution they might cause.

A boat will not necessarily cause a spill, as we know. Some boats go up and down the east or west coast on a daily basis. They go by all the time. I just have to look around me when I am at home. I see boats passing by carrying oil. We can all see them. Fortunately, there has never been a spill.

Elsewhere around the world, however, there have been about 10,000 spills over the past 40 years. We know that this can happen and we know the risks. Every industry faces some sort of risk. It is crucial that we have a bill that considers this risk. We do not have one here. Companies are just starting to assume some liability, but not nearly enough.

In committee, I would have liked to see the Conservatives remember what they themselves had promised. They promised liability to the tune of $1 billion. That definitely would have been better. Unfortunately, this is nowhere near that.

Where I come from, there are several potential oil deposits in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but the most important is the Old Harry site, located between the Magdalen Islands and Newfoundland. It is so much on the border that we are not even sure exactly where it is.

If development begins at that site, there are fears that we are not properly equipped to clean up a spill. There are doubts about whether the company that has the permit today would have the financial ability to pay compensation in the event of a major spill. This bill would not provide enough for a proper cleanup following a catastrophe like the one in the Gulf of Mexico. It definitely needs to go further. Is it enough for today? Unfortunately, I have to support the bill, because it is a first step, but it does not provide nearly enough to respond to the real needs of our coastal communities.

Coastal communities will assume the risk so that the oil companies can benefit. That is not fair. We live in a society that should be fair and balanced. The Conservatives' bill appears to be an attempt to relieve the big companies of their liability and make society take on the risk. I do not understand. On the one hand they are socialists and on the other they are capitalists. Unfortunately they have got things the wrong way around.

They should have started by asking themselves what could be done to protect our coastal communities, so that they can grow and the wealth can be shared across Canada. That is not what we see in the bill, which only has to do with compensation in the case of a spill. The bill tacitly states that there will be a spill and attempts to safeguard against the financial impact a spill would have. However, no matter how much money you throw at a disaster, the real challenge is surviving it.

In Canada, there is a $400-million fund in case of a spill, but there have been no contributions to it since 1976. I have to wonder whether the government is serious about holding companies accountable for their own actions. It does not seem to be. The bill is quite simply not enough, but once again, it is a step forward. Without this bill, liability is $35 million. That is nowhere near enough. Liability of $230 million is a little more reassuring, but coastal communities are worth more than that.

The tourism and fishing industries deserve the House's attention. Unfortunately, the comments from members of the Conservative Party seem to ignore the fact that there are human beings and sustainable industries in the regions.

On the west coast, which I have not spoken much about, there is tremendous interest in this bill. For example, Burrard Inlet in Vancouver is the second most dangerous navigation point in that region. A ship navigating through the inlet at its own risk is thus putting the coastal community of greater Vancouver and the west coast at risk.

We definitely want all regions of Canada to be able to benefit from the oil industry. That is why the risk must be shared among all concerned. Companies should take on their fair share. I do not think that this bill does enough. I hope that the government will come up with some new proposals to improve the situation.

I doubt that that will happen before the election in 2015. That is why I believe that the NDP is the only party that can stand up for coastal communities. I look forward to when we form the government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine for his speech.

There are problems in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Conservative bills establish none of the protections that should be in place for this system, which is extremely important for the fisheries and whale ecosystems.

I think that the member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine has some expertise in this area. I would like to know if his party is also in favour of a moratorium on oil exploration and development.

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

Mr. Speaker, many of the people who come to my constituency office ask the same kinds of questions.

We tell them that we cannot ignore the fact that this is a natural resource region. It has always been dependent on those resources for its economic growth and the economic well-being of the families that live there. We must not develop the region without taking the necessary precautions.

We are not properly equipped in that regard. The Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development was clear about that. We do not have the equipment needed to deal with a spill. In the event of a spill in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there are industries, particularly the fishing and tourism industries, that would be very significantly affected.

We need to start by asking the following question. Can development be done safely? If the answer is yes, we need to determine the steps that need to be taken. If the answer is no, we need to take the necessary measures.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine for his speech.

I was looking at the content of Bill C-3, especially in terms of the companies' liability. A shipowner's liability in the event of an oil spill is limited to approximately $230 million. That is a very small amount should an oil spill occur on our coasts. I am particularly concerned about this aspect of the bill.

Enbridge's Line 9 goes through the eastern part of Laval, in my riding. It crosses the two rivers, the rivière des Prairies and the rivière des Mille-Îles, as well as farmland. The residents are very concerned and worried about potential spills and environmental problems that come with transporting materials such as oil across our lands or near our waterways.

As my colleague mentioned, he is very close to the fishers and those who live on the coast, be it on the Magdalen Islands or the Gaspé Peninsula. What are the local people telling him? How do the people of Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine feel about these requirements?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments and question. Her remarks are very interesting.

We are quite in tune with the concerns of the people in Laval. We know that in the event of a spill, we do not have the capability to clean up the mess properly. We suspect that oil companies do not have the best interests of the general public in mind. We suspect that governments are in a big hurry to move forward without taking the necessary precautions.

We are certainly not against development. My constituents' comments suggest that they are not against development, but they want it to be sustainable and in compliance with the rules. There is no rush. The oil will not disappear. We know that we can get rich and that everyone can benefit. However, we do not want to assume the risk alone. We definitely want both the wealth and the risk to be shared.

In the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands, we are very welcoming and friendly. We like people and want to help them. If we can help them with natural resources, be they forest or oil products, we will continue to do so. We have been doing it for 200 years.

However, the risk must be shared fairly. Today, we are a long way from that.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. It shows that he really knows the file well and that he does good work for his constituents.

My colleague clearly showed the limitations of this bill. As he said many times, the bill does not address the risk, in light of the reality.

I would like my colleague to quickly give us one or two examples of proposals that could have been included in this bill so that we could have avoided studying a limited bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to again thank my colleague for her comments. I know that the work she does in her riding is second to none. She is the best MP that riding has had in a long time.

I would like to go back to the beginning of my speech. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development quite rightly pointed out that it is not enough to make companies assume financial liability. By the way, that liability should be much higher than what is proposed in this bill. We also need equipment. An oil spill is not traded on the stock market. It is not a monetary transaction. It is a catastrophe on land and at sea that will have an impact on our natural resources and the lives of the people who live in the area.

We absolutely must have the ability to clean up a spill. This is not about whether there will be a spill, but when there will be one. We know it is going to happen. There is no such thing as zero risk. Therefore, we have to know what an acceptable risk is in this situation. Today, the risk is much too high. We hope that it will diminish with time. Nevertheless, we know that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board asked the Minister of the Environment to conduct an impact study on oil and gas development in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the request was denied. We do not trust this government, which should have the interests of the people at heart.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague on his excellent speech. He focused on something that is very important to us, the NDP, and that is the tourism industry and inshore fishers.

When we talk about spills, the marine industry and oil transportation, it makes me think of something called “accountability”. This Conservative government has had a lot to say about that. If we think about accountability with regard to Bill C-3, we would hope that this bill provides adequate protection for the marine and oil transportation sectors.

We are talking about significant amounts of money. Just think of the British Petroleum incident in the Gulf of Mexico a few years ago, or the Exxon Valdez. Twenty-five years later, the fishing industry and tourism are still more or less wiped out. There is no compensation directly associated with these sectors.

What does my colleague think about these vital industries, especially with regard to his region?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

This government does not seem to care about the well-being of our sustainable industries. For the fishing industry, we saw this government indirectly propose the elimination of the fleet separation policy. Just think of all the large foreign factory vessels and freezer vessels that come exploit the sea. They vacuum up a region's entire resource. This causes a lot of damage. We have seen the consequences of this type of management. There has been a full moratorium on cod fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since the early 1990s. Have things improved since? Unfortunately not.

The government does not seem concerned about how to grow the sustainable industries in Canada. It seems more concerned about how to export oil. That is fine. Clearly, this has major spinoffs for the Canadian economy, but it is not the only industry. I would hate to see jobs created if they destroyed or jeopardized other jobs.

We need a balanced approach so that everyone wins. To that end, we need to take the necessary steps. Again, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development gave us direction. I hope that hon. members will read the commissioner's reports and try to incorporate them into their bills as much as possible.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Fisheries and Oceans; the hon. member for York South—Weston, Rail Transportation; the hon. member for Drummond, The Environment.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

I will begin by congratulating the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, neighbouring my riding of Acadie—Bathurst. These ridings share Chaleur Bay, which is recognized by UNESCO as one of the 10 most beautiful bays in the world.

I also thank him for his work on major issues, which we are also facing, since we share Chaleur Bay. For those who do not know, this bay has lobster. People like lobster. There are also all sorts of beautiful fish, as well as crab, and we want to protect them. We have a responsibility to protect them because they are fishers' livelihood. People also like to eat them.

I rise today to talk about 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.

Even though we support this bill at third reading, we are extremely disappointed that the Conservatives rejected our proposals to broaden the scope of this bill. We proposed amendments, unlike the Liberals. They wanted to propose some at second reading, but they missed the boat, to use a Maritimes reference.

Our approach shows that we are ready to make tangible and comprehensive changes to protect our coasts, whereas the Conservatives are not. I would like to expand on the Conservatives' lack of credibility when it comes to marine and air safety issues.

If the true purpose of Bill C-3 is to promote greater tanker traffic safety, why did the government not seize the opportunity to cancel the cuts in the latest budgets and the shutdown of marine safety programs?

The Conservative government wants to protect our coasts with this bill, but let us look at its record: the closure of the B.C. spill response centre, the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and the gutting of environmental emergency response programs.

It does not make any sense for the Conservative government to cut programs at marine communications and traffic service centres and environmental emergency response centres, because we know that tanker traffic tripled between 2005 and 2010 and is expected to triple again by 2016. Pipeline expansion projects are also expected to increase crude oil shipments from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day.

When faced with these facts, it is difficult to believe that Canadians' concerns are really being taken seriously.

I would like to remind hon. members that the scaling back of Coast Guard rescue capacity and facilities has affected more than just British Columbia. The Conservative government has threatened to cut facilities across Canada, including those in the eastern part of the country. Most notable is its irresponsible decision to close the Newfoundland and Labrador marine rescue centre.

The Conservatives also planned to close the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City, which, like the Newfoundland and Labrador centre, often conducts rescue and emergency relief operations. In fact, it responds to nearly 1,500 distress calls a year.

As a result of public protest and the hard work of my NDP colleagues, the Conservatives were forced to reconsider their decision to close the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City, and it is still open today.

I would like to commend my colleagues and the people of Quebec, who stood up to show how important this centre is.

If the Conservatives really want to protect Canada's oceans with this bill, why not broaden its scope?

The measures that the NDP wants to see in a bill to safeguard Canada’s seas include reversing Coast Guard closures and the scaling back of services, including the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

We also want the Conservatives to cancel the cuts to the marine communication and traffic service centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and St. John's, Newfoundland. We have before us a bill that seeks to protect our oceans and tankers, but the government is closing the most important organizations for monitoring them.

We are also calling on the government to cancel the closure of British Columbia's oil spill response centre. It is unbelievable that the government would put forward this bill in the House of Commons and at the same time seek to close the oil spill response centre in British Columbia. Earlier, I was saying that crude oil shipments would increase from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day. Marine traffic is growing and the Conservatives are cutting the organizations that might be able to prevent catastrophes.

We are calling on the government to cancel cuts to the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research. The Conservatives even want to make cuts to a research centre. We are also calling on them to cancel cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response in Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia.

It is scary. It is scary to see where the government is going with this. Canadians should be scared to see what is happening on the energy and oil fronts. It is not new, and each year we see an increase in the use of our rivers and oceans, both the Pacific and the Atlantic. The government is shutting down everything that has been put in place to protect and monitor these bodies of water.

We are calling on the government to reinforce the capacity of petroleum boards—which is currently nil—to handle oil spills, as recommended by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board needs to build in-house expertise to manage a major spill, including an independent safety regulator.

We want the Canadian Coast Guard to work collaboratively with its U.S. counterparts and conduct a parallel study to examine the risks additional supertanker traffic would cause in Canadian waters.

If the Conservatives really wanted to take marine safety seriously, they could have—and should have—expanded this bill. We know that the Conservatives are making these modest changes in an attempt to calm British Columbians' well-founded fears about new oil pipeline projects and the inevitable increase in oil tanker traffic that would result from new pipeline construction.

The people of British Columbia are right to be worried about potential spills resulting from the increase in tanker traffic. Oil spills have proven inevitable with oil tanker traffic. The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation has recorded nearly 10,000 accidental oil spills globally since 1970.

That should tell the government to be careful. Given all the cuts it has made in various areas, it is, as I said earlier, very scary.

The government needs to shoulder its responsibilities. This bill does not go far enough. We will support it because, while it is not much, it is better than nothing. However, it should go further.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst for his speech. He truly understands the importance of the fishing industry to the Atlantic provinces, and he fights hard for the industry and for all of his constituents.

Over the years, this government has scaled back its inspectors' oversight in terms of regulations. It has done away with independent oversight in favour of letting companies self-regulate.

This may be a small step forward, but does my colleague see this bill as another example of the Conservatives' marked tendency to favour industry self-policing rather than objective, independent oversight to protect the Canadian public?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question because it is an important one. Self-regulation does not work.

Some people might not like what I am about to say, but with all due respect, big oil companies and big money-making corporations self-regulate only insofar as it puts cash in the bank. They have no problem with that. This government is on board. This is a dangerous game to be playing, though.

This is about oil companies and the possibility of a spill that could devastate the entire Chaleur Bay fishery—an example from my home turf—and the Gulf of St. Lawrence fishery too. If there is a spill, taxpayers will be expected to foot the bill because the government does not want to create regulations that require companies to pay compensation for that. I find that completely unacceptable.

If a company does not bear much responsibility should a spill occur, and if an incident would not cost the company much money, it has no reason to self-regulate.

What we have are practices that let these boats go full tilt. They sail at 50 knots. They go as fast as they can to maximize production and make money. If there is a spill, however, taxpayers are on the hook for that. All the companies do is declare bankruptcy; some have done so in the past. There is no guarantee. The only guarantee is the one provided by Canadian taxpayers, even though the government is responsible for protecting Canadian taxpayers, not just big oil companies.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to and I am in agreement with the member for Acadie—Bathurst. Our leader is knowledgeable and experienced in the whole environmental field.

Is this not just a reduction in the polluter pays principle, that polluters who can limit their liability through a bill like this can get away with a subsidy from our government because they do not have to carry the kind of insurance necessary to actually insure against the worst-case disasters?

Look what happened in Quebec with MMA. MMA did not have enough insurance to cover the kind of disaster it wrought on the Province of Quebec and the people of Lac-Mégantic, and the Province of Quebec, the federal government, and the people of Canada are picking up the tab.

Essentially what our party believes in is that if there is a disaster, the people who cause the disaster, the polluters, should pay.

That is what this bill fails to do. It fails to force the companies that are doing what they are doing on our coasts, in our airspace and on our rails to protect Canadians. What happens is they are getting subsidized. I think that is wrong. Does the member think that is wrong?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it goes further than that. It is one thing for the government and taxpayers to pick up the tab, but it is another thing for people to lose their lives. Nobody can get their lives back.

For example, when the government cut the regulations, we saw what happened in Lac-Mégantic. Not long after that, look what happened in Plaster Rock. Just outside that community, a wheel broke off the train and it went off the rails. A guy who used to work in Montreal said that if there had been a team checking every wheel, the broken wheel would have been found. That wheel did not break off in Edmundston and then the train went off the rails in Plaster Rock. That wheel was damaged already. If the government had not taken away the inspectors' jobs and they had been there to supervise what was happening, that never would have happened. It is lucky that no lives were lost in Plaster Rock.

It is terrible that lives were lost in Lac-Mégantic. It is about more than money. It is dangerous that the government is not putting mechanisms in place not just to protect the fish, but to protect the people, the human beings, of this country. That is where the responsibility lies. This bill does not go far enough. New Democrats are asking the government to protect Canadians and the other industries.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise here to deliver my first speech since the summer break, following a busy summer that was full of ups and downs. I am on my feet, ready to respond to the government and hold it to account.

Bill C-3 has to do with marine safety and aviation safety. Once again, there is a discrepancy between the bill's objective and what it actually does. We already debated Bill C-3 in another form before prorogation. At the time, it was Bill C-57, which was referred to committee. The NDP proposed some amendments, which were all rejected. The NDP also asked the government to expand the scope of the bill, which the government also refused to do.

This attitude is really unfortunate. When we are dealing with topics as broad as aviation safety and marine safety, they are often very complex and require the testimony of expert witnesses. Logically, then, if we are opening up such a debate, we need to try to go over the entire subject and take the opportunity to discuss all the appropriate aspects of marine and aviation safety in order to avoid having to constantly come back to such a technical subject. Basically, it is a little like spring cleaning at home—we have to look inside every nook and cranny. We cannot simply choose the parts that interest us. This is the logical way to go about it, but unfortunately, the government refuses to apply this logic. It does not agree that as long as we are discussing such complex issues, we should explore them fully and completely.

As I said, one thing we wanted was to expand the scope of the bill, in order to discuss in particular the closure of the marine rescue centres and the negative impact of some legislation on environmental protections, specifically for coastal environments. All of these subjects were directly related to the bill's objective. Unfortunately, the Conservatives refused to do so.

Bill C-3 also proposes to amend the Marine Liability Act. It also seeks to implement the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010. Canada has been a signatory to this very important convention since 2010, and only today are we seeing a bill seeking to implement it. The convention defines the liability of vessel owners for costs incurred when oil or other similar materials are spilled.

It is very important to highlight and clarify the liability of companies and vessel owners when such a spill occurs and when damage is caused. If oil or other noxious and hazardous substances are spilled, Canadian taxpayers should not have to cover the cleanup and damage costs.

The limited liability of private businesses is a recurring problem from one bill to the next. We saw this in Bill C-22. The real costs and inflation over time are not being considered, and there may be a considerable burden on Canadians. As New Democrats, we believe in the polluter pays principle, unlike the Liberals and Conservatives, who constantly fob off the true environmental, social and economic costs onto current and future Canadian taxpayers.

As the deputy critic for natural resources and energy, I believe it is extremely important to understand that proper natural resource development requires a constant and appropriate legal framework.

When development in certain industries is not subject to a legal framework, investors tend to flee. Also, let us not forget that, to be developed, this natural resource must be transported. However, if the transportation framework is flawed, the industry can become unstable.

Therefore, we must protect our natural resource development as well as the economic potential of that development. To attract investment, this activity must have an adequate legal framework. People will want to invest in Canada if they know that safety measures are in place to reduce incidents, particularly during transportation.

Canada signed the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010. Yes, it is a 2010 convention.

In the fall of 2012, quite recently, two large transport vessels ran aground on the west coast because of the marine traffic. Today, we are under the impression that, with this bill, the Conservative government is trying to apologize for its inaction over the last few years.

The government may have wanted to show goodwill when it signed the international convention in 2010, but years have passed. There have been disasters since then and oil spills on the west coast. We are only now debating this bill at third reading. It took a long time.

Throughout the various stages of the bill, many members have pointed out the government's failings when it comes to safety. Shutting down marine safety programs and cutting budgets is certainly no way to promote safety. The Conservative cuts are being felt even in our air force.

Recently, the Canadian air force had to resort to stealing parts from search and rescue aircraft kept in museums to keep its planes going. We will not even mention the Liberals' recycled submarines. Obviously, things are not any better on that side.

Part II of the bill amends the Aeronautics Act to give the Airworthiness Investigative Authority 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.

In other words, instead of letting the Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigate when a military aircraft is involved, the investigation could be done by an authority under the Department of National Defence, which is therefore not required to release its report, as is the case for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

A witness from the armed forces told us that some reports and secrets are not made public for security reasons. However, when we hear that the armed forces consider a secret the number of soldiers taking drugs for erectile dysfunction, we realize that we might not agree on what should be secret in the armed forces.

Many flights pass through my region of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, including military planes that fly over the northern part. The consequences of one accident could help us avoid other accidents with civilian aircraft, but unfortunately, since this information is sent to National Defence and the report is not made public, other avoidable accidents can occur. I find it unfortunate that the government's decision is to favour this new way of doing things.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

There have been 10,000 accidental oil spills since 1970. That is not nothing. We cannot say there have been 1,000, which would still be too many.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the famous double-hull tankers, which do not seem to be protecting our oceans, our seas or nature in general.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette for her question.

Double-hull tankers are not indestructible. Accidents and spills can happen with these boats as well. They are not the miracle solution. In any event, since 1993, in accordance with a convention, Canada is obliged to use double-hull boats and there are still spills.

As far as marine safety is concerned, it is not just the design of the boat that affects the number of spills. Marine safety laws and their enforcement play a role too. When governments, like the Conservative government, are lax with marine safety, then Canada's oil industry is affected and pays the price. If we want sustainable development of our resources, then we must have appropriate safety measures in place in order for Canadians to trust an industry.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could provide some comment with regard to the issue of liability insurance on the first aspect of the legislation, which deals with aviation industry participants. There is a great deal of concern that it was necessary for the government to get directly involved. This stems back from 9/11, where acts of war and so forth may see a plane go down. It deals with that in part.

I wonder if there is a position that the NDP is taking on that particular issue.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will draw an analogy with the current Ebola crisis.

A number of airlines have cancelled flights that fly over the affected area, which has adverse consequences for the people there. Humanitarian workers are having a hard time getting there.

In a conflict situation, if airlines stop flying to certain regions for insurance purposes, humanitarian aid might be compromised, as it may no longer be able to get there. It might take considerably longer for aid to get there when humanitarian workers have to land in countries that are much further away and travel the rest of the route by land.

Providing compensation to the airlines might help keep certain flights to risk areas so that the people can continue to benefit from the humanitarian help they need. Nonetheless, even if the government committed to getting involved in the insurance aspect of things, there is no guarantee that the airlines will maintain their flights. We will have to see if this really has an impact and whether the airlines will agree to maintain these flights as a result of the government's commitment.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will have the honour of sharing my time with my colleague from British Columbia Southern Interior.

As we know, the government recently authorized an increase in oil shipping on the St. Lawrence River, including the building of special port facilities in Sorel.

Even though Joliette is not right on the river, which is in the riding of my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, everyone in Lanaudière has a special place in their hearts for the river there.

In fact, many of my constituents spend time there every weekend cycling, fishing, boating or simply hiking the many kilometres of trails.

At the mouth of Lake Saint-Pierre, between Sorel and Berthierville, the Berthier Islands form an archipelago of 103 islands with magnificent mangroves and flood plains that provide a habitat for many rare animal species, such as silver fox and salamanders. In the spring, one can admire the splendour of the area while driving on highway 40.

History is also very much present in the region, which was the site of diplomatic meetings held by Champlain with the aboriginal people, and the mouth of the Richelieu River nearby saw a lot of action during the Iroquois wars.

In addition, writer Germaine Guèvrement found inspiration in the archipelago, which became the backdrop for Le Survenant, a novel she wrote in 1945.

In that sense, the announced increase in tanker traffic got me thinking, and I am saddened that the government did not see fit to include in Bill C-3 the NDP's proposed clauses regarding tanker traffic.

I wanted to make that point before talking a little more about the actual bill. I really wish we had taken the opportunity to better protect an area that is so important to my region.

The Berthier Islands are an area that I know well, that I frequent and that are part of the identity of the Lanaudière region. I am convinced that, across Canada, people who live close to potentially polluting projects have similar fears.

That is why I am glad Bill C-3 implements the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010.

If the Conservatives truly supported marine and aviation safety as they claim to, they would have accepted our suggestion to widen the scope of the bill.

We in the NDP do not believe that Canadian taxpayers should have to pay the difference when the cleanup cost in the wake of a spill of hazardous and noxious substances is higher than $500 million.

The NDP is committed to ensuring that oil spills never occur. The Conservative record is the exact opposite: they closed the British Columbia oil spill response centre, shut down the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station and gutted environmental emergency response programs.

As I said earlier, this bill does include some positive aspects, which is why I am not opposed to it. One of those aspects is the required pilotage and increased surveillance, which will reduce the risk of accidents.

However, that is not enough. The drastic cuts to oil transportation safety in last year's budget speak volumes.

The Conservatives say that these cuts are simply trimming the fat, but if they trim too much, the animal will end up dead. This is not liposuction, this is a flesh-eating disease.

The scaling back of the Coast Guard's rescue capacity and facilities has affected the entire country.

In Quebec, public pressure and the work of the NDP saved the Quebec City marine rescue sub-centre, which responds to 1,500 calls a day. That is not insignificant, 1,500 calls a day. This announced closure endangered the lives of francophone sailors and demonstrates the Conservatives' complete disregard for marine safety, science and public health.

The NDP requested that the scope of Bill C-3 be broadened to reverse the cutbacks to our national Coast Guard response capacity.

In addition, this bill grants the military the investigatory powers that were traditionally reserved for the Transportation Safety Board. In the event of an aviation accident involving the military, the Minister of National Defence is the only one who will be notified of the outcome of the investigation. It will not be made public.

We have long known that the Conservatives are afraid of transparency. During the last election campaign, they refused to answer more than five questions a day, in order to direct the journalists' work. The government they formed is not much different. They have extended the notion of cabinet secrecy to nearly everything and now they want to hide the results of investigations involving the military. That is unacceptable. It is like something out of an episode of The X-Files.

In general, Bill C-3 seems to focus on the administrative side instead of seriously addressing the risk that marine activities involving oil or hazardous materials pose to the environment.

A number of environmental NGOs have highlighted the inadequacy of Canada's safety measures with respect to oil tanker traffic. Why did the government not seize this opportunity with Bill C-3? It could have done much more. In addition to meaningfully enhancing safety with respect to accountability, the government could have made sure that Canadians do not end up with a hefty bill when a spill happens. That is the least it could have done.

We saw what happened in Lac-Mégantic. Deregulation and the government's complicit negligence made it possible for a foreign company to destroy everything for financial gain. It goes without saying that companies will always look to maximize their profits, since that is why they exist.

A responsible government's role is to set parameters, for example, by ensuring that a crisis can be avoided, and that if one does happen we can seek compensation. Was MMA able to compensate the people of Lac-Mégantic? Not at all. The company's obscure insurer, registered abroad, was not in a position to pay.

This situation could happen again, and, quite frankly, Bill C-3 would have been nice, so I could tour around the Berthier Islands without worrying about ending up in a wasteland.

That said, I will vote in favour of this bill, since I think it is a step in the right direction. However, it is a self-serving step that was meant to placate opposition to the projects supported by this government, such as the northern gateway project. It is, nevertheless, a step forward.

I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the risks we are facing and that we will continue to face as long as we do not adopt an approach that is environmentally responsible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Joliette for the tour of her region. She told us about the beautiful vistas in the riding that borders Lake Saint-Pierre and the St. Lawrence River. My riding also borders the St. Lawrence River and this natural waterway is of unquestionable economic importance for all of Quebec and Canada, not just because of the St. Lawrence Seaway, but also because it is a tourist attraction for all Canadians.

My colleague did a good job of explaining the importance of intelligent regulation and having inspectors on land and water to protect the Canadian public. I would like her to elaborate on that and reaffirm the importance of intelligent regulation.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

It is true that if she ever has the opportunity to visit the Berthier Islands in the spring, or at any time of the year, she will see that it is truly magnificent. There is such a natural diversity of animals, flowers, trees and many other things. It is truly beautiful and it absolutely must be protected by laws that are tougher than the ones we have now. We also need inspectors on land and water across Canada. It is important to have them because we would know the extent of spills and which vessels spill oil while heading to Quebec City, Montreal or elsewhere along the St. Lawrence. This river is a navigable waterway that has always crossed Quebec.

I agree with my colleague. We absolutely must have tougher laws to ensure that those who spoil nature pay the cost of cleaning up. These are not penniless companies. In principle, they are there to make money. Thus, if they do not maintain their vessels so that they protect the population and nature, I believe that they must pay for the damage.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague's opinion on something.

She said that for all kinds of reasons, it is important to protect Canada's natural environment, its ecosystem, and other such things.

I would like to once more bring up the oil spills that have happened in the past, including the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused a great deal of collateral damage. The costs are not in the hundreds of millions, but the billions of dollars. There is an economic cost as well, at the local level, including to tourism and fishing.

Why, then, is it important to protect these areas and ensure that under the bill, some liability lies with the carriers and the oil companies?

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

I thank my colleague for the question, Mr. Speaker.

Environmental protection should indeed be the responsibility of oil carriers. I am a native of Quebec, and the St. Lawrence River is my environment, as it is for thousands of others. It is also the environment of tanker operators and all of those people. If they pollute, perhaps we should make them understand that they should take the necessary precautions to prevent their ships from sinking.

I believe that the only way to protect the environment is through strict regulation. Our lives as human beings depend on it, but the lives of the fauna in the river, the Atlantic and the Pacific also hang in the balance.

As people, as human beings and as MPs, we cannot tolerate any tanker pollution.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as MPs we are often asked to say a few words on a bill that perhaps we are not really familiar with, because it may not be our domain. As usual, I looked at the talking points, which we all get, to try to find out what is relevant. I tried to pick out things that I think I can explain in 10 minutes, things that are relevant. Obviously they have been repeated over and over again, but they are part of the message because we feel they are important.

The first thing that stands out when I look at these notes is that I have learned that we have proposed reasonable amendments to prevent Canadian taxpayers from being on the hook for cleanup costs and damages following a spill of hazardous and noxious substances as well as to ensure transparency regarding investigative reports on aviation accidents or incidents involving civilians in the military.

Then I noticed that none of these amendments have been accepted.

I recall being on the agriculture committee a few months ago when we were debating the food safety act. I think that between our party and the Liberals, we had proposed 20-some amendments, not to throw the bill away but to improve it. In other words, we agreed with the bill and we were just saying that we had some interesting information that would strengthen it. Lo and behold, all of these amendments were rejected. I am learning here that this is the same thing that has happened to the bill before us.

Obviously the bill has some good points and we will nevertheless support it. However, I have talked to colleagues in this House, with the hon. member for Malpeque as well as with colleagues in my party, and when previous parties were in power, there seemed to have been more of an openness in accepting amendments, whether the government happened to be Liberal or Conservative. This kind of open, collaborative attitude somehow seems to have been thrown aside by the current government. It is my hope that any future government we have will restore this kind of collaborative spirit.

Those are some initial comments I have after looking through my notes.

The NDP believes that Canadian taxpayers should never have to pay for the cleanup and damages following a spill of noxious and hazardous substances. However, as I just mentioned, the Conservatives refused reasonable amendments that could have prevented Canadian taxpayers from being on the hook for damages over $500 million. We are also committed to preventing all oil spills on our coasts. Unfortunately, it is more and more difficult to believe that the Conservatives take Canadians' concerns seriously when we look at their record. They closed the spill centre in British Columbia and the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano, and they gutted the environmental emergency response program.

Obviously, this bill contains some positive measures. That is why I said that we would support it.

Also, the scaling back of Coast Guard rescue capacity and facilities has been felt not only in British Columbia. The Conservative government is threatening to close facilities across Canada, including those in eastern Canada.

This government's plan to close the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City endangers the lives of French-speaking mariners.

This is yet another example of this government's systematic contempt for marine safety, science and public health.

We have seen, for example, that in the fall of 2012 two major shipping vessels ran aground on the west coast with current levels of traffic. We are expecting, with this increase in traffic, especially with supertankers, that this is going to be even more dangerous. I submit that this is a time to have more stringent environmental controls.

The bill has many different parts. Part 4 would amend the Marine Liability Act. A ship owner's liability is limited to approximately $230 million. It talks about damages in excess of the ship owner's liability to be paid by an international fund up to a maximum of $500 million. Unfortunately, this is for oil spills only. In our proposed amendments we wanted toxic substances to be included; however, this was not the case. We suggested that there be an availability for the ship-source oil pollution fund to be increased so that the money from this fund could go to pay for this pollution, rather than taxpayers. Apparently that fund has not been augmented for many years.

Some of the things we would have liked to have as part of the bill are the reversal of the Coast Guard closures and scaling back of services that we have seen, and the cancelling of cuts to the maritime communication traffic services centre and closure of B.C.'s regional offices for emergency spills. We could go on and on. These negative aspects have been mentioned throughout the debate today.

I want to mention that we need to not only strengthen our ability to react to spills but ensure that the spills do not happen. One way of ensuring that spills would not happen is to ensure we have a complete ban on tanker traffic, for example, on the west coast. When I was in northern British Columbia, I learned that if there is an oil spill and we recuperate 30% of that oil spill, that is considered excellent. If we recuperate 7% of raw bitumen, which the proposed Enbridge pipeline would bring through, that is considered excellent.

It is a no-brainer. As we look to strengthening laws to protect our environment, one of the fundamental things we should be doing is ensuring that there is no tanker traffic in those areas where there is a danger of spill. Of course with the Enbridge pipeline, the consequences of going through that strait with the waves, people have told us would be devastating, if there were ever a spill in northern British Columbia, as on all coasts.

I will close with a quotation from Mr. John O'Connor, president of the Canadian Maritime Law Association, who said:

...we believe the ship-source oil pollution fund should be involved in [hazardous and noxious substances] at large and not be limited just to oil.... [The ship-source oil pollution fund] is an additional layer of protection. It's not unlimited liability, but it's an additional amount of funding that is available should there be a mishap.

We believe that [the ship-source oil pollution fund] should become Canada's additional protection, not only when oil is involved, but when any HNS cargo is involved.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity for quite a few years to work with the member for British Columbia Southern Interior in committee. He is a good member. When he says something, he states it sincerely.

My colleague opened his remarks by talking about the committee. I have sat on a number of committees, and amendments are not considered by the government side. They never have been in this Parliament, and we can look at committee after committee. When we get into recommendations at committee now, they are not even straightforward recommendations. Somebody on the government side always adds the words “continue to” or whatever.

The member put his finger on the fact that, in this Parliament, committees are seriously broken. Public safety committee has not even met this week, when people are returning radicalized from fighting in foreign countries. I have a motion to go to committee, and I cannot even get it before the committee because committees are not meeting. We all love to talk about the Senate, but I see its committees are meeting this week and they are doing decent work.

I recall one time when I chaired the fisheries committee and we had 32 motions, 11 of them from government members and the rest from opposition. All of them were debated in public. All but one carried. All of them were critical of government. That is what the place is supposed to do. It is supposed to hold the government accountable.

I am not really on topic, but the most serious aspect that the member mentioned is not some of the conditions of the bill, but it is the fact that all of us together as Parliament cannot work properly at committees because the government will not allow it. The Conservatives are the majority and they are responsible for good amendments from the NDP or backbench members not being accepted.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I would probably say that the member for Malpeque's question perhaps was not on point. I do recognize, though, that the member for British Columbia Southern Interior did make some comments in that regard, so it is certainly in order.

The hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question may not have been on point, but it is pertinent to what has been going on here.

I have sat with that member on agriculture committee before. We used to have minority Parliaments. We used to have give and take, debates, amendments, acceptance, rejection. That does not seem to be the case now.

As I said earlier, I hope that at some point in time with a future government we will have a spirit of co-operation. It did not always exist in the past, but it has existed, as my colleague mentioned. I hope we will get back to that spirit of collaboration so that when we have legislation we can say it is our legislation, that we helped to construct it, and this is what we are doing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and his wise comments. I thank him also for continuing to share his experience with his colleagues in the official opposition caucus.

I would like to hear him say a few more words about the situation on the west coast. The province of British Columbia is a jewel in Canada's crown because of its landscape and other assets. Would my colleague tell us about marine traffic along the west coast and the dangers it poses?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

First, I must say that I have visited that region. My colleagues and I went there two years ago at the invitation of our friend and colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who wanted us to see exactly what was happening and what it was all about. We were able to talk to many members of the first nations and other people. The vast majority of the residents do not want any pipelines or any marine traffic along the coast, near their homes. The fishing and tourism industries are at risk.

This is not a mere supposition: one of these days, oil will indeed be spilled if tankers are allowed to travel along the coast.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start today, in discussing this bill, by telling where this legislation has actually come from.

It was about 44 years ago that the Canada Shipping Act was amended, and after those 44 years of successive Liberal and Conservative governments, Canadians are still being inadequately protected and the job has not yet been done to protect them. I will go into the catalyst for the changes to the Canada Shipping Act and how we arrived here today.

In 1970, there was a Liberian tanker called the Arrow that ran aground in Chedabucto Bay, Nova Scotia. It was in February 1970, and there were 82,000 barrels of bunker C oil that spilled into Chedabucto Bay. That is about 2.5 million gallons. At the time it was imperial and now we are in metric, but what I read was the imperial measurements. There were 300 kilometres of pristine coastline affected, and that was out of 600 kilometres of coastline.

When that spill happened, the effect was that taxpayers footed the bill. There was not anything there to protect the taxpayers. There was not a polluter pays principle, so the citizens of Nova Scotia paid the bill. The Liberal government of the time, Pierre Trudeau's government, only managed to clean 48 kilometres of the shoreline out of the 300 kilometres that were affected. This was the catalyst for changes to the Canada Shipping Act.

At the time, an idea floated around of establishing unlimited liability when spills happened. The NDP at the time presented that to the Liberal government of the time. The minister came back and said that the oil and shipping lobby could not accept those regulations, that it would make their ships uninsurable. In those respects, the Liberals said they were not going to implement unlimited liability, but in its place they would establish a fund, and that fund would be paid by oil companies and shipping companies. That is how we came up with the ship-sourced oil pollution fund that started to collect levies in 1972.

I want to point out, for members in the House, that from 1972 to 1974 there was a Liberal minority government that was propped up by someone called David Lewis, the leader of the NDP, so it was the Lewis–Trudeau years from 1972 to 1974. During the period of 1972 to 1976, levies were collected. However, when the Liberals got back into majority territory, they stopped looking at whether levies were being contributed to the fund. Now we are in 2014, and since 1976 no funds have been put into the SSOPF by oil companies or by shipping companies.

People who were around at that time will remember that David Lewis urged Canadians to kick out corporate welfare bums, yet here we are in 2014 and the corporate welfare bums are still at the top of the wave, getting their favours done by Conservative and Liberal administrations repeatedly.

We were asking for unlimited liability at the time, and we were willing to look at this fund and we were probably content with it. However, if they do not put money into the fund, it does not work and the taxpayer still foots the bill. Here we are in 2014, and we still do not have a polluter pays model because of successive Liberal and Conservative governments not being willing to do it.

The second thing we were asking for at the time was a contingency plan. As I said, out of those 300 kilometres that were affected in Chedabucto Bay, only 48 kilometres were cleaned up. In 2001, I read a report that said the oil was still there. They could still detect the oil in Chedabucto Bay. The author of that report said:

The Arrow spill completely altered the lives of the people around the affected areas; the beaches could not be used for pleasure for fear of contamination. This means the children could not swim because of the high concentration of oil, and repeated proposals were submitted to government to build a community swimming pool, but they were all rejected. Understandably, the residents of the affected areas demanded answers, and more importantly compensation for the tragedy that had ruined their pristine environment. The environment was deeply affected and it also rippled through the area's economy causing financial consequences; some absorbed by the fisherman, government agencies or local businessmen.

Here we are in 2014. The catalyst for this was in 1970. The NDP is still here asking for the same things that it was asking for in 1970, because the job has not been done.

In 2015, with an NDP government, we will do the job. The job will be done, and finally Canadians will be adequately protected.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I also appreciate the history lesson to remind us how things were done several decades ago. That was not so long ago. He also explained how there used to be mechanisms in place that were like what we would now call a polluter pays system and how that system could be implemented at little cost to taxpayers.

I would like the member to clarify what he just told us and explain why this is even more important in 2014, given the increase in transportation of all kinds of goods. We have to have a mechanism to ensure fair compensation in case of a spill. I would also like him to tell us why we absolutely have to have protective measures in place to prevent this kind of accident.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, when the fund was set up in 1972, the NDP was for it. The idea was for companies to contribute to the fund so that Canadians would not have to cover the cost of a spill. A little later, in 1976, contributions to the fund ceased. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives continued to contribute to the fund to protect Canadians from spills.

In recent years, the Conservative government has made significant cuts to the Coast Guard in many places in British Columbia. There is no longer the same level of protection that existed from 1972 to 1974.

It is clear that, without government will to protect Canadians, we cannot move ahead with protective measures. We really need a progressive government that will make protecting Canadians a priority over protecting friends in the oil industry or the shipping industry. We really need a government that will implement the polluter pays principle. That is something the government could do to really protect Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide a response with regard to the whole issue of the aviation industry. The first part of the legislation deals with liability insurance for the aviation industry in the belief that there are situations in which a plane might go down because of a terrorist attack or something of that nature. The idea is that the government needs to do something to protect the industry.

What are the member's thoughts with regard to that aspect of the legislation?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when I was deputy critic of transport, a group of inspection agents visited my office and told me how the SMS systems that had been implemented by the Liberals and Conservatives were not properly protecting Canadians against air disasters. The deregulation of successive Liberal and Conservative governments has hurt aviation safety. The bill is a step in a good direction, but it must go much further.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in view of the agreeable nature of the House, I wonder if you might want to seek unanimous consent to see the clock at 5:38 p.m.?

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.