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, Minister of Transport]

moved that Bill C-3, An Act to enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, to amend the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to the importance of safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. This proposed legislation focuses on five key initiatives. The first, amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001; the second, amendments to the Marine Liability Act; the third, amendments to the Canada Marine Act; the fourth, amendments to the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act; and fifth, amendments to the Aeronautics Act.

The question, of course, is why are all these initiatives important. They are important because they support a number of things. They support our Conservative government's commitment to provide long-term economic growth, jobs and prosperity. They support our red tape reduction action plan, which will save businesses time and money, and will make government regulations clearer and more predictable. It also supports our government's plan for responsible resource development to ensure timely and efficient reviews of proposed resource projects, while strengthening world-class environmental standards.

Finally, it supports the economic action plan 2012, which focused on the drivers of growth and job creation: innovation, investment, education, skills and communities.

The economic action plan is giving Canada the ability to meet the challenges of the current global economy, to emerge from this period stronger, and to enable our economy and public finances to remain sustainable for many years to come. Our government is committed to achieving these goals without compromising the health, safety or security of Canadians or our environment. These initiatives help to support our transportation system. They also contribute to Canada's competitiveness and prosperity.

Let me start by discussing the proposed amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. This is the act that is the principal legislation that governs safety and protection of the environment in marine transportation and in recreational boating. It applies to Canadian vessels in all waters, and it applies to all vessels in Canadian waters.

The objectives of this act include protecting the marine environment, reducing the impact of marine pollution incidents in Canadian waters, and ensuring the safety of the general public. The amendments our government is proposing today would increase marine environmental protection by strengthening provisions pertaining to pollution prevention and response. To accomplish these objectives the amendments aim to strengthen requirements for spill prevention and preparedness at oil handling facilities by requiring that certain facilities submit both prevention and emergency plans to the Minister of Transport.

The current act requires all oil handling facilities to prepare oil pollution prevention and emergency plans to meet the requirements of the regulations, and to have these plans on site. Through on-site inspections, Transport Canada monitors the compliance of these facilities. However, the current legislation needs to be strengthened with regard to facilities notifying the minister of their operations and submitting their pollution prevention and emergency plans, as well as notices of proposed major expansions or conversions of their facilities. These amendments would require these facilities to submit plans to the Minister of Transport and to empower departmental inspectors to direct facility operators to demonstrate their compliance.

Second, the amendments allow use of a fair and effective regulatory tool, which we already have, to deal with contraventions of pollution prevention and spill response by expanding the administrative monetary penalty provisions of the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.

The current regime allows marine safety inspectors to impose monetary penalties on vessels or persons who do not comply with the act. The penalties can range between $250 and $25,000. This use of monetary penalties, however, does not apply to part 8 of the act, and that means it forces the department to prosecute regulatory infractions either through the court or through taking administrative actions, such as suspending the certification of non-compliant response organizations.

Both of these options are complex and potentially expensive. Extending the use of administrative monetary penalties to part 8 of the act allows marine safety inspectors, the people who are on the front lines, to issue penalties in cases where the act is violated. This change would provide us with a flexible enforcement tool that is more effective than the current practice.

Finally, the amendments would ensure Canada has the assistance needed to respond to oil spill incidents by extending civil and criminal immunity protection to the agents of certified Canadian response organizations.

The Canada Shipping Act, 2001 provides civil and criminal liability to certified response organizations responding to a ship-source oil spill or environmental emergency. However, the act does provide such immunity to these organizations if they are responding to spills that take place when a vessel is either loading or unloading at an oil handling facility. Consequently, these responders are reluctant to respond to such an incident.

The proposed amendments to the act would strengthen the oil spill response by extending this to certified response organizations so that if they were to respond to spills from a vessel or an oil handling facility during loading or unloading of oil, they would have immunity. These amendments to liability would also apply to the agents of the response organizations that have been requested by a certified Canadian response organization to assist in the cleanup of a spill.

Spill responders, including our international partners, tell us that they are reluctant to help in such emergencies without this sort of immunity. Given that the immediate response is crucial to minimize the impact of these such incidents, if we provide better assurance of immunity for these agents, the amendments would enhance Canada's access to international resources for spill response.

Canada and the United States have a long history of helping each other in times of distress, including responding together to oil spills and other environmental incidents involving our waterways. Although Canada does not rely solely upon the assistance of our American neighbours in such matters, we have been fortunate to have it. We expect that these amendments would ensure it for the future. It is worth noting that these proposed amendments would not change the partnership but it would build upon it. By introducing these proposed amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, our government is reiterating its commitment to ensure marine safety, to protect our marine environment, and to support the crucial role of shipping to Canada's trade and economy.

Last March, our government announced important measures, including the creation of tanker safety expert panel, to review Canada's current tanker safety system. The proposed amendments would complement the work of this expert panel. In addition, our government announced increased scientific research on non-conventional petroleum products and ensured a system of aids to navigation. The system of navigation is composed of buoys, lights and other devices to warn of obstructions as well as to mark the location of preferred shipping routes. Last, our government has also increased the number of inspections of all foreign tankers and increased funding for the national aerial surveillance program to keep a watchful eye on tankers moving through Canadian waters.

As part of our plan for responsible resource development, these measures would ensure that Canada has a world-class marine safety system that would prevent incidents, protect our environment and ensure the safety of Canadians. In this way, in the event of an environmental emergency, we would be ready to respond quickly and efficiently, and ensure that polluters would be responsible for paying cleanup costs.

The tanker safety review panel was mandated to consult with key stakeholders to enhance the government's knowledge of the current oil transportation system, point out gaps that we have to address, and manage impacts on the marine environment. As well, the tanker safety review panel launches an ongoing effort to ensure we lead the world in marine environment safety.

Let me now turn my attention to the very important amendments to the Marine Liability Act.

Protecting our waterways from pollution is a priority of our government and we take it very seriously. The potential for a chemical spill in Canadian waters requires appropriate mechanisms to responsibly address the potential consequences of such an event. Therefore, we will continue to take action to ensure Canada has the most stringent tanker safety regime in the world.

Given the importance of trade to Canada's continuing prosperity, we must recognize that this involves the transportation of hazardous and noxious substances. Indeed, almost 400 million metric tonnes of cargo carried by ships in Canada annually, which is really only 3.5%, would be considered hazardous or noxious substances.

These substances consist of a very broad range of marine cargo, such as chemicals, liquefied natural gas, propane or other materials. Now while it is only a small percentage, 3.5%, this wide variety of substances can cause an array of environmental damage should there be an accident or incident. Therefore, the Marine Liability Act, being the principal legislation we have to address this matter, deals with the liability of ship owners and operators in relation to passengers, cargo, pollution and property damage.

In building on our current robust system, the amendments that our government is proposing to the act will introduce a comprehensive liability and compensation regime that really is in step with our other international conventions that we have already ratified. This recognizes both the importance of uniform standards in the global transport of hazardous substances and the importance of such standards to Canada's trade and to its economic prosperity.

The amendments would accomplish two main objectives.

First, they would enhance our pollution liability and compensation regime, which would enable Canada to ratify an international convention that would significantly increase the amount of compensation available for pollution and other damages caused by hazardous and noxious substances from ships.

Second, the amendments would implement the provisions of the 2010 Hazardous and Noxious Substances Convention in Canadian law.

The amendments would accomplish these objectives in four ways: first, implement this convention in order to establish the liability of ship owners in the event of spills and their requirement to have insurance to cover this liability; second, set a legal framework for those affected by these incidents to access the international compensation fund; third, create a regulatory-making power to adopt regulations that would require reporting receipts of bulk hazardous and noxious substances in Canadian ports; fourth, reporting required by the convention to ensure levies would be paid to the international compensation fund, update an enforcement regime so ship owners must maintain proof of insurance through certificates issued by Transport Canada and the receivers of hazardous and noxious substances report receipt of such shipments.

To put these amendments to the Marine Liability Act in context, it is worth noting a few points.

First, the amendments provide comprehensive coverage for more than 6,500 hazardous substances being transported in Canada by ship and would ensure that the list of substances covered by the amendments would be continuously kept up to date.

Second, the amendments would establish a liability in the compensation regime for claimants that would be in step with other international conventions that Canada has ratified.

Finally, the amendments are in line with Canada's long-standing policy to seek multilateral solutions to issues of marine liability and compensation.

It is also worth noting that Transport Canada has worked in partnership with various stakeholders and industry associations on this matter. In our consultations with this broad range of stakeholders and associations, we have found strong support for Canada's ratification of the 2010 hazardous and noxious protocol and its implementation through these amendments to the Marine Liability Act.

To give an example, ship owners accept the liability these international conventions provide and cargo owners accept that they must do their part in contributing to international funds. Both parties want to ensure that victims are compensated in the event of an accident or incident.

I will turn from our seas to our skies now and discuss the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act.

As in the case of many sectors, the Canadian air industry requires insurance coverage to operate. In addition to general risks, this coverage must address risks for acts of war, terrorism, or civil unrest. Indeed, the attacks of September 11, 2011, caused instability in the insurance market, specifically for war risks to third parties; in other words, people and property on the ground which could be affected by aviation incidents.

In response, the Government of Canada developed a program to indemnify aviation businesses against liability they may face from third parties, such as property owners on the ground who experienced loss caused by extreme events such as war. This coverage is known as the “aviation war risk liability program”, and it has addressed the matter. However, without permanent authority to enable federal support related to war-risk insurance, it must be renewed repeatedly.

Therefore, our government is now proposing new legislation, the aviation industry indemnity act, that would repeal aviation-related provisions of the Marine and Aviation War Risks Act and give the Minister of Transport permanent authority to provide indemnities in emergency situations and allow air-industry operators to get coverage in the case of continuing market instability. In short, it would allow the same kind of coverage, but would eliminate the need to regularly renew it. As well, to ensure transparency, the minister would report to Parliament within 90 days of an indemnity being authorized and every two years if there was no change.

In discussions with Transport Canada, air industry participants have expressed strong support for continuing this kind of coverage.

Finally, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act also includes proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act concerning civilian involvement in military aviation accident investigations. As members know, everyday the Canadian Forces successfully carries out numerous aviation activities from routine airlifts to search and rescue missions. However, sometimes these activities do not always go as planned, which is why the Canadian Forces has a Canadian Forces flight safety program. Therefore, if something goes wrong, military flight safety investigators look for the causes, interview witnesses and make recommendations to improve safety.

Over the past two decades, the nature of military aviation really has evolved. Today, the number of civilian contractors providing support to Canadian Forces aviation activities has increased significantly. Many tasks related to military aviation, including tasks with safety implications like flight training, strategic airlift, target towing and equipment maintenance, are carried out to one degree or another by civilian contractors. The civilian contractors actually possess a wealth of information and their evidence may very well be essential to a military flight safety investigation. Yet, while civilian contractors co-operate with such investigations in the vast majority of cases, there really is no effective legal tool to require them to do so. That is why the bill we are discussing is so important.

It would give our military flight safety investigators the tools they need to fully investigate flight safety occurrences involving civilians by giving them the power to search premises, seize documents and take statements. These tools are parallel to those available to the investigators working for the Transportation Safety Board which investigates aviation occurrences not related to military aviation safety. The changes would also permit access to on-board flight recordings by a board of inquiry convened under the National Defence Act. This access would only arise in the appropriate circumstances and for military administrative purposes only. Most important, these tools would ensure that civilians would contribute their expertise to military aviation safety. As a result, we would continue to develop effective aviation safety measures for all the Canadian Forces and all Canadians.

To conclude, as I noted at the start of my remarks, our Conservative government is committed to supporting the prosperity of Canadians by streamlining our regulatory agenda, but in ways that also ensure the safety of Canadians and our partners around the globe. While the legislative initiatives I have outlined today may appear to be mostly administrative in nature, they would go a long way to helping accomplish even broader goals. They address infrastructure matters that would affect Canada's trading relationship. They would fine-tune domestic regulations to reduce regulatory burden on various stakeholders. They would also create a more efficient inspection regime for marine vessels and improve safety and investigation procedures for our airline industry.

Our government remains focused on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. These amendments highlight our commitment to maintaining Canada as a safe, strong and competitive player in the world economy and the global community.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the minister to the file. It is fair to say that the minister has a good reputation, but she has a long hill to climb when we look at the actions of the government over the last few years, which have been so profoundly irresponsible, particularly with the issue of marine transportation.

We have seen the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, the cuts to Marine Communications and Traffic Services Centres and the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spills. There has been a whole range of closures in British Columbia that have certainly undermined the credibility of the government 100%.

Given the fact that the government has proceeded, in my mind, in such an irresponsible way, despite the small baby steps that we see in the bill today, could the minister give some assurance to British Columbians that in her new role as Minister of Transport she will actually address what they are concerned about in terms of marine liability and tanker safety? At the same time, will she fix what has been broken by the government over the last few years?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his kind words. I am very honoured to be taking on this responsibility in transport and I hope I can lend, as best I can, positiveness to the file as we move forward.

With respect to our relationship with British Columbia, it is an incredibly important one. Indeed, I have had conversations with my counterpart already and have spoken to a number of municipal officials. I understand the importance of marine safety as they have made it very clear to me. That is why our government introduced this act and amendments last year and set up this marine advisory panel to take a look at where the gaps were in the system and focus on having a true world-class system where all three aspects would be looked at: the prevention of spills and accidents; the response to spills and accidents; and the liability on the other end of spills and accidents.

We will continue to work on this as the weeks go by and I will continue to reach out to both people in British Columbia and along the coast where there are shipments of hazardous and dangerous goods or oil.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise four issues with the minister. One has to do with the first part of her speech, namely, the part with respect to seas and the issue of liability for spills.

The first issue has to do with the flagging tankers, the flagging of ships generally, particularly ships carrying hazardous substances. The second has to do with bankruptcy, which is one of the ways of getting out of liability, to simply bankrupt oneself. The third has to do with proof of insurance upon arriving in Canadian coastal waters, whether picking something up or leaving with something. The fourth is the limitations on insurance policies. Insurance lawyers spend all of their waking hours trying to figure out how to get out of the responsibility of having insurance policies.

How is this legislation going to deal with the flags of convenience, the bankruptcy of shippers, proof of insurance, both coming and going, and the resistance, shall we say, to taking on full responsibility of liability that comes with almost any insurance policy?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has a fulsome of questions. I cannot get into specific details, but would be happy to talk to him later about it outside of the House.

What I can answer is this. The purpose of the amendments in the Marine Liability Act is to help fill a critical gap we now have from an international convention point of view that deals specifically with hazardous and noxious emissions from ships. All the issues the member brought up are important ones and we view this as a first step in dealing with and approaching what kind of liability gaps there may be in the Marine Liability Act, but it is always fundamentally on the same premise, which is the polluter will pay.

We are talking to stakeholders and municipal partners to determine what a good, strong, comprehensive liability scheme will look like and we will be introducing regulations and amendments that make sense to the overall scheme of what we are trying to accomplish, which is to ensure we have a world-class tanker safety regime in place.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to congratulate the minister for taking over this portfolio.

I have a question on the scope of the Marine Liability Act and how it will apply to navigable waters in Canada, the rivers and lakes that provide access to oceans. This is a simple question that could be answered very easily by the minister one way or the other.

To understand that better is something that people in my constituency who regularly transport large quantities of petroleum and hazardous products up the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean would be very interested in. There have been problems in this regard already. This summer there was a spill on the Mackenzie River. There are certain concerns that lie with the equipment and the ability to deal with moving these goods up rivers into oceans.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will admit to the member that while I do not know the definition of the waterways that are covered in the Marine Liabilities Act right off the top of my head, I would be happy to look into it.

However, for navigable waters and waters that need to be protected, the spirit of the Marine Liabilities Act and the spirit of what we are doing in terms of liability and compensation is to ensure and enshrine the principle that the polluter pays. We want to ensure that we protect the waters as well as the people who utilize the waters and come up with the appropriate liability and compensation scheme.

As I have indicated, this is the first step, and through consultation we will be having more discussions as we move along, just as we did with the member opposite.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations to the minister on assuming her new post.

We focus in this House and in Canada on issues of marine, aviation, and rail safety and so on as it applies to Canada. That is clearly what we should be doing.

Can the minister give us some comparison of how we compare in our day-to-day record with respect to other international regimes that are facing the same kinds of challenges we are?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has a good reputation internationally with respect to how we respond and how we deal with the prevention of spills and environmental damage from ships. We are a strong participant in the IMO too. Our officials at Transport Canada work with its counterparts around the world to adhere to and develop international standards that can be applied here in Canada as well.

It is important to note too that in this country we have not had a serious oil spill off the coast of British Columbia in 30 years. That is why this is a good opportunity to take a serious look at what the gaps may be in our current system. That is exactly what this world-class tanker safety review panel is doing. We look forward to seeing the results coming forward, as I know our international partners are as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join my colleagues in welcoming my friend to her new portfolio.

I can inform her of the quite excellent world-class tanker safety system that has been in place in British Columbia since 1972 and has been responsible for preventing any major oil tanker spills. It has been the federal-provincial moratorium that has prevented any supertankers carrying oil to traverse the areas that are now anticipated and promoted by members of the current administration without waiting for the NEB panel review to be completed.

As the minister mentioned, the government has actually been spending money on lining out the routes for oil tanker traffic through a route that has been prevented since 1972 and is still not approved.

On looking at this overblown title of “safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act”, we see that it is largely housekeeping measures.

I completely support that it does bring in the measures we need to implement the carriage of hazardous and noxious substances by sea convention, which we signed more than three years ago. There are good measures in here. However, my question to the hon. minister is this: how can we possibly talk about a world-class system when we have shut down all the regional offices for emergency preparedness for oil spills with Environment Canada? On both the west and east coasts, are we supposed to dial a 1-800 number that rings in Ottawa?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government has acted decisively. We have put more money into a national aerial surveillance program to keep that eye on ships as they move along both of our coasts. We have also increased the number of inspections of foreign vessels.

To the point that the hon. member made, of course we always make sure that we are marking the lanes of shipping appropriately, and we have invested more money through the Coast Guard into that as well.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely important debate. This is not an academic debate. This is a debate that really strikes at the heart of issues that Canadians are living from coast to coast to coast, and the issue is transportation safety. We have seen over the last few months an unprecedented number of accidents and deaths, and I would attest that there is a growing level of public concern right across this country about the actions of the Conservative government that have led to a deterioration in transportation safety.

We welcome the new minister here. Hopefully this will be a big change, a turning of the page, from what has been a series of profoundly irresponsible actions. The reality is that the Conservative government has to take transportation safety seriously; it has not, and in fact has done the opposite: it has cut back on the fundamental safety systems that Canadians have relied on in the past to protect them.

There are some small baby steps in Bill C-3 that we will of course support. There are some housekeeping items that are long overdue. However, the reality is that the legislation would do nothing to change the fundamental framework that has been put in place by the government and that has put so many Canadians at risk.

I will be speaking later to some of the other modes of transportation safety that have been sadly eroded. We are all aware of the tragic and profoundly sad circumstances that we have seen over the past few months in rail transport safety. We are aware of the increasing number of pipeline spills across the country because of the irresponsibility of the Conservative government. However, I would like to address just for a moment the whole question of marine safety.

For 30 years British Columbians have protected the coast of British Columbia by putting in place a tanker moratorium on the north coast. That is why there has been a good safety record. It is not because of the actions of the current government or the actions of any other government; it is because provincially and federally British Columbians said very strongly that we did not want to see tankers thrown willy-nilly around the coast of British Columbia. That is why British Columbia's coast has been protected.

Now the government is pushing to eliminate that respected moratorium and is pushing a number of projects that undoubtedly will lead to increased tanker traffic on British Columbia's coast if they go through.

The question then is this: what is the government's credibility on issues of marine safety? I would submit to the House that if we look at the record of the government and what it has done over the past couple of years, we see that it has done more harm to the coast of British Columbia, more potential harm to British Columbia's pristine coast and the tens of thousands of jobs that rely on B.C.'s coast being pristine, than any other government in our history.

Let us look at the record.

Just in the last few months we have seen the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. The member for New Westminster—Coquitlam has been a strong advocate on this issue. He has risen in the House of Commons to speak repeatedly on this issue, but he is not the only one. New Democratic MPs from British Columbia have risen repeatedly to speak on this issue. I myself have spoken on it. The member for Vancouver East has spoken on it. The member for Burnaby—Douglas, the member for Newton—North Delta, the member for Surrey North, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, and the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca have all spoken on this issue. We have seen NDP MPs from British Columbia repeatedly raise this issue, the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam being the most forthright.

Despite the fact that parliamentarians have raised this issue, despite the fact that the provincial government raised it, despite the fact that municipalities such as the City of Vancouver have raised it repeatedly, the Conservative government said it was going to close off the Coast Guard station and did not care if people were put at risk.

This is profoundly irresponsible. If it were just perhaps that one Coast Guard station, rather than a pattern, then perhaps we could say there was some justification, but there are a lot of expenses by the Conservative government that I profoundly disagree with. They include flying limousines around the world, the tens of billions of dollars that it wants to throw into an untendered fighter jet contract, a billion dollars for a weekend meeting, $16 glasses of orange juice. Speaking as a former financial administrator, I can say that Conservative financial management is an oxymoron. The government has been absolutely appalling when it comes to financial management. It is beyond comprehension.

Even if the Conservatives could justify the closure of the Coast Guard station, let us look at what else they have closed, which has been a repeated slap in the face to British Columbians and all those concerned with the safety of our coasts and the tens of thousands of jobs in fisheries and tourism that come from having a pristine coast. They also closed the Marine Communications and Traffic Services Centre, which helped to facilitate and ensure safe transportation on the coast. They said we do not need that; let us throw it out.

Then the Conservatives decided to close the B.C. office for emergency oil spill responders. Conservatives will say there is a 1-800 number for an oil spill off the coast of British Columbia. It goes to some desk in Ottawa, but British Columbians need an immediate response. We need to feel safe about our coast, not with a 1-800 number going back to Ottawa that no one ever answers. That is the Conservatives' attempt to provide some damage control.

What else did they do? They actually closed a whole system of environmental emergency programs as well. This has been a systematic pattern of shutting down the safety mechanisms that were present on the coast of British Columbia. What they have done is simply to put British Columbia's whole coast at risk.

The then minister of natural resources decided that he would do a press conference in Vancouver to address the concerns raised by British Columbians throughout the province. It would show British Columbians just how good the Conservative government is at marine safety. He did his press conference. He even brought a rescue ship across the Salish Sea from Victoria. What happened? The rescue ship ran aground.

It just proves the point that we cannot trust Conservatives with the safety of the B.C. coast. However, we can trust New Democrats, and that is what British Columbians will do in 2015. That is for sure.

The Conservatives have shut down all of this. They had a debacle of a press conference that proved our point that transportation safety was being undermined. To date, although we have a new minister who we hope will address all the concerns being raised by British Columbians, we have not seen the fundamental problem being addressed.

When we look at the small steps in Bill C-3 that address in a housekeeping way some of the small things that obviously the Conservatives wanted to bring forward as a package to say they are saving the coast, we remain skeptical, although we certainly support the baby-step measures that are contained in it.

However, let us be clear about what the bottom line is for us. We believe that the Coast Guard closures need to be addressed, and that process can start by reopening the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. It would respond to the concerns raised for British Columbia. We would like the Conservatives to reopen the marine traffic communication centre in Vancouver. That would start to address issues of safety concerns along the coast of British Columbia. We would like them to reopen the B.C. office for emergency oil spills. They can keep their 1-800 line, but let us have people who can respond to oil spills in British Columbia. If they do that, it would start to restore some of the confidence that we have completely lost in the Conservative government.

We proposed all of that. Just a few months ago the official opposition, the NDP, sent a letter to the transport minister and said that we support the tiny steps contained in their legislation. We disagreed with the title of the “safe coasts”. They must be kidding. After all the Conservatives have done, they simply are not guaranteeing safe coasts in any way, shape, or form. We said they should start including these elements in the legislation, and then we would actually have legislation that would help to address public confidence.

That is what we have put forward. The Conservatives have steadfastly refused thus far, but we are going to take this issue into committee and will be offering these kinds of positive amendments on behalf of British Columbians.

We certainly hope that B.C. Conservative MPs will step up to the plate and help support British Columbians, that they will step forward and say, “For goodness sake, there is a fundamental problem here. British Columbians have completely lost confidence in the government on marine safety, so we will address that by voting for the NDP amendment”. That is what we are hoping to see. We can support this on second reading to bring it forward, but let us see some action from the government. Let us see some positive action that actually addresses the concerns that British Columbians are raising.

With Bill C-3, there is no doubt that we see the Conservatives spinning around the northern gateway pipeline. The northern gateway pipeline has been shown, in poll after poll, that 80% of British Columbians reject it. They reject it because they are concerned about destroying the moratorium for tankers on the north coast. They are concerned about the lack of tanker safety. They are concerned about what the impact will be with the potential loss of thousands of jobs in the tourism and fisheries sectors. There are thousands of British Columbians who depend on a pristine coast. They are concerned about all that, and they have raised it repeatedly.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to see a movie in Coquitlam, which is next to Burnaby—New Westminster. I am looking at the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam because I want to acknowledge that we are spending some money in his riding. Before the film came on, there was a paid advertisement from Enbridge for the northern gateway pipeline. This was a non-partisan movie crowd. We were all there to see the movie. We were not there as New Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals or people from any other political background. We were British Columbians who were out to see a movie, and Enbridge put on the ad. What was the reaction of the crowd? There were round boos. People were throwing popcorn at the screen. That shows the extent to which British Columbians reject the northern gateway pipeline. There will be 104 full-time, on-site positions created, but thousands of jobs are threatened by the northern gateway pipeline. That is why communities along the right of way, and British Columbians generally, have said no.

For the Conservative government to put forward Bill C-3 today, hoping that somehow that will change British Columbians minds about a project that does not provide any economic or environmental advantage, is simply wrong-headed. In fact, it will do the opposite. It threatens our environment and our economy. For the government to think that Bill C-3 will address those concerns is simply wrong.

British Columbians feel profoundly strong about our coast. Many of us gain our living from the coast. We will not accept a Conservative government that tries to ram through a project when it has so many negative environmental and economic repercussions.

For the Conservatives to think they can ram this project through is simply wrong-headed. I have said this publicly outside the House, and I will say it in the House as well. If the Conservative government tries to ram through the northern gateway pipeline over the objections of first nations, the communities and British Columbians, there will not be a single safe seat for the Conservative Party in British Columbia in the 2015 election. I can guarantee that. British Columbians will say no to the Conservative agenda, and they will say yes to having strong New Democrats representing British Columbia in the House of Commons.

With only a few minutes left, I want to touch on the other concerns that have been raised by Canadians across this country in regard to transportation safety. I am the energy and natural resources critic. My work as a former refinery worker is part of what I bring to that job. I have been in situations where, with an oxygen tank, I was cleaning out the oil drums at the Shelburn refinery in Burnaby, British Columbia. The reality is, I have a very healthy respect for the impact of petroleum products. They are very dangerous and they have to be handled carefully. I do not see the same due regard for safety being applied by Conservatives.

We see that in terms of pipeline safety. We have seen a clear deterioration in pipeline safety over the last few years on the Conservatives' watch. We have seen this in the number of pipeline spills, which have increased exponentially, by almost 200% over the last few years. That should bring cause to concern for any government that is concerned about safety measures. We are talking about marine safety, and the government is bringing forward very small baby steps. The concerns about pipeline safety are now front and centre, yet the government is doing nothing to address them.

This is a substance that we have to be very careful with. It kills. It destroys. There has to be a very strong and reinforced investigation and inspection process. We have to make sure, at all times, that we have the best safety equipment possible. That has not been the case with pipelines. It has not been the case with any sort of oil spill response. In fact, an audit that came at the beginning of the summer found that in 83% of the cases, oil spill response equipment is out of date. We see a situation where there is “a number of significant deficiencies in the program's preparedness capability”.

Whether we are talking about marine safety or pipeline safety, very serious concerns have been raised by Canadians. We are all aware of what has transpired over the last few months. There was the profoundly saddening tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. We have just seen the tragedy in Alberta. There have been various communities in the last few months that have been impacted in terms of rail transportation safety. I am not just talking about Gainford and Lac-Mégantic; I am talking about Sexsmith, Brampton, Calgary, Landis, Ottawa, Lloydminster, Gogama, Wanup, Okotoks and Jansen. We are talking about communities that have been impacted just in the last few months by the lack of serious regard for safety in the transportation sector.

These are unprecedented accidents that we have seen, and they are multiplying. We are seeing a government that simply does not have the due regard for safety that is required of any responsible government.

I have asked before, and I will ask the new Minister of Transport, that the Conservatives reverse all of the cuts, the irresponsible actions and the gutting of safety in the transportation sector. Whether we were talking about marine safety, pipeline safety or rail safety, they are all linked.

The official opposition has brought forward very constructive ideas. The NDP has said that there are things we could do now. Our transport critic, the member for Trinity—Spadina, brought forward a whole series of recommendations after the appalling tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. The government has not implemented them. We have brought forward a whole series of recommendations on marine safety. The government has refused to implement them. We have raised concerns about the lack of pipeline safety. The government has refused to act.

We are doing this on behalf of the populations of Canada. We are doing it on behalf of all of the communities that are suffering from the lack of due diligence and responsibility by the Conservative government. We have never seen a government that has been so reckless and irresponsible with our nation's public safety. We have seen an increase in the number of fatalities and incidents in a whole series of sectors.

Canadians want to see a change from the government. They want it to be responsible with the public's safety. If the government chooses to continue its reckless path, not only is it saddening and a tragedy, it also means that in 2015 New Democrats will be stepping forward with a safety agenda that we believe Canadians will support.

We ask the Conservatives to do the right thing. If they do not, we will. That rendezvous is in 2015.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, for his presentation. I agree with him that the title of the act is quite overblown. I have noted in the past that this administration has a penchant for overblowing titles of acts that are mostly housekeeping measures. In this case it is called the “safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act” as if it would do something about air pollution. It deals with some administrative changes under the Aeronautics Act.

However, in terms of oil tanker safety, I completely agree with my hon. friend. I would like to ask if he has examined the report that came out in December 2011. Almost two years ago, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development within the Office of the Auditor General did a thorough review of the transportation of hazardous and dangerous goods by rail, pipeline, tanker, and truck. It provided advice that, in my view, had the current administration looked at those recommendations and implemented them, might have avoided the Lac-Mégantic disaster.

I would like to ask if the member has had a look at those environment commissioner recommendations from nearly two years ago.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right to point out that other entities within the federal government raised this issue years prior to this outbreak and the increase in accidents and fatalities that we are seeing across our country. It was telescoped. The member is quite right to point that out. For years now, people have been warning the government that things were going to go awry, and the government members said, “Oh, no. Everything is fine. We've got stuff under control.”

However, we can see from the disasters, the deaths, and the destruction over the last few months that the government has nothing under control. The government needs to start listening to Canadians, reading the reports that have come out—in some cases, one or two years ago—and start putting those recommendations in place. Canadians are asking for the government to stop acting irresponsibly and recklessly and to start taking into consideration public safety, and Canadians are right to be asking for that from their government.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. He clearly explained the Conservatives' very disturbing approach to protecting coastal areas, among other things.

The Conservatives also decided to close the Quebec City maritime search and rescue centre, the only bilingual centre in Canada. Unfortunately, that truly terrible decision could endanger lives, but it is in keeping with the Conservatives' approach since coming to power.

I would like to ask my colleague if he could tell us a little more about the changes that the NDP would like to make to Bill C-3 in order to take a different approach than that of the Conservatives to protecting our coastal areas.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier for her question. She worked very hard to save the Quebec City maritime rescue centre. I would like to thank her for her excellent work on that issue. She does a very good job of representing her constituents and the people who live in the Quebec City area.

It is important to note that we are not talking just about the British Columbia coast, but about both coasts. I focused on British Columbia because this is an issue we are facing right now. However, she is quite right because the situation is just as worrisome on the east coast. There is a lack of transparency and accountability on the part of this government. Canadians everywhere are entitled to better protection, and they are quite right to be more worried because of the Conservatives.

It would be really beneficial to have a government that takes its responsibilities seriously and governs properly and not a government that spouts talking points. It could start by reopening the Quebec City and Vancouver maritime rescue centres and acting in a responsible manner. That would be a good thing.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my NDP colleague for his excellent speech, which illustrated just how incompetent and reckless the member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean was during his term as the former minister of transport.

The changes he made to rail safety across Canada have unfortunately left marks and scars. I hope that the new Minister of Transport will be more competent than the current member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean.

Here is my question for my NDP colleague. Why does he think the former minister of transport was so reckless with Canadians' rail and marine safety across the country?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord for his question and want to point out that he has raised these issues more often than any other member in this House. He does an excellent job in the House of Commons and he represents a community I know very well, in the riding of Chicoutimi.

His question is too difficult to answer. Why would a minister of transport and a government systematically adopt an attitude that involves pulling apart and breaking down existing safety systems? The existing systems were not even good enough in the first place.

The government is being irresponsible and simply wants to destroy all the safety systems. This is happening with rail safety, pipeline safety and marine safety. We could add food safety to that list.

Under this government we have seen more crises in the food industry than ever before in our country's history. Once again, this is a result of the government making cuts and destroying inspection regulations.

The government does not want to govern. It thinks it is entitled to everything. Take a look at the Senate, where Conservative senators are taking tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Prime Minister wants to take his limousine all over the world, but no one in his government is looking after Canadians' safety. This is their responsibility. It should be their primary responsibility.

In response to my colleague's question, I do not understand why this government is being so irresponsible.

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

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the cuts to the safety of our waters, northern Ontario is not untouched by that. The communications centre at Thunder Bay was also part of the ax of the Conservative government.

It shows over and over again that we have a government that is not interested in the well-being of people and is really not interested in our waters. The Conservatives are big talkers and little doers when it comes to safety.

My colleague mentioned the largest tainted beef recall in Canada's history. During the throne speech, the government talked about the fact that paying down the debt was again its main focus, but at what cost, at what cost to the safety of Canadians?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing has raised issues of food safety in this House and has done an excellent job doing that.

The reality is that the government, and I say this as a former financial administrator, is the worst administrator of public finances we have ever seen in our history. There was $40 billion for the F-35s, untendered. It started out at $8 billion; it went to $40 billion. There was $1 billion for a weekend summit; $1 million to fly the Prime Minister's limousine around the world.

The government is absolutely horrible at financial management. I have heard people who voted Conservative last time saying that they are never going to vote Conservative again, because they are so appallingly bad at the one thing they were supposed to be good at.

The reality is that the costs the member is speaking of are costs to Canadian families, families that are sick or dead, families that end up seeing terrible tragedies, whole communities that are threatened. As well, there is the profound impact on and degradation of our environment. The costs of keeping the government in office are immense. In 2015, Canadians—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Ottawa South.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-3 which is the follow-up bill to Bill C-57 from the last session of this House, which has not passed by now, in part, because the House was prorogued for an unusually long period of time. It is unfortunate, because I think we would have dispatched this legislation much more efficiently had we been sitting here.

In many respects, what we are seeing in the bill is a piecemeal or what I might even describe as an incoherent approach to transportation safety policy in Canada. Small things are trickling out in dribs and drabs without a comprehensive approach to transportation safety in the country to deal with the important issues that have been raised, by many speakers, on marine transportation, rail transportation, passenger safety, and beyond, of course.

The bill is mostly about technical amendments, and the Liberal Party of Canada will be supporting sending the bill to committee.

It has different parts. Part 1, enacting the aviation industry indemnity act, would allow aviation participants, in the event of loss or damage, to deal with what are called “war risks”. This flows from the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, when insurance companies stopped offering air carriers liability insurance for what are typically called war risks. That is part 1 of the bill. I am looking to hearing more about it at committee.

Part 2 amends the Aeronautics Act to establish a new procedure for investigating accidents or incidents involving civilians and military aircraft. Again, for clauses 10 to 26, I am looking forward to seeing more evidence to substantiate the new process in the Aeronautics Act that will allow for investigation of accidents that involve civilians and military aircraft or installations. That will be important to go through.

Part 3 amends the Canada Marine Act in relation to the effective date of the appointment of a director of a port authority. That is more or less standard fare. It is very much housekeeping.

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. This effectively provides for the liability of ship owners and operators for damage caused by pollutants. In particular, it finally implements in Canada the liability scheme established pretty much elsewhere internationally by the several international conventions that are already in place.

We are making progress in terms of these small amendments.

Finally, part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act to introduce new requirements for operators of oil handling facilities, ostensibly, the governments says, to help produce a world-class tanker safety system. I cannot help but be struck by “world-class tanker safety system”, when the government rushed through licences in the Beaufort Sea, with full knowledge that there is no technology to deal with potential spills should there be one in that most fragile Canadian sea.

Let us turn to the overall context within which I think this bill has been presented and what is happening out there among Canadians.

First, the Lac-Mégantic tragedy shook the country. Obviously, it affected Quebeckers, the people of Lac-Mégantic and their families. This tragedy, which still weighs heavy on the minds of Canadians, stunned us and affected us deeply.

We had also a bus-train collision here in the city of Ottawa. We had a derailment in Calgary, which Mayor Nenshi spoke of some time ago, and of course, we had the derailment over the weekend in Gainford, Alberta. There are so many more instances of rail safety questions.

The bill is being deposited at a time when we are debating pipelines. We are debating pipelines heading west, the gateway pipeline. We are debating pipelines heading south, the Keystone pipeline, and of course there is the question of Line 9, reversing the flow of a pipeline between Sarnia and Montreal to provide more feedstock for eastern Canadian refineries.

I would pause for a moment and say that I think the government has seriously compromised Canada's reputation with respect to its dealings on the Keystone pipeline. It has, in fact, weakened us. For that matter, to a certain extent, it has even weakened the democratic presidency of President Obama by actually not working with American congressional leaders and the President's office to show that Canada is serious about climate change. Because we have been delaying, denying, dragging our feet, making up stories, and hitching our wagon to President Obama, and at other points to somebody else or to some other factor, Canada is now very much behind the eight ball. When it comes to Washington, and, I can certainly confirm from international experience, elsewhere, Canada is now considered to be a pariah on the climate change file. In a sense, this is how the Prime Minister has seriously compromised our reputation in Washington and has put the Keystone pipeline very much at risk.

As I said, Canadians are very concerned about a few things. They see these instances on television and read about them in the newspapers. They are very concerned about passenger safety, community safety, and marine safety, of course. They are concerned about the transport of dangerous substances and what is happening in their local municipalities with trains running in and out. They are very concerned about environmental protection. One of the least well-known fallout effects of the Lac Mégantic tragedy is the fact that it is going to take decades, and probably hundreds of million if not billions of dollars to clean up the affected watershed in that region. That is something we let slip, to a certain extent, in coverage outside Quebec.

Another factor at play, of course, is that there is a trend toward moving more and more oil in Canada by rail. This is worthy of exploring so that Canadians understand what is happening. There are important fundamental questions about our aging Canadian rail infrastructure. There are important questions being raised about the types of railcars that have been used, both in Canada and the United States, for decades and their safety and engineering standards, for example.

Why is there such a trend toward moving more and more oil in Canada by rail? The first reason is that North American oil production is outpacing pipeline capacity. For example, rail shipments of oil to our coastal refineries or export centres have gone from about 6,000 train carloads in 2009 to almost 14,000 carloads this year. That is a massive and significant increase in moving oil by rail. We have seen a concomitant investment by the railway companies in new cars and new capacity to carry more oil, of course, because they want an ever-increasing share of that market opportunity, as one would expect from a private company.

The second reason we are seeing more oil carried by rail is that, as I mentioned, railways want to increase their market share. They have seized upon an opportunity here, because shipping oil by rail as a substitute idea is being encouraged by the Conservatives as a way to circumvent the approval processes, which they often have been weakening or undermining, whether it is the NEB or environmental assessment. We know that this is the case. We have seen it. It has been happening now for years. They are also trying, in certain quarters, to circumvent strong or ferocious opposition to different ideas being put forward by industrial proponents. That is having another effect. It is another force at play that is driving oil onto our railways.

The third factor is that there is enormous pressure on our infrastructure, and I alluded to this, for both rail and pipeline. Even if all current pipeline projects are approved in Canada, oil production will exceed pipeline capacity by one million barrels a day by 2025. That is, in 12 short years we will exceed our pipeline capacity by one million barrels a day.

The first thing I thought of when I came face to face with this statistic was to reflect on the words of the former premier of Alberta Peter Lougheed who asked some very probative and profound questions about the pace of development in our oil sands, whether or not we were having an adult conversation about that pace, whether the effects in the immediate areas were going to be properly mitigated, and so on and so forth. We see that there is a massive push and rush to increase capacity in terms of oil production but not the infrastructure to deal with it.

On that note, pressure on rail, of course, is coming from a plan of doubling oil sands exploitation over the next decade or so. The pressure is also coming from the 10 to 12-year life span of the very huge Bakken shale gas formation in both North Dakota and Montana. There we are seeing an oil and gas field that is presently producing some 700,000 barrels of oil a day. Now, the estimates are that would last for 10 to 12 years with production rising from 700,000 to one million barrels a day.

Interestingly, the light crude on board the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway that exploded in Lac-Mégantic came from this area, the Bakken shale gas formation, on route to an Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. Bakken, as a project does not lend itself, say the energy economists, to a pipeline because it is not economic. It takes some 50 years for a pipeline to be judged to be economic, to pay for itself, and this, as I mentioned, has a 10 to 12-year remaining shelf life in terms of exploitation of the gas and oil in that particular reserve.

Another important question at play in context as the bill is brought to the floor is the following.

There are some very serious and legitimate questions being raised with respect to the enforcement of railway safety by Transport Canada. Nowhere is this more evident than in the safety management systems, SMSs, which rail companies are required to produce and abide by. For that matter, different companies involved and regulated by Transport Canada also have safety management systems; airlines, for example. However, these safety management systems are not rendered public. They are not made available or disclosed to interested parties, such as stakeholders, flying passengers, company executives, folks who work on railways, people who are in the business of insuring railways and the shipment of these risky products. These safety management systems are not disclosed.

I think we can do a lot better than that in terms of the probity and transparency that Canadians are asking for and deserve going forward.

Transport Canada, once these safety management systems are put in place, then perform audits on a company's SMS. However, for the audits on railways, and the same thing applies with pipeline companies, there is no requirement for an explicit, what we might call, safety culture assessment. An auditor can go in and audit against a document and spot check. However, that does not necessarily mean that there is an explicit requirement for the auditors and inspectors to sit down with senior managers, interview employees, deal with suppliers, talk to other regulators at the provincial level for railways that do not cross provincial boundaries, and so on and so forth.

We can do a lot better with respect to these safety management systems in making them more transparent. I think that transparency shining the light of day on these management systems would help improve them.

I have also heard from a number of inspectors who are retired from Transport Canada or presently working within Transport Canada. They are deeply concerned about the capacity of Transport Canada to perform these audits on safety management systems on a number of fronts, whether it is marine shipping, airlines, railways and beyond.

There are very troubling questions being raised by these inspectors who are good people, of good faith and goodwill, who go to work every day and try to do their jobs, but are now feeling the pinch as they try to cover so many different regulated companies and do not have the capacity to do so. That is something we are going to have to explore in a much more meaningful way at committee in due course, whether it is with respect to the bill or with respect to the promised, deep railway-safety study that the committee was supposed to undertake this fall in the wake of early findings from the Transportation Safety Board in terms of its learnings derived from the tragedy at Lac-Mégantic.

Shifting gears a bit, in some respects the bill would address the liability question but only tangentially, as I mentioned earlier. There are lingering questions. Most Canadians, once they are over the shock of something as dramatic as a bus in this city, here in my backyard just outside my riding, colliding with a train where citizens are killed, or 47 of their fellow citizens having died in Lac-Mégantic, then questions around who is responsible come to the fore. Here is where we as parliamentarians are going to have to examine very carefully the whole question of liability. Who is responsible for the liability, the costs? Who is responsible for indemnifying, for example, the Town of Lac-Mégantic? Who is responsible for helping the families of the victims, those who may be disabled in an accident and those who feel the effects on their human health, perhaps? Who is responsible with respect to spills at sea? Who is responsible for spills on land and environmental cleanup costs? I alluded to that earlier with respect to Lac-Mégantic.

We have seen what happened with a major spill on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in the United States. We have seen what the National Transportation Safety Board has said about that in the United States which, in parentheses, concerns me because that NTSB evidence is not being heard at the National Energy Board in Canada as Enbridge makes applications for different kinds of pipeline projects. I believe that we should be examining global practice. What has happened in one jurisdiction is something we should be learning from in this jurisdiction, and vice versa.

When our Canadian Transportation Safety Board issues a report eventually and finally on Lac-Mégantic and that terrible tragedy, there will be many findings that are capable of being extrapolated to other countries and locations. I do not know why the Conservatives have closed and narrowed the evidentiary acceptability gap, if I can call it that, at the National Energy Board to the point where the findings of the NTSB in Washington are not being factored into applications being made by a proponent in Canada. It just makes no sense. Most corporations today, as they work hard to earn their social licence, want to be able to have a global code and standard of practice and drive it up everywhere together, roughly at the same time and in the same way.

We have a lot of questions with respect to who is responsible and who is liable.

I had a constituent write to me recently and ask whether liability should extend here to the company that was actually importing the oil, and in this case, whether the Irving Oil refinery is responsible in part. Should it have some fiduciary responsibility? That is an important question for us to examine.

We need a comprehensive approach going forward. It is a wonderful opportunity for parliamentarians to get it better for Canadians. There is fear in Canadian society. We have an obligation to assuage that fear by doing good and better work. I am concerned about what the Auditor General concluded in a report in 2011, which stated that, “Transport Canada has not designed and implemented the management practices needed to effectively monitor regulatory compliance” with respect to the transportation of dangerous goods as set out by the department.

We can do better than that. We owe it to Canadians. We owe it to our companies. We owe it to shippers. We owe it to all the folks out there with good faith and goodwill who want to ensure we actually do better and do right by Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend for his thorough review of Bill C-3. Had the Prime Minister not prorogued, the bill probably would have been passed already. It is largely made up of inconsequential and non-controversial measures but they certainly would not achieve the much vaunted rhetoric that flows along with them.

My hon. colleague quite accurately described the legislation as somewhat incoherent in relation to these issues. Does he think we might have done better by taking the recommendations of the environment commissioner on the thematic purpose of where the gaps are in our transportation of hazardous goods, whether by rail, air, pipeline, tanker or by road and truck? Should we have taken those recommendations and looked at all the ways hazardous goods are transported in Canada? Are we addressing whether this are being done safely, whether municipalities have access to information that they should have about what materials are running through communities, and ensuring that the entire scheme of the transport of hazardous goods is addressed?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again my colleague has asked a very insightful question, and in my view she is spot-on. There is an opportunity here to go back and examine the commissioner for sustainable development's report and recommendations to examine precisely the gap she has alluded to.

In July we convened a fairly urgent meeting of the transport committee. I was asked to speak a bit to an NDP motion at the time. I said it was going to be important for us to look back at what reports have been issued, such as the recent recommendations of the Senate report, which made a number of good recommendations. Here I would like to single out the good work of my colleague from Alberta, Senator Grant Mitchell, who really put his shoulder to the wheel to help think through exactly the kinds of ramifications the member's questions raise. We could be looking at other recommendations from the Transportation Safety Board in the past, which I alluded to in my closing remarks.

There is an opportunity here for us to collate and bring together the important good energies, which have already been expended to see how we can improve, and come up with a much more coherent and comprehensive approach.

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

Mr. Speaker, given that we do not know much about the contents of the hazardous material generally referred to as diluent, I have been doing some research into this. The hon. minister is telling us in her speech that we can ship oil safely by supertanker, but none of the current proposals for shipping Canadian fossil fuels to other countries actually deal with shipping oil. They all deal with shipping something called bitumen, which is not flowable and has to be mixed with something called diluent.

For example, the proposal by Enbridge called the northern gateway would bring supertankers up the B.C. coastline loaded with this diluent that it buys from the Middle East. It is off-loaded at Kitimat and then sent through a twinned pipeline to northern Alberta where it would be mixed with bitumen instead of upgrading it and refining it in Alberta. It is mixed with this diluent material, which is essentially a petroleum distillate called naphtha, which is mixed with benzene and which I have also discovered is mixed with butane. We do not actually know the chemical composition of diluent because it is more of a trade name. It is a commonplace term. It does not have a scientific meaning. It is definitely toxic. It goes two ways. If we were to allow this monstrous scheme to proceed, we would first ship it in, mix the bitumen in, and ship it out through a pipeline. We have no idea what is in those pipelines or in those railcars as the tragedy at Lac-Mégantic with this Bakken crude showed us.

I would ask my friend for any comments with respect to what he has been thinking in terms of whether we really know what is in those pipelines.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is clearly a debate about what is or is not and what the effects would be of this diluted bitumen with respect to pipelines. The debate is raging when it comes to existing pipelines, for example, when it comes to the question of Line 9.

I have a lot of constituents in my riding of Ottawa South who live just on the fringe of the existing location for the reversal of the flow of Line 9 from Sarnia to Montreal. They have some really serious questions about whether or not a 35 or 36-year old pipeline can withstand some of the toxicity the member alludes to with respect to this new product that is going to be flowing through it. The pipeline company assures us that the science is complete in this regard. I am not a scientist but there is one thing I know about science and that is that science is never complete.

There is a real opportunity here for us to hear more from experts at committee to find out whether or not we have a good handle on the type of diluent that is being used, the potential noxious effects, what happens if there is a spill, and what the effect would be with respect to the acidity and corrosiveness of pipelines. There are a lot of important questions that we should be asking as responsible legislators. The government has a majority at committee. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the government to make sure it calls the right experts so that we can actually hear the evidence.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have been talking about this for some time now and there are some grave concerns with what the bill would do.

Does my Liberal colleague not think this bill is a bit too limited? On the fact that the Conservatives actually rejected the NDP's proposal to broaden the scope of the bill, does the member really think they would be open to some amendments?

We have not seen a government that is making real comprehensive changes to protect our coasts. Could he elaborate a little as to whether he believes the government is really being upfront about what it is trying to do here?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the question of the ability to amend any bill brought forward by the government, my answer is that there is always hope.

There is always hope that the government might see fit to leave the sloganeering aside sometimes. The title of the bill is “safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act”. I hope the person who devised that slogan got a bonus, because that is not what the bill would do at all, but I suspect it is great marketing.

If the members of the Conservative caucus could see fit to leave that kind of stuff aside for a while, maybe we as legislators could come up with something to help improve the situation.

With respect to my colleague's question, there is always hope. There is an opportunity for all of us to bring amendments to bear to try to improve legislation for Canadians. If that is not why we are here, then why are here?

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at this very moment, the oil spilled in the latest derailment is still burning. We are well aware of what happened with the tragedy at Lac-Mégantic this summer. There is no point in revisiting this disaster and rubbing salt on the wound—these people have suffered enough.

Does my colleague think that what happened today is trivial and insignificant compared to all other threats facing Canadians? These rail cars travel along rivers and lakes all across the country. I wonder what my colleague thinks about that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think that it is important not to underestimate the risks involved. At the same time, there is no need to exaggerate them. In Canada a lot of products are moved by rail and this is done very safely.

As I mentioned in my presentation, it is important to remember that the percentage of oil transportation by rail is increasing rapidly in Canada—largely because the Conservatives favour rail to avoid the complexity of the regulatory systems in place in Canada. These systems may be complicated, but there is a good reason for that, namely to help protect Canadians and our land.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He states:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All across the north—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

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

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

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

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I entirely agree with my colleague.

This government definitely has enormous trouble complying with international agreements. At least we can congratulate it for complying with the agreement it signed four years ago. It took way too long to put it into the form of a bill, but I congratulate it for having done so. That is a start.

However, it contains a lot of deficiencies, and I entirely agree with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on that. The bill can definitely be vastly improved. However, this government does not appear to be concerned about environmental protection.

Its concern seems to be how we can transport hydrocarbons as efficiently as possible without being troubled by environmental regulations. Bill C-38 reduces them to a very large degree.

We no longer protect more than 90% of Canada's rivers and lakes. We no longer protect fish habitat. Now it appears we may be content merely to establish a compensation fund to provide protection in the event of an oil spill, but we do not yet have the capacity to clean it up. In short, there are a lot of deficiencies, and I thank the member for emphasizing that point.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

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

Like him, I have an enormous constituency that includes a lot of coastline along James Bay, Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay. Therefore, I understand the importance of the environmental concerns expressed by my fellow citizens. He stated them as well.

There are also social concerns here. What may be even more important is the survival of several coastal communities. There are economic concerns because those communities may be affected by a major spill in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as my colleague mentioned.

Does he think the measures proposed in this bill do not go far enough? I would like him to elaborate further on the economic issues affecting the coastal communities.

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

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

I know he also works very hard in his constituency, and he has no doubt heard the same comments as I, that the coastal communities are very troubled and concerned about marine safety, the environment and protection for marine habitat. This bill provides us with no reassurances in those fields.

The tourism industry is definitely very important in my constituency. It relies to a very large degree on the shared wealth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The beauty of the gulf and the Appalachian Mountains in the Gaspésie region are assets that we risk compromising every time we talk about increasing the amount of oil transport and traffic.

Oil tankers do exist, and we cannot prevent them from doing so, but they must absolutely be better regulated and our coastal communities better protected. The coastal communities that have already contacted my office have clearly told me they want improved protection.

Unfortunately, the Conservative government is still moving in the other direction, withdrawing from environmental protection for marine areas. We must absolutely head in another direction. I think people expect that.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether I understood correctly or not, but I think my colleague is saying that the Conservative government is concerned about the cost to businesses of certain regulations, but not about environmental, social or other safety related costs, including the safety of francophones, of the land, Fisheries and Oceans, the Coast Guard and all that. It is a little disconcerting to hear this discourse.

I am also here 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. Admittedly the proposed legislation provides for modest improvements to marine safety. During the first session of this Parliament, the NDP suggested that the government broaden the scope of this bill. Our party is prepared to make real changes with a view to protecting our coastlines. The Conservatives, however, rejected our suggestion. That is unfortunate, but it seems the opposition’s opinion matters little to the Conservatives.

Sadly the only legislators who are responsible and concerned about the safety of Canadians are sitting on this side of the House. They are not seated on the government benches, and if there are any such individuals, they are generally muzzled, and by whom? By the Conservative Party financiers.

I want to focus primarily on Part 5 of the bill which has five main components. Part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. It enacts new requirements respecting oil handling facilities, including the requirement on the part of the operator of such a facility to notify and submit plans of the proposed operations to the minister.

The NDP is committed to putting an end to oil spills along our coastlines. We are prepared to make that commitment, unlike the Conservatives who fail to enforce the necessary regulations to prevent spills of this nature. Judging from the Conservatives’ record, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that they take Canadians’ concerns seriously. They have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to marine and aviation safety. Furthermore, their policies are contradictory.

On the one hand, they are shutting down the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano and cutting environmental emergency response programs, while on the other hand, they are demanding more of the marine transportation system. It is all well and good for them to expand requirements, but they also need to assume their responsibilities.

I would like to remind this House that the Conservatives closed the St. John’s maritime centre and they still want to shut down the Quebec City marine rescue sub-centre, the one and only bilingual centre in all of Canada. We must not forget the closing of the maritime radio stations across the country. I am thinking of the maritime radio station in Rivière-au-Renard, which is an excellent example.

Bill C-3 is a barely concealed attempt to offset past inaction and the Conservatives’ cuts to maritime safety. The measures set out in Bill C-3 to improve safety are relatively feeble considering the risks that exist because of all these closures. With all its tributaries, the St. Lawrence estuary is one of the most dangerous in the world and furthermore much of the marine traffic is French-speaking. Right now, traffic on the St. Lawrence is increasing, but services are decreasing. Before now, a number of different call centres knew the territory, and they are gradually being closed down. The government is even threatening to close the Quebec City centre. If that ever happened, there would certainly be deaths. The government that made that decision would be accountable.

The U.S. Coast Guard is studying the effects of the higher number of oil tankers on the west coast and their larger size, given the fact that the increased traffic increases the risk of an oil spill. The United States is taking these risks seriously, while the Minister of Natural Resources is taking the opposite tack, saying that everything is safe, despite the expected increases in oil tanker traffic.

“A supertanker oil spill near our shores would threaten [the] coastal economy and thousands of jobs,” said U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell.

The NDP members hope that Bill C-3 would really increase safety in oil tanker traffic. The Conservative government should have taken the opportunity to cancel the cuts in the most recent budgets—we remember them—as well as the marine security program closures.

Some of the measures that the NDP wants to see in a bill that aims at protecting Canada’s waters include the following.

First, the government must cancel the closures and cuts to Coast Guard services, including the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

Second, the government must cancel the cuts to marine communications and traffic services, including the maritime traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and St. John’s.

Third, the government must cancel the closure of the British Columbia regional office for oil spill emergencies.

Fourth, the government must cancel the cuts to the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research.

Fifth, the government must cancel cuts to the principal environmental emergency programs, including in the event of oil spills in Newfoundland and British Columbia.

Sixth, we must strengthen the capacity—which is currently non-existent—of petroleum boards to deal with oil spills, as recommended by the Commissioner of the Environment. The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board needs to acquire the internal expertise to manage a major spill with an independent safety regulator.

Seventh, the Canadian Coast Guard must be required to work with its American counterparts. Studies have already been conducted in the United States. We could work with the Americans to see what must be done, what regulations are required and how to make the structure of our supertankers as secure as possible. The Coast Guard therefore needs to conduct a parallel study with its American counterparts to examine the risks associated with additional oil tanker traffic through Canadian waters.

Rather than implementing half measures when it comes to responding to and monitoring oil spills as proposed in this bill, an assessment must be done of the national ship-source oil pollution fund, which has not been used in a long time.

For 40 years, oil tankers were prohibited from travelling along the coast of British Columbia. This moratorium was imposed as a result of a verbal agreement with British Columbia. Nothing was put in writing. The NDP's call for a ban on oil tanker traffic through this corridor has the support of first nations communities; local and regional elected officials; the tourism, leisure and fishing industries; other industries that may be affected; and over 75% of British Columbians.

I would like to add one thing about all of our demands. The first nations are concerned about all this deregulation and the cuts to Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Coast Guard. Tourism industries, particularly Quebec's Gaspé and North Shore regions and all of the maritime provinces that make a living from this industry, are concerned about the impact that an oil spill in the St. Lawrence gulf and estuary would have. Given all the currents and the unique nature of this gulf and estuary, an oil spill would be a major catastrophe. It would quickly spread to all the gulf's ecosystems, which would harm the fishing and tourism industries, as well as the entire economy of these regions.

It is therefore important to carefully think this through. Before going down this road, the Conservatives should think about what could happen in order to prevent deaths and a great deal of environmental damage in my region.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to give a nod to my Conservative colleagues and tell the people listening to us today that the Conservatives are asking no questions and refuse to debate the bill their own government has tabled in the House. This is how the Conservative government conducts itself in the House of Commons. They refuse to debate their own bill with us. This is what we have to deal with in the House of Commons nearly every day. Now I would like to ask my colleague question.

Following the destruction of the environmental regulations, the lack of consultation, the closure of the Quebec City search and rescue Centre and the setting aside of Coast Guard funding for port facilities, I would like my colleague to tell us what people are telling him in his riding in Quebec about the Conservative government's approach.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the riding of Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord runs along the estuary of the St. Lawrence over a distance of 350 km. This measure therefore concerns and affects a large percentage of the people in my constituency.

I am thinking of the people of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, which, at the time, was one way for the government to reduce the cost of the Coast Guard for Fisheries and Oceans. The government transferred that role to a Coast Guard auxiliary in the various regions.

This is a good idea because it ensures that there are people all over Quebec, and no doubt in the rest of Canada, who can respond to emergency calls. However, there are some particular issues. There are places where they can go only at high tide because they have no docks providing deep sea access at low tide.

There are needs everywhere. People tell me about them and about their concerns. There are a lot of pleasure boats, and several particularly turbulent rivers flow into the St. Lawrence. Consequently, a lot of calls may come from tourists visiting Quebec who are unfamiliar with the region. They need someone who knows the area and who speaks French well because every second counts in an emergency.

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

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

I know his constituency quite well. As he mentioned, it runs along the St. Lawrence River. It is a very beautiful region of Quebec. It may not be as beautiful as the LaSalle—Émard region, the constituency I represent, but it is nevertheless a very beautiful region.

I would like him to talk about the importance of the St. Lawrence River in his constituency, not only about the magnificent beauty of that waterway, but also about its importance to the regional economy. I would like him to say more about it and to establish the connection with the bill now before us.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the St. Lawrence is part of our heritage. It was at the heart of our communities' development. People settled all along the St. Lawrence and the rivers.

Even today, the St. Lawrence is a large part of the economy of the various counties along it. Back home, fishing is an important industry, but there is also the tourist attraction of mountain landscapes, the river's estuary and its tributaries. Tourists come to see the whales in Tadoussac and the internationally renowned Les Escoumins region. It is a huge tourist draw.

This tourist industry would crumble if an oil spill occurred. An oil spill would also have a significant impact on the environment. The mouth of the Saguenay River and the St. Lawrence River is the larder for large marine mammals. The flora there is exceptional. If an oil spill occurred in the St. Lawrence gulf or estuary, every region would be affected. Therefore, we really need good regulations to protect both this economy and the land.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and speak for a few moments on Bill C-3.

I want to commend my colleague, the member for Shefford, for his comments. He and I have worked together on fisheries and oceans. I know he is deeply concerned about these issues as they impact his constituents. He has worked very hard and continues to work very hard in their interests.

The title of Bill C-3 is interesting. It is the “safeguarding Canada's seas and skies” bill. Once again the Conservatives are all talk and very little action. While members have indicated that we will be supporting this bill and moving it through second reading, it is only because it makes very modest improvements. In the time I have, I want to speak about the need for us to do a better job of protecting our oceans.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said, “For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.”

Today that means protecting our oceans from ourselves.

Before I go any further, I want to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member from Quebec.

Canada is the steward of more than 7.1 million square kilometres of ocean and the world's longest coastline, stretching over 244,000 kilometres across three oceans, yet we remain grossly unprepared for disasters off our shores. The bill, as I said, contains only modest improvements in marine security at best, and it does very little to respond to Canada's lack of preparedness for oil or chemical spills.

My NDP colleagues and I take the protection of our oceans very seriously, and that is why we proposed to broaden the scope of this bill to make real, comprehensive changes to protect our coast. Not surprisingly, the members opposite, the Conservative government, rejected our proposal.

It is fair to say that Canada, in many ways, has been lucky to date, in that we have not had a significant spill off our coast, because over 20 years of reports have told us that we are simply not ready.

In 1990, following the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, the Brander-Smith report came out regarding tanker safety and marine spills response capabilities. This report had three major findings: first, Canada did not have the capability to respond effectively to a spill, regardless of where in the country it was; second, based on tanker traffic, Canada could expect over 100 spills of various degrees every year, with a significant spill once every 15 years.

In reality, this number was greatly underestimated. Between 2007 and 2009 alone, a total of 4,160 spills of oil, chemicals, and other pollutants were reported.

The third major finding was that the risk of spills was highest in eastern Canada.

These findings are nearly the same as those identified in the 2010 report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. In this report, the commissioner found that while Transport Canada and DFO have carried out risk assessments related to oil spills, they can provide no assurance that the federal government is ready to respond effectively to a spill.

He also identified that eastern Canada remains most vulnerable for a spill. The Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010 resulted in an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil being spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. It is estimated to cost $40 billion to clean up this spill over an unknown number of years.

This disaster needs to remind us of how quickly an oil disaster can occur and how costly the cleanup can be.

In Canada, we currently have a liability cap of only $40 million. While the Conservatives committed back in June to increasing this cap to $1 billion, we have yet to see any action on that commitment, and we can appreciate the fact that if we had a spill like the one in the Gulf of Mexico, $1 billion would be only a fraction of the money needed to deal with the disaster.

We need real action to protect our oceans, and we need it now. Canada should be a world leader when it comes to oil spill preparedness, not a reluctant follower of international requirements. We have too much at stake—surely we all recognize that—and too much to lose when it comes to protecting our oceans and their resources. Many of our coastal communities depend on a healthy ocean for their livelihoods, and we understand clearly that Canada's economy benefits from clean coastal resources.

I am the member of Parliament for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia, where a couple of big companies are moving to develop resources off our coast. Billions of dollars have already been put on the table by Shell and BP just for the right to begin to dig; that is how confident they are of what they are going to find. The Province of Nova Scotia has extended the moratorium on Georges Banks against exploration and development, but the federal government has failed to respond. All of these things are indications that the government is failing to act quickly enough.

Earlier today in question period, I talked about the changes the government has made to the Fisheries Act. The gutting of the Fisheries Act is putting the development of natural resources above the protection of our oceans and marine life. Members opposite know this only too well. It is going to take a disaster of the kind I am talking about to bring it to their attention once and for all.

When we consider the reports that have been written and the science that has already been presented that indicate to us very clearly the dangers that lie on our three coasts, do members opposite not agree that now is the time to move forward? Let us not wait for another report. Let us not wait for a disaster to bring to our attention the fact that we had the opportunity but did not move quickly enough.

Let us not do that. Let us be a leader. As we move this bill forward, let us take the opportunity at committee to bring in expert advice and make the kinds of changes that we advocated for previously when this bill was before the House, to give it teeth, to give it a real commitment, to recognize that we have to do so much more to protect our coastlines if we are going to be developing our natural resources.

Let us not wait for another disaster. Let us not wait for another example of why we need to act, whether it is in the north, as the member for Western Arctic talked about, or in the St. Lawrence, as my colleague from Shefford talked about. Let us move now. I urge the government opposite that when this bill goes forward, passes at second reading, and goes to committee, let us make sure we make efforts to expand it to make it more encompassing so that we can truly protect our oceans once and for all.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to sincerely thank the hon. member from Nova Scotia for his remarks. He really demonstrated how important the coastlines and oceans are for Canada. In fact, our motto is “From coast to coast to coast”. As he so aptly said, we need to be the guardians of our coastlines and our oceans.

I would like him to elaborate on the economic importance of Nova Scotia's coasts. In fact, the province is surrounded by coastlines and the ocean. I would also like him to explain how environmental protection will not hinder economic development or the responsible development of our natural resources.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. It is not an either/or situation in terms of our coastline and of our environment versus natural resources. However, we have to recognize the impact that developing our natural resources can have on our oceans and ecosystem. If we damage our ecosystem, it will take hundreds of years to get it back. We know that.

That is the concern I have raised before about the changes the Conservatives are making to the Fisheries Act and its ability to protect fish habitat.

Fish habitat is such an important part of the ecosystem. If we have a major spill on either one of our coasts, it would be devastating. Unfortunately, the government is taking away the tools it has at its disposal by the changes it has made to the Fisheries Act. The government is not taking an opportunity to beef up the tools it has through bills like Bill C-3 to ensure we can protect our coastlines, our environment, our ecosystem and our fish habitat that sustained so many thousands of communities from one end of the country to the other on all three coasts.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the record is very clear that under this government, Canada's environmental indicators, when we look at the math compared to the hyperbole from the other side, show that Canada's environment is getting better under this government's watch.

I was talking to an Ontario farmer recently and he was telling me a story that prior to the changes to our Fisheries Act a neighbour of his was trying to clean out a drainage ditch. Of course the DFO people in the area got wind of this and 12 uniformed officers with flak jackets and firearms showed up in this poor farmer's field. That member and his party want to bring this back, wasting money and staff on non-existent problems when staff and DFO resources should be directed to areas and fisheries about which people actually care. The fish that people use recreationally and commercially and by our aboriginal community is what is important and that is what the new Fisheries Act is focused on.

We know the NDP members opposite want to see all natural resources development stop. Their plan is to increase process so much that natural resources development will be stopped. Does the member not care about his constituents who depend on natural resources development in our country? If he does not care, why not?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is an indication of why our ecosystem and environment are in trouble at the hands of the Conservative government. That drainage ditch is part of the ecosystem. It is part of a watershed that feeds nutrients and that is very much a part of keeping our environment alive.

What is most is important are the changes the Conservatives have made to the Fisheries Act, for example, that focus on fish we eat or play with. It means that 80% of freshwater fish species in our country are no longer protected. How can that member stand up with any kind of confidence and say that he and his government are doing a better job protecting fish, the environment and the ecosystem in our country?

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after my colleague’s speech, there is not a great deal more for me to say. He clearly outlined what we want to know about 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.

There is a great deal of confusion at the present time over Bill C-3 and Bill C-57. We all know that is because the Conservatives prorogued Parliament. Today we find ourselves debating legislation that was outstanding when the last session of Parliament ended. Bills were brought back before the House and given new numbers. That explains the confusion. I just wanted to mention that in case anyone following these proceedings might be confused.

That being said, I do want to point out that the NDP is supporting this bill at second reading because it provides for modest improvements to marine safety. Obviously it is difficult to be opposed to something positive. Because it provides for modest improvements, we are prepared to move forward. However, the bill clearly falls short of what we had hoped and expected legislators to do, and obviously of what needs to be done.

Before voting in favour of Bill C-3 at second reading, the NDP had called for it to be referred, prior to second reading, to a committee where consideration could be given to incorporating more comprehensive measures to protect Canada’s coastlines and to neutralize or reverse to some degree the impact of Conservative cutbacks and closures affecting marine safety and environmental protection.

The issue of marine safety is obviously one that is very close to my heart, as the member for Québec. In fact, I have been calling on the Conservative government since 2011 to reverse its decision to shut down the Marine Search and Rescue Centre in Québec City. More importantly, it is the only officially bilingual centre in Canada and in North America.

I also have to say that the centre in Quebec City, which was established more than 35 years ago, was put there specifically to accommodate staff with intimate knowledge of the geography of the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and all its nooks and crannies. The expertise developed there was substantial. I realize that for the Conservatives, expertise represents a cost that you have to slash to achieve a zero deficit.

Yet expertise is a value that contributes much more than that. That is why in this case, too, I am concerned when I see cuts made with no thought given to the investment required to protect our fellow citizens on land and at sea.

When the Quebec City maritime search and rescue centre was established, it was also a means of protecting essential services in French, now threatened by this Conservative majority government, which believes it can get away with anything.

We also know that in Quebec City, fully bilingual staff are not to be found in the centres. The decision was made to close the centre in Quebec City and transfer half the calls to Halifax and the other half to Trenton. It was also decided to transfer calls from Cap-à-l'Aigle west to Trenton, and from Cap-à-l'Aigle east to the centre in Halifax.

However, the decision made in 2011 has so far generated huge costs in logistics, competitions and job offers to find people who are competent. Efforts have been made to recruit people, but experts do not come in a Cracker Jack box. Experts are really hard to find because it takes years of experience, specific qualifications and academic credentials to build that kind of expertise.

When they sought to transfer the centre from Quebec City to Trenton, they relaxed the selection criteria in order to find recruits. According to the latest information, they nevertheless still have not found the staff they need in Trenton to handle the calls. In Halifax, the people are not yet sufficiently qualified.

In Halifax, a rescue drill was held last February. I gave a press briefing, one of many about the Quebec City centre. The rescue drill, which was billed as normal procedure, was a complete failure because, for a normal operation, it seems that they unfairly increased the number of people assigned. In spite of that, the bilingual coordinator was reportedly overwhelmed; people involved who thought they could operate just as well in French as in English were completely powerless to cope with the work to be done; there were also complaints about a lack of familiarity with the St. Lawrence, a river with a long history.

Even in the time of Jacques Cartier, there were difficulties in navigating some parts of the St Lawrence. It is a distinctive river. There are strong currents in some locations, and some parts of the river have yet to be charted. Some parts are familiar to people who use the river, but are not necessarily to be found on the numerous technical applications for navigation. That tells you how much we need experts familiar with such details, which are not always incorporated into any kind of device.

Despite the failure experienced last February, the Conservatives had decided to press on, even with failure after failure. They are transferring the Quebec City centre to Trenton and Halifax, even though nothing is right, and nothing is working after so many years. Yet they were told. What is more, there was no public consultation on the matter and there was no impact study before the decision was made. We understand, moreover, that the minister never visited the centre in Quebec City to see the work being done on site.

Whatever bill we are discussing in the House, whether it relates to transport, health or employment insurance, I am always surprised that impact studies are not carried out, and people are not consulted: neither the provinces, nor the municipalities, nor the experts in the field. No. The government believes it is right, and goes ahead and makes the decision. This is regrettable, however, because what leads us to make wrong decisions is the belief that we are right, and that we are capable of handling everything ourselves.

Nevertheless, hundreds of resolutions were adopted across Canada by associations of pilots, fishers, enthusiasts, pleasure boaters and front-line people in favour of keeping the Quebec Marine City Search and Rescue Centre open. A motion was adopted unanimously in the Quebec National Assembly. Resolutions by a number of municipalities, including the City of Quebec and everywhere else, even in eastern Canada, for example, called for maintaining the centre. Despite this, the government always turns a blind eye.

You cannot reduce services and claim to maintain them by saying that nothing will change. It is untrue. Whenever I hear the Conservatives talk, I get angry because I say to myself that they understand nothing.

In this case, whether it is the Coast Guard or the veterans that are involved, there is no app for it. You cannot say that people will manage by going on line, and everything will be done automatically. No, you need experts, you need people who can answer questions and who operate in the field. That is what is important. That is what needs to be understood in the case of Bill C-3, but also in all the decisions the government may make.

In closing, the bill seems to be part of a concerted effort by the Conservatives to address their lack of credibility in the area of transport safety. We in the NDP know very well, however, that transport safety is not something the Conservatives do.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Québec, Ethics.

Questions and comments, the Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite closed by talking about the need to ensure that we have a very strong regulatory framework for the transportation of goods in Canada. That is exactly what the bill would do. It seeks to strengthen the regulatory framework that we have.

One of the measures I am quite interested in is the fact that the bill would require oil handling facilities to notify the minister of their operations, submit their pollution and prevention emergency plans, submit notices of proposed major expansions or conversions of their facilities. These are all very good things. They will also allow monetary penalty provisions to be expanded to section 8 of the Canada Shipping Act, which will hopefully also allow that strengthening of the regulatory regime to happen.

I am wondering why my colleague opposite would not support the bill. She talks about vague generalities, but with regard to these measures, these are really good things to help strengthen our regulatory framework. I am wondering why specifically she would not support allowing monetary penalty provisions to be expanded to section 8 of the Canada Shipping Act, as I did not hear a good argument in her speech.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, we in the NDP feel that the government must stop cutting Canadian Coast Guard services. We feel that the government must stop making cuts, cuts and more cuts, and developing very simplistic regulations. That is not working. We think there is more to be done.

Tanker traffic has gone up and therefore so has the risk of oil spills in Canadian waters, but the federal government is reducing the programs provided by marine communications and traffic service centres and by environmental emergency centres. Tanker traffic is forecast to triple in volume by 2016, the way it did between 2005 and 2010. That is what we want the person on the other side to understand. The pipeline expansion projects would also increase crude oil shipments from 300,000 barrels to 700,000 barrels a day. That is why we feel that the regulations must be taken a step further, considering the speed at which things are going.

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

Mr. Speaker, congratulations to the hon. member for her excellent remarks and for showing the mindset of the Conservative government. The government is drafting bills without considering the other bills that are in progress. In other words, the government is not able to see how its actions fit in the big picture. Of course, the research centre the government is trying to close in Quebec City would be useful for scientists in other fields, including the safety of oil tankers in the St. Lawrence River.

Could my colleague explain why this Conservative government is not looking at the big picture? It is coming up with bills left, right and centre, with the sole purpose of catering to the elite and to the business community.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question.

Consider the example of the maritime search and rescue centre in Quebec City, which is being shut down, apparently because the Conservatives still have not figured out that it was a bad decision, one that perhaps should be reversed. The problem is that they are not talking to the people affected. They are incapable of listening to the municipalities or citizens. I am convinced that they are not even listening to the members of their own party, because the Conservative association in Lévis—Bellechasse has even asked them to back down on this matter involving the Quebec City maritime research centre. When you cannot even listen to members of your own party, you must be pretty obtuse, if I may say so.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise to speak to the motion.

I have been following the debate and we will, very reluctantly, be supporting 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 a teacher, I learned a long time ago that one absolutely has to recognize when baby steps are taken. This is definitely a baby step on behalf of the current government to do the right thing.

The reason I am in favour of supporting the bill is because it is a baby step in the right direction. I am hoping that, with positive reinforcement, we will get other baby steps, which would lead to good legislation to address the major concerns we have with what the Conservative government has been doing around environmental protection and protecting our pristine coastlines.

As members know, I come from the most beautiful province in Canada: British Columbia. I used to live in Quebec many years ago, La belle province, and I used to say that it was the most beautiful province. I will say that we live in a country that has amazing geography. For those who were born here and many, like me, who chose Canada to be our home, we are privileged to live here.

I decided to raise my children here not only because of the geography but because I fell in love with Canada and all it had to offer. However, I can assure members that one of the key factors was our amazing geography: our lakes, rivers, seaways, coastlines and mountains. Believe it or not, it was even our beautiful Prairies, which I thought were amazing when I drove across Canada for the very first time.

However, I have had this fear for many years, which is one of the reasons I am a member of Parliament today, because I did not like where Canada was being taken by consecutive governments, especially over the last number of years. One of the key concerns I have is the stewardship of our beautiful nation, and I will speak specifically about our waterways.

As I said, the proposed legislation does take a baby step in the right direction. However, it always amazes me that, over and over again, when the Conservatives actually follow a UN convention that we have been a signatory to for a number of years and decide to implement it, they make it sound as if it is a revolutionary move. In some of the speeches by the minister at the time, he talked about double-hulled vessels. Well, that already exists.

At the same time, we are very pleased that our government has come to realize that, yes, we did sign agreements with the United Nations. It behooves us as a member of the United Nations in good standing to implement those agreements. Members of the NDP are very committed to protecting our beautiful waterways and coastlines, as I am sure are many of my colleagues across the way who really want to agree with us, especially those from coastal communities.

We have all seen the terrible damage that oil spills can do. I had the chance to visit a cleanup. Members should see the birds and the kind of cleanup that has to occur after an oil spill, especially to the environment around it. We have all seen TV images, but to actually see something like that is so scary. I do not use that word lightly. We do not appreciate the kind of damage that can be done.

We want to make sure that we absolutely mitigate and minimize, and put into place extra protections to make sure our coastlines are protected. When we talk about oil spills, we are not just talking about the oil that is lost to the oil producer, we are talking about the impact on our environment. We are talking about the impact on communities and the impact on our food supply, because everything around an oil spill gets damaged.

At the same time, we have to say that the last budget bill, not the current one but the previous one, took so many environmental protections away from our waterways. When we really think about it, that is quite scary. This is a time when we know more about our environment than we have ever known before, when we should be putting in protections. However, the government has taken away the protection.

Now that we are rewarding the Conservatives by supporting this baby step, I am urging them to try to undo the damage that they have done in previous legislation. It is never too late to learn. One thing I learned as a teacher is to never quit. It is always possible for the other person to learn. We are willing to provide the Conservatives with evidence, with science, with whatever they need to convince them, but there is no answer to blind commitment to an ideology or blind commitment to doing damage to our environment in the name of so-called economic gain. There is no economic gain when our environment gets damaged.

Our job is not only about responsible resource development with the right environmental protection, but we are also the stewards of this country for future generations. I would urge all my colleagues across the way to remember that.

The NDP has been calling for a ban on oil tanker traffic through the corridor of the British Columbia coastline for a very long time. As a matter of fact, 75% of B.C. residents support that. It is supported by first nation communities; local, regional and provincial politicians; environmental groups; tourism, recreation, fishing and other potentially affected industries. We are really talking about listening to people, local government, environmental groups as well as everyday Canadians. The evidence is right here and the commitment to looking after our coastline is here.

The current study that the United States Coast Guard is doing, which is on the rising number of tankers on the west coast and their size, is proactive. We should be joining them in that study to decrease the risk of a spill. The United States is taking this risk seriously, and the Minister of Natural Resources is taking the opposite approach, because he keeps telling everyone everything is safe, even with projected increases in tanker traffic. United States Senator Maria Cantwell said that a supertanker oil spill near our shore would threaten the thriving coastal economy and thousands of jobs.

We really do have to start paying attention. I am not a very close supporter of the B.C. government. In B.C. we have a so-called Liberal government, which is really a Liberal-Conservative coalition government.

Premier Christy Clark sounded the alarm bells on October 2, 2013, after her election. That was not so long ago. She sounded the alarm over Canada's inability to handle a major coastal oil spill now, let alone in the future, should new pipelines be approved. She stated that we are “woefully under-resourced”. Yet, the Minister of Natural Resources has told CBC News that the system now in place could handle a fairly large spill off the B.C. coast. He may know something that we British Columbians do not know. He may have all these resources hidden and buried somewhere for the day we need them. What we do know is that the government, through its actions, is limiting the kinds of protections we need. The closure of the Coast Guard facility at Kitsilano is a prime example. Why would they take that away? All of that is very worrisome for us.

That is not the only thing. I have other quotes from people who are saying we need to take a bit of a halt and put the environmental protections in place. We know there are oil tankers going down that coastline. However, we also have to realize that the Burrard Inlet and area is very rocky. I tried to kayak it at one time. I know members will find that strange, but I did used to kayak at one time. My partner has done it many times. I would not say it is a dangerous place to have those huge ships going through that inlet, but it is not that easy to steer through. It is a very narrow inlet. Yet, the tankers would have to go up there.

We have heard similar concerns from the north. They do not want to see those tankers coming down the coast. They do not want to see an increase because they know we cannot take the chance of an oil spill.

We know there are tankers there now, but surely we do not want to double the tankers, which is what the projections are. It shocked me, and not too many things do, but oil tanker traffic has tripled between 2005 and 2010. Tanker traffic is planned to triple again by 2016. It has tripled, and it is going to triple again. The proposed pipeline project would increase crude oil deliveries from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day.

As I was saying earlier, Burrard Inlet is the second most dangerous navigational point in Vancouver. It is very difficult to navigate through it. A simple weather malfunction, with a little wind and current, could lead to catastrophic results. This happened in October, 1979 with the freighter Japan Erica. We shut down the north shore bulk terminal for three months and railway traffic for almost five months.

We only have to see the kind of damage that these spills can do. On May 25, 2010, as we all know, the Malaysian registered Bunga Kelana 3 collided in the Singapore Strait. An estimated 2,500 tonnes, or almost 3 million litres of crude oil, poured into the sea.

Let us put that one aside for a minute. The holding capacity of a double-hulled designed tanker would be a million plus barrels. The VLCC class of supertankers dwarfs the Exxon Valdez. Risk assessment measures have to be reconfigured. We cannot keep using the old risk assessments when the tankers are becoming so gargantuan. It is hard to imagine. The shocking part of it is that today's supertanker can weigh up to 320,000 DWT, with a capacity of two million barrels of oil, drastically increasing the risk of a spill.

With the bigger tankers come bigger risks, and the realization that we have to look at this in a different way. Once again, we have to take a look at the risks to the environment.

We will hear from the Conservatives. We will not hear too much today, and not at all this afternoon, I do not think. That is another tactic I do not understand. In my naivety before I became a member of Parliament, I actually thought this was a place where we could debate issues. However, it seems that the government side has decided to sit out the debate for this afternoon.

I am here to make my points and I will answer questions, but it seems that the government does not want to hear or debate anything too much because it has made up its mind. The government sees this part as a bit of a nuisance that it has to put up with because it is part of the process.

However, let me tell members that, for us, this is very serious. The health of the planet, the health of our waterways, and the safety and environmental factors are critical for us as we look into the future.

We also have to take a look at who is going to be paying for these oil spills once they occur. We do not hear the government side addressing that too much. If there is this massive oil spill, who is going to be on the hook for the cleanup? I have not heard much about the kind of protection that would be provided to taxpayers. We have to take a look at some of the ways this is done in other parts of the world. For example, both Norway and Greenland have no pre-set limits, in terms of liability across the board for oil spills. I am not saying that is the solution, but it is a conversation we need to have. We need to bring the right people to the table to have that kind of discussion and debate at committee stage.

By the way, I was proud of my colleagues and our critic in this area. They have, and had, ways to improve the legislation. However, once again, what we have seen is the same as we have seen with most of the bills. There is very little movement from the government side because once it puts something on paper, that is the way it is going to be. It has already made up its mind, so why debate and go through all of those issues?

As was said earlier, when we look at what the government could be doing to make this piece of legislation more effective, the first thing is to pay some attention to what our people said at committee. It is never too late, by the way. Here is an example of what we would like to see in the bill, if anybody on the other side is paying attention. If they are not, I am sure they can read the written record later, which I am sure they are dying to do.

Number one, let us have the government reverse the Coast Guard closures and the scaling back of services, including the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. That is one of the baby steps the government could take in the right direction.

Then, let us take a look at the government cancelling the cuts to marine communications and traffic services centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and Saint John. If we are really worried about safety and the environment, then why, when we are talking about increasing all this traffic, would we be closing those offices?

The government could stop the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spill responders. It is beyond my comprehension. Why would we want to close an emergency response centre?

We could cancel the cuts to Canada's offshore oil, gas and energy research centre. We could reverse the cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response for Newfoundland and Labrador and B.C.

We could also require the Canadian Coast Guard to work with its U.S. counterparts and conduct a parallel study to examine the risks that additional supertanker traffic would cause in Canadian waters.

As I said, we are going to support this legislation because it is a baby step in the right direction, and I am hoping my colleagues will add many other baby steps.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always amusing to me when the NDP members make comments about the state of Canada's environment. They never provide any numbers. A recent UN report showed that Canada and Sweden were tied amongst all industrialized countries for the highest water quality in the world.

I would like to talk about economic policies, and the Province of Saskatchewan is very instructive. During the NDP years, the Saskatchewan economy was floundering. It limped along under the dead weight of toxic socialist policies. Then the Brad Wall government came in. There was a snap of the switch, and all of a sudden their economy boomed. Natural resources were being developed. Jobs were being created. Mines were being built. At the same time, the environment was protected.

Those are exactly the kinds of policies that the government is implementing. However, we know that the NDP thinks the natural resource industries are a Dutch disease.

I would like to ask my colleague why the NDP wants to see natural resource development stopped in Canada.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to thank my colleague for the almost Santa-like hyperbole that I just heard from him. I thank him for the question as well.

Let me make it very clear that the NDP is not opposed to development of our resources. We are not opposed.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I am very respectful when other people are speaking, and to have that kind of response when I put forward what I firmly believe in is not respectful or needed in this place. I would remind our colleagues that each and every one of us is elected to represent our constituents in this House. We should pay some respect to that.

We are for resource development. We are for resource development that is responsible and environmentally sustainable, for the simple reason that this planet has to be protected, for our sake and for the sake of our children.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, looking at Bill C-3 and the name of the bill, I am sure the government must pay some individuals to be creative in coming up with names. The name of this bill is the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. I give the government full credit for whoever it is in the background, maybe someone in the PMO's office, who is paid an excessive number of taxpayers' dollars, coming up with these creative names for legislation.

I am wondering if the member might provide some comment on the following. To what degree does the member believe the implementation of this piecemeal-type of legislation, which we do support going to the committee stage, is going to ensure the safeguarding of Canada's seas and skies, given that a more holistic approach of dealing with the issues at hand would likely have given more merit to the title?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me take us back to what happened during the budget.

The budget, which was thicker than many of the phone books for municipalities around this beautiful country, buried all kinds of stripping of environmental protections. There was much that was taken away, and then legislation is brought in which puts a little back in again. Then we are told, “Look, we are doing you a big favour. We are good people for doing this”.

All the government is doing is taking some parts of our agreement with the United Nations and putting it into legislation. There is nothing new in here. It is missing about 99% of what needs to be there to protect our environment. I am hoping the government will be open to those amendments at committee stage.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this debate hits home with me. A lot of people in northern Manitoba right now are very concerned about a proposed shipment of crude oil on the bay line and through the Port of Churchill. Anybody who knows Canada's north knows that the terrain is extremely challenging. In fact, there were two derailments in the last two weeks. Thankfully, they were railcars that did not contain crude oil. People know that if something like this were to happen, it would be devastating if the derailments led to oil spills. People do not want to see that either on land or in Hudson Bay and into the Arctic Ocean.

One of the other reasons why people are very concerned about this is because we know that under the current government there has been a record loss of environmental regulations, so the checks and balances simply are not in place. Canadians want those checks and balances in place to protect their communities and coastlines. I would like to hear from my colleague what she thinks about that.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague because she is an incredibly hard-working member of Parliament in the House. I am always amazed by her energy and the advocacy she puts forward for Manitoba and the north especially.

It is not rocket science. I think most people will get it. If people have even spilled a bit of oil in their kitchens, they know how hard it is to clean that up. Imagine hundreds and thousands of tonnes of oil in the ocean. Remember that the ocean has life in it, the ocean has waves and those waves lap against the coastline. Before we know it, the environment is degraded in a huge way. It is time for the government to revisit its omnibus budget from last year and to put right the wrong steps it took. Let us build a progressive environmental agenda.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since the Conservatives were elected, we have noticed a pattern involving environmental deregulation and a tendency to transfer those powers to businesses. It is a bit like having the fox guard the chicken coop. Businesses are self-regulating when it comes to environmental impacts. We saw this regarding infrastructures that cross waterways and in almost all areas that require environmental assessments.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks of this pattern on the part of the Conservatives.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very thoughtful question and my colleague summed it up. It is like we are going to go ahead despite the science, the evidence and everything we know and we are going to take away all the environmental protections, safeguards and regulations that existed. That is what the government believes, while not paying any heed to what processes and systems are in place.

The government's own audit of the Canadian Coast Guard's capacity to monitor and respond to a marine oil spill found a system that was outdated, disorganized and in need of a major overhaul. The national capacity for oil spill cleanup is slightly less than 6,900 tonnes due to storage limitations in all regions, the report said. Yet, as I said earlier, we are now looking at millions of litres of oil being put into the ocean and there is no plan on how we are going to tackle that. At the end of the day, neither industry nor the government has a huge commitment that has been evidenced. Once again, who will pay the price? Aside from the environmental price that ourselves, our children and our planet will pay, who will pay the price for the cleanup?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to what should have been a much more important bill than it is, because it should have had a lot more things in it. We have already advised what we think should also be in the bill, but it is part of a disturbing trend on the part of the government members to be all talk and very little action when it comes to the environment. When they do bring forth action on the environment, it is to reduce or eliminate environmental protections. One has only to go back to the last budget, and some of this budget, in which environmental protection was weakened or eviscerated entirely.

In the 2012 budget, we lost a lot of the environmental assessment process. The act was changed. Some of the act has yet to be defined. Unless for people on a reserve, we still do not know what the definition of “the environment” is because the ministry has yet to promulgate the regulations that come with that act.

We also have the loss of navigable waters protection, which has hurt thousands of rivers across the country that are no longer protected from oil spills for example.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Compton—Stanstead, Mr. Speaker.

This bill, ironically named “the aviation industry indemnity act” to make consequential amendments to other acts, would do essentially five things. It would allow some air carriers to be indemnified for flying in war-risk areas. It would allow for civilian aircraft accidents to be investigated in part by the military, which there may be some difficulties with in terms of how public that would be. It would amend the Marine Act to define what the effective date of the appointment of a director of a port authority would be. However, the two most important things that we have been talking mostly about in the House are the portions that deal with tanker traffic and oil transfer capacity in the deep-water ports of Canada.

We have some serious concerns on the part of the people who live along those coasts that they do not wish accidents to happen at all, period. The NDP believes that prevention and preventing accidents, not having them in the first place, is exactly what should be done. We are much better off if what we do is prevent the spill of oil into the oceans in the first place. However, I am afraid the government is not going in that direction. Its philosophy seems to be that it is okay to pollute as long as somebody has insurance, as long as somebody has some means of paying for the cleanup. Given that diluted bitumen has not yet been transported in great numbers and has not been fouling the ocean, we do not even know what the cleanup of that would look like if it should happen. Believe me, spills unfortunately will happen.

All of these systems come with a mean time before failure, MTBF, which means that everybody expects something to fail. When they fail at the same time, as was the case at Lac-Mégantic, an absolutely horrific disaster unfolds. There were several different failures that happened at the same time in Lac-Mégantic, and of course we all wish it had not happened. We all wish we had been more careful with our regulations with the rail industry. We wish we had been more careful with the size and type of railcars that we use to transport dangerous liquids. We all wish we had been more careful with the use of one person instead of two in those rail disaster prone areas. We all wish we had been more careful with the transportation of dangerous goods, but we were not. Therefore, we had a disaster that claimed 40-odd lives and basically incinerated the centre of a town. That should never have happen and it should never happen again.

The NDP is committed to seeing that we build into all of our systems for transporting dangerous goods, including on the open seas, outside of ports and on the west, east and north coasts, systems that prevent the spill of dangerous goods and prevent the disasters in the first place.

The Canadian Transportation Agency and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada have made recommendations to the government on a number of occasions about how to make the rail transportation of dangerous goods safer. Has the government acted on any of those recommendations? Not so far. We wish it would. We wish it would bring in positive train control. We wish it would eliminate the DOT-111A tank cars and replace them with tank cars that are actually capable of withstanding even a small collision, but the government sits on its hands and says and does nothing.

I am afraid that is part of what we are up against in the NDP. We are up against a government that is committed to extracting stuff out of the ground as quickly as it can and getting it to market as quickly as it can and hopes that nothing will happen. We cannot live with just hope. We have to build regulations and enforcement mechanisms that prevent things. When things do happen, as we all know they sometimes will, we need to have systems in place that find a way to clean them up. When we close, as the government has done, British Columbia's oil spill response centre and shut down the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station, those are two things that are designed to deal with this kind of thing in the first place. The government shuts them down, rather than builds them up.

If we are going to have more tanker traffic, if we are going to transport more oil and if we are going to suck more oil out of the sands of Alberta, which we apparently are as the government is determined, getting it from Alberta to the rest of Canada and the rest of the world has to be done safely. It cannot be done in rusty old pipelines. It cannot be done in tank cars and railcars that cannot survive a fender-bender. It cannot be done with double-hulled tankers on the ocean. Although the government would like to claim that it has introduced the notion of double-hulled tankers, they have in fact been around for more than 20 years and they, too, have spills. They, too, are subject to being punctured in a disaster at sea.

On May 25, 2010, the Malaysian registered Bunga Kelana collided with a bulk carrier. A 10 metre gash was torn in the side of the ship, which then spilled an estimated 2,500 tonnes, or 2.9 million litres, of crude oil into the sea. It was a double-hulled tanker. It did not prevent oil from spilling into the sea.

That is what we are up against. Some might argue that out in the middle of the ocean, if an accident were to happen, nobody is out there anyway. Actually, there is a lot of wildlife out there. There are fish and entire ecosystems that could not stand to have their systems fouled by oil.

To look at the pristine and beautiful coast of British Columbia and to suggest that we are going to allow giant tankers that carry two million tonnes of crude in their hulls along a very rocky and dangerous shore is just playing with danger. It is just inviting a disaster. We in the NDP believe that should be avoided. We believe disasters are meant to be avoided, not played with or messed with. That is our position on this. That is what we have been saying all along.

When we want to safely carry oil, my riding has a rail corridor through it that has hundreds and hundreds of those lightweight DOT-111A tanker cars going through it. When residents in my riding wrote to Transport Canada and asked the director of rail safety to come and talk to them, he said sure, that he would love to come and talk to them and tell them how safe the rail system was. That was until the minister nixed it. The minister actually interfered and muzzled the Transport Canada official. The minister said that he was not allowed to talk to people. There were some brochures and flyers, and that is all they would get. They were not allowed to be told face-to-face.

We in the NDP want a bill that actually prevents spills and measures taken by the government that actually prevent and stop them before they happen, rather than trying to find ways to ensure people are insured for when they do happen.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I would remind all hon. members that we have a five-minute questions and comments time. We will try to keep the questions and responses to no more than one minute.

We now move on to questions and comments. The hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as we have already said, the NDP will be supporting this bill. I understand the government will likely boast about having proposed provisions to clean up our coasts and so on. However, there is a problem here. Why bring forward a bill to ensure that those responsible pay for damages, while at the same time, make cuts to search and rescue centres and maritime search centres, which could help reduce the damages and impacts, thereby reducing the amount the government, businesses and citizens would have to pay?

I wonder if my colleague could comment on the parallelism of the government's interventions.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the whole polluter pay notion is actually an NDP notion. Because it has some credence, it has been adopted, but the government has not implemented it. That is one of the problems with the bill. It suggests that the liability for tanker carriers is somehow covered by a fund that has not been added to in almost 40 years. That fund has $400 million in it; a small oil spill might cost $3.5 billion to fix.

Who will be on the hook for that extra money? It is not going to be the polluter, the oil tank company; it will be the public. It will be just like the tar ponds in Sydney or like Giant Mine in the Northwest Territories: the government will end up picking up the cost.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, would my colleague like to comment on the extra dangers and risks that are involved with transporting diluted bitumen? We know that the Enbridge spill in Michigan on the Kalamazoo River has proven to stymie all sorts of normal methods of cleaning up oil spills and that it seems to have different properties from other kinds of oil.

Given that the whole question of tankers on the west coast is tied to the government trying to get diluted bitumen out to the west coast, I wonder if my colleague could comment.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the whole notion of what is in a tanker is something that needs to be absolutely crystal clear before anything is done about changing the rules by which these tankers operate. If in fact something different is going to be in that tanker that we do not know how to clean up, as is evidenced by what is going on in Kalamazoo, then hold the phone. Let us not put it out there. Let us not actually put anything in a tanker that we do not know how to clean up should it spill.

As is evidenced by the fact that there have been so many spills already, it is going to happen, so let us make sure we know what it is and how to clean it up before we put it in the tanker.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague.

How is it that the government is tabling bills like this one, bills that contain many often disparate components, when at the same time it has trouble disseminating information? We have just been discussing materials that are being transported without our really knowing their exact nature. How can we trust a government that refuses to disseminate information and that brings in seemingly disparate measures? How can we feel safe when all of these materials are being transported by land, sea or air?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just this week there was yet another derailment just west of Edmonton, so we have had two on the same line in two weeks. In this case, sulphur dioxide was being transported in one of the tank cars. Luckily, it did not rupture, but something is wrong with the system when we keep having these incidents involving dangerous goods being transported in a way that is not necessarily safe.

The railroads argue that the number of accidents is way down. The railroads have forgotten that the number of cars carrying dangerous goods has risen exponentially, and if only one of those bad things happens in the centre of a town—oops, it did, in Lac-Mégantic—then we have a disaster. We have to prevent those disasters.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would especially like to thank my colleagues who took part in this debate throughout the course of the day and who pointed out many times that this government is incapable of drafting simple bills. Bills can be complex but yet easy to understand. They can contain a series of measures that can be implemented so that the public feels safe about the hazardous goods being shipped across the country.

It seems challenging. As I said when I put a question to my colleague, the government has trouble disseminating real information. It often leaves the job of disclosing information to businesses and then we need to invoke the Access to Information Act. That can take weeks or months, when sometimes the information is needed immediately. In an era when information can travel at the speed of light thanks to social media or telecommunications, we must rely on procedures that can take weeks or months.

I experienced firsthand the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic and five months after the fact, we are still not sure what some of the railcars were carrying.

How then can we trust the government when it tables legislation respecting Canada’s seas and skies? How can we trust the government and feel safe? This government lacks credibility. The short title of this bill is: Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act. This bill will enact or amend five acts that cover different subjects. Again, we are being served up a kind of minibus bill. It is not an omnibus bill, but rather a minibus bill.

Well, we have no intention of climbing aboard this Conservative minibus. We will continue to fight for Canadians who want to feel safe by knowing what materials are being transported by rail and by sea. Canadians are concerned about the environment.

It is always the same story. Members of the scientific community are muzzled at a time when the public is deeply concerned about the environment. Many Canadians from coast to coast are worried about the environment. They are asking questions. Why is the Conservative government acting this way? Why is it not concerned about the environment?

It is not that we are opposed to the development of raw materials and natural resources, far from it, but we want to make sure some will be left for the decades and centuries to come. We want future generations, my children and my children's children, to have a healthy environment, clean air, fresh drinking water and fertile land for agriculture, whether it be in the Eastern Townships, Quebec or elsewhere in Canada.

When we see bills such as this one, questions come to mind. Is this government aware of and even vaguely concerned about the environment? I wonder. My fellow citizens ask me what planet the Conservatives are living on and what they are thinking.

Earlier, my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour quoted Commander Cousteau, but I could also cite Hubert Reeves and Albert Jacquard. In the 1980s, they raised environmental concerns based on the type of capitalism they were already seeing at the time. They said that the greatest threat was focusing on this damned economic growth regardless of its collateral effects.

The aim was always greater productivity regardless of the collateral effects of economic growth and productivity growth, always staggering and without concern for the environment. The more we consume, the more we keep on consuming.

Yes, in the 21^st century, we must still rely on fossil matter and fossil fuels, on development of the oil sands, development of shale gas and various other forms of fossil fuels. Development is one thing, and we can already see the Conservatives are not very concerned about the environment when it comes to developing certain sites. We want to consume more and we want more growth. That is all well and good, but we need more vehicles in order to do that. More hazardous materials are travelling on our railways, on the railway lines and highways.

Supertankers are starting to navigate our great St. Lawrence River, historically one of the most beautiful on the planet. They contain up to two million barrels of oil. A spill from one of them and we would completely forget the Exxon Valdez, whose impact on the biodiversity and drinking water of the Alaska coastline is still being felt 25 years later. It is incredible to think that we can develop raw materials and transport them anywhere without any concern for public safety, the safety of Canadians across the country.

Climate change is obvious. With respect to the airline industry, the insurance industry is the one that would like to dictate how "war risk" incidents are redefined. In agriculture, some insurance companies are already reluctant to see those kinds of crops in certain areas of the country since it is clear that the sector is at risk because of climate change. Unbelievable. It is sad to hear that. It is sad to realize the truth of that considering that we are a democratic institution that should discuss the real issues, like the environment, and yes, natural resource development.

In fact, that is currently the engine and lever in our economy. The NDP is very proud, just like many workers, the hundreds of thousands of workers in these industries and industries that depend on those large businesses. However, we must be mindful of our everyday actions and of the regulations we put in place because we are talking about our land, our drinking water supply and our air.

Back in the 1970s, we were trying to fight acid rain here because the automobile industry parked it in our driveway. We spent over 20 years fighting acid rain, and we were successful. In the past 10 years, the trend has reversed. However, under Liberal and Conservative rule, scientists and anyone who denounces these things have been muzzled. The government has even said that people who care about the environment, activists, are terrorists. I cannot believe people say that. It is unbelievable that people who want to protect their land, their seas, the sky and the air we breathe are treated like terrorists. It is as if some of the hon. members across the way are sometimes not getting enough oxygen.

It gives me great pleasure to do my work here. I understand that it is now time for me to answer my colleagues' questions.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for his speech, because he has given us so much ammunition. He has exposed the NDP for what it actually is. It is anti-free market, anti-trade, anti-growth, and anti-prosperity. We are going to have great fun reviewing this particular speech, so I want to thank him for exposing the NDP for what it actually is.

A number of years ago, an award-winning economist named Kuznets created something called the Kuznets curve. He compared a country's wealth with its environmental performance. I would like to inform my friend that as a country's wealth grows, environmental protection improves. Therefore, far from growth and prosperity, which he obviously despises, being a drag on the environment, a country getting rich is actually good for the environment. Why is he so against growth, prosperity, and economic development?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think that the member suffered from a lack of oxygen in the past few minutes, because I said specifically that we were in favour of developing natural resources, but that development had to be carried out in accordance with sound environmental practices. It must be carried out in co-operation with other groups, including groups that care about maintaining Canada’s prosperity. Our country has always been prosperous and we on this side of the House want our prosperity to continue. We must ensure that Canada continues to grow and also that there are jobs for everyone.

We will not be able to reach this goal if we destroy the social fabric. The social fabric is not just employment insurance and old-age pensions. It also involves the environment. It also involves helping the poor and our veterans.

In order to reach this goal, we need to have sound economic growth in which everyone takes part. Our unemployment rate is much higher than we think, because people are fed up with this government and they drop out of the system.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question follows up on the issue of pipelines. l know that many westerners are familiar with his leader's comments in regard to Dutch disease, which many people felt somewhat offended by.

I am interested in his thoughts on pipelines and the role pipelines could be playing in the extraction of resources, whether from the east or the west. What role does he feel pipelines should be playing?

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

Mr. Speaker, when a sector of economic activity is developed, all the components and all the related activity sectors must be put in place. If it is a pipeline, it will be a pipeline. However, it must always be developed in harmony with the environment—every time. If we do not consider the environment today, tomorrow there will be nothing left for future generations.

This is why the NDP will always defend the environment first. Without a sound environment, the kind of environment we need, there will be no future opportunity to develop anything in Canada or anywhere else on this planet. Everything must be done in harmony, and that means that we must work together, not separately.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his passionate speech. I work on a regular basis with my colleague from Compton—Stanstead, whose riding is next to mine. I know that he is always very concerned about the environment. In my view, it is one of the most important issues not only for my generation, but for everyone.

My colleague drew a parallel between the Lac-Mégantic tragedy and the transportation of goods by sea or rail by certain companies and which may be just as dangerous. This huge bill tackles this issue in part by requiring that companies pay compensation for damages, as in Lac-Mégantic. This municipality is currently having problems with the main company that caused the damage and that should help to pay for the reconstruction.

Does my colleague think that in the event of accidents it is up to the public to pay for reconstruction or should the companies shoulder their responsibilities?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague, the young member for Sherbrooke. Yes, we are working for this generation and for all future generations.

Private companies, as in the case of Lac-Mégantic, are a very good example. So far, we know that up to $60 million or $80 million will be spent on the site. However, the MM&A was insured for $25 million only. It is unbelievable. We have not finished digging and decontaminating the site.

We must demand more protection for our constituents. To do so, companies that ship such hazardous materials need to have much more extensive coverage, especially when they go through the downtown core of a number of communities across Canada.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing by time with the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard.

I am pleased to rise in the House 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.

As we can see, this bill has a long title. Bill C-3 is an omnibus bill that seeks to enact or amend five pieces of legislation. For the benefit of those watching us, I will try to summarize it. The first part implements the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act that has allowed the Department of Transport to compensate certain airlines for any war-risk losses, damages or liability. As a result, the government can cover the cost of damages related to unlawful actions, such as rebellions, attacks or armed conflicts. The goal is to ensure the continued operation of Canada's major aviation services in the event of seizure, regardless of whether stakeholders are able to obtain insurance at that time.

With respect to Part 2, 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.

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.

Part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, by imposing new requirements on operators of oil handling facilities, including the obligation to notify the minister of their operations, and submit their plans to the minister.

Part 5 thus introduces a new requirement whereby the operators of oil handling facilities must submit to the minister a response plan, civil and criminal liability for response organizations engaged in response operations, the application of new measures and monetary sanctions, with new investigative powers for Transport Canada investigators.

After initial review of this omnibus bill, and despite the rejection of our proposal to expand its scope, I offer my qualified support for Bill C-3 at second reading, while drawing attention to the Conservatives’ lack of credibility with respect to marine and aviation safety issues, and their contradictory policies.

As the saying goes, this Conservative government does not put its money where its mouth is. This has become the trademark operating mode of this Conservative government. This bill is an attempt to make up for its lack of credibility in the area of transport safety, particularly with respect to tanker traffic on the West Coast and growing opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline, first proposed in 2006.

This bill also implements 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 government is trying to make up for lost time, which is unfortunately difficult to do. In the fall of 2012, two large ships at sea off the West Coast were wrecked because of the current volume of traffic. The amendments proposed in this bill are not enough to prevent a catastrophic spill. The context of the bill puts the emphasis rather on administrative organization and a real failure to improve the environment. Mr. Ben West of ForestEthics Advocacy has said that we have moved ahead quickly in the wrong direction on this matter.

If the Conservative government was really concerned about safety, why did it not apply what was agreed to under the 2010 convention immediately? If Bill C-3 was really designed to promote greater safety with respect to oil tanker traffic, a Conservative government should have seized the opportunity to cancel the cuts in the most recent budgets and the shutdown of marine safety programs.

The NDP is committed to the polluter pays principle. We also want to strengthen the petroleum boards' capacity, which is currently zero, to deal with oil spills, as recommended by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. In addition we want the Coast Guard to be required to work with its U.S. counterparts and to conduct a parallel study to examine the risks resulting from additional tanker traffic in Canadian waters.

It is appalling that this government is constantly making cuts in structures that have proven effective in the past, or that it is closing them, just as traffic increases and the ships carrying oil and potentially hazardous substances get bigger.

I wonder what is the idea behind the bill before us. I moderately support the bill, but I would like it to go to committee and have experts speak out on parts 4 and 5.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her remarks.

Like me, she lives in the Montreal area, through which flows the magnificent St. Lawrence. Like me, she recognizes the economic importance of the river, a priceless resource that is also a source of drinking water for the entire Montreal area. The St. Lawrence also represents a major thoroughfare for shipping as an economic vector for the transport of goods.

I would like my colleague to go into greater detail about the importance of setting up machinery to ensure that goods are transported safely. I would also like her to talk about the importance of protecting our magnificent St. Lawrence River, its importance economically and as a tourist attraction, and the fact that it is also a source of drinking water.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her timely question. She is well aware that I represent a constituency on the South Shore of our beautiful and mighty St. Lawrence.

Since my election to this House, I have noticed that the Conservative government is unfortunately not concerned about the environment or climate change.

We must protect our ecosystem, and our fauna and flora. We have a duty to preserve the environment for future generations. I would like my children and grandchildren to have access to drinking water that is not contaminated. God knows what that is going to cost them, because future generations will inherit a heavy burden through the inaction of this Conservative government.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will merely repeat the same question I asked my colleague about the requirement for parallel action by the government.

It is all very well to pass a bill that makes the polluter pay. As I have said, this is the polluter-pay principle long advocated by the NDP. At the same time, however, Canadians and Canadian organizations are not given the necessary resources to clean things up.

They make people pay, but they are closing marine search and rescue centres. Agencies are not even given the resources to do the cleaning up. It will therefore mean a higher cost for Canadian consumers, for the citizens.

Why this parallelism between two measures taken by the government?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my young colleague for her timely question. I will answer it by saying that unfortunately, this Conservative government is not concerned about the environment or the costs that could result from its inaction or its approach.

The Conservatives act only after the fact. Prevention is not part of their thinking. After the event, it is necessary to legislate and think about compensating people, instead of working within a preventive framework, step by step.

Unfortunately, however, we cannot blame this Conservative government, because as far as it is concerned, science does not exist. The Conservatives govern exclusively on the basis of their ideology.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House as the representative of the people of LaSalle—Émard to debate 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—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. There is too much noise in the chamber. I would ask hon. members, if they wish to carry on conversations, to keep them really hushed or to go to their respective lobbies.

The hon. member for LaSalle—Émard.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you a little about where I come from. My father was born in southwestern Nova Scotia, in Pubnico, by the sea. My mother was born in L'Islet-sur-Mer, Quebec, near the St. Lawrence River. I was fortunate to grow up by the Bécancour River.

I am fortunate that my constituency borders the St. Lawrence River. My partner often asks me whether I am a cowboy or a sailor. He is more of a cowboy, but I tell him right off the bat that I am a sailor. For me, water is a vital resource. It is a source of life. Not only is water part of my personal story, but it is also part of the heritage of Canadians and that of first nations.

Lakes and rivers were the highways. They made communication and transportation possible. That is a good thing because the bill we are currently debating happens to deal with that reality, which has been part of our history for centuries. I would particularly like to focus on the parts of the bill that deal with marine transportation. I am referring to the freight and passenger transportation using our waterways, lakes and rivers. Must I remind you that our motto is From Sea to Sea? Now, it has even become From sea to sea to sea to reflect the reality of Canada's north, where another ocean borders our country.

Earlier, my colleague from Nova Scotia spoke at length about the many kilometres of coastline that we have in Canada. We are surrounded by oceans. We have lakes and rivers. There is no need for me to tell you how important all of this is.

We have come to realize that more and more materials are being shipped today on our waterways. And not just any kind of materials. Tanker traffic tripled between 2005 and 2010 and is set to triple again by 2016. Pipeline expansion projects would increase crude oil shipments from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day. This represents a challenge of sorts for Canada. I for one believe that we can turn this challenge into an opportunity.

I served as opposition science and technology and industry critic. Along with the challenges associated with the increase in shipments of materials, I see opportunities for Canada to become a leader in protecting the waterways that surround this country. We could also use our know-how to create jobs that would benefit science and technology, including oceans sciences and the fields of shipping logistics and shipbuilding engineering. This has been mentioned. The risk of accidents could thus truly be minimized.

Action needs to be taken in the area of prevention. We cannot act after the fact because we know that these disasters wreak havoc on fragile ecosystems and that the damage is sometimes irreversible. I am referring in particular to the ecosystems found primarily in Canada’s North.

So then, this is an excellent opportunity for us to talk about environmental protection.

As I said before—and I will say it again—protecting the environment does not conflict with responsible economic development. It provides opportunities for job creation, wealth creation and knowledge development for Canadians.

Still, the bill puts things in place. The NDP will support the bill because it contains things that ensure that we are moving in the right direction. The bill provides the following: intensification of tanker inspections, increased air surveillance to monitor maritime traffic and detect oil spills, a review of the requirements that apply to escort tugs, broadened research on oil products, and the list goes on.

This is exactly the direction I was talking about. In other words, we need to know the environments these goods will pass through, but we also need to have good knowledge of the goods themselves. In addition, we need to have plans in place in case of an emergency or a disaster.

Several steps are necessary to develop a coherent system and show that we are really serious about protecting the environment and about the transportation of petroleum products, in this case. This is important because we really have to consider the increase in the transportation of these goods.

Transportation of hazardous materials by rail has also increased. The tragedy this summer made us realize that Canada was ill-prepared and that we were then obliged to clean up the mess. Did we do it the best way possible? Were we prepared to do it? Did we really handle it well?

If Canada purports to reclaim Canadian sovereignty in Canada's far north and is really serious about it, we have to have fully studied the environment, we have to have the ships and inspections required to protect the environment, but above all, we have to have a rock-solid plan for what to do in case of a disaster. It is really important to allocate the resources required so that the measures are in place when there is significant marine transportation of petroleum products.

This bill is a step in the right direction. However, Canada needs to be really serious about allocating resources so that we can study or continue to study these fragile ecosystems in our oceans and drainage basins. We must also use the expertise of Canadians in science and technology and ocean sciences so that our expertise can be spread internationally.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for LaSalle—Émard for her speech and for having mentioned growing up near the Bécancour River. I know she is very interested in environmental issues.

Earlier, I asked my colleague about whether or not companies should be better equipped and have the highest possible level of liability in case of very serious accidents that can impact our ecosystem for decades and centuries to come.

Should the companies that deal with the transportation of hazardous materials be responsible for their actions in case of an accident? Should they have sufficient insurance to pay for cleanup costs? At present, unfortunately, it is the public that has to foot the bill because companies are not adequately covered. What does she—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for LaSalle—Émard.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for raising this important issue. Responsibility for this matter should rest with the companies involved in developing resources and transporting them on Canadian waterways.

Indeed, these companies should be held accountable; it is the honourable thing to do. As the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development pointed out, protecting the environment makes good business sense. Companies that behave ethically and responsibly and treat our environment as a valued asset would receive social recognition for their efforts.

Our governments should also shoulder their share of responsibility. They need to implement strict inspection systems. They need to ensure that companies, which are always guided by profit whether we like it or not, implement emergency preparedness plans. Any responsible governments should see to this.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank my colleague from LaSalle—Émard for her excellent speech and for her participation in this debate.

I represent a riding with several coasts: the coast of James Bay, the coast of Hudson Bay and the coast of Ungava Bay. People understand the environmental, social, economic and historical importance of the St. Lawrence River. This waterway is not only beautiful; it is also historically important. In fact, we met more than 400 years ago along its shores, did we not?

I would like my colleague to tell me how she interprets this. I have a hard time understanding how the government can miss such a good opportunity to do things properly and express a broad vision that is desperately lacking from this bill.

Does she feel that the government is missing the boat?

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

Mr. Speaker, I really like the expression “to miss the boat”. In the 21st century, we must understand that the economy is not an end onto itself.

The Conservatives believe that the economy is an end onto itself. But it is not. The economy provides a means for living in society and sharing wealth. The economy has several pillars, including social acceptance. We cannot run rough shod over communities, continue as though it was business as usual and ignore a lot of things.

We have to have a connection with communities, show social acceptance and protect the environment. Only at that point do we have a sustainable economy. However, for the Conservatives, the economy is an end onto itself. Everything else does not matter. We have to change this view and think of the economy as a means for living in a society. Protecting the environment is one condition for living in a society.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to address Bill C-3. It is an interesting bill, to say the least.

I have some opening remarks that I would like to get on the record regarding what I think are some interesting points.

First, it is important to note that here we are in day two of debate, and I give credit to the government as it has not yet introduced time allocation. I think that is an encouraging thing. I hope that I do not precipitate the government bringing in time allocation, but I think it is important to recognize that it has not.

The other interesting thought I want to share with the House is in regard to the name of the bill. It is an interesting name, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. If one has listened to a lot of the debate that has taken place today, there has been a great deal of discussion about our environment and oil, and the importance of those two issues. I plan on adding some comment on that.

Suffice it to say that I believe there is someone somewhere within the Prime Minister's Office, who I suspect gets paid quite well with tax dollars, whose job it is to come up with creative names for the legislation that comes before the House of Commons. I have had the opportunity to briefly go through the bill and I never would have thought of it as being the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. To me, that is not necessarily the most appropriate name.

When I think of the bill, after having gone through it somewhat briefly, a lot of the changes are of a very technical nature. In fact, members will find more substantial changes to legislation affecting our waterways or our environment in budget legislation. We have had three huge budget bills that contained, for example, changes for our waterways. Hundreds, if not thousands, of waterways were profoundly affected by using the back door of a budget bill to make significant changes to our waterway and environmental legislation.

Of course, we had a bill within the budget bill, Bill C-38, which was passed, that I thought was quite an interesting change. I think very few people picked up on it, but it was a fairly significant change. In essence, it allowed the cabinet to get more politically involved in pipeline projects by getting the final say. As opposed to allowing our National Energy Board to review and base decisions on science and the best interests of the environment, we had legislation, again brought through under the pretense of a budget implementation bill, that made quite a significant change in allowing the cabinet to make the decision. The bill took the decision out of the regulatory regime and ultimately it now rests with the cabinet. Again, this was something that was done in a budget bill.

Having said that, I want to respond to a lot of the comments made by members of the New Democratic Party particularly, and to a certain extent members from the Conservative Party, that I found quite interesting on the whole issue of oil and the impact oil has on our environment. This has been widely covered in the discussions. The transportation of oil is of national interest. It is not something that Canadians take lightly. Indeed, it is a very serious issue that deserves a great deal of debate inside the House.

It has been interesting to follow some of the debate on this very important issue. Oil is a natural resource from which all of us have benefited immensely. Every Canadian from coast to coast to coast has benefited from Canada's ability to export oil. It is what has enabled us to pay for much of what we have today. It has improved the quality of every Canadian's lifestyle. It is encouraging when we see developments where we have capitalized on this wonderful natural resource, whether in Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Saskatchewan.

It is also important that we behave responsibly with respect to our environment and the way we transport that oil, whether by train, pipeline, or ship. There are areas we can improve upon.

I have been following the debate on the Keystone issue, as have many Canadians. What I like about Keystone is that it has shown the different types of leadership for each political party. All three leaders have gone to the United States to deal with the transportation of oil via pipelines.

On the one hand, the leader of the New Democratic Party, a while back, went to the U.S. and dumped all over Canada, and to a certain degree, our natural resources. I do not think it went well.

The leader of the Liberal Party went to Washington and talked about the benefits of Keystone for both Canada and the U.S., with an emphasis on the benefits to Canada and how important it is that we also pay attention to our environment.

The Prime Minister, bypassed Washington and flew to New York. In New York, his statement was that the government would not accept no for an answer. I suspect that this profound statement by the Prime Minister in New York did not keep President Obama up late at night. Given the importance of Keystone to all the stakeholders, I believe that the Prime Minister should have gone to Washington, discussed it in a conciliatory fashion, negotiated in good faith, lobbied, and shown concern for the environment.

Pipelines are important for transporting oil. If it were not for the pipelines, the amount of train traffic would increase substantially. We are all aware of the rail lines and the number of accidents that have occurred.

We need to do a lot more in terms of rail line safety and ensuring that communities, where there is a high density of population, or even a low-density population, or a pristine environment, whether it is lakes or rivers, are being protected. We could do a whole lot more in ensuring a secure environment in the transportation of oil in our pipelines and on our trains.

When we look at the specifics of Bill C-3 in terms of what it would do, and when we reflect on what I have stated, I am suggesting that once it is all said and done, we could have done a whole lot more in taking that—and I often use these words—holistic approach. I do believe that it is an applicable term for this piece of legislation. I believe we could have taken a larger holistic approach in dealing with these issues, as opposed to it being done in a piecemeal fashion.

In order to illustrate that, I thought I would highlight specifically what is inside the legislation. This way the House will get a better understanding of why I am suggesting it should have been a stronger holistic approach.

In essence, the bill is broken into four different parts. Part one deals with the minister undertaking to indemnify all aviation industry participants. This gets back to the whole issue of terrorism and war risks. The issue of insurance has become a very hot issue in what role the government should and could be playing. This is something that has been deemed necessary. From what I understand, the government in the past has attempted to bring it in, and it has incorporated it into this bill. I suspect the genesis of the idea might be the whole 9/11 issue and the cost that followed 9/11 in terms of insurance. There is some benefit in acknowledging that part one is an important part of the legislation.

We would go on then to part two. I thought part two was interesting. It mentions that new powers, comparable to the powers exercised by the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board, are being given to the Canadian Forces air worthiness investigation authority to enable it to investigate military-civilian occurrences. Again, this is something that is hard to argue against. Based on my understanding and what has been provided to me, this is a movement in the right direction.

I was a member of the Canadian Forces for a few years. The area I was posted to was squad 435 search and rescue, in air traffic control in Edmonton. I had the opportunity to meet with a number of pilots, navigating officers, radar officers and aircraft professionals, and I can tell the House that there is a high degree of incredible individuals who have a level of expertise that should and could be tapped into. I would think there is some merit in what is being proposed here, and to that extent, there is merit for part two.

We then get into an area in which there has been a great deal of discussion today. That is the area I was referring to on the Canada Marine Act. In relation to the effective date of the appointment of a director of a port authority, we need to recognize we have 18 Canadian port authorities that are operating in Canada.

We are seeing a little more clarity in the appointment process in relation to the effective date of an appointment for the director. There is some merit there. When I say “merit”, it does not necessarily mean it absolutely, definitely should happen; I mean that there is benefit in allowing the bill to go to committee, and in principle I am supporting that aspect of it.

Part 4 is a very important aspect of the bill, and I suspect it is one of the reasons we are getting so much discussion on it. Hopefully I will be able to get through reading this part, because it is important.

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, in particular a couple of clauses.

The MLA provides for the liability of ships' owners and operators for damage caused by pollutants. In particular, it implements in Canada the liability scheme established by the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage; the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage of 2001, which is known as the bunker convention; and the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, 1992, and in 2003, the protocol to that convention, the acronym being the IOPCF convention, creating the international compensation fund and a supplementary fund to compensate for oil pollution damage covered by the CCL and the bunker convention.

That, in my mind, emphasizes just how important it is for us to look at the whole issue of oil transportation. That is the reason I spent some time talking about the ways in which we transport oil. We have a lot of control here in Canada through our rail lines. We have control through our pipelines to properly regulate and protect. Where it becomes more challenging is once we get to our oceans and our ports.

It can be very difficult to ensure that we are providing the type of diligence that is important and providing the resources that are necessary for enforcement. We talk about what takes place within the line of responsibility, I believe 200 miles from our coastline, and we anticipate that it will be extended. We have to have an insurance scheme in place, which could lead to a wide variety of revenue sources to support it, but we have to have compensation sufficient to clean up the oil spills that will take place.

There are vast amounts of oil in our oceans today, and the question is what is actually being done to clean up that oil. Not only do we have a responsibility for Canada and our shorelines in that 200-mile zone, but I would argue that we can go beyond that. That is why it is important as a nation that we should be leading some dialogue on how we can have an impact on cleaning up oil spills throughout the world, whether it is the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or any other international body of water where the restrictions are not as strong. The need is still there, and the Canadian public want and desire strong leadership on this issue.

That is one of the reasons I believe the government could have come up with more substantial legislation to deal with the many concerns that Canadians have on this very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to share a few thoughts and words.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our hon. colleague from Winnipeg North mentioned earlier that he spent some time in the Canadian Armed Forces. Therefore, I thought I would ask him his opinion on one aspect of Bill C-3 that we in the NDP think should be looked at carefully in committee.

In part 2, under section 19, it appears that the military is now being given the traditional Transportation Safety Board investigative powers in the event of an aviation accident involving the military. If we assume that might involve a military-civilian incident, the question then becomes whether the rules that the TSB used to have to follow, including making its report public, would apply to this new military process. At the moment it appears the military only has to report to the minister of defence.

Therefore, given his experience and interest in this kind of issue, does my colleague from Winnipeg North think we should make sure that reports of any incidents involving military and civilian aircraft are made public in the fashion of the TSB?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is merit to what the member is ultimately advocating. My biggest concern in regard to the Canadian Forces is to recognize the level of expertise they can bring to the table. There is some merit in us moving forward and taking advantage of that level of expertise in a more formal process. To what degree should they be leading investigations on military and civilian incidents that occur? That is something I would feel more comfortable with the Liberal Party critic addressing.

There is no doubt that we support the bill in principle in terms of sending it to committee. I suspect that there is a need for us to look at getting some answers to some specific questions, such as the member has just posed, and looking at ways in which we could improve the bill by bringing forward amendments that would make it a stronger and better piece of legislation.

I am not overly optimistic, based on the past, that the government would accept amendments. However, I am a guy that looks at a glass as being half full, so hopefully we will see some positive—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, the concern that my colleague from Winnipeg North just expressed is very important and it worries me. The government has a record of not really allowing amendments to occur at committee. My colleague mentioned that the legislation affects the transport of Canadian energy to market. It seems to me that because of that we should do a very careful job with the legislation.

Would my hon. colleague agree with me that it is especially important, because of that fact, that the government seriously consider amendments at committee on Bill C-3?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do share the concerns the member for Kingston and the Islands has expressed. It is important for us to recognize, as the member highlighted, that this is the way we transport a vital natural resource. Canadians have a vested interest in seeing that we are as successful as possible in protecting our environment and being able to use that natural resource to the best of our ability.

The legislation could be doing so much more. It does fall short. Using amendments to improve the quality of the legislation would be wonderful to see. We could only hope that the government would be receptive to those amendments because I am sure there is going to be a high level of interest in proposing amendments once that time comes.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Winnipeg North will have five minutes remaining in the period for questions and comments when the House next resumes debate on the question that is before the House.

The House resumed from November 4 consideration of the motion that Bill C-3, an act to enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, to amend the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address a bill that has several significant parts, a bill the official opposition will be supporting to study at committee. It has the electrifying title of 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. While that might not seem all that gripping a title, the actual impacts and effects of the bill are significant and do mean something, particularly to the people I represent in northwestern British Columbia. Very specifically, these are the aspects around oil tanker traffic.

In northern British Columbia, a company out of Calgary called Enbridge is proposing the northern gateway pipeline. It is a pipeline that would stretch 1,100 kilometres from Alberta to B.C.'s coast at Kitimat. The company then proposes to put it into supertankers that would run the inside passage out Douglas Channel, make three hairpin turns on their way out to the open ocean, and then go on to, one presumes, China and the rest of Asia.

I specifically note China in this proposal, simply because the Chinese government has funded a large sum of the $100 million Enbridge has been using to promote its project. It is not an equity stake. It is just money given by the state-owned oil enterprise in China to promote a Canadian pipeline project. One wonders what the motivations are for companies, especially those state-owned by the Chinese government, to offer it up. It may be an administration that some admire, but others of us have some questions for it.

It seems to me that the aspect of this project that is worrisome to many of the people I represent, and this has been going on for a number of years, is the complete lack of social licence the company has been able to attain. That is, in part, aided, if I may use that term for such a scenario, by the Minister of Natural Resources, who has suggested that anyone who has concerns or questions about this project must be, in his words, a radical and a foreign-funded enemy of the state.

For a federal minister and a government to use such heated, overblown rhetoric, such offensive and abusive language, is obviously a desperate attempt to try to push a project that has failed time and time again to gain the social licence of the people who are along the route. It demonstrates a government that simply sees the Canadians who live along the proposed pipeline route, or who may be impacted by an oil spill from the supertankers implicated by the project, as simply in the way. They are seen not as citizens, not as people in the communities taking the most risk, but as a bothersome quotient for the government to simply bully and have removed.

Bill C-3 has some aspects that we, in the small measures that are made here, support. They deal particularly with liability for oil spills. The liability regime in Canada to this point has been incredibly weak. It is much weaker than the regime that exists in the United States and certainly is dramatically weaker than that which exists in Europe and many of our other trading partners.

If we look at the oil tanker accidents around the world, proving causal liability is one of the more difficult levels to attain in a court of law. Even when that is done, under Canadian law as it exists right now, the amount of damages the company is on the hook for is minimal.

The Canadian taxpayer is meant to pay the rest, and not just for the costs incurred in the actual emergency in deploying of the coast guard and other emergency services. For the eventual damages that would be awarded or given to the public, the companies are still restricted in their liability exposure. Who picks up the rest of the damages for the impact on fishing communities and other economies that are trying to exist? Never mind just the economic impact. There are the straight up environmental impacts. We see even in this bill an extension of the liability, but certainly nothing that would move toward full responsibility.

The companies themselves, Enbridge and others, which ship oil, have declared, perhaps to their credit, that they cannot guarantee that there will not be spills. The reason they cannot is that they have spilled so many times in the past.

There was a relatively recent incident in Michigan, near where your home riding is, Mr. Speaker, in Kalamazoo River, in which bitumen being shipped by Enbridge leaked out of a pipe. The Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, which conducted the review afterward, showed that the company was “the Keystone Kops”. The spill had been noted and the emergency lights went off in Calgary. They were shut down on three separate occasions while the spill into this river continued to exist. It is a relatively small river, by British Columbia standards, and it is very slow-moving and warm, conditions that would be more ideal, if there is such a thing in terms of cleaning up an oil spill. Still, the company desperately struggled to attain anything close to a cleanup.

We now know from British Columbia's assessment and from the Auditor General of Canada, concerning the ability to clean up oil in the marine environment, that success would be deemed somewhere around the 5% rate. If there were a major oil spill, the company's expectations and those of the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia for the amount of oil that would actually be recovered would be about 5% at best, because of the conditions that exist on B.C.'s north coast. It is recognized by anyone who has ever lived there or visited that we have a somewhat precarious set of environments in which it is difficult to gather back oil, particularly bitumen, which is the notion of many of the projects that the Conservative government is promoting.

This is the government's Wild West energy plan: to ship as much raw bitumen and material out of the oil sands as is humanly possible, thereby forgoing all of the economic benefits that would come with actually upgrading the oil, at least to a state where it would look like a more conventional oil that we have traditionally seen, and then upgrading again and refining that oil into products that consumers would actually use. These would be gas, diesel, and the rest of the products that come out of a refinery.

The challenge for us is that, on the environmental front, the Conservative government has been an obvious failure. The meetings going on right now in Poland with respect to climate change have Canada ahead of such environmental luminaries as Saudi Arabia, Iran and a third country, which escapes me. We are down in the pariah list when it comes to dealing with the impacts of carbon. There are very few behind us, and there are many, much poorer, countries ahead of us that are doing more to deal with climate change than the Conservative government has.

The government has completely abandoned even its own weakened targets, which is amazing. The Prime Minister's Office has to prepare better speaking notes for the new Minister of the Environment because on her way to Poland to these UN climate talks, she said that Canada is a leading voice for climate change and that it is doing its job. However, Environment Canada now says we will miss by a mile even the weak and very watered down targets that the government has set for Canada. We will be way above even those weak commitments we made to the global community.

With the increase in intensity of storms and natural disasters that are hitting, we know that these costs are real. We know the impacts of climate change that were predicted by climate scientists. We have said time and time again that we would see more dangerous impacts and more dangerous effects. We have yet to properly deal with and realize the impacts of a rising sea in the world and the impacts on those coastal communities on the Vancouver Lower Mainland, on our east coast and in the far north.

We know that these impacts are real and we know that these impacts are expensive. These impacts are destabilizing, and we have a government that refuses to even follow its own weak targets and projections. It then says to the industry and to the broader Canadian public that Canada is doing its part. That is hogwash. The government knows it. No one believes its spin. The fact is that it is more dangerous than just the typical lies and half truths we get from government, because this one has real generational impact.

On this particular bill, the government has gone to some half measures. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster attempted to expand the scope, because if we want to deal with certainty and the public interest when it comes to shipping oil or raw bitumen through tankers, we need to deal with the full scale of interests, bring liability rates up to the proper level that would be even a medium global standard and deal with the impacts of the cuts that the same government has made to our ability to deal with oil spills: the cuts to the Canadian Coast Guard; the shutting down of the Kitsilano base; the shutting down of the oil spill response centre in British Columbia.

Here is an ironic moment. We have a government that is out shelling for industry, pushing every pipeline it can find and saying we are going to have the best standards in the world, yet at the same time presenting a budget that we vote against, which shuts down the B.C. oil spill response centre, the very thing that is meant to reassure the public in the event of an accident, which is somewhat inevitable in the oil industry. The very centre that is charged with dealing with an oil spill response is the very centre that these guys thought they should shut down, and then say to the public, “Never mind, never worry”. It is a fact that the public paid attention to.

There was the shutting down of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base, one of the busiest in the country, thereby increasing dramatically the response times for people in distress on the water when accidents occur. We have very heavy traffic around Vancouver, not just with tankers and cargo ships but with ferries and personal pleasure craft. However, with an increasingly busy marine environment, these guys said that shutting down the Coast Guard base was a good idea. Meanwhile, they have billions and billions to spend on pet projects and tax incentives, which do not work, for companies that are already in the massive profit range, so taken in full, it is no wonder that Canadians, particularly British Columbians, have lost complete faith in the current government's intention or its ability to deal with the impacts of heavy industry development.

The Conservatives have proposed their pipelines and they insult any Canadian who happens to have questions or concerns, which I think are natural. As Canadians, it is not only our right but our duty to hold government to account, which is what New Democrats do here as the official opposition to the government each and every day.

When we talk about defending our coasts, we are actually talking about defending Canadian values, such as the right to speech without being bullied by government and ministers of the crown and the right of first nation people to be duly consulted and accommodated, but the Conservative government treats that as an afterthought. When did constitutional requirements become an afterthought for the federal government of Canada?

First nations have had to go to court time and time again. There are various cases, many of them emanating from the first nations of northern British Columbia, such as the Haida case, the Delgamuukw case with the Wet’suwet’en and the Gitksan and many other cases that followed, to prove what we all know: first nations have rights and title to the land.

However, when it comes to the tanker traffic and the pipelines that are proposed, first nations are treated as if they were some sort of “special interest group”, as the current government calls them. They are not a special interest group. They are a group that is at the heart of this conversation, but they are treated with such disrespect.

The other day, I asked a first nation leader what specific things the federal government could do to help first nation communities across Canada. He asked me to please ask the Conservatives to stop suing them, because it is costing them millions upon millions of dollars in litigation to prove something that has been proven time and time again: that there is a duty owed to the first nations by the federal government to consult and accommodate. That is not up for debate. It is not up for some token that can be traded back and forth.

The government whip, who represents Vancouver Island North and deals with many first nations across Vancouver Island, knows that these responsibilities cannot simply be dismissed; or because there is some industrial imperative or some oil lobby that the government is cozying up to, it pushes those rights and titles out of the way. That is a fallacy and, ironically enough, it creates an enormous amount of uncertainty for the oil and gas sector, the industry to which the government spends so much of its time pandering.

The same Conservative government has sowed the seeds of doubt with the Canadian public by stripping away basic environmental protections, like the Navigable Waters Protection Act. The Environmental Assessment Act has been weakened. Previously, the federal government enacted somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 environmental assessments a year. The Auditor General of Canada now tells us that those assessments will be reduced down to between 12 and 15 per year, under the Conservative government's stripping away of protections.

The Fisheries Act has been completely gutted. It was one of our foundational acts to protect what was considered an important economic generator for the country, as this habitat can be impacted by industrial development. The fish habitat was important to maintain our fisheries. There was no more important act in the Canadian law and jurisprudence, because it had been relied upon time and time again to hold industry to some level of account and make sure the projects it built did not leave massive legacies.

Last year, as my friend for Yukon would know, we Canadian taxpayers spent somewhere in the order of $150 million to clean up old abandoned orphaned mines that were leaking into the environment. That was $150 million just last year for no noticeable economic benefit. We had legislation in place at the time those mines were built, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, that did not properly protect the environment; so we have learned that if we have the wrong guidelines for industry, most of industry will attempt to hold things to a higher standard than the government calls for, but some will not. Some will cut corners.

If a government allows them to do it, as the government does, the legacies will last for generations to come. The acid leaching of some of these mines is incredibly damaging to things we care about, like drinking water, like fisheries. We have a government that refuses to remember the lessons that were so hard learned and continue to be so expensive.

We come to this bill, Bill C-3, which is a small attempt of the government. We can see how much interest the government has in speaking to this bill. In the last Parliament, before the government killed the legislation, it had one speaker at second reading and made a few passing comments, and that was it. This is supposed to be a priority for the government. It makes no argument, no support for the legislation.

I do not know if there are going to be government speakers today. I look forward to hearing what Conservatives actually think and maybe to hearing it address some of the concerns of Canadians that exist regarding the legislation: that the scope is so narrow that it does not expand a full and proper liability; that it does not address all the other aspects of shipping oil by water, which exist and are realities and create uncertainty for industry.

If the public does not have confidence in the process, which it does not with the government running the show, then how will industry gain that social licence it so desperately needs, to actually create those jobs that the government is so keen to talk about?

We are all for promoting the resource sector. We have to do it under guidelines that promote the very best, not encourage the very worst. We see the government, time and time again, stripping away environmental protections, dismissing first nations' obligations, not holding and creating proper liability regimes; so that this creates no certainty for industry. This creates no confidence among the public.

Coming from a resource part of the world, I deal with many industries, which seek this social licence and community support for their projects. Their investors seek that same support. This has bottom-line impacts. Ask Enbridge how it is going, with the fake ads about shipping oil and how incredibly safe it is, when we know the facts are otherwise. The Conservatives simply cannot outspend the public will or cover over a bunch of lies with a bunch of ads in between hockey games and pretend that will somehow gain the social licence and support.

Enbridge has a partner in the government, which continually lowers the bar, waters down what few regulations we have to protect the environment, and then pretends we still have world-class standards. How can that be true? The government members will repeat it today, if they bother to speak at all, and say we have world-class standards. If they just spent the last six or seven years destroying aspects of environmental legislation, watering down and gutting the Fisheries Act, cutting Coast Guard funding, cutting funding to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, removing things and protections that Canadians relied upon, they still cannot have world-class, leading standards. That is simply not true.

Conservatives cannot have it both ways. If they cut all those protections for Canadians, then clearly they have not maintained any sense of having the basic understanding of what it is to develop industry.

Industry needs a couple of things. It needs a fair set of rules. It needs consistent application of those rules. It needs an investment climate that allows for investors to feel confidence in these major investments, because none of these projects that are entertained in this kind of bill are small. They start at a few billion dollars and go up from there, and they last a certain amount of time.

The Enbridge northern gateway predicts it would be around for 45 or 50 years, give or take. Under that regime, it would also have about 12,000 supertanker sailings through some of the more treacherous waters known around the world. There would be 12,000 sailings with weak protection and minimal ability to clean up in the event of a spill, as has been reported by the federal Auditor General and has been reported by a study by the British Columbia government. These are not the wild-eyed, wide-eyed environmentalists that Conservatives always like to point at.

We know for a fact that, time and time again, the government in its pandering to one small interest group, the oil sector, has actually weakened the argument for the oil sector's ability to actually promote projects. It has weakened the ability of industry to have the confidence of the Canadian public, which it needs to build the projects it wishes to build.

Why not take a step back for a moment and listen to some of the critics rather than trying to insult and bully them? Why not step back for a moment and develop a national strategy for our energy, as the Premier of Alberta and many other premiers across the country have asked for?

Industry has asked for it and the Canadian public has asked for it, yet the government sits on its hands and pretends that photo ops and spin are going to get the job done, along with bills that go only halfway. New Democrats will support the bill and try to improve the bill. We will allow Parliament to do its work and hear from witnesses and experts who know a lot more about this than anybody sitting over there.

Again, the government has a missed opportunity. It could do so much more both for industry and the public, and a failure on the government's part will do nothing for the Canadian economy and certainly nothing for the Canadian environment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his comments and well-thought-out proposal.

He talked about the Enbridge proposal and the government's gutting of environmental protections. He mentioned the Fisheries Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and the Navigable Waters Protection Act, to cite a few. He talked about the government shutting down the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, the oil spill response centre, and others.

Let me get this straight. The government wants to increase marine traffic in the form of huge oil tankers on our west coast, and at the same time it is weakening marine safety by closing down Coast Guard stations, et cetera, as my colleague pointed out. Therefore, my question is this: what are the jobs that will be lost with a weakened marine safety support system?

He touched on the salmon economy and other impacts to first nation culture and tourism. What are some of the impacts of going forward with a weakened environmental safety regime and marine safety regime in terms of economic losses on the west coast?

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

Mr. Speaker, we know, particularly in the north, that boom economies are also bust economies, and that if we put all our eggs in one basket while times are good, they can be very good, but when they go bad, because we only have one leg to stand on, they go bad quickly. Obviously, creating a diversified economy with diversified markets is absolutely essential to Canada's growth and prosperity.

With reference to the fishing community, just the wild salmon economy in the northwest is a $150 million per year sustainable economy. It can continue forever if it is done right. The fishing economy across British Columbia is more than $1 billion. Tourism on Canada's west coast is even more than that. With those two economies in the mix, weakened environmental assessments and weaker protection in the event of oil spills will put all of that at risk to ship 500,000 barrels of raw bitumen a day out of Alberta to China.

One would ask why we are shipping it out raw. We have experience in another important economy in British Columbia, the lumber industry, in which the provincial government continually pushes for export of raw logs, thereby leaving so much economic opportunity on the table. A mill was just lost in Houston, B.C., with 225 workers, in part because of fundamental government mismanagement and the promotion of exporting raw logs to China.

Now we are moving it up the scale and saying we should do the same thing with oil. The only difference is that the stakes are even higher. The amounts of money we are talking about are even higher when we forgo the benefits of upgrading it to conventional oil and then refining it even higher. Why do we not give preferential treatment to companies that actually invest in the technology to add value to our resources?

The Conservatives have nothing to say about this. They say their invisible hand is always magical and always correct. If China wants to fund the promotion of an oil pipeline like this and buy Nexen, which is supplying most of the oil for the gateway, and if China owns the source of the oil, promotes it, maybe ends up owning most of the pipeline in this project, and is also the consumer of this project, this presents no cautionary tale to the government whatsoever.

At what point does it stop becoming a Canadian project? It is when somebody else owns it.

Those resources that are our endowment, our heritage, and our inheritance are forgone by this approach, meanwhile threatening other economies that we know are sustainable, such as the tourism and fishing sectors. All the while, these guys are racing to approve pipelines, racing over the interests of the public, racing over the concerns of science, which the Conservatives refuse to listen to, and becoming international pariahs on the climate change front.

This is a bad cocktail mix and a bad formula. It is bad for the economy and increasingly bad for our environment.

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

Mr. Speaker, the NDP asked that the scope of Bill C-3 be broadened by referring it to committee before second reading so that the committee could study the possibility of including a full range of measures to protect Canada's coastlines.

Can the member tell us why the Conservatives rejected our proposal to broaden the scope of this bill?

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

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

The Conservatives reject nearly every idea that is not their own. It is odd, because Parliament is supposed to examine bills to make improvements. However, the Conservatives introduce massive omnibus bills and always claim that they are perfect. This one here is a small omnibus bill.

There are many examples of times when the Conservatives refused to improve bills and listen to experts and witnesses. Then, after a few years, it became clear that these bills were complete disasters, but the cases had gone to court. That is a problem, because it costs Canadians a lot of money.

I think it is a problem when the government outright rejects ideas from the opposition and the New Democrats. The government is being arrogant and does not operate very well. That is this Prime Minister's attitude. He always thinks he is the smartest person in the House and in any room. That is a problem. It is arrogance, and it is the same thing we have been seeing with the Senate scandal.

The Conservatives do not listen to anything, and that is a problem with this bill. Why not listen to the experts and witnesses who are saying that we need to open and improve the bill? The government cannot keep such a narrow vision. It needs to find something that addresses Canadians' concerns.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was glad to hear the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley mention the U.S. report that came out accusing Enbridge of being Keystone Cops. The same report also said the company was engaged in a culture of deception.

Last fall, in 2012, a video was released by that company that showed the Douglas Channel free of any obstacles or islands. It was a very misleading video.

I know people in Ocean Falls and all along that coast who are very concerned about tanker traffic. My question for the member is simple. Why is the government silent on this issue, when it is clear that the company was engaged in a culture of deception? Again, why is the government silent on this issue? Why is it not standing up for people on the west coast?

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

Mr. Speaker, “culture of deception” sounds familiar. It sounds like what was going on in the Prime Minister's Office. According to the Prime Minister, he was being deceived, and there was some sort of conspiracy around him in which only one person was involved in the scandal with Mr. Duffy. Then there were a few people involved. Then last week it sounded as though there was one, Mr. Wright, who was fired, and then he was not fired.

It seems to me that the seeds that one sows eventually bear fruit. The government that seems so at ease with the truth, so at ease telling half-truths and outright lies straight-faced into the camera about things that matter, also seems to have no problem with a company that practises those same deceptions with the public.

The video my friend is referring to was an ad, one of those ads paid for through Enbridge by the Chinese government, showing that sailing out of Kitimat Harbour took place on a beautiful clear horizon of flat water with nothing between us and Asia. It was a straight shot.

It had to be a cartoon, because an actual photo of the departure from Kitimat Harbour would show that ships would have to dodge and duck through a series of channels and islands, some of which we consider kind of important. If any are run into, there will be an oil leak. There will be disasters, as happened with the Queen of the North, one of the largest ferries in Canada. It hit one of those islands that Enbridge pretends is not there when talking to the public about the nature of their project.

This is the way the company thinks it wins people over: with little cartoon drawings of how perfect the scenario is and how easy this is going to be to do. What do these angry natives and environmentalists have a problem with, when it is just that easy and it is just right there?

It seems to me that the first step in a conversation is being truthful and honest. The government has refused to do that with respect to our ability to clean up oil spills. The companies that promote these projects do themselves no favours when they pretend that we do not have things like the Internet and maps and facts. We have those things and we will rely on those things, not on the words of the Conservatives and not on the words of companies looking to shill for friends across the way.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

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

First, I would like to note that we will support the bill at second reading, but not very enthusiastically. The bill contains slight improvements in marine safety, but the government could have done much better.

I am going to take time to read the title of the bill because I believe it will help people understand: 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.

Many people will realize in reading its title that the bill is probably more than two pages long. It obviously addresses many points, and its approach is designed to achieve safety. If we are starting in on a bill that will amend several acts, it is worth expanding its scope to ensure we cover everything.

When you conduct a study, you may realize later on that you could have added a part. That is not efficient. It is important for us to bear that in mind as we begin a study as broad as this one on aviation and marine safety.

That moreover is the reason why the NDP proposed to expand the bill to include more specific measures that would protect Canada's coastlines, for example, and that would neutralize or reverse Conservative cuts and closures associated with marine safety and environmental protection.

I think when we are doing a big study like that, when we have a bill that concerns different laws, we have the responsibility to do the study really seriously and to try to extend the study to every measure that might be concerned. That is why the NDP has proposed to do a good study on the bill that would cover all the files. Unfortunately, the Conservatives say yes and then no.

When we want to try to have a really good study, it is very disappointing when the Conservatives have this attitude and say, “No. This is our bill, and it is what we are studying.” The NDP is really concerned to improve the law. It is not a question of partisanship; it is a question of improving Canadian law, and the Conservatives refuse to do it.

Let me briefly explain the various acts affected by Bill C-3.

Part 1 enacts the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act. In practical terms, this will authorize the Department of Transport to undertake to indemnify certain airlines for loss, damage or liability caused by war risks. We agree that these are not frequent occurrences.

However, if an airline’s aircraft are damaged in a sudden and unexpected war, the Department of Transport will be able to indemnify it. I do not believe this measure will be used very often, but it appears in the bill.

Part 2 concerns the Aeronautics Act. It will enable certain persons 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.

I see this may be useful, particularly in the event of an incident involving visiting forces. For example, it might be more difficult for Canadians to investigate an incident affecting visiting forces, considering the different cultures involved. People might be less responsive.

The fact that the parties co-operate could therefore be useful in some instances. If there is a language barrier, for example, they will be able to give us more information. Questions arise in my mind. Will those people be required to issue a public report on their investigation, as is the case when the Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigates? Some questions have to be asked, and it will be worthwhile exploring them in committee.

Part 3 amends the Canada Marine Act respecting the effective date of the appointment of a director of a port authority. I believe the first three parts are the ones involving the fewest problems. However, it seems to me that parts 4 and 5 raise more questions. I will bear them in mind as I listen carefully and read the committee proceedings so that I can then take a position and decide what I think the NDP should do when this bill reaches third reading. That is why I sincerely hope the Conservatives will be receptive in committee and prepared to really discuss marine safety, for example, when the committee begins its study.

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. This deals with liability in the event of a spill, for example, and provides that a ship's owner is liable for the costs and expenses incurred by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans if it has to intervene or by another response organization that might have been designated by the department. It also confers powers, duties and functions on the administrator of the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund.

One question is not specifically addressed in the legislation, but it will be interesting to discuss it in committee, even though it falls under another heading, and that is the question of insurance coverage. As we unfortunately saw at the time of the Lac-Mégantic incident, people realized that MMA did not have enough insurance coverage to pay the costs of the accident. I therefore hope the committee will be studying that question as well.

If these people are responsible for paying, adequate insurance coverage must be available. Consequently, a fairly accurate valuation of what a major incident might cost must unfortunately be made. This is essential so that we can be sure that these people have adequate insurance coverage and that no companies will be unable to pay. If that were to happen, spills might continue spreading as no one would take action because no one would know how the bill would be paid. This is a very important question that should be discussed in committee.

Part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and introduces 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 a number of parties involved. In this part of the legislation, however, I hope the persons responsible will be compelled to provide an accurate chemical description of the oil being transported. We have realized that the action taken sometimes differs somewhat depending on the type of oil or oil products that may be transported. I hope that will be part of the discussion in committee.

A new requirement in this bill will also compel operators of oil handling facilities to submit their emergency plans to the minister. I hope and trust that if they have an emergency plan, it means they have also consulted local coastal communities. I hope that there will be co-operation and that they will make sure local people who could possibly help them are familiar with how they can respond, and what they can do. I hope they are also trained. This is a question, once again, that will have to be considered in committee.

There is also a question of civil and criminal immunity for organizations involved in response operations. I wonder whether it is really immunity that applies in all cases, or whether it applies in cases where people have acted to the full extent of their knowledge and skill? For example, if a response agency is cutting a lot of corners, will it possibly be covered by such immunity? I believe it would be important to clarify this, because it could give members a better understanding of the bill.

I will now discuss the application of the new enforcement measures and monetary penalties. They also grant new investigative powers to Transport Canada investigators. I believe that when it is a question of monetary penalties, among other things, it is important to give careful consideration to the amount. Is the amount sufficiently large to have a real deterrent effect? If the amount is not sufficient, people will take risks regardless. I believe it is very important to take the time to consider what monetary penalties are appropriate and will actually achieve the desired result.

One aspect of the bill that should be noted is that there may be some lack of credibility on the part of the Conservatives, particularly with respect to marine safety, aviation safety and their policies in those areas. In some budgets, there have been significant cuts in the area of safety. A marine safety bill has now been introduced. Perhaps the Conservatives would not have lost so much credibility if they had not cut so much in the area of safety.

The member seated near me made a good defence of the Quebec City search and rescue centre, which is essential. The Conservative government has closed the only French-language marine rescue centre in the country. The centre is responsible for rapid action in the case of distress at sea. All at once, the Conservative government wants us to rely on it in matters of marine safety, when it has placed people’s lives in danger. There are people who were able to respond in an emergency. In my opinion, we should be wondering whether response staff will be increased to ensure safety. For example, will there be people able to respond in both official languages and understand people when marine accidents or spills occur? These are questions we have to ask ourselves.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives did not help when they made cuts in the area of marine safety. They also eliminated the positions of people with practical local knowledge. I have seen this regularly. People often use very local expressions when speaking of their location. If the person concerned is not familiar with the waterways, minutes and even hours will go by before there is a response. In the case of a spill, the longer it takes to respond, the bigger the spill will be. I therefore feel there is a real danger.

So far, unfortunately, the Conservatives have failed to impress me in the area of marine safety. I have genuine concerns about this, and I believe we should really make sure that the bill is complete. Unfortunately, if they refuse to expand the scope of the bill, we cannot be reassured and we cannot go as far as we would wish. We tell ourselves that, perhaps, we will have a bill, but eventually we will realize there is something it does not cover, and we will have to introduce another one. In the end, we will realize that the new bill does not cover everything, and another one will therefore be introduced. The process will extend over time, whereas we could have done the right thing, completed the work and made a serious and comprehensive study of marine safety.

It seems that is not the way the Conservatives like to operate, however. One could certainly say that logic is in short supply in their application of proposed legislation.

There is another aspect that is worth looking into. The Coast Guard is very much involved in marine safety. Our defence critic recently put questions to the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Works. He asked what had become of the shipbuilding program, because people who recently assessed the program had said that the money allocated to the program would very likely be insufficient to complete it. Naturally, vessels used by National Defence will also be used by the Coast Guard. If we are already short of ships to provide marine safety, I believe there is a serious problem, particularly considering the fairly substantial increase not only in the number of vessels plying our waterways, but also in their size and the potential dangers of a spill.

If the government were really serious about marine safety, it could have taken many other measures. For example, it could have cancelled the Coast Guard closure and service reductions like that in Kitsilano, British Columbia. It could have cancelled the reductions in marine traffic communication services, such as the Marine Communications and Traffic Services Centre in St. John's. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of Canada’s geography can understand that these are two crucial points with respect to marine safety in this country, on the east coast and the west coast. Given current traffic, these two service centres should not only maintain their capacity, they should also be able to increase it. At this time, that is not the case, and their services are in fact being reduced.

It is also important to require the Canadian Coast Guard to work with its U.S. counterparts and conduct a parallel study to examine the risks resulting from additional tanker traffic in Canadian waters. Of course, ships do not simply remain in Canadian waters. They move. That is why it is particularly important to conduct joint studies. We also need to be able to talk to our American counterparts about involving them in response plans. If, unfortunately, a ship has an accident at the edge of Canadian and American waters, we need to be able to respond efficiently as a team and know exactly who is fulfilling what role.

I would like to point out that the NDP's goal is to never have a spill occur. However, given all the Conservative cuts to marine safety, I feel our concerns are legitimate. We would like to know for certain what direction marine safety is headed in. We would like to know who will respond if there is a spill, how quickly they will respond, the target timetables and what our capacity is for controlling a minor or major spill. According to experts, we currently do not have the capacity for containing a major spill. The ships are so large that we do not have what it takes to respond.

I find that extremely worrisome. In committee, we will be able to look at these points more closely and ask questions. I hope that the Conservative government will be truly open to improving Canada's marine and aviation safety, for the benefit of all Canadians.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech on this important matter.

Yes indeed, our party has agreed to support the bill being sent to committee for discussion. I wonder if the member could speak to this. I know she has worked in the military, and in the military there is a lot of attention given to ensuring that military personnel are properly staffed and trained for any initiative or mission.

Something that troubles me with the repeated actions of the Conservatives is that they table laws to amend the Criminal Code, introducing new provisions to regulatory statutes and now matters dealing with very serious issues including aeronautic safety and marine spills, yet they have not simultaneously tabled a policy and strategy for ensuring improved enforcement and compliance or for staffing and training to ensure these measures are lived up to.

I wonder if the member could speak to that.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, based on my military experience, I can say that the clearer the procedures, the more specific they are and the more suited they are to different scenarios, the better equipped we will be to intervene quickly. The more we work in a vacuum, the vaguer the data, the more questions we have to ask, and the longer it will take to respond.

Therefore, the better the response plan and the greater the collaboration with local authorities, for example with the U.S. authorities in the event of a spill in U.S. and Canadian waters, the better prepared we will be and the more we will be able to intervene.

When we talk about this kind of bill, it is important to take the time to study it properly, ensure that its scope is broad enough to cover all possibilities and ensure that we are ready to take action if necessary.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech, which was well researched as usual.

The bill indicates that organizations must be able to respond to a spill of 10,000 tonnes, but we know that most tankers carry much more oil than that. Therefore, that amount may not be enough. One association even said that the best figure would be 50,000 tonnes.

Could the member tell me if 10,000 tonnes is adequate for the current movement of oil products?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the current limit of 10,000 tonnes is not enough. One of the proposals we would like to introduce would significantly increase the limit associated with a spill cleanup. Obviously, this change would be based on consultations with experts appearing before the committee. They can tell us what the appropriate limit should be.

We need to keep in mind that the limit is currently 10,000 tonnes. That means that all companies need to be able to handle spills of that size. If they cannot handle the cleanup, the Canadian Coast Guard has the authority to intervene or to give other response organizations the mandate to clean up the spill. If a company cannot cover the cost of cleanup efforts, the Canadian Coast Guard may request funds from the ship-source oil pollution fund. This implies that the government should be responsible for any costs exceeding what the fund can pay.

There is a problem, however. In March 2013, the fund had a balance of $400 million. To illustrate how insufficient that amount is, I would like to use the Exxon Valdez accident as an example. After the disaster, cleanup costs and compensation for damages totalled $3.5 billion. Clearly, there is a problem. The amount available is inadequate. Even the oil pollution fund could not cover the costs resulting from a major spill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was born near the Gaspé Peninsula, and the St. Lawrence River flows through that area. We have had what we call the marine park since approximately the 2000s. Park employees study the entire marine environment and are trying to provide education and acquire tools.

Since many oil tankers pass through that area, can the member tell us whether special measures are being taken to ensure marine safety in that area and in other areas where there is a marine park?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, from what I have read, no practical measures are being taken to protect that region.

I would like to come back to what I was saying earlier about the expertise of Quebec City rescue centre employees. They were able to respond to distress calls; however, such calls could also pertain to accidents involving a potential oil spill. That francophone expertise is being lost. The government is telling us that bilingual expertise will be available elsewhere, but such is not the case as of yet. In my opinion, that is cause for concern.

The public has legitimate concerns. The communities are very close and the damage could be significant. The St. Lawrence River's wildlife is rather exceptional.

What is more, the Gaspé Peninsula's economy is mainly based on tourism. Imagine the impact an oil spill would have on tourism in the area. Tourists would stay away for months because many attractions, including beaches, would not be accessible. That could have a major impact not only on the area's wildlife but also on the local economy of a tourism-based region.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask my colleague another question.

In her speech, she mentioned companies' insurance coverage. She gave the example of Lac-Mégantic, which pertains to rail transportation, but the same principle could be applied to marine transportation.

Do companies have the insurance they need to clean up messes such as oil spills, which can cause considerable and devastating damage? How important is it for these companies to have a fair bit of insurance to deal with damage related to the quantity and the hazardous nature of the products being shipped?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is indeed a critical point.

When this is studied in committee, I hope that the experts will provide concrete examples of incidents around the world and say how much cleanups have cost in practice. Earlier, I gave the example of an incident where the cleanup cost $3.5 billion. I think this is quite a substantial amount.

Through the testimony of these experts, the committee will be able to determine what the insurance coverage should be, based on past incidents and other potential costs associated with larger ships, to ensure that companies do not fail to pay.

Obviously, there should not be any situations where responses are inadequate, companies are no longer able to bear the costs, there is no compliance with the polluter-pay principle and, ultimately, the federal government and Canadian taxpayers have to foot the bill, all because a Conservative government refused to support legislation to adequately protect our waterways and ensure marine security.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at this point, I should inform you that I will share my time with the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, who will take over for me.

First, I would like to provide some context for Bill C-3. My colleagues have already discussed it a bit this morning, but I think that, as the member for Sherbrooke, it is important for me to speak to this bill and inform the House about the concerns of my constituents. I do not represent a coastal riding, but my riding is close enough to the east coast of Canada and the U.S. that these issues are important to my constituents. In fact, anything that has to do with the environment affects the people of Sherbrooke. I am pleased to speak to Bill C-3 here on their behalf.

As hon. members know, this bill was introduced during the last session, that is, during the first session of the 41st Parliament. At that time it was Bill C-57. Since we already had the opportunity to study it during the last session of Parliament, this bill is somewhat familiar to us. My colleagues already know that we will support this bill at second reading.

I would also like to remind the House that we tried to broaden the scope of the bill, and I will say more about that later because I have not yet explained exactly what the bill is about. Our attempts to broaden the scope of the bill were fruitless. Now that Bill C-3 is before us, we are trying again; we are speaking up. We hope that our attempts to improve it will be successful so that we can support it all the way through the process. Between now and then, we would like to send the bill to committee for a thorough review to ensure that it meets our constituents' expectations.

This bill amends five acts and has four main parts. I will focus on the last parts.

Part 1 would indemnify certain air carriers for loss, damage or liability caused by war risks. I am not really sure where this legislative change comes from, but if there is a crisis or a war, the government would compensate air carriers for damage caused by illegal attacks, such as armed conflict, rebellion or hijacking. I will not go into any detail about that part.

Part 2 is about air transportation and 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. This is interesting, actually. We would like to talk about an issue in this part of the bill. I think that this issue will come up in committee when we take a closer look at the bill.

Right now, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is responsible for investigating aeronautical accidents involving the armed forces. According to this bill, the armed forces would take over that function. A military investigator would be responsible for that and would have to report to the Minister of National Defence. We would like to know if those reports will be made public.

Currently, reports produced by the TSB are made public. In recent months, unfortunately I must say, we have come to learn a great deal more about the TSB. It really is not clear from the bill whether the reports produced by the Department of National Defence investigator will be made public. Obviously, these questions will be raised later in committee. I simply wanted to point out that we have some reservations about part 2 of the bill.

Part 3 does not call for any major amendment. It pertains to the appointment of port authority directors. The appointments would take effect on the day on which notice of appointment is received by the port authority. I will not elaborate further on this part of the bill.

This brings me to the two main parts of the bill that are of great concern to us and that we find especially important, specifically the amendment to the Marine Liability Act. The bill provides for the coming into force of the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010, pursuant to an international convention concluded in 2010.

This part covers the costs and expenses incurred by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans when a spill occurs. The company responsible for the spill must have adequate insurance in place to cover the financial cost of the cleanup. It is important to understand that tanker traffic continues to increase. Traffic has increased in recent years and is on track to quadruple by 2016. So then, given the rapid increase in tanker traffic, this is an especially important consideration today.

As tanker traffic increases so too do the attendant risks. The same holds true for highway traffic. The more automobiles and people travelling on our highways, the greater the risk of accidents happening. It is no different when it comes to oceans and waterways. Fortunately, accidents are not a daily occurrence, but when they do happen, the consequences can be quite devastating. We have a number of examples to draw on from around the world, whether it is ships that have spilled some of their cargo, or accidents occurring on offshore oil rigs. One recent example was the spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. I am sure everyone remembers the extensive damage done to coastlines. The damage does not last only a few weeks. We are still seeing the effects of the spill today. It has had a major impact on ocean ecosystems.

So then, it is important for companies that take the risk of transporting these products to be able to respond when an accident occurs. That is the least they can do. When a company is responsible for shipping oil products, it must be held liable when an accident linked to its activities occurs. The public or governments should not be held liable. By government we mean the public because the government operates on taxpayers’ money. In short, the government should not have to bear the full cost when an accident occurs. The companies should be the ones assuming the risks. Moreover, government authorities should put in place regulations to ensure that everything is in order, that inspections are carried out and that shipping companies abide by a minimum set of rules. Every single accident cannot, however, be prevented. That is impossible. So, when one does happen, companies must be able to take responsibility for the damage that they have caused.

This brings me to part 5 of the bill which amends inspection provisions in order to ensure that companies have plans in place in the event of an accident and that they submit them to the government so that authorities, whether local, provincial or federal, can respond immediately to an accident. These authorities would therefore already have the plans in hand and would be aware of the nature of the products being transported. It would therefore be much easier to respond quickly and effectively in such cases.

The bill is a step in the right direction. We support the small positive steps that are being taken. Therefore, we will be happy to support the bill at second reading. In committee, we will look at what can be done to continue moving in this direction.

As opposition members, our job is to suggest measures. That is what we will continue to do when the bill is examined in committee. We will try to improve upon its provisions, so that it is the best possible piece of legislation by the time it is adopted.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

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

I am struck by one thing. This government bill focuses on safety, a right to which the public is entitled. However, not every Conservative member is rising to speak to the bill. I would like to get my colleague’s opinion on the fact that the government is not defending its own bill or speaking to it. What does my colleague think of that?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I thank my colleague for her relevant question, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, I am just as amazed as he is. The Conservatives claim to want to make the bill a priority, and yet not a single one of them is willing to rise to defend it. The least government members can do is represent their constituents in the House and state their position by showing that they support the bill. So far, it is hard to tell whether Conservative members even support it. They do not even dare speak to it. Perhaps the Prime Minister's Office, which controls all, does not wish government MPs to speak for fear of what they might say. I can neither understand nor explain their silence. That said, I look forward to hearing them speak to the bill. I do hope they will state their position, which would be quite interesting and most appropriate given its importance. They claim the bill is important, yet their actions say otherwise.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for sharing his time with me. He is a very eloquent speaker in the House and an extraordinary chair.

As with the issue raised by my colleague, I remain extremely puzzled. The Conservative government prorogued Parliament because it told the public that it was going to reconfigure and have a whole new agenda. However, bill after bill is being tabled that is exactly the same legislation that was brought forward before the government prorogued.

One would have thought that if the Conservatives wanted to reconfigure and rethink their legislative agenda, this would have given them ample opportunity to consult and confer with the public, potentially impacted Canadians on the three coasts, and the official opposition. We have offered to recommend additional amendments and measures that could be taken to ensure greater marine and aviation safety.

I wonder if the member could speak to our complete puzzlement that none of the Conservative members seem to think that safety in aviation and the response to oil spills are matters worth debating.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

My colleague asks a very good question, Mr. Speaker. I very much look forward to her upcoming speech. She is very knowledgeable about these issues.

To answer her question, I too am puzzled as to why the Conservatives prorogued the House only to bring forward the very same legislation, as if nothing had happened. One has to wonder why they prorogued in the first place, other than to get media exposure and distract people from the Senate scandal. I wonder what the real reason was for the prorogation. The first thing the Conservatives did when the House reconvened was to reintroduce all of their bills at the same stage they were at in the previous session. It was as if nothing had happened. I wonder what the real reason was for all this, other than to throw up a smokescreen and change the channel. In my view, that is the simplest and most obvious reason to have prorogued the House.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-3. It is yet another omnibus bill and an omnibus bill that, frankly, our party would have been happy to support had it included many of the additional measures needed to improve aviation safety and the shipping of oil along our three coastlines.

Bill C-3 amends a number of statutes, including the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act, and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. These are very important measures. They are definitely worth a lot of discussion and consultation well in advance so that we can ensure that the bill is comprehensive.

Mr. Speaker, I am having a little bit of trouble concentrating, because there is a lot of conversation on the other side. I am wondering if they could take it outside.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Including myself in that regard, if we can, let us keep the chatter down. If members want to have an extensive conversation, perhaps they should move out into the foyer.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to this bill. As my colleagues have pointed out, we are supporting sending the bill to committee. Our preference would have been that the bill go to committee before second reading. That would have provided, in the custom of the House, ample opportunity for amendments. There is a particular concern that the government is not open to amendments coming from the opposition.

In the interest of Canadian safety and in the interest of the public and the security of our three coasts, we certainly encourage the government to take seriously recommendations from witnesses, recommendations made by the opposition, and the amendments that we might put forward.

For the record, I would like to share with the House a number of the measures that the New Democrats have called for to ensure the safeguarding of Canada's seas and coastlines. They include: reversing the cuts to the Coast Guard; the closure of Coast Guard stations; the scaling back of services; cancelling the cuts to the marine communications traffic service centres in Vancouver and St. John's; cancelling the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spills responses; cancelling the cuts to Canada's offshore oil, gas and industry research centre; reversing the cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response for Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia; reinforcing the capacity of petroleum boards to handle oil spills as recommended by the environment commissioner who reports to Parliament; and requiring the Canadian Coast Guard to work collaboratively with its U.S. counterparts.

Additional recommendations were made by the official opposition in response to what the communities were calling for with growing concerns about the potential for oil spills. Of course we have offshore oil activity on our eastern coast, and there have been proposals for offshore in British Columbia, thus far not moving forward. The biggest risk being posed is tanker traffic, if the government in its wisdom decides to support any of the recommendations by the National Energy Board for the shipping of raw bitumen and other products to the coast and shipping by tanker.

I would like to bring to the attention of the House the experience I had in the past when I was the chief of enforcement for Environment Canada. I became the chief in the wake of a very serious aeronautics accident in northern Alberta, which tragically killed a number of people, including the then leader of the Alberta New Democrats, Grant Notley.

To its credit, the then government, the Mulroney government, brought together a team in treasury board and justice personnel to take a look at Crown liability and to make clear, to all of the federal regulatory authorities, their responsibilities and liabilities where they failed to adequately inspect and enforce federal laws.

It is a deep concern to me that the government in its wisdom has not seen fit to table an enforcement and compliance policy and strategy, coupled with this legislation. If it is in fact sincere about improving our capacity to reduce the risks of spills and the capability to respond, I would certainly encourage the government to step up to the plate and do so.

Of equal concern is the fact that I understand it has appointed a three-person panel to look into marine safety. The wise thing would have been to wait until the recommendations came from that panel before tabling a bill. One would presume that it will come forward with useful recommendations.

I would like to raise a couple of specific provisions. Part 2 of Bill C-3 adds a new section 6(1), which gives complete discretion to the Minister of National Defence or an officer so appointed to exempt any persons or facilities from liability under the statute. There is no provision for any consultation whatsoever. It is complete discretion. That is a little worrisome given the issue at hand.

I have some greater awareness of the necessity for expanded aerial surveillance. This certainly arises when we are talking about dealing with marine spills and the inspection of tankers coming into our three coasts. I had the honour, when we had the program for members of Parliament, to spend a week with our armed forces, to spend it with the SARs, the search and rescue teams, on the east coast of Canada. That included flying with the surveillance airplanes, which communicate with the ships going into our ports.

It became very evident to me and my colleagues that we were in need of giving greater attention to improving surveillance ability and to very dated aircraft, both airplanes and helicopters.

In part 4, dealing with the Marine Liability Act, proposed section 74.28 prohibits the entry into a port without a certificate issued under the act. There are various provisions. The certificate is issued by Canada if the ships are owned by Canada, but probably in the vast majority of cases these oil tankers will be owned by some other foreign national. It raises the question of at what point in time officers will be able to stop those ships if they are already in port and if we will be stuck with tanker ships that are not seaworthy. There are a lot of big issues that merit discussion in committee, including the capacity, staffing, and training of officers to intercede in all of these ships.

I see the need for the tabling, simultaneously, with an enforcement compliance strategy. Are we, as the government likes to say, “shovel-ready” to enforce these new provisions if they come into effect? What is the capacity on the coast? There have been a lot of cuts to enforcement and scientific agencies.

As I mentioned, we would appreciate getting the report from the three-person Tanker Safety Expert Panel. It would be very helpful to the review by the committee. We cannot ask the government the obvious question, because it is not standing up and being held accountable for the bill, but I am curious to know what marine law experts it consulted with. It is very important that we know our law is well-founded and that the provisions of the convention that are brought forward actually reflect what is stated in law. In proposed subsection 74.4(3), the power to make regulations, there is absolutely no requirement to consult experts in the field, to consult on the potential impact to communities, or to consult military experts.

The proposed provisions to amend the Canada Shipping Act are very interesting to me. I come from a province where there is a several-hundred-fold percentage increase in the rail shipping of raw bitumen. There are two major terminals now being built in Alberta that will allow for 24-hour loading and movement of rail-loaded cars with bitumen. I would have thought at the same time the government would have come forward with legislation to ensure that when we set up these terminals, we would ensure we would have greater provisions to prevent incidents and respond to spills. A decade ago, there was the largest freshwater spill of bunker C oil in Lake Wabamun. The response was a complete disaster by both the federal and Alberta governments. I would like to see similar action by the government in all ways that we are shipping petroleum products to improve safety.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thought I saw some movement on the Conservative benches for legislation that they said was so critical to their economic agenda, yet they refuse to speak to it or address any of the concerns we raise. I do not think that speaks to their confidence in the topic at hand, which is how we protect Canadians when we are sometimes shipping hazardous products by rail or on our oceans.

I come from the west coast. My friend is from Alberta. The proposal is to ship bitumen, in particular, from Alberta through British Columbia, which is a great distance, 1,100 kilometres in the case of Enbridge and twinning the Kinder Morgan pipeline. That brings with it questions. Those questions deserve to be answered by the government, which promotes one side of the conversation enthusiastically, although the Minister of Natural Resources said in British Columbia the other day that the government did not promote any oil pipeline projects and it was neutral, except that it spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running around the world promoting the exact same pipeline projects.

The question of balance is important. How do we protect the other economic interests on B.C.'s coast, which can be fishing or tourism and the public at large? My friend, who worked in Alberta for many years trying to enforce basic public protections, has also seen, like me, many of the environmental considerations, laws and foundations that we hold in the country stripped away by the Conservative government.

I am wondering how the people in Alberta view the stripping down of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the gutting of the Fisheries Act and the weakening of things like Canada's Coast Guard. The Auditor General of Canada has said that we do not have the capacity to clean up marine spills from supertankers. The B.C. government said the same thing. Now B.C. and Alberta are in this discussion about how to promote the export of raw bitumen through British Columbia from Alberta.

What does it do to the industry and the larger and broader public interest when governments introduce legislation that guts environmental protection or when they make efforts to perhaps enhance liability and protection of the public but refuse to justify or make any arguments as to why it is important or address the weaknesses and offer strength? What does this do to the general public confidence and the social licence that companies are so often seeking from the public to promote their projects?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has a deep love of his constituency, which would potentially bear the brunt of the major risk of proposed tanker trafficking of raw bitumen.

The member raises a lot of cogent points. One of the most important ones is the abject failure of the government to respond to even its own officers' recommendations. The commissioner for sustainable development has made recommendation after recommendation for either improving the legislation or improving the monitoring and enforcement of that legislation.

The question is this: why is the government not responding to those independent recommendations coming from the leading experts in the country?

Deeply troubling is the emasculation of federal environmental legislation, which I am very privileged to have had a part in preparing.

Scientists and technical people and even the industry are deeply troubled with the direction in which the government is going. Throne speech after throne speech and budget after budget have been clear. The government's intention is to fast-track resource extraction. What it has promised is balanced development.

However, in committee yesterday, we heard from the MPMO, which is a body created relatively recently specifically to override all environmental protections and fast-track. It was very clear in its presentation that it no longer really saw its role as this double one of both ensuring efficient reviews and ensuring they were effective, in other words, ensuring the environment was protected.

Evidence of that is found in the Center for Global Development report issued yesterday, which stated that Canada had dropped from 12th to 27th place out of 28 wealthy nations in the world, for our environmental record. That tells us right there.

How can the Canadian public have confidence in the government? It is one thing to enact legislation that would put into effect an international convention; it is another thing to actually put into place the mechanisms that would ensure Canadian safety on the three coastlines.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I must advise hon. members that the time allocated for 20-minute speeches has expired. The debate will continue with 10-minute speeches and five minutes for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, what strikes me in this debate is the deafening silence of the Conservatives despite their claim that this bill is important for the protection of the environment, for the Canadian economy and for the protection of Canadians. It seems my Conservative friends have nothing to say about their own legislation.

Let us face it, this bill is not good enough. We, the official opposition, the NDP, feel that it does not go far enough even though, in some respects, it is a step in the right direction. It is incredible. If, all of a sudden, the Conservatives are unable to speak, perhaps they can suddenly start listening. That would be a first.

My colleagues from British Columbia and Alberta made that point very clear. It is about having the tools to better protect our environment but also, and more specifically, to better protect our coasts from the threat of toxic or dangerous spills for our ecosystems. Such spills would threaten the extraordinary Canadian biodiversity and the habitats close to areas where our fellow citizens live.

Every step in the right direction helps avoid catastrophes that are not natural disasters. These catastrophes are often the result of negligence, abandonment and a lack of seriousness in the rules. They are directly responsible for tragedies that have occurred all too often in the past.

Canada is surrounded by water. We are even reminded of that by our motto. Therefore, we cannot help but be concerned by the protection of our coasts, particularly with respect to oil spills. Indeed, there is a lot more shipping of oil and gas products, or of very heavy products that can have a devastating effect on the environment.

We wonder why the Conservative government is suddenly so keen on protecting the environment. I have a feeling that some members opposite may have recently felt the need to soften their image and to balance their message to Canadians and Quebeckers since becoming a majority government.

They always pit the environment against the economy. We, on this side, believe that the two must go together. It is only normal that sustainable and responsible economic development would go hand in hand with the protection of ecosystems and of the environment.

I am reminded of a quote attributed to David Suzuki that says “without an ecology there is no economy”. Without a healthy environment, we cannot do business or trade. This is why we need to find a good balance. I am delighted to see the Conservative government starting to show an awareness of these issues. The timing seems somewhat opportunistic, however, with less than two years until the next election. Nevertheless, if it can really make a difference, so much the better.

Making a real difference requires resources. On the official opposition side, we have some concerns in this regard. Do we have the resources we need to implement the rules in Bill C-3, including protecting the coastline after a toxic or hazardous spill?

If we look at food inspection or railway safety inspectors, the Conservatives' record is hardly reassuring. Nowadays, for inspectors who oversee and monitor railways, the ratio is one inspector to 4,000 railcars. That is beyond absurd.

The Conservatives say they have not eliminated any inspector jobs. However, there has been a huge increase in rail transport of hazardous materials in Canada over the last five years. Many more tanker trucks and railcars now go through our cities and towns, but no one has allocated resources to determine whether they do so in the safest way possible. We have every right to wonder: are we in the same situation again?

The government told us it would eliminate 19,600 jobs in the public service without affecting anyone. It said that there would be no impact, that it would save money on administration and red tape. One may wonder just what these people used to do at the office. They used to do things that no one is left to do now.

We can also look at toxic spills from the other side of the issue. We can give ourselves the tools to conduct inspections and audits, but has a strategy been put in place to prevent spills? Is research being done to improve the equipment? Are we having a dialogue with our international counterparts on international standards and the steps that must be taken to ensure that cargo ships are safer and that inspections take place elsewhere as well? The cargo ships that sail near our shores are not always Canadian. What can we do to work together internationally so that double-hulled cargo ships become the minimum standard and so that we can reach an agreement on the thickness of the materials used to build them? Instead of cleaning oil off the backs of birds on the shore, we could ensure that the standards are the same for everyone, even if it costs a bit more. There would be a level playing field, as the saying goes. We would actually have an accident prevention strategy instead of just cleaning up after a spill.

Part 5 of Bill C-3 “amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to introduce new requirements for operators of oil handling facilities”. This has to do with the permanent equipment on our shores that enables us to import or export those types of products. The bill sets out the requirement to inform the minister of any operations and to submit plans to the minister.

Part 5 introduces a new requirement whereby the operators of oil handling facilities must submit a response plan to the minister. It extends civil and criminal immunity to response organizations engaged in response operations. It also introduces new enforcement measures and monetary penalties, in addition to granting new investigative powers to Transport Canada investigators.

I wonder if there will be enough Transport Canada investigators to get the job done. My colleague from Edmonton pointed this issue out earlier. That is a valid question. It looks good on paper, but if, tomorrow morning, the Transport Canada investigators are swamped because they must do everything and do not have the necessary personnel and resources, will there be a real impact? Will there be a real change in the right direction? We hope so. That is a small improvement and change.

The NDP will support this because it is a step in the right direction. However, we would have expected the Conservative government to take this more seriously. We were expecting a more comprehensive strategy.

We are disappointed that the Minister of Transport did not reply to a letter from the NDP, dated April 5, 2013, in which we asked that the bill be sent to committee so that it could be examined more thoroughly and so that meaningful work could be done. Unfortunately, the Conservative government ignored that request.

The NDP is committed to ensuring that an oil spill never occurs on our coasts. That should be our goal. The Conservative track record makes it increasingly difficult to believe that the concerns of Quebeckers and Canadians are being taken seriously.

Bill C-3 is a thinly veiled attempt to compensate for past inaction and Conservative cuts to marine safety.

The measures in Bill C-3 that are designed to improve safety are relatively weak compared to the risks posed by closing the oil spill response centre in British Columbia, closing the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station and cutting environmental emergency response programs.

It is so contradictory and muddled that I think the Conservatives should stop trying to tell people things. Either they seem to hurt themselves or they sit silently and do not talk, as is the case today. They have no idea how agonizing it is for those of us who are trying to understand. We want to know where the Conservatives are going with this and what exactly the message is. Unfortunately, they do one thing and say another, or say one thing and do another. It is like saying that it was not me; it was the previous government. It is not my fault; it is the Liberals' fault.

We, the official opposition, want the Conservative government to be straightforward, consistent and clear. Unfortunately, yet again, that is not what we are seeing today.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the discussion from the other side. The members fail to point out that this government has taken incredible steps in environmental protection. We have worked with our partners in Ducks Unlimited and Nature Conservancy. We have put in place Nahanni National Park in the north. We have preserved territory unlike any other government in Canada. We will continue to do so because we know that working in partnership with our environment is so important to the health of Canadians and industry across this country.

This is more of a comment than a question. I would encourage my colleague,who was not here in 2010, to go back and review the legislation we put in place. It requires ships anywhere in Canadian waters to have double hulls, because we know we want to prevent spills in our territories rather than clean them up.

We also brought in the Arctic waters act. I was on the transport committee in 2008 when we put that piece of legislation through.

I am happy that my colleagues across the way will be supporting this bill at second reading. However, I would encourage my colleague to go back and review these other pieces of legislation. They have been put in place by this government, and we want to continue to work to keep our environment safe.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her comment. I am sure it will make excellent YouTube videos for her constituents.

I, however, find it unfortunate that she is wearing rose-coloured glasses. She just confirmed what I said a few seconds ago—that sometimes the Conservatives should stop trying to tell people things because they are completely out of touch with reality. What the Conservatives are saying is not based on facts but on what they want Quebeckers and Canadians to believe.

The Conservative government has a disastrous record when it comes to the environment. The Conservatives are using this bill to try to make up some lost ground. However, the government basically eliminated the serious environmental assessment processes that this country had in order to expedite certain projects, with disastrous results. The government is not doing anything. It is standing idly by during the biggest environmental crisis the country has ever faced: global warming. The government has a terrible international record when it comes to the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, yet it thinks that everything is fine.

I am sorry, but the government is completely irresponsible when it comes to the environment, and people will be there to judge that.

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

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the government is waging a misinformation campaign. Government members are patting themselves on the back and saying that they are the ones who required oil tankers to have double hulls in 2010, when an international agreement has clearly required tankers to have double hulls since 1993.

The fact is that Canadians are concerned when they hear a natural resources minister taking credit for implementing a standard that actually dates back 20 years. Canadians know that double hulls have been required for 20 years. However, it was not until 2010 that the Minister of Natural Resources woke up and realized that Canada had to comply with a regulation that had been in place for 20 years.

Why is the government being so silent? Has the misinformation campaign affected even government members?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

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

The government is losing momentum; it is tired, worn out and running out of steam. It is attempting to rejuvenate itself, but no one is falling for its political stunt. Let us not forget that this same government shut down British Columbia's oil spill response centre, shut down the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station and slashed environmental response programs.

If the government truly took this issue seriously, it would not have made those decisions and it would be sending a much more coherent message than the one it is unfortunately attempting to send today.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was excited to come to the House today, knowing that the Conservative government wanted to reconsider things and explain the relevance of the measures in Bill C-3. Surprisingly, no Conservatives are rising to justify the bill. That is ridiculous. Not only are they gagging the opposition with motions to limit debate, but they are also not even participating in the debates. They introduced the bill and they do not want to hear the opposition debate it. They introduce the bill and could not care less about any amendments the opposition might suggest. This is an attack on Canadian democracy. “All you madmen, where have you gone?” Quoting Daniel Boucher seemed appropriate this morning.

I would like to quote another songwriter:

Sitting on the edge of the Cap Diamant, dipping my feet in the St. Lawrence.
I chatted a while with the great Jos Monferrand

We spoke of rain and good weather, then Jos Monferrand asked, “Are you ready?” “Ready for what?” I replied. He said, “Are you ready for a huge spill in the St. Lawrence River?”

The Minister of Natural Resources says we are ready. The Premier of British Columbia does not think we are ready for this kind of spill. There is massive pressure from the oil lobbies to export Alberta oil. One aspect of this strategy is to transport the oil to oil terminals in the St. Lawrence via pipelines. The oil would then be sent to foreign markets.

Right now, before the two pipeline projects have even been implemented, 82 ships with 150,000 tonnes of oil travel the St. Lawrence every four days. They supply the Ultramar refinery, among others. The idea is to reverse the flow and use the St. Lawrence estuary to ship refined oil, and probably crude oil, to foreign markets. The energy east pipeline would make it possible to transport a million barrels of oil a day to oil terminals in Quebec and New Brunswick.

Now I am going to talk about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, my gulf, my St. Lawrence, my Big Blue. It is a majestic, unique and fragile ecosystem, an incredible environment conducive to the reproduction of dozens of marine species, several of which are endangered. Some of those species at risk include the cod, the blue whale and the leatherback turtle. The gulf ecosystem plays a fundamental role in the health of the river's ecosystems and estuary. As many as 350 rivers flow into the St. Lawrence. Apart from its biological richness, the St. Lawrence is also characterized by its great geological richness. As a result of the sedimentation process, there are also oil sources in the St. Lawrence. There are hydrocarbon deposits. The Old Harry oil exploration project, for example, apparently represents two billion barrels of oil. However, developing that oil, like exporting Alberta's oil via the St. Lawrence, entails incredible risks. Whether large or small, there will inevitably be spills.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence is an inland sea one-sixth the size of the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, all the oil spill computer simulations show that oil spilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as a result of a platform failure or a supertanker on the river whose tanks have burst, would have an incredible impact on the five maritime provinces. One feature of the St. Lawrence River is that it is the largest water pump in the world.

The St. Lawrence River has what are called changing tidal streams. In large tides, the 12 km/h east-west current reverses to west-east at 10 km/h. As a result, everything that is spilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence flows upriver to the secondary rivers and tributaries of St. Lawrence. The tide rises three or four metres. Oil spilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence would thus not only wind up in the gulf itself, and therefore in the maritime provinces, but would also flow up the St. Lawrence into the Saguenay, Matane, Manicouagan and Outardes rivers. All those rivers would also be affected by a major spill.

Are we prepared to deal with that kind of spill? We know that oil tankers in the past managed to transport one million barrels of oil. Supertankers now carry as much as two million barrels.

There is obviously a permanent risk involved in transporting this substance. Will there be other spills off our coasts? Of course there will. There have been 10,000 spills around the world since 1970. There have been some very large ones. Here in Canada, we obviously remember the Exxon Valdez, but 2.9 million litres of oil were spilled in the Singapore Strait, in Malaysia, in 2010. Also in 2010, another tanker spilled one million litres of oil on its way to Texas.

Currently, under the provisions of this bill, a tanker would be required to have an oil recovery capacity of 10,000 litres. We are not in the same league. Here we are talking about 1.7 million and 2.9 million litres of oil. How can we deal with that kind of spill under the proposed measures? The fund that would have to support all that oil recovery work represents $400 million. The oil-recovery and site-decontamination effort following the Exxon Valdez spill alone cost $3.5 billion.

We obviously cannot imagine the costs that would be incurred if that kind of spill happened in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. What we do know is that they would necessarily be borne by Canadian taxpayers, whom our friends opposite love and systematically defend. That is what we are going to do as well. We are going to do it better than they because we are going to demand that the ceiling, this minimum of 10,000 litres of oil, be increased. It is unrealistic to claim that we will be able to protect our coastlines with that guarantee when supertankers containing two million barrels could run aground there.

Moreover, as everyone knows, the St. Lawrence estuary is where there is the greatest risk of collision in the world. The ships that sail the St. Lawrence are required to use pilots to avoid the many shoals, crosscurrents and reversing currents. Hundreds of obstacles in the St. Lawrence mean that transportation by oil tanker is dangerous, especially with the cuts that have been made to maritime surveillance. I am thinking of the Quebec City centre that the government wanted to close and that is in the process of closing. That centre received no fewer than 1,500 calls.

I would like to cite Mr. Émilien Pelletier, director of the Canada Research Chair in Marine Ecotoxicology, who says that, for the moment, our oil recovery methods, particularly in wintertime—because it should not be forgotten that the Gulf of St. Lawrence freezes—are 30 years old, and we have not invested enough in research to develop more effective methods. We still use barriers, a system that is not effective and often fails.

I will answer questions now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Quebec.

This is interesting, because people have very strong feelings about this issue. It is interesting to me because I am from the west coast. In north-western British Columbia, we have many questions about this government's plan—if such a thing exists—to approve natural resource projects, particularly those associated with oil. Canadians are asking a lot of questions because they want our rivers and the environment to be protected. Currently, the government's problem is that it does not have the people's trust, and Canadians are wondering whether it is truly committed to the public interest. The government gives its full support to the oil companies and does not listen to the opposition, the experts or the witnesses.

My question is, will there be a day when this Conservative government will listen to the opposition in order to improve such bills as Bill C-3, and improve conditions for Canadians with respect to the transportation of oil and other hazardous substances?

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one would have hoped that, given the enormous pressure on the oil export issue, the Conservative government would take all necessary steps to ensure that this was done, not just according to the standards, but rather according to requirements that go beyond international standards.

However, we see precisely the opposite. We see that the government is watering down all the legislation that ensures greater control of oil production and the laws governing oil transportation. They say they will be monitoring all this. I read Bill C-3. We will be monitoring the movements of oil tankers from high in the sky. I am sorry, but if there is a spill, it is nice that we can watch it from the air, but we must have the resources required to address this problem immediately, and clearly those resources are not there.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising because I am very worried about the marine park located at the mouth of the Saguenay. Whales are attracted to this area because of the special ecosystem and environment.

I am worried, and I would like to know if the member shares my concern for these ecosystems and the resulting problems if a tanker accident were to occur.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I am sure she knows that I sail a lot on the St. Lawrence, especially in this part of the marine park where whales are often spotted. However, there are some species that we hardly see any more.

Of course, at present this is not due to oil pollution. It is common knowledge that the St. Lawrence River lacks oxygen. Scientists at the Matane or Rimouski marine centre who were studying this problem have lost their funding.

My greatest concern is preserving the water quality and icebergs in the St. Lawrence River and ensuring that the animal and human populations living in this ecosystem are truly protected from a catastrophe such as a two million litre spill of crude oil in the St. Lawrence, which would be a global, not local, catastrophe.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this bill today. It is a bit of an omnibus bill, since it will affect five other pieces of legislation. I have to say at the outset that I am originally from the Gaspé, from Grande-Rivière to be precise, a small village between Chandler and Percé. It is such a wonderful place. I invite all Canadians to come and visit this magnificent region one day.

As I said, I am originally from Grande-Rivière, a small village between Chandler and Percé. I mention this because, on the one side, we have Percé, well known for its rock, which is practically recognized as a world heritage site—and I hope one day it receives the UNESCO world heritage designation—and on the other side, we have Chandler, which was an industrial town with paper mills and the non-stop traffic of ships transporting lumber. They are on the St. Lawrence, which, as we know, is a seaway that allows oil tankers to travel to major centres and large cities and back again.

I was born and raised in Grande-Rivière. My father's family was born in the Gaspé and my husband's family was born in the Gaspé, so we are people of the peninsula. Water is as much a part of us as the blood that runs through our veins. One of my children was also born in the Gaspé. We began raising our family in the Gaspé before moving to the north shore. The St. Lawrence actually runs between the two regions. From there we regularly see boats passing by, including everything from small craft and sailboats to larger vessels such as tankers, cruise ships and so on. Near Les Escoumins and Grandes-Bergeronnes, there is a small street called rue des Capitaines, which is where ships sailing on the St. Lawrence change pilots. Why would there be a change of pilots? Because, as we know, navigating the St. Lawrence can be very tricky, and a pilot from another country will not know the waterways or exactly where to sail to avoid serious accidents. Therefore, something very important happens there.

The St. Lawrence River is a part of all of our lives. The NDP tried asking the Conservative government to refer the bill to committee so we might study it closely and broaden its scope.

Many foreign tankers navigate these waters. Several of them also drop anchor locally so they can be cleaned after they have been emptied. This increases water pollution, which we have to be increasingly mindful of.

We are lucky that we have not had a major environmental disaster. I cannot help thinking about the magnificent marine park that is the mouth of the Saguenay River, where there are minerals and marine wildlife that are found nowhere else in the world, because this is where the Saguenay, the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean meet. These characteristics make for an extraordinary natural environment. It goes without saying that we want that environment protected. The marine disaster response act directly relates to this sector, because it is very important to have the means to protect our waters in case of a marine disaster.

We support this bill at second reading. However, it only moderately improves marine safety. We would like to see more in the way of protection.

I would like to read part of an article by the David Suzuki Foundation about the devastating consequences of marine spills on the environment and on communities:

It is quickly becoming clear that offshore hydrocarbon development is costly, polluting and dangerous, even before considering an oil spill. No matter how you look at it, the impacts are far-reaching and long-lasting.

Five provinces border the Gulf of St. Lawrence...

These are the same five maritime provinces, out of 10 Canadian provinces, that were at issue in the Employment Insurance Act. That act affected seasonal work, which is very common in the eastern provinces that the government has left to their own devices. That is half of Canada. Once again, these five provinces are being affected because they are located along the St. Lawrence River, a major seaway.

For example, fishing directly or indirectly affects about 75% of the people in the Magdalen Islands near Old Harry and generates close to $78 million in revenue. That is significant. It is a lot of money. An oil spill near the islands would have a devastating impact on the inhabitants, not to mention that tourism, which is just as critical to the economy of the maritime provinces, would be decimated by an oil spill.

In addition to that socio-economic aspect, the Gulf of St. Lawrence is a unique and fragile ecosystem because it is key habitat for hundreds of species that reproduce, mature and migrate there, including the blue whale.

Under ideal conditions, only 15% of spilled oil can be cleaned up, so it should be clear that the risks associated with development far outweigh the potential benefits.

In another article, Christy Clark said, “Canada is clearly not ready to handle any major oil spills.”

We know that coast guard numbers have been cut. Responding will be difficult. That is why the committee needs to take a closer look at this issue.

I think that supporting Bill C-3, as my colleagues have done, is important as part of an approach that goes pretty far. However, this new measure does not undo the disastrous effects of the cuts in the first budget, including the closure of the marine rescue centre. This shows just how inconsistent, even contradictory, the government's policies are. People are wondering whether this is a sincere initiative designed to protect our environment.

I have a lot of questions about another issue that has been brought to my attention. I wonder why the members opposite, who are trying to defend this piece of legislation, are not giving any speeches today to elaborate on their ideas and better explain what they want to do.

Just because a government has a majority does not mean that it can get away without explaining things to people so that they can better understand the issues and take more informed positions in debates.

Overall, as we know, Bill C-3 seeks to enact or amend five other pieces of legislation.

One of the parts deals with the aviation industry indemnity. I am concerned about the fact that, regardless of the ability of participants to obtain insurance, the Minister of Transport will undertake to help and indemnify certain air carriers in the event of loss, damage or liability caused by war risks. We know that even private insurance does not cover those types of things.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in going through Bill C-3, I found some oddities. It is my understanding that currently in this country, one of the petroleum products being discussed for piping and potential tanker shipping from the west coast, and potentially also from the east coast, is raw bitumen, yet when we look at clause 58 in part 5 on the Canada Shipping Act, “oil handling facility” does not include the loading or unloading of bitumen.

That raises the question of how carefully the government looked at the legislation. Did it simply take international conventions and reproduce them? I am increasingly seeing serious issues.

The member has raised the concern about the lack of consultation on the development of the bill. The bill itself, in proposed section 167.2, provides for the preparation of oil pollution emergency plans. There is absolutely no provision for public consultation.

I wonder if the member thinks it would be worthwhile in the review at committee to have people who reside in communities in the three coastal areas come to talk about concerns and proposals they have for the improved development of the bill to ensure that their voices are heard.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. Operators of oil handling facilities must submit an emergency plan to the minister. However, there is no indication as to what the emergency plan will include. We firmly believe that we should meet with people in committee to ask them about the steps that will be taken from now on with regard to oil shipments. We know that when oil is shipped, if it is refined, sulphur and pollution levels go up. As a result, it is important to ship crude oil as much as possible. Some steps must therefore be taken.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her speech. This bill creates a paradox, in a way. As my colleague pointed out, on the one hand, the government is weakening safety measures, by closing the Québec City marine rescue centre, for example. On the other hand, it is introducing some half-hearted measures to slightly improve safety.

I would like my colleague to comment on the government's approach to transportation safety. We tend to forget that marine transportation plays a major role in Canada's economy.

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

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians may not be aware that all ships travelling on the St. Lawrence and other waterways pose a serious danger. To go back to the member's question, the right word might be “unacceptable”. The services that the safety centre used to offer have been eliminated and are no longer accessible to francophones. Moving the centre to another part of the country has weakened our position; it has made our situation slightly more risky. If every ship's cargo were checked, things might be different. We do not realize how outdated the ships can be. Sometimes, they are like potential bombs travelling on the St. Lawrence.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak on behalf of my constituents from Surrey North. I come from British Columbia, and we are fortunate and very glad that we have ocean on one side of the province. The pristine waters right off the coast of British Columbia and also the inland waters generate a lot of economic activity, including a huge fishing industry in British Columbia that supports families. Also, there is a huge tourism industry that uses those waters. We get visitors from all over the world who come to experience the natural beauty of British Columbia.

Having said that, it is important that we protect those waters and keep them safe from any activity that goes on in the inland waters and off the north coast of British Columbia. The government has an opportunity here to show leadership in protecting those waters off British Columbia.

I could go back into what the Conservatives have done over the last number of years. They have made cuts. They have closed a number of Coast Guard stations, including the one in Kitsilano. They have made cuts to the marine communication traffic centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminal in Vancouver and in St. John's. They are closing the B.C. regional office for emergency oil spill response. The government has also made cuts to the offshore oil and gas energy research centre.

Here was an opportunity to show leadership, to come up with a policy and legislation that would have a lasting impact on not only the environment but the pristine beauty of British Columbia. Bill C-3 addresses five different acts. It is sort of a mini-omnibus bill. We have seen this from the Conservatives over and over when they try to ram through legislation that makes changes to a number of different laws without consultation with stakeholders and without involving those people who would be affected by the legislation. Time after time, the Conservatives have had the opportunity to address those concerns, and time after time I have seen them fail that test.

Bill C-3 makes amendments to a number of different acts. As we can tell from the title of the bill, it is an omnibus bill being introduced by the government in an attempt to push through as many pieces of legislation as possible, essentially undermining democracy. The bill literally covers everything from the bottom of the sea to above the clouds in the sky.

Bill C-3 is an interesting contrast to the previous mode of operations of the Conservative government. In March, I stood in the House to address the $108 million cuts that the Conservatives have made to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. These cuts directly impacted the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, the marine communications traffic centres in Vancouver and St. John's, Canada's offshore oil and gas research, as I pointed out earlier, and also British Columbia's oil spill response centre. They have all been shut down.

No one has forgotten those cuts, especially British Columbians, people in my riding, who are proud of the natural beauty and pristine wilderness that our province boasts. There has been no consideration to reverse those cuts and prove that the Conservatives value our environment and our country.

However, here we are now with a bill in front of us that attempts to compensate for the previous inaction and cuts to marine safety. It is difficult to trust the Conservatives trying to protect the environment, given their track record. The NDP, including my colleagues in the House, is fundamentally committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen on our coasts. My NDP colleagues and I have time and time again stood in the House demanding that the government pay attention to marine safety. Time after time, the government has failed to respond to our concerns and the concerns of Canadians. I introduced a bill in the House last spring to protect a major creek in my riding, Bear Creek.

Specifically in regard to Bill C-3, the NDP requested that the scope be broadened by sending it to committee before this debate to include more comprehensive and specific measures to protect Canada's coasts. Again, this proposal was rejected by the Conservatives, a clear indication of their dedication to the issue at hand.

Time after time over the last two and a half years the NDP has made numerous amendments, thousands of amendments at the committee stage, to different bills. Out of those thousands of amendments, not one has been accepted by the governing party. That shows a lack of commitment by the Conservatives to listen to all stakeholders who have come before committees and a lack of willingness to partner with stakeholders so that we can make the best rules and laws for Canadians.

That is a major concern that clearly shows the Conservatives are not only not looking after the interests of the environment but they are not looking after the interests of Canadians.

Clearly the Conservatives believe that their words are stronger than their actions. Pushing through a bill that increases tanker safety and environmental security will help to close the gaps in protection that exist. However, those gaps are the result of poor decisions by an incompetent government.

It is difficult to believe that the efforts of the bill are genuine, considering that the Conservatives have repeatedly prioritized the transportation of oil over the environment. This is demonstrated through their targeted closures of protection and response institutions, pulling out of the Kyoto accord, and by constantly disregarding climate change and partially muzzling our scientists.

As I do, Canadians welcome any attempt to right the wrongs that have been committed by the government, but they will not be fooled by this particular bill, which basically does not go far enough. It does not address some of the shortcomings that the government has brought upon the safety of our marinas and marine waters off the coast of British Columbia and across the the way in eastern Canada.

Again, the Conservatives had an opportunity to address some of the concerns that Canadians have in regard to marine safety. The bill basically touches on some of the issues, but it does not go far enough.

Time after time I have seen the government, whether it is on veterans' issues, unemployment issues, or immigration issues, fail to address the concerns of Canadians. The bill does not address the marine safety that is required for the pristine waters of British Columbia. I urge the government to allow and accept some of the NDP, the official opposition, amendments that we will be presenting in the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Surrey North and welcome him to the debate, a debate the Conservatives and Liberals have decided to be absent from, somehow thinking that marine safety and aviation safety are things that do not need to have any comment from the government or the third party. It is fascinating, but it is their choice.

The interest I have here is that this is a small measures bill. It seeks to change some liability. It seeks to toughen up some of the more peripheral issues that are around shipping oil, particularly by marine through supertankers. However, it does not address some of the things that my friend talked about earlier, which are all the cuts we have seen, not just straight up money to the Coast Guard and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to enforce any of the new laws that we bring forward. We do not see the government attaching any money to these prospects. Therefore, what is the value of a law if the government does not intend to enforce it? That is a fair question.

The second piece is that the government fails to understand that by not accepting any of the witness testimony and not accepting any of the ideas that come from the official opposition, it keeps making bad laws. The way we know that is that these laws keep getting struck down in court. There was one just last week.

Refusing to listen to any criticism is an arrogance that does not work for government and it does not work for taxpayers, because none of these things actually come to pass.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the government brought in the bill, yet Conservatives fail to stand up in the House to defend it and offer the highlights of what is so important in it. They are not speaking on it in the House.

The people in the corner over there, the Liberal Party, I do not actually know where they stand. They flip-flop depending on which way the wind is blowing. They will say one thing before the election and then they will do exactly the opposite when they do come into the House.

In committee with witnesses and expert testimony, one would think that out of the thousands of amendments, thousands of good ideas the experts and stakeholders bring in, that there would be one idea that the Conservative government would accept. It has not happened yet. I would encourage the government to listen to the experts and the opposition amendments.

Let us make marine safety a priority in this country. It is a huge economic boost in British Columbia, and I would hate to have some sort of incident that damaged the pristine waters of British Columbia.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley mentioned the cost of court challenges to taxpayers. I am also concerned about the fact that Canadian taxpayers would have to pay for oil spills because the limits set out in the legislation are not high enough. When we look at other jurisdictions whose economies depend on their oil sector, such as Norway and others, they have much higher liability limits.

Could my friend for Surrey North talk about how taxpayers should not be on the hook for any pollution that occurs from oil spills?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is our responsibility as legislators to ensure that there is no oil spill off the coast of British Columbia or, for that matter, off the east, west, or north coasts.

We have seen the results of an oil spill. It costs hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up. We have seen it in the Gulf. I would not want to see that off the coast of British Columbia. The government needs to ensure that we have the proper resources and that proper marine safety legislation is there. This legislation does not do that. It does not provide enough of a safety net, whether it is additional insurance money, the Coast Guard, or marine traffic controllers.

The government had a chance here to protect the waters off our coasts, but it miserably failed with a bill that basically does not address what needs to be addressed at this point.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to participate in the debate on Bill C-3. Many of my colleagues have spoken today, which is great, because this is a very significant bill that needs to be thoroughly debated both here in the House and in committee.

The first point I would like to make is that Bill C-3 is another omnibus bill that is being brought forward by the Conservative government.

Unfortunately, we have become used to receiving these mega-omnibus bills. This one is not as big as some of the budget bills we have had, bills that stripped away environmental protection and regulations and put everything in but the kitchen sink; this is a smaller one, but nevertheless, it is still an omnibus bill. It would make amendments to five different acts, including the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act, and the Canada Shipping Act.

I am not going to focus on all aspects of the bill today, because I have limited time to speak. I want to focus particularly on the Canada Marine Act and the aspects pertaining to marine issues because I am from British Columbia and this, of course, is a huge issue for us on the west coast.

First of all, I would say that there are some positive aspects to the bill. We have gone through it very carefully and we can see that, for example, it would require pilotage and increased surveillance for boats and tankers coming in, which is certainly a small step in the right direction.

However, we note that the bill is too limited. There is still a lot more to do. Certainly one of the things that needs to be done is for the government to reverse the effects that the drastic cuts in last year's budget have had on tanker safety on the west coast.

When we read Bill C-3, I think we can see that it is a pretty thinly veiled attempt to compensate, like window dressing, for previous inaction and the Conservative cuts to marine safety.

The measures that would improve safety in Bill C-3 are relatively small in comparison with the risks that are posed by closing the British Columbia oil spill response centre, shutting down the Kitsilano Coast Guard, and gutting the environmental emergency response programs.

We see a bill before us that would have some limited effect, but it does not address the serious and major issues facing British Columbia in terms of marine conservation, tanker traffic, and safety. The bill would not go nearly far enough. It would probably be 5% of what needs to be done.

I know many of my colleagues have addressed this aspect today, but I will add my voice to make it clear that we in the NDP are committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen on our coast. Maybe some people think that is not a realistic position, that it is really just about damage control and mitigation of problems and disasters, but we think the policy we should work from is to ensure that spills never happen.

That means taking a very different kind of approach. It means taking an approach based upon the precautionary principle. It would be an approach based upon the public interest. It would an approach based upon the fact that we believe the federal government has a critical role in making it clear that for marine industries, for tanker traffic, there have to be strong, clear, consistent rules that all the players adhere to so that oil spills can never happen.

Why would we take that approach?

We take that approach because the prospect that any of the incredibly beautiful and rugged British Columbia coastline could be spoiled by a spill is something that one does not want to contemplate. It is not only the disaster that occurs at that moment, but the impact.

I remember when the Exxon Valdez had its historic spill many decades ago. It was in the news for days, weeks, months. The devastation to the environment was enormous, while the response to the spill was very limited.

People learned a lot from that, not only in B.C. but globally. Public consciousness about the safety of tanker traffic and the risk of spills increased enormously.

That was many decades ago. Now we are talking about an environment and an industry in which supertankers with much greater capacity make the Exxon Valdez look like a mini-tanker. On the one hand we are told that safety provisions, improved design, double hulls, and so on have improved the situation, but in fact accidents and spills still take place even when the hulls are doubled, so we think that taking the perspective of the precautionary principle is important. As a result, we are committed to ensuring that there is legislation, policy, and regulation to ensure that oils spills never happen on our coast. That is something we are committed to.

I believe it was in 2011 that we debated an NDP motion that sought to put into effect the existing verbal agreement that has banned oil tankers off the coast of B.C. for the past 40 years. This so-called moratorium came about as a verbal commitment with the Province of B.C., but nothing was ever put in writing.

It was a very good motion and a very good debate. The motion to have the moratorium put into legislative effect passed in the House at the time. Unfortunately, the government never followed up, so we still have this very uneasy situation in British Columbia: on the one hand we have this 40-year-old moratorium, but on the other hand there is no paperwork to show that it exists.

The Government of Canada website states:

There is a voluntary Tanker Exclusion Zone off the B.C. coast that applies to loaded oil tankers servicing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System between Valdez, Alaska, and Puget Sound, Washington. This zone does not apply to tankers travelling to or from B.C. ports.

It is very clear that it is limited. Basically, it is a very particular exclusion zone, and it is voluntary. That is the basis of the moratorium.

That is not good enough. It needs to be enshrined in a proper legislative process. If we are to protect future generations, then we owe it not only to residents of B.C. and our global community today but also to future generations to ensure that such protection does exist.

The NDP's call to ban oil tanker traffic through this corridor is supported by first nations; local, regional, and provincial politicians; environmental groups; tourism, recreation, fishing, and other potentially affected industries; and over 75% of B.C. residents. Members can see that this is a huge issue in our community.

I stated at the beginning that in principle we support this bill going to committee. However, when it does go to committee, there are many issues that we will be raising. For instance, we want to see reversal of the Coast Guard closures, including the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, which was done in an appalling way. Basically it was a unilateral decision to close the station despite an uproar in metro Vancouver and the fact that its closure would not serve the community well.

We also want to see a cancellation of the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spills. It is unimaginable that we do not have a regional office for emergency oil spills and responders. To me that is incredible.

To sum up, we feel that a number of issues are not addressed in this bill and we will be following up on them at committee. If we are to have safety on the west coast in terms of tanker traffic, this is imperative if the bill is to have any meaning at all.

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

Mr. Speaker, I also appreciate the speeches from my hon. colleague. She has many years of experience in this House; I believe she has been here for 16 years. The advantage of being here for that amount of time is that she has been able to see not only a Conservative government in action, but also Liberal governments.

Since I was not here at that time, my question is this: was the record of the Liberals any better on these issues of environmental protection and action on climate change?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a very pertinent question. After being here 16 years and after seeing a Liberal majority government and minority Parliaments as well, I can say there has been a very sad, slow, and steady decline in environmental protection and regulation under Liberal governments, and now that decline has escalated under Conservative governments.

However, regarding the moratorium I spoke about, certainly there were Liberal governments of the day and Liberal cabinet ministers from British Columbia. This is not an issue that has just appeared over the last couple of years. Tanker safety through coastal waters has been a long-standing issue. There were numerous opportunities to ensure that the moratorium actually meant something and to improve and enhance our environmental protection, but we have never seen it happen.

So here we are today at a crossroads. Now time is running out. B.C. residents have made it very clear that we oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and oppose the supertanker traffic that is going to bring in millions of gallons of bitumen from the oil sands. These are very significant issues in B.C., and unfortunately we saw nothing from Liberal governments that would have laid the groundwork to ensure that we might have been better off today than we are.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent speech. I know that she is really concerned about oil tankers on our waterways.

I was wondering if, like me, she believes that it is important for businesses to take responsibility when transporting hazardous materials, whether by water, road or rail? Does she believe that, in the event of an accident, companies should be ready to respond and to pay because they are responsible for the products they transport, in this case across the ocean.

Is it important for companies to be able to provide an adequate, efficient, quick and financial response to the damage that accidents can cause?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we believe very much in the principle of polluter pay. In fact, one of the issues that is not properly addressed in this bill is that we should be raising the limit for cleaning up spills. There is something called the Ship-sourced Oil Pollution Fund, which does provide a source of funds through levies when there is a major spill; however, it is interesting to note that no levy has been imposed since 1976, and although that fund now has $400 million in it, which might sound like a lot, if there were actually a major spill, it would go in a flash.

Just to put it in context, the total cleanup for the Exxon Valdez was $3.5 billion. Of course, as I mentioned, we are now dealing with supertankers that are much bigger than the Exxon Valdez, so the Ship-sourced Oil Pollution Fund would really be just a drop in the bucket if there were to be a major spill. We believe the issues of polluter pay and of increasing the limit for cleaning up spills are very important priorities, but they are not addressed in the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of Bill C-3—tentative support, I should add. The bill includes the enactment of the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act and amendments to the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act, and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. The bill also makes consequential amendments to other acts.

Yes, Bill C-3 is an omnibus bill that makes amendments to five acts. Is that too much legislation to stuff into one act? Well, of course it is, but such is the modus operandi of the Conservative government: pack and pile as much legislative change as it can into an omnibus bill so as to limit the opposition's scrutiny and to get as much by Canadians as possible.

However, Canadians are catching on to Conservative tactics and tricks. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians caught on a long time ago, but then the rising usually starts in the east. That said, we support the bill at second reading because there is a modest improvement to marine security, the key word being “modest”.

Our support for Bill C-3 is cautious. Our support is moderate at second reading. Committee scrutiny and input with expert witnesses will determine whether we will vote for or against the bill at third reading.

What I want to focus on is the government's complete lack of credibility on issues regarding marine safety—complete lack of credibility, the absence of credibility. That side of the House is where credibility goes to die.

We know there are two sets of response times for the Canadian military search and rescue. During banking hours, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, the military's Cormorant search and rescue helicopters have a wheels-up response time of 30 minutes to get off the ground and respond to a distress call. After 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, during evenings, weekends and holidays, the wheels-up response time is two hours. That is what I mean when I say there is no credibility on issues regarding marine safety; it is where credibility goes to die.

Ask the family members of Labrador's Burton Winters about credibility and they will tell us about the death of their 14-year-old son because help did not come quickly enough. Marine safety and Conservative credibility do not belong in the same sentence. Marine safety and Conservative credibility do not belong in the same breath.

The parts of the bill that I want to concentrate on include those sections that deal with marine safety in relation to the oil industry. We had requested that aspects of Bill C-3 be broadened to include more comprehensive measures to safeguard Canada's coasts, certainly not packed into an omnibus bill. These comprehensive measures to safeguard Canada's coasts would have neutralized or reversed Conservative cuts and closures specific to marine and environmental safety.

The Conservative government rejected our proposal to broaden the scope of the bill. There is no surprise there. Not a single soul in this country wants to see an oil spill. New Democrats are obviously committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen, but the Conservative record is making it increasingly difficult to trust that the concerns of Canadians are being taken seriously.

Trust is another word like credibility. Trust and credibility should not be mentioned in the same sentence, in the same breath, as Conservatives. The bill is a thinly veiled attempt to compensate for previous inaction and Conservative cuts to marine safety.

There are measures to improve safety in the bill. The required pilotage and increased surveillance is a small step in the right direction. So are increased inspections of foreign tankers. However, those small steps are just that—small—compared to the risks associated with the closure of British Columbia's oil spill response centre, the shutting down of B.C.'s Kitsilano Coast Guard station, and the gutting of environmental emergency response programs.

Again, this legislation appears to be part of a concerted effort by the Conservatives to try to address their non-existent credibility in areas of transport safety, particularly concerning oil tanker traffic on the west coast and mounting opposition to the northern gateway pipeline.

The scaling back of Coast Guard rescue capacity and facilities is not just isolated to the B.C. coast. In my neck of the Canadian woods, the Canadian hinterland, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Conservatives have shut down the marine search and rescue centre in St. John's. We had a rescue coordinating centre with Coast Guard people who knew every nook and cranny of thousands of kilometres of coastline. The rescue centre was shipped out of Newfoundland and Labrador. That can only be described as negligent.

What would New Democrats like to see in this bill? What measures would New Democrats want to see in a bill to safeguard Canada's seas, to protect our people and protect our environment? In B.C., reverse Coast Guard closures. Cancel the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spill responders. In B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador, cancel cuts to marine communication traffic centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Reverse cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response for Newfoundland and Labrador and B.C.

What other measures do New Democrats want to see in a bill to safeguard Canada's seas? How about reinforcing the capacity of petroleum boards to handle oil spills, as recommended by the environment commissioner? What capacity do petroleum boards, like the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, have to handle oil spills? The answer is none. It is non-existent.

The CNLOPB needs to build in-house expertise to manage a major oil spill, with the creation of an independent safety regulator. That was the chief recommendation of the Wells inquiry into the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 off my province's coast, a crash that killed 17 people. The chief recommendation was for the creation of an independent safety regulator. Where is that independent safety regulator? Where is it? It is nowhere to be seen.

There are problems with the offshore regulator, the CNLOPB, and the Conservatives are in no rush to fix them. The public's confidence in the CNLOPB was already shaken, following a string of political appointments as well as the board's failure, to date, to follow through on an independent safety regulator. Last winter, this country's environment commissioner released a report that revealed that the CNLOPB, the board responsible for regulating the offshore oil industry, is not prepared for a major offshore oil spill. If that is not a shocking combination that undermines what little public confidence remains, I do not know what is.

The CNLOPB has not yet completed an assessment of the oil spill response capabilities of the offshore operators, which are required to respond to spills, almost five years after that assessment began. The CNLOPB is not prepared to take over response to a major offshore oil spill if an operator fails to respond as required. In a nutshell, when it comes to environmental protection, the CNLOPB is failing us. The Conservative government is failing us.

If there were a major offshore oil spill tomorrow, the CNLOPB does not know whether the offshore oil companies would have the equipment or the resources to deal with it. The board itself would not be prepared to pick up the slack. What are we doing? What is the Conservative government doing? It is not doing enough. The Conservatives know this to be true. They know this to be true beyond the shadow of a doubt. We know this to be true, as sure as Conservatives have put safety and the environment in the back seat, behind its corporate agenda and corporate profits.

How do we know this to be true? We know this to be true because the Conservatives have refused to speak throughout much of this debate. The Conservative silence is deafening. Do we hear the voices of objection? No, we do not.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. Certainly, on the west coast we have heard loud and clear that this station, which is in the busiest port in Canada, plays a critical role in marine safety. There have been numerous emergency and town hall meetings where people have come and expressly said to keep that station open. I was glad to hear my colleague say that station should be kept open. He also talked about the MCTS stations that are about to close. He suggested that if the government is serious about developing a world-class marine safety system, it should keep those stations open, as they play a vital role.

He mentioned the marine search and rescue centre in St. John's and that it should be reopened. He has pointed out these closures, which seem to fly in the face of establishing such a world-class marine safety system. I am wondering how the government can claim it is developing this system in the face of all of these closures. I am wondering if the hon. member could comment on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly feel for British Columbia in terms of the closure of the Coast Guard station there. There has been the closure, as the hon. member pointed out, of the rescue sub-centre in St. John's despite objections from just about every quarter. The technicians who ran that centre in St. John's knew every nook and cranny of the Newfoundland and Labrador coast, as well as the dialect. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians speak a certain way, with character and a certain charm, but it is different from dialects and accents in other parts of the country.

On the one hand, the people in Newfoundland and Labrador can more than relate to the opposition to the closure of the Coast Guard station in Vancouver, but it is inexplicable how the Conservatives can explain the cuts on either coast. Of course, we are not hearing anything from the Conservatives today, so we will not be getting any answers.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for pointing out all the contradictions in Bill C-3, which was introduced by the Conservatives. We see that they are not even participating in the debate today, even though this is a government bill designed to tell Canadians just how safe it is at present to use supertankers and to increase production.

We know that the number of supertankers has increased and even tripled between 2005 and 2010. It will triple again by 2016. However, environmental protection measures and everything to do with environmental and emergency services have been reduced or closed from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia. Even the Commissioner of the Environment has said that Canada does not have an effective emergency plan.

How can we tell Canadians that they can trust the federal Conservative government when this very bill contains all these discrepancies?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member again pointed out, as has been pointed out numerous times today, that the Conservatives refuse to speak in this debate for the most part, but then again, even if they did speak, they are not in the habit of answering questions anyway.

In 2009, there was the crash of Cougar flight 491. It was an incredible tragedy, in which 17 people were killed. The number one recommendation from the Wells inquiry into that crash was for the creation of an independent safety regulator to regulate safety in the offshore, separate from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the industry, an independent safety regulator.

One question I have for the Conservatives, if they were willing to speak today, if they were willing to answer questions today, is this: what of that recommendation for the independent safety regulator, the number one recommendation of the Wells inquiry? What of that recommendation?

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

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

During the previous session, we called upon the government to broaden the scope of Bill C-57, the former incarnation of Bill C-3, by sending it to committee prior to second reading so that more comprehensive measures aimed at protecting Canada’s coasts could be incorporated into it. Unfortunately, our request was turned down, and as several of my colleagues have mentioned, in addition to denying our request, today the Conservatives are not even speaking to this bill, explaining their position or answering our questions. It is truly deplorable.

The bill before us today does not go any further than Bill C-57, but we will nevertheless vote in favour of it at second reading, in the hopes that we will be able to convince the government to improve upon the marine safety provisions when it proceeds to clause-by-clause study in committee. The outcome of the efforts in committee will determine whether or not we will support Bill C-3 when it moves to third reading. Again, I hope that we will be able to truly debate the bill’s provisions in committee, and I call upon the government to be open-minded and to work with the opposition to make this bill a better piece of legislation.

I will concede that Bill C-3 does contain a few positive provisions. Enhanced monitoring and piloting requirements are a step in the right direction. The implementation of the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances, 2010, to which Canada is a signatory, is also a positive development. However, as I indicated earlier, Bill C-3 does not go far enough. It does not reverse the effects of last year’s drastic budget cuts on oil tanker safety. The provisions in Bill C-3 aimed at improving safety will have a relatively minor impact as compared to the risks posed by, for example, the closure of B.C.’s oil spill response centre, the closure of the coast guard station in Kitsilano and the cuts to environmental emergency response programs. All of Canada, and not only B.C., is affected.

The government has decided to close the marine rescue centre in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is also planning to shutter the marine search and rescue centre in Quebec City. These rescue centres respond on average to 1,500 distress calls each year. Who will be there to rescue sailors from Newfoundland and Labrador and from Quebec when they encounter an emergency at sea?

In the fall of 2012, two large transport vessels ran aground on the west coast because of marine traffic conditions. Marine traffic is projected to increase significantly on the west coast. Add to that the fact that increasingly large tankers are being put into service. We have higher traffic volumes, larger vessels and Bill C-3, which does not go far enough. I am concerned by this state of affairs, as is our party.

As an MP and as a citizen, I have some serious questions as to why the government would not want to beef up the bill as the NDP is asking it to do. Upon closer review of Bill C-3, we are left with the impression that the government is trying to make up for its lack of leadership in the field of marine safety since taking office. If it really wants to show some leadership, it must avoid half-measures and put some teeth into its bill, because it still comes up short. We want to take part in the process.

If the true aim of Bill C-3 was to promote greater tanker traffic safety, the Conservative government could seize the opportunity to review the cuts announced in the latest budgets and reconsider eliminating marine safety programs. As I said, we have a number of suggestions and recommendations to make and we are prepared to work in committee to improve the bill.

The NDP is committed to ensuring that oil spills along our coastlines become a thing of the past and that our sailors stay safe.

In our view, a bill aimed at protecting Canada’s seas should provide for the following: firstly, the cancellation of plans to reduce Coast Guard services and close stations, including the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano. Secondly, it should expand the capacity of petroleum boards to handle oil spills, as recommended by the Commissioner of the Environment. Thirdly, the bill should also require Canada’s Coast Guard to work with its American counterparts to carry out a study on the risks associated with increased tanker traffic in Canadian waters.

As I said earlier, we have clear suggestions for improving the bill now before us. As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to put in place conditions that will prevent oil spills from occurring on the west coast and elsewhere in Canada.

Scott Vaughan, Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, has stated that Canada does not have the means to respond effectively to an accident involving a supertanker such as the Suezmax, which carries between one and two millions barrels of crude oil. Just imagine a disaster of that magnitude.

To be precise, Mr. Vaughan stated that the transport capacity of the Suezmax “significantly exceeds Transport Canada’s spill-response thresholds”. This kind of statement is truly alarming. What is the government waiting for? When will it take action?

A major spill off Canada’s shores would not only do irreparable harm to the marine environment, but would also result in thousands of job losses. We need to do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen. I would like to hear our Conservative colleagues explain why it makes sense not to improve this bill so as to cancel the closures and cutbacks that are in the works.

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

Mr. Speaker, we can see that more than just our coastlines are being threatened. While we debate this bill, two weeks ago the government lifted environmental protections for offshore exploration. What concerns me is the Conservatives' and Liberals' silence. I am having a hard time understanding their silence. Why are the Conservatives not rising to defend their own bill?

I want to put that question to my colleague and perhaps she can enlighten us.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

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

Everyone on this side of the House is asking that same question. How can it be that the Conservatives, on the other side of the House, are introducing a bill and cannot explain the rationale behind it? That is unfortunate.

I think that as elected officials, it is our duty to represent Canadians and explain our decisions as well as the reasons for our decisions and for introducing a bill. What we are seeing is that the government introduces a bill. It then imposes time allocation. It does not collaborate in our committees and, in the end, we vote on a bill that most Canadians have not had a chance to understand. We did not hear from experts who could explain this bill to us.

What does that mean? I am not saying that this will happen, but it could lead to disasters. We have seen that over the past year and it is very unfortunate.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague to tell me what she thinks about the findings of experts with regard to the St. Lawrence estuary. If there were an oil spill in the St. Lawrence estuary, there is currently no known emergency plan to help us prevent a major catastrophe.

Does my colleague think that this bill adds anything to existing legislation? What will it take to ensure better monitoring of the St. Lawrence and prevent avoidable disasters? There have been 10,000 spills or boats that have leaked oil over the past 20 years. What plan has been put in place for the St. Lawrence? Is the Conservative government concerned about this situation?

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to once again thank my colleague for his question. That is why we need experts to appear before the committee and explain what is needed and how we can ensure that our estuary, our rivers, our waterways and our oceans, as well as Canadians, will be truly protected in the case of oil spills and other environmental disasters. That is the only way to help Canadians and to avoid going further into debt to help those affected by such disasters. The closures of the search and rescue centres in Quebec City and Newfoundland are certainly not going to help Canadians or our environment.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the remarks by the member for Hull—Aylmer, who is my MP when I live in Ottawa. She made a number of good points about the cutbacks to search and rescue.

Some of the things that have been happening on rail safety have been just unbelievable. Imagine that a train could be allowed to run with explosive material, with one engineer, and be unguarded at night. This kind of safety has been eroding over the years.

We will be sending the bill to committee. We think it needs to be discussed there. However, my real problem with the bill is that it is typical legislation from the government, which has no national strategy for aviation and marine safety. It is a piecemeal approach that has taken a little here and a little there. Is not the real problem with the bill that we really need some national leadership with a full-force strategy on safety as a whole?

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I am pleased to hear that he lives in my riding, and I am sure that he loves the area as I do. We are all working extremely hard so that our environment, our jobs and our air quality are the best they can be.

I agree and I am asking the Conservative Party, the party that is currently in power, to review its approach to this bill so that we can really discuss it openly in committee with expert witnesses who can help us to work together in committee and ensure that we improve Bill C-3 so that it protects us. We are talking about improving the bill, but this is really about ensuring that Canadians are protected in matters pertaining to the environment and transportation.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have some reservations about this bill. We have many questions to ask and a number of suggestions to make. We have done this in the past, and we are somewhat concerned about the silence of not only the Conservatives but also the Liberals and, what is more surprising, the Green Party. We are supporting this bill at second reading, but we believe it should be expanded. It must be broadened to take liability limits into account. We are worried that the current liability limits are not high enough.

We know that the New Democratic Party is the only party in the House that can protect marine safety for all Canadians. The NDP has already called for the protection of rescue centres in Canada a few times, but as a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I would especially like to point out that the Quebec City rescue centre is the only bilingual centre in the entire country. The government cannot claim that it is protecting marine safety on one hand, while closing rescue centres on the other. We could have a whole other debate on this, but I have several things to discuss in my 10 minutes and I would like to continue talking about other topics.

My riding is located between two major waterways, namely the St. Lawrence River and the Ottawa River. I can tell all members of the House that my constituents are currently very concerned about the possibility of a pipeline oil spill in the St. Lawrence River or even in the Ottawa River. They are aware that the national ship-source oil pollution fund, which was established in the 1970s, has not been adequately funded for a long time and has not been used since 1976. That was a long time ago. I would like to point out that, at that time, there was a Liberal minority government in power—until 1976—and that it governed in partnership with the NDP. We can therefore see that the Liberals were willing to protect the interests of Canadians, but as soon as their NDP partner was gone, they unfortunately left Canadians out in the cold.

We often hear the government side claim that oil transportation is 99.9% safe, but if that is indeed the case, why not increase liability limits? If it is so safe, then there is no risk in having penalties for companies, so why not increase liability?

Some other countries, like Norway, have no liability limits on spills. This policy reduces the risk of spills. I will briefly explain why. When a company is told that it will have to cover the total cost of a spill, the company will do everything it can to avoid a spill; it will try to make sure it never happens.

Instead, the government would rather pass the cleanup bill onto the taxpayers, which I find very unfortunate. Globally, we have seen major spills that have cost billions of dollars. It would not only be an environmental nightmare, it would also be an economic nightmare for citizens along the St. Lawrence to have to pay the costs of the cleanup.

Let me just point out that in 2012, the five largest oil companies made $118 billion in profit alone. That $118 billion would be enough to pay the cost of cleanup if there were a major spill. Unfortunately, the government is listening to its big oil lobbyists instead. In past legislation it has attempted to remove every obstacle that the oil and transport sector wanted removed.

Leadership means not only helping our friends, but standing for principles that concern all Canadians, not just a certain sector of Canadians. I am sure Canadians would be absolutely disgusted, and I do not believe I am using too strong a word, to know that oil companies are writing amendments to Canadian environmental legislation. Any of our constituents would be disturbed by the fact that oil lobbyists actually send to ministers the amendments they would like to see. It is absolutely unacceptable that our independence has been challenged in this way by the lobbying sector.

Leadership means taking a principled stand to protect the right of not only this generation, not only the next generation, but for the right to a clean environment for the next seven or eight generations down the line. As leaders of our country, we should be considering the needs of eight generations down the line.

One of the fundamental support systems of this planet is water. If we do not do it properly now, if we sully our waters so the next generations will be un able to use them, then our support system for life on this planet will be threatened.

The NDP is committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen on our coast. The Conservatives have lost the trust of Canadians in this respect. They have not really shown to Canadians that they are capable of managing this file, and we would like to ensure that an oil spill never happens. However, if an oil spill did happen, we would want the government to ensure that the company that polluted would foot the bill, not the taxpayer. This is simple common sense. We are very worried.

The Minister of Natural Resources said that he required oil tankers to have double hulls. Canadians are right to be concerned, because that standard was created by an international agreement in 1993. Wow. That standard has been in place for 20 years under an international agreement. Yet, according to the Minister of Natural Resources, the Conservatives are the ones who required tankers to have double hulls. I am sorry, but people know that this standard has been in place for 20 years.

As I said, what is most troubling is the utter silence from the Conservatives and the Liberals. I am also quite surprised that the Green Party has not risen to weigh in on this issue. That surprises me a little.

We have not heard anything from the Conservatives. We had a number of questions for them. I hope at least one person from the other parties will be able to answer my questions.

As we know, the bill is too limited in its scope. Why did the government reject our proposal to broaden the scope of the bill? Why is it unwilling to make any real, significant changes to protect our coastlines? If Bill C-3 is really supposed to promote safety, why did the government not take this opportunity to reverse its poor decisions to cut safety measures?

We wanted to ask a number of questions. The silence on the part of the three other parties is really unfortunate. The NDP are the only ones standing up to speak to this bill. It is the government's duty to defend its bill. Clearly, many members across the floor do not want to do so.

[Dean Del Mastro, Independent, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member made an allegation that is simply not true. Government relations representatives, or lobbyists, work in Ottawa on a whole range of issues, including environmental issues but also labour issues. I know the New Democrats often meet with GR members, and so they should, who would represent labour and would seek to rewrite labour legislation. That does not mean it is implemented; it means they are working on behalf of their clients and they are informing people in this place.

However, I am actually quite proud of Canada's record, both the record of the pipelines and the energy industry, and I am proud of Canada's record in terms of technology investment. I do not hear any discussion about that. Canada's record in terms of shipping is quite good and we are seeking to improve it. I see recommendations by companies on how they can improve that. I am quite proud to see an industry that is actually looking at things and asking how they can be more socially responsible and how they can improve.

I do not see any of that represented in the member's statements. What I do see are dangerous comments that could negatively impact the Canadian economy.

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

Mr. Speaker, the only thing that is negatively impacting the economy is the government. What is true and not true is hard to judge from that party and that member, when the Conservatives stand and say what is true and what is not true. Canadians have a hard time judging whether there is truth in what the government members say.

The member finds the allegation troubling, but it came from ATIP, an access to information request, so it is based in fact. Lobbyists may come and they may talk to us, but it does not mean we have to accept everything they ask us to do, hook, line and sinker.

In terms of technology investment, let us talk about innovation in Canada. For the past seven years, we have been falling, according to the World Economic Forum. In terms of our competitiveness, we have been falling every year under this government. Therefore, the Conservatives have a lot more work to do.

I am glad the Conservatives have put two members up to ask questions today. It is too bad they did not get up to give a speech defending their bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is most interesting in the sense that we have a very important industry, that being our aviation industry. Canada, unlike most other countries, is very dependent on having a healthy aviation industry, just because of the mass of land that encompasses our great nation. We also have a very important aerospace industry.

There are numerous stakeholders out there that need to be consulted whenever we bring forward legislation. I can understand and appreciate the importance of the issue of insurance in particular, to ensure that everything is as much as possible kept above board. Things have been a bit of a challenge within the aviation industry, especially since the 9/11 situation.

My question for the member is this: to what degree do you believe the government has taken that holistic approach to dealing with the aviation industry, that goes just beyond the issue of insurance, but also public safety and even, to a certain degree, that we have had passenger first rights legislation or ideas being talked about? He might want to provide further comment, just in general.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to the member, once again, I do not know how many times I have reminded members that they must direct their comments directly to the Chair rather than to their colleagues. I want to be specific. This includes saying “Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member “what are you going to do?” That is not acceptable. Members cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly. I would remind all hon. members to please direct all of their comments directly to the Chair.

The hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

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

Mr. Speaker, it would not have been a normal day if the member for Winnipeg North had not stood and asked at least a question. I feel like I have had a normal day in the House today, absent the silence of the other parties.

I would like to address the issue of public safety because this is the second question coming from the Liberal Party today. The first question touched on the member for Malpeque saying that he could not understand how a train could have one engineer in it and the spill could occur. That deregulation actually happened under the Liberal government. The New Democrats are the only ones standing up for these issues. The member mentioned the passenger bill of rights. That was an NDP private member's bill from my colleague from Laval.

Both parties have had chances to take our propositions into account and implement them. I know a Liberal government used many propositions in the past to bring in wonderful things like employment insurance, pensions, and public housing. The Liberals are great at listening to our ideas, and we hope they will listen to our ideas when we form a government in 2015.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-3 and while some Conservative members asked questions, none actually spoke on this legislation. Yet, this is a government bill. It should be very important to the Conservatives, but not a single one rose to talk about safety and the investments made to ensure that there will be fewer spills and that tanker traffic will be safe.

We live in a country blessed with natural wealth. There is an abundance of natural resources. The development of these resources, including mining, rail, forest and marine resources, is largely responsible for our country's economic prosperity. We must secure this prosperity in the long term, and to do so we must protect our environment.

An offshore oil spill can have catastrophic consequences for decades, such as water pollution, dwindling fish stocks, harm to health and to the environment, and massive job losses.

Today more than ever, our wealth depends on how we manage our resources. That is the key to our development and this should be an inescapable fact. Bill C-3 seeks to amend five important acts dealing with the aviation, aeronautics and marine industries. Bill C-3 is a new version of Bill C-57. The NDP had asked that this bill be amended to ensure that it truly protects our environment. Unfortunately, as usual when it comes to environmental protection, the Conservatives rejected all our calls to improve former Bill C-57.

The most important part of the bill deals with marine safety and oil spills. It is also this aspect of the legislation that needs improvement. In fact, if we really want to protect Canada's coasts that part should be examined by experts. Part 4 of Bill C-3 amends the Marine Liability Act. It deals with the concept of liability in the event of an oil spill. Under the act, the owner of a ship is responsible for the costs and expenses incurred by the government following the spillage of dangerous products at sea.

Part 5 of Bill C-3 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. It sets new rules to compel oil companies to notify the minister of their operations. These companies will have to submit a response plan to deal with a disaster or an accident. The NDP, a number of stakeholders and many citizens have been eagerly awaiting such a provision.

The bill is absolutely necessary, but it does not meet many of the challenges of oil development and transportation in Canada. It is a good step forward, but it is still quite limited. This legislation should include many other aspects of marine transportation.

The shipping of oil is risky business. As a number of my colleagues pointed out, tanker traffic tripled between 2005 and 2010, and it is expected to triple again by 2016. The increase in oil shipments leads to more spills, whether onshore or offshore. According to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, there have been close to 10,000 spills in the world since 1970. That is a huge number and it is very alarming.

I will refresh your memory. In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform spilled 678,000 tonnes of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In March 2001, the Petrobras oil platform, in Brazil, spilled 300,000 tonnes of oil. In March 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled 38,000 tonnes of oil off the coast of Alaska, not too far from us. Canada is not sheltered from these accidents. Burrard Inlet is the second most dangerous point to navigate in Vancouver. In March, the largest emergency response ship ran aground off the coast of Vancouver and took 11 hours to make the trip to Vancouver from Esquimalt. There are some problems, and we should carefully consider this issue in committee to make practical amendments and improvements that address current needs. With the increase in maritime traffic in the Arctic, the risk of accidents is even higher.

Canada's ability to combat pollution in a northern climate is more limited than in a southern one. Intense cold, distance and lack of on-site emergency equipment would make emergency operations much more complicated.

Premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark, recently said:

If a tanker were to spill oil off the coast of British Columbia today, the federal government would not have the resources to handle a large-scale disaster.

Last year, Scott Vaughan, the former commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, said that the liability limits and compensation programs could be inadequate if a spill were to happen.

The absolute liability limits have not been changed in 24 years. Updates have been needed for ages. Although the Conservative government plans on increasing petroleum resource development, it has not increased liability for these resources. For example, the Atlantic liability is $30 million. However, the full cost of cleanup for the Exxon Valdez disaster was more than $3 billion. That is a disproportionately big difference, and it is quite worrisome.

The U.S. coast guard seems to take the risk of accidents more seriously. The Minister of Natural Resources is studying the effects of increased tanker traffic on the west coast whereas Senator Maria Cantwell feels that a supertanker oil spill near our shores would threaten the thriving coastal economy and thousands of jobs.

It is therefore difficult to understand why the Canadian Conservative government is making cuts to marine safety. Why did the Conservatives shut down the Newfoundland and Labrador marine rescue centre? Why do they want to close the Quebec City marine rescue sub-centre? The sub-centre responds to almost 1,500 distress calls every year. Why close down the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in British Columbia? Why make cuts to marine communications and traffic services, including the terminals in Vancouver and St. John's?

No matter how much the Conservatives remind us that they want to improve marine safety, they are not able to rise in the House today to answer questions, to clarify the situation and to defend their views. No one on the Conservative side has stood up today. Yet these issues are vital to public health and safety, environmental protection and thousands of jobs.

Ever since the Speech from the Throne, they think they are the champions of job creation when they are actually jeopardizing thousands of jobs. That boggles the mind. It makes no sense at all.

The government should understand that, to respond to risks at sea, it must base its decisions on science and facts, and consult with experts, not censor them or cut their jobs.

Bill C-3 could be greatly improved if the government listened to what the experts and the opposition have to say. That seems a lot to ask, however, of a government that prefers to base its decisions on old neo-liberal theories like “government intervention is not required” and “industry will be self-regulating”. We can see what that way of thinking produces when we talk about rail safety or food safety. Many incidents occur, and people are affected. The Conservative theory does not work, and it leads to disasters like what occurred recently in Alberta.

The NDP would nevertheless have a few suggestions to make to the government, if it was prepared to listen. We suggest that it cancel the cuts to marine safety, strengthen the capacity of petroleum boards so that they can see about preventing oil spills, and raise the limit for cleanup after a spell. The limit is currently set at 10,000 tonnes, which is not really enough, given the increase in the size of tankers and in the traffic.

We also suggest that it apply the polluter-pay principle. That is what the government said it would do in the Speech from the Throne. We are still waiting for the government to put the principle into practice.

It should also bolster the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund. This currently stands at $400 million, but the damage from a single spill like the Exxon Valdez spill, for example, would run into billions of dollars. The government should therefore be more realistic, and a little more responsible.

The NDP would also like very much to hear from expert witnesses on part 2 of the bill. Under clause 19, the military is given investigative powers formerly assigned to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which issued public reports. That will no longer be the case.

There is some progress, therefore, in this bill, but much more work has to be done to achieve real improvement. We have to bring in more resources and arrange for experts to be consulted, so that safety is improved in practical ways in oil projects.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

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

She raised a very interesting point. She talked about how, unfortunately, because of global warming, there will be more and more commercial ships in the Arctic.

I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on this bill, specifically about the provisions this bill does or does not contain with respect to these newly navigable waters.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, new navigable passages are opening up because of melting Arctic ice. Experts, first nations and individuals are telling us that they want more oversight, more investigators and more regulations to ensure safety, environmental protection and public safety. More tanker traffic means a greater risk of spills.

Last year, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development told us that we were not at all prepared to deal with spills in estuaries and oceans, and even less so in the Arctic, because there have not been any studies detailed enough to tell us about the potential risks. We also do not have any studies that clearly prove existing plans will work. There are not even any emergency response plans.

The government needs to restore funding. Funding has not gone up in 24 years. Everything is out of date, and the government cannot even be bothered to answer questions, to respond to our concerns about this. We are still waiting for the government to do that, and we hope that will extend to other sectors too.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, often, when we talk about marine or air safety, we also have to consider people's perceptions.

I know that the hon. member was our deputy critic for the environment. Therefore I would like her to tell us how the people she spoke with perceive the government's ability to ensure the safety of Canadians when it comes to the environment.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for her question.

In fact, people currently have a very negative perception of the government's ability to establish credibility on environmental safety. Indeed, the Conservatives have gutted all environmental protections in the last budget implementation bills. Also, in Bill C-45, all protections for navigable waters were removed, giving completely free rein to pipeline projects. This is on top of the Conservatives' failure to implement or even consider the recommendations of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

Here we have another fact. It has been mentioned that pipelines and tankers would transport oil and diluted bitumen, but there have not been nearly enough studies about this to know how the government would respond in case of a spill.

Therefore, when the Conservatives make cuts to science and cuts to research and, on top of that, ensure that scientists are muzzled, they lose all credibility to speak about environmental protection, scientific data and facts. It is therefore difficult to trust the Conservatives when they talk about these issues, since they remove all the factual and scientific information that could reassure us.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-3, which has a rather long name, 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. In short, the bill amends at least five acts and probably several others. This is an omnibus bill.

How many pages are in this bill? I am surprised that the government would introduce a bill this big and not rise to speak to it. That is the first thing I noticed. Is it really to the government's advantage to defend what it is proposing? Is it to its advantage to do things the right way and inform the public of what is in the bill it introduced in the House?

We have presented our position. We will support this bill at second reading, but we have some concerns. We hope it will be carefully studied in committee. Security and economic development should go hand in hand, especially when it comes to these issues.

The St. Lawrence River is not far from my home. Neither is a refinery serviced by ships. In addition, this same river is a source of drinking water for many communities in my province. Clearly, safety is just as important as economic activity. Heaven knows that economic activity in marine transportation is important.

That is why there are a lot of pilots on the St. Lawrence River. To be able to navigate, every ship must have a specialized pilot on board who knows the river very well. That is critical for safety. The same goes for the west coast. The local conditions are unique: the currents, the winds, the tides and the channel.

Earlier, we talked about the Exxon Valdez. We basically want to avoid a spill. In an ideal world, we would want ships to carry their goods safely, with no environmental damage, so that everyone can have a good night's sleep. However, we are not there yet. As several members pointed out, the bill is a step in the right direction, but there is still a lot of work to be done, particularly in terms of safety.

My colleague who spoke before me mentioned the importance of setting up a committee to take a serious look at this issue with the help of experts and people in the industry who might be affected by these measures. Hearing from Canadians is of paramount importance to ensure the bill is socially and economically acceptable. There must be no voluntary or involuntary conflict between economic development and public acceptability of projects and risk management. I deplore the fact that there are often conflicts.

At the heart of this debate lies the need for sound risk management in order to avoid any harm. Our party has based its interventions on this type of management.

In closing, we must take a holistic approach to safety. Quebec City is about to lose its marine rescue sub-centre. It is ironic that, on the one hand, the government introduces a bill that supports safety requirements and, on the other hand, it reduces them. It is as if there is no comprehensive vision for safety. I hope this perspective will be brought forward in committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The time provided for government orders has now expired. The hon. member for Louis-Hébert will have five minutes to continue his speech.

The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-3, An Act to enact the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, to amend the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate 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, which was previously Bill C-57.

First, I would like to give a few statistics to support my argument. Clearly, this bill has a number of objectives, in particular that of improving safety when oil is shipped by water. That is an objective that interests us on this side of the House.

I think that this issue is particularly relevant and urgent given that tanker traffic tripled in Canada between 2005 and 2010, particularly on the west coast. The issue is extremely relevant since that traffic is expected to increase by 300% by 2016, and with all the pipeline expansion projects now on the table, the delivery of crude oil will increase from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day.

The bill makes only relatively minor amendments and improvements, but given how urgent and important this situation is, we will support the bill at second reading. There is no guarantee, however, that we will support it at third reading. The essential work will be done in committee.

One of the reasons why we are supporting the bill is this. Despite the figures I just mentioned, the government has reduced the funding for or eliminated a number of organizations that play a vital role in monitoring and quickly responding to oil spills or other marine disasters of this sort. For example, the government has cut funding for various marine communications and traffic services centres and for environmental emergency response centres.

The bill amends five laws. I think that we can all agree on the amendments. The first part of the bill, which amends the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, provides for the compensation of airlines for loss, damage or liability caused by war risks.

Part 2 amends the Aeronautics Act to provide certain persons with powers to investigate aviation accidents or incidents, whether civilian or military. This will have to be clarified to determine the role of the armed forces, for example. Will they investigate an air disaster or catastrophe, an accident or incident, if it involves both civilian and military aircraft? The involvement of the armed forces in an investigation of such an incident will have to be closely examined in relation to the responsibility of the Transportation Safety Board.

Part 3 amends the Canada Marine Act. It amends the effective day of the appointment of a director of a port authority. This is a relatively minor amendment because the purpose of this part of the act is simply to amend the effective day based on the date of notice from a municipality or a government.

Parts 4 and 5 are much more important in terms of scope and consequences.

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. The convention itself provides that the owner of a ship shall be liable for the costs and expenses incurred by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, by a response organization, or by any other person, in Canada or in a state that is a party to the convention, in respect of measures taken to prevent, repair, remedy or minimize damage caused by hazardous and noxious substances.

This is an absolutely fundamental issue, particularly having regard to the funding cuts, cutbacks and reductions that have been imposed by the Conservative government. We are talking about organizations based on both the west and east coasts.

One of these organizations that is directly affected is in the riding that I represent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. This centre has been directly affected by the proposed closure of the search and rescue centre based in Quebec City, whose function, as its name indicates, is to carry out marine search and rescue operations, particularly in the St. Lawrence River up to the gulf and estuary. This centre remains open, but we cannot say that is thanks to the Conservative government. In fact, in order to save $1 million, according to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the government wanted to close this centre which serves a vital function. It was opened in the 1970s as a direct response to criticism from the Commissioner of Official Languages. The needs of the communities on the northern and southern shores of the St. Lawrence, as well as of francophone users of the river, were not being met. I should point out that the government wanted to eliminate this centre and transfer its operations to Halifax and Trenton.

In a very recent report, the Commissioner of Official Languages found that closing this centre would result in the reduction and virtual elimination of appropriate search and rescue services in French. This has also been confirmed by the Canadian Coast Guard. It has been clearly demonstrated that the Halifax and Trenton centres are not equipped to provide these services. Not only is there the language issue, but there is also another extremely important issue: knowledge of the banks. This issue particularly affects the Quebec City centre, the Newfoundland and Labrador centre, and the west coast centres.

I would like the government to examine its conscience with regard to the bill we are now discussing, and also with regard to its responsibilities and actions in the area of marine transport safety.

Part 4 deals with the liability of ship owners who could be held liable for spills of oil or other hazardous substances. Another factor will be extremely critical, given the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic we witnessed not so long ago. In the case of rail transportation, the liability rests with the owner of the railway and the trains. In the recent Lac-Mégantic case, the insurance seems to be clearly inadequate in relation to the damage caused.

These recent cases involving rail transportation should serve as an example to us in marine transportation. I fervently hope that the transport committee or the appropriate committee will study this matter very seriously.

Finally, part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. Actually, it requires companies to notify the minister of their operations and to submit plans to the minister in order for operations to be conducted. Once again, the matter is one of prevention. The points we are discussing here are extremely complex. I want to make sure that the committee studying this bill does so diligently in order that safety and prevention needs are met.

We in the NDP have done our job. We have proposed various measures to expand the mandate of the bill and the scope of the amendments proposed by the government. We want to make sure that the bill on which we will be asked to vote will fully and completely protect the environment in which this shipping will occur. We must protect the coastal communities that lie close to the areas where ships already sail and where even more ships transporting hazardous materials, such as oil, will be sailing. Oil tanker traffic is going to increase considerably in the coming years, and the government must do its job and take this matter seriously.

I invite the government to give this extremely complex bill serious study and, in due course, to include in it the items that we have proposed so that it properly meets the country's future needs.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we feel that this bill is a step in the right direction. As my colleague pointed out, we will support the bill at second reading so that it can be sent to committee and panels of experts can address some of our concerns.

For example, the federal Commissioner of the Environment's recommendations on the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard, which is to respond to oil spills from offshore platforms, is not covered under Bill C-3. This is one of the instances where we find that the bill does not go far enough. The bill contains some good measures, but we would like to see more.

I would like my colleague to expand on this point, because it is one of our concerns. People throughout the Atlantic region want to feel safe. The federal Commissioner of the Environment has expressed his concerns about this. I would like my colleague to talk about the improvements that could be made to this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely relevant issue. Indeed, the report of the Commissioner of the Environment is and will be extremely useful to the work of the committees. There are changes we would like to make to this bill. We do not want to take anything away from the bill; we just want to add to it, to make it more comprehensive.

These are part of the measures that have been proposed and that directly concern the government's actions. For example, the government could cancel the closure of the B.C. regional office for oil spill emergencies. This closure makes no sense if we really want to tackle the issue of marine safety for shipments of hazardous materials.

We would also like the government to take this opportunity to cancel the cuts to the main environmental emergency programs, including in the event of an oil spill in Newfoundland and Labrador and in British Columbia. In addition, we want the government to strengthen the capacity—which is currently non-existent—of petroleum boards to deal with oil spills, as recommended by the Commissioner of the Environment.

We are actually supporting a wider scope for this bill, and we hope the government will listen.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased 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.

I will start with some background. This is the former Bill C-57. Unfortunately, it died on the order paper when the government made the wonderful decision to prorogue Parliament. When the bill was introduced, the official opposition's natural resources critic, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, wrote to the Minister of Transport. I would like to begin by reading some excerpts from his letter.

I should say that I have been an MP for just over 30 months now and I sometimes feel disillusioned because I feel that the opposition and the governing party are really not listening to each other. We have come up with good solutions. We are ready to give credit to the government where credit is due, but in our democracy, a majority government could not care less about what we say. That is why I think it is important to mention that my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster went to the trouble of writing to the minister on April 5, 2013. He prefaced his letter by stating that he was writing on behalf of the official opposition.

In the second paragraph of his letter, my colleague pointed out that Bill C-57 had a few good things going for it. He added that the piloting experience required and increased oversight were a step in the right direction, but he noted that there was still a long way to go to make up for the draconian cuts that had been made to oil tanker safety in the previous federal budget.

He started by saying that we supported the bill in principle. In fact, we asked the government to send the bill to committee before second reading in order to address some of our concerns.

For example, my colleague wrote in his letter that, under Bill C-57, authorities would report directly to the Minister of Transport in the event of an accident. The bill also limits liability. That said, accident prevention is barely mentioned. He said that he was certain that the minister understood why British Columbia residents were not satisfied with a simple response plan in the event of an oil spill off the west coast. This is not a trivial matter. They want to ensure that action will be taken.

He closed his letter by saying that we hoped the Conservative government would choose to cancel its decision to cut safety measures and that it would broaden the scope of Bill C-57.

We actually said that Bill C-57 was a good bill, but that we wanted to broaden its scope a bit. In response, we received a self-congratulatory three-page letter from the Minister of Transport.

It said thanks for taking the time to write to me on Bill C-57, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. I am glad that you recognize the positive aspects of this legislation. Blah, blah, blah.

In those three pages, the government boasted about being good for Canadians. It is rather incredible.

As the official opposition, the NDP did attempt to kickstart the dialogue that unfortunately has broken down in Ottawa. The NDP wanted to work with the government to do more, to better serve Canadians and to better respond to the concerns of people living in coastal areas. Unfortunately, the government was not the slightest bit interested in our proposals. It told us that it did not have to do what we wanted.

I would like to say that in the three-page letter written by the then minister of transport, he never mentioned that our proposals had some potential. He did not apologize for not allowing us to study it in committee; he did not even acknowledge that that was the purpose of the letter. It was so arrogant on his part. It is unfortunate.

Now the bill has returned under another name: Bill C-3. As my colleague mentioned, this bill will amend five acts.

Part 1 enacts the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act, which authorizes the Minister of Transport to undertake to indemnify certain airlines for loss, damage or liability caused by events that are commonly referred to in the insurance industry as war risks.

This creates a system under which the government covers the costs of damage in the event of unlawful attacks such as rebellion, hijacking or armed conflict. It is about keeping important air services in operation in Canada in the event of a crisis.

We are seeking clarification on some small points. The government is so afraid of what it is proposing that it is not ready to go to committee to answer our questions. I find that annoying.

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.

We want in-depth consultation on this part with expert witnesses, in particular in terms of the discretionary powers of ministers.

As hon. members are aware, Conservative ministers have been giving themselves a lot of discretionary powers for the past two and a half years. We would like to have a little more information about this.

We would also like to go deeper into the matter of public disclosure of the results of investigations. We are all in favour of transparency.

Part 3 amends the Canada Marine Act in relation to the effective day of the appointment of a director of a port authority. There is no problem with that.

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.

I will quote what that 2010 international convention added:

The Convention covers the following damage resulting from the carriage of [hazardous and noxious substances] by sea: loss of life or personal injury on board or outside the ship carrying HNS; loss of, or damage to, property outside the ship; loss or damage caused by contamination of the environment; and costs of preventive measures taken by any person after an incident has occurred to prevent or mitigate damage.

Part 5 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, to introduce new requirements for the operators of oil handling facilities.

On the whole, this is good, including the requirement to notify the minister of their operations and to submit plans to the minister. I live in hope that the minister will notify Canadians as soon as he is notified.

Part 5 introduces a few points, including a new requirement whereby the operators of oil handling facilities must submit to the minister a response plan, civil and criminal liability for response organizations engaged in response operations, the application of new measures and monetary sanctions, with new investigative powers for Transport Canada investigators.

I see I am almost out of time. Those are the five pieces of legislation that will be affected by this bill. As I said, that is not bad. Overall, I agree with the bill. I would have liked it to go a little further. This is a common problem with our Conservative friends. Basically, I would have liked it to go to committee, but we will have to wait for third reading.

We will be voting in favour of this bill at second reading. That does not mean we will be supporting it at third reading. We will wait and see what the experts have to say.

I wanted to talk a little bit about what this will involve, but I will go directly to what we want to see in this bill.

We came up with about 10 ideas of what we want to be included. Among them, we would like the cancellation of plans to reduce Coast Guard services and close stations, including the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano. We would also like the cancellation of cuts to marine communications and traffic services, including the maritime traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and St. John's.

The government must cancel the closure of the British Columbia regional office.

I will not have enough time to name all of them. We had about 10 good recommendations. I imagine my colleagues who sit on that committee could list them. It is important that we take the time to do a proper study. I would have liked to refer this to committee before second reading, but since this is where we are, I would be happy to answer questions from my colleagues.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine

The NDP tried to talk to the Department of Transport in order to make some changes and additions to the bill before it was introduced in the House to make it more comprehensive, complete and appropriate with respect to marine transportation of dangerous goods. That is what we want to talk about today.

Compensation in case of a disaster is an extremely important part of this bill. We want the owners of ships involved in disasters to be fully liable for the damage they cause. For example, Norway and Greenland have no set limits on how much damage a shipping company can be liable for. That raises two questions.

First, should Canada also ensure that shipping companies are fully and solely liable? Second, in light of the tragedy we recently experienced in Lac-Mégantic with respect to rail transport, should the government not also ensure that the law includes measures requiring shipping companies to ensure they have the means to assume the cost of cleaning up a marine disaster?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for those two very relevant questions.

I often look to Norway and Greenland for inspiration. We do not necessarily need to follow in their footsteps, but our committee should look closely at the standards they have set. That way, we can weigh the pros and cons and determine whether we should move in the same direction. I hope that we can invite experts from those two countries to our committee or talk to them via video conference, so that we can ask them some questions.

As for his second question, concerning the transportation of dangerous goods, we unfortunately saw what happened in Lac-Mégantic. Today, the minister made an announcement, and the government is using this tragedy to score political points. It is quite appalling, but that is what we must contend with.

I get the impression that we are not concerned enough about the transportation of dangerous goods in this country, even though I know the transport committee will be studying it. Transportation of dangerous goods by land, sea or air must be taken seriously. It does not make sense that there is no law telling companies what to do.

Under this bill, oil carriers will have to submit plans to the transport minister, but is that enough?

It seems as though the price tag for Lac-Mégantic will be quite high, and the company is not even able to pay for the damage it caused. Is that normal? Must the government always pay? We are talking about saving taxpayers' money. Should that company have had the money needed to cover the costs associated with that disaster?

Those are all good questions that need to be answered in committee.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did not have time to finish talking about how to improve the bill.

The NDP will support this bill because it is a step in the right direction, but we regret that the government has refused to expand the scope of the bill at the request of the NDP.

Can the hon. member tell us more about what the NDP is demanding with regard to the changes it would like to make to this bill to ensure that Canadians feel safer?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

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

It is true that I did not have time to mention all our recommendations and I hardly talked about the environment although the purpose of the bill is to improve the environment and to protect our seas and oceans.

Among other things, we would require the Canadian Coast Guard to work with its American counterparts and conduct a parallel study to examine the risks resulting from additional tanker traffic in Canadian waters. We know how many tankers are in our Canadian waters, so it is absolutely crucial to use this bill before us to improve the situation. I would point out that many people and groups support our positions.

I would like to end with a short quote. Federal Commissioner of the Environment Scott Vaughan stated that, even with the Kitsilano Coast Guard resources, a Suezmax-type supertanker, carrying between one and two million barrels of crude oil, “significantly exceeds Transport Canada's spill-response thresholds”. When our Commissioner of the Environment says that, we must ask ourselves some serious questions.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this bill, especially since transportation safety affects the residents of La Pointe-de-l'Île a great deal.

In my constituency, trains carry hazardous materials into the heart of Montreal. My constituency also has refineries and petrochemical industries. It is therefore very important for the residents of La Pointe-de-l'Île to know that they are safe and that they can count on their government to put the strictest measures and the tightest regulations in place so that disasters such as the one in Lac-Mégantic, or the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, do not happen again.

Today, during question period, two of my colleagues asked questions about a spill in Athabaska. I therefore feel that the debate we are having today is very important, so that Canadians can feel safe. Serious accidents are happening more and more frequently. People have unfortunately lost loved ones. I think it is extremely important for Canadians watching these debates on television to be able to say that they can finally count on the government and on Parliament to keep them safe in their homes.

That brings me to my second point. As I said, the NDP is going to support this bill because it is a step in the right direction. The bill contains a number of positive features, such as the requirements for piloting and for surveillance. We might also mention the increased safety of oil tankers and especially the toughening of reviews, inspections and aerial surveillance. Unfortunately, this small step in the right direction will hardly improve safety at all. It is also very weak in light of the dangers that have resulted from all the cuts that the Conservatives have announced in their budgets since their majority government came to power in 2011. Yes, it is a step in the right direction, but we are faced with years of neglect in transportation safety by sea, by rail or by road. We are dealing with years of lack of regulation, of deregulation, and of neglect. This is a political choice and I find it very regrettable that the Conservatives are using Canadians' fear as a political lever. Saving money on the backs of Canadians and at the cost of their safety is no way to govern.

As I said in my speech earlier today on supervised injection sites, we are talking about public safety. If we can save just one life, there is no reason not to adopt the strictest and most important regulations. I think it is absolutely ridiculous. We have no words for how horrible this is. It is also unfortunate to see that the Conservatives have decided to close the Quebec City search and rescue centre, which will put many lives at risk. Because of the budget cuts to British Columbia's oil spill response centre and to the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, in British Columbia, the measures in Bill C-3 will unfortunately not keep Canadians safer.

For instance, the response time will be longer. If we look at the east coast, the Quebec City centre is the only bilingual centre, so francophones might not be able to receive service in French anymore when they call for help.

We support this bill, so you might wonder why my speech today points out the negative aspects. As I said, it is because this bill seeks to correct mistakes after years of neglect. However, to add insult to injury, this bill does not even include the best regulations and standards for Canadians.

For example, in my introduction, I drew a parallel with railway safety. Many derailments have unfortunately made headlines in recent years. The Lac-Mégantic tragedy is sort of the pinnacle of this neglect. Now the players are starting to wake up. The Prime Minister decides to go to Lac Mégantic and the Minister of Transport makes announcements.

Why then do the Conservatives not want to work with us to avoid this type of tragedy in the future and to avoid losing any more friends, to ensure no more Canadians are lost and no more spills harm our environment?

The Conservatives passed this bill somewhat hastily because Canadians are increasingly objecting to their projects, such as the Northern Gateway pipeline, for example.

The government is dismantling all environmental regulations. While the bill is a step in the right direction, it is a very minuscule step, unfortunately. It will barely address the Conservatives' neglect and the millions in cuts they have made to our safety. I previously mentioned the search and rescue centres as well as the emergency response centres.

I have risen several times today to implore my colleagues to ensure that the safety of Canadians will not be set aside and that the savings sought by the government will not be realized at the expense or to the detriment of our constituents—of Quebeckers and Canadians.

The role of government is not only to provide services, but also to ensure that people feel safe in their homes. They must feel safe when they drive their car and cross a railroad track. They also need to know that their environment and their health are safe.

The NDP has repeatedly proposed a very important principle, the polluter-pay principle. We would like the Conservatives to consider this principle and for companies and response organizations to be required to have enough insurance to clean up their mess.

My colleague pointed out to me that the damage caused at Lac-Mégantic totaled more than $300 million and the company had only $25 million in insurance. Who will cover the rest, then? The government will. Canadians will.

It is important to remember that prevention is better than any bill or any action we could take. We must ensure that we are right here to debate and find a way of providing Canadians with the best standards and the best regulations so that they are safe at home. They must be able to rely on the fact that the government cares about their environment and their safety.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, part of the good work of an opposition is not only to oppose government policy and legislation where it needs to be opposed, but also to work with the government sometimes to improve legislation that may be well intentioned but could use improvement. Bill C-3 is an example where the New Democrats are prepared to offer cautious support for this bill, which does some good things, but does not go far enough in terms of protecting our coasts and public safety.

Some of the things I know New Democrats want are for the government to reverse Coast Guard closures and the scaling back of services, including the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in my province; to improve marine communication traffic service centres; and generally to improve safety on our coasts to ensure they are safe for people and traffic.

Could my hon. colleague comment on some of the positive changes that the New Democrats might want to offer to this bill so we can make it better and stronger legislation?

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for his question. I know he has worked extremely hard with his colleagues from British Columbia to try to have the Conservatives reverse their decisions, especially those to close the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and the emergency response centres.

This bill would provide more resources, but it does not go far enough. Indeed, the NDP has tried to widen the scope of this bill, to enable the people who work on the ground and have the required expertise to move forward with their efforts to make Canadians feel safer.

We asked the Conservatives to reverse their decision to close the Coast Guard station and the search and rescue centre. This was precisely intended to give resources to the people on the ground, to make Canadians feel safer at home.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The member for La Pointe-de-l'Île will have three minutes for questions and comments when the House resumes debate on this motion.

It being 5:31 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today 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. That is not my introduction. It is simply the title of the bill, which amends a number of things.

First, I would like to point out that Bill C-3 has already been debated in another form, as Bill C-57. Before supporting that bill at second reading, the NDP asked that it be reviewed to broaden its scope and reverse Conservative cutbacks and closures regarding marine safety and the negative changes to environmental protection. Those topics directly concern the purpose of the bill. That request was refused—no surprise there—but the NDP still moved forward.

I am speaking to this bill today to indicate why I will support it, what reservations I have, and what additional measures I would like to see in order to ensure true protection, much more extensive protection of what this bill is designed to protect.

As I said in my introduction, this bill changes a number of things. I would like to highlight some that I find most important. First, the bill seeks to indemnify air carriers for damage caused by war risks. The intent is simply to make sure that, in dangerous situations, air transportation can continue, come what may. It is quite interesting. The bill also grants powers to investigate aviation incidents or accidents involving civilians, aircraft and aeronautical installations. Put simply, the power of investigation increases when an accident occurs, and that too is very interesting.

The only reservation I have about this measure in Bill C-3—and I hope I will be able to deal with it in committee after this vote at second reading—pertains to the discretionary power being given to the minister. I want to make sure that he is not given too much.

Let me digress a little. As the critic for citizenship and immigration, I have a good deal to say about the discretionary powers that are increasingly being given to ministers in a number of bills, including this one.

In our immigration system, we have seen a number of amendments in bills that have changed the system and given more and more discretionary power to the minister. I find that worrisome. We have a very complex and elaborate system, with very competent officials. Yet the minister is being given more and more discretionary power. That worries me. I am not pointing the finger at any minister in particular. I am simply talking about a principle that opens the door to decisions being made in back rooms, where we have no ability to seek real accountability or point out where mistakes have been made here or there. That is the end of my digression. Making that point made me feel a lot better.

In short, the clause in Bill C-3 that deals with the Aeronautics Act must be examined closely to make sure that the discretionary powers given to the minister do not go too far. I hope that we will hear from a number of people who can give us the benefit of their wise counsel.

Bill C-3 also proposes to amend the Marine Liability Act. The bill seeks to implement an international convention that Canada signed in 2010, the Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea. Canada is a signatory to this very important international convention and today's bill seeks to implement it. The convention defines the liability of vessel owners for the 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 a spill like that occurs and when damage is caused.

Finally, the amendment to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, is also very important. It introduces new requirements for operators of oil handling facilities, which is somewhat along the same lines as the amendment I mentioned earlier.

The amendment also proposes the application of new measures and monetary sanctions, with new investigative powers for Transport Canada investigators. Once again, we see the same idea. Those two amendments are the most important.

As another aside, I would like to refer to what happened recently in Lac-Mégantic. I agree that it is not really the same thing, but we are still talking about the same principle of owners and operators being liable.

After the recent Lac-Mégantic tragedy, we saw how the province took action. People on the ground and Quebeckers from across the province joined forces to provide assistance to victims and to raise funds for reconstruction and restitution after this oil-related accident.

It is unacceptable that it is the people who must come together and pay for that damage. People were kept in the dark for so long before finding out whether the company's insurance was going to pay for the damage. In the end, a large part of the cost had to be covered by the province and by generous and compassionate individuals.

That is the link I want to make here. These amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and the Marine Liability Act may provide a solution by ensuring that companies at fault in the case of spills or catastrophes like that one will be a little more liable.

I will now continue with the bill. I said earlier that Canada was a signatory to the 2010 International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea. Yes, I said the 2010 Convention. Well, not so long ago, in the autumn of 2012, two big transport ships sank off the west coast because of the current traffic.

Today, we have the impression that the bill that we are debating is a means for the Conservative government to apologize for its failure to act all these years. By signing the 2010 international convention, perhaps the government was demonstrating goodwill, but too much time went by after that. Catastrophes happened, and spills happened on the west coast, and it is only now that I am debating this bill at second reading. That is much too long.

Yes, Bill C-3 introduces corrective measures, and once again I will be supporting it at second reading. It may be too little, too late, but I just wanted to raise the matter.

What will the next step be? The Conservatives have set up a three-person tanker safety expert panel. In November 2013, the panel was to publish a report on how to reform the oil spill response regime. I am mentioning it because all too often we have seen very interesting reports being tabled without their recommendations being taken seriously or implemented quickly.

I hope the Conservatives will show good faith when this report is tabled and that they will implement meaningful and serious reform measures as recommended by the panel, in order to improve companies’ safety and liability. Oil tanker traffic is increasing and we must ensure that our regulations keep up.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague finished her speech on the impact of oil tankers. People in Quebec are concerned about the transport of oil by pipeline or over our beautiful gulf, which also has fossil fuel potential. Canadians have concerns, especially when the federal government is the one managing this. Does my colleague think that Canadians are justified in their concern about the Conservatives’ management of this matter?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question and his community involvement. As a member of Parliament, he does a very good job of representing the people in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

Yes, there are some concerns. I will explain why I think these concerns are justified. Despite Bill C-3 before us today, we are aware to what extent the Conservatives have gutted, or at least significantly reduced, environmental protection measures. That is the cornerstone of the concerns. When you want to develop natural resources responsibly, you do not lower environmental standards and drop the number of inspections. On the contrary, you increase resources for scientists and inspectors. When you give a natural resources development project the green light, you should have every available credible study and an audit system. That way, you can assure the population that it will be done properly, in a way that respects the environment and sustainable development, and that avoids disasters. Canadians do not trust this government right now. It is understandable when we consider everything that has been done to reduce environmental protection.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, the Auditor General recently told us that, in his report, roughly 25% of the audits had been done on the rail transportation of dangerous goods.

He did not say so in so many words, but I gathered that he thought this might be due to a lack of resources. That is not what he said, but that is what I understood.

Does my colleague not worry that even with a bill like this, and given the government's cuts in this area, there could be problems preventing tanker oil spills?

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

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

I understand where her question is coming from. I understand her concern because on the one hand, a host of regulations has been implemented recently by the Conservatives, who boast about having done something tangible, and on the other hand, there are not enough resources to ensure that the new regulations are implemented effectively.

If I may add to the discussion: oil tanker traffic has increased tremendously. In fact, oil tanker traffic tripled between 2005 and 2010. It is supposed to triple again by 2016. You can see how important this is.

I am pleased to support Bill C-3 at second reading stage, but frankly, we must continue in this direction and ensure that our regulations are appropriate for the current situation.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think if you seek it you shall find consent to see the clock at 5:30 p.m.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Does the chief government whip have consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.