That's an excellent question.
Up to a certain point, I think we're going to have to trust our Crown attorneys, who generally do their job quite competently. When making an order, the judge has the discretion to specify where the funds will go and what projects they will be allocated to.
The case you raised is problematic. If there is an oil spill at a certain location, and legal action is taken, the funds will likely be paid out several years after the spill, so the work to repair the damage caused will already be completed.
We have to take this limitation into account. When we want to allocate funds for repair, it's often already done, because we had no choice to do it before. We also need to think about this when we consider our options.