Environment Committee on June 16th, 2026

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the officials and witnesses here for answering the questions.

I want to start with some questions for ECCC about the amendment to CEPA.

As I mentioned in my testimony, this was about returning it to its original intent: being a strict liability offence. Before that, the court case very much changed how it was interpreted.

I'm wondering whether there have been other cases like this that have come up, ones the government did not advance because of this new interpretation of the law.

[Stephanie Lane]

What I would suggest is that we get back to the committee with a written response, because we aren't enforcement officials. That's a matter of enforcement. The Public Prosecution Service of Canada would have had discussions about it.

There have been investigations and inspections under the disposal at sea provisions, but I'm not in a position to provide more specificity today.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I understand that, for sure.

My next questions are for Transport.

We've had a good discussion about some of the challenges regarding how you determine the current state of a vessel. There are different ways you can do this. One potential way that was brought up is doing a survey, but that would be expensive and not necessarily fit for purpose for smaller vessels. The other way would be doing a declaration, where you talk about specific aspects of the vessel, like the engine, the hull and what have you.

I am hoping you might be able to provide some feedback to the committee on how you would best approach this spectrum of disclosure, based on the kinds of vessels that could be sold.

[Colin Henein]

The purpose here is to ensure that the buyer is well informed as to the condition of the vessel, so that when they assure the seller of their resources and intent to manage the vessel, the seller can be satisfied and go ahead with the sale.

It ranges, really. If you have a very small vessel and its condition is clear, it can probably be very simple. If you have a more complex vessel that has technical aspects to it, there may be a need to provide some more information. It's about the buyer and the seller being well informed and agreeing to proceed with the transaction while knowing their responsibilities under the act. It's from that perspective.

[Paula Vieira]

May I add to this?

You can equate pleasure craft sales to what is seen when there are used car sales between private parties. You can equate it to the kind of evidence a buyer requests from a seller. That could be maintenance records, the age of the vessel—obviously—or how the vessel was used. If you're looking at smaller vessels, you can equate it to this type of transaction between private individuals.

Obviously, if it's commercial craft, you would be looking for something more extensive.

Joanne.

[Joanne Weiss-Reid]

What I'll add is that we can explore some optionality there. We could come up with some options. We could provide some guidance that isn't a burden for owners of vessels that are smaller, for the reasons we discussed.

There are some opportunities and ideas we can come back to the committee on, in terms of reducing that regulatory burden.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you very much.

With the remaining time I have, I was hoping that Transport could give an update on the progress of the vessels remediation fund.

[Paula Vieira]

I can start, and then I'll turn it over to Colin.

We continue to work to deliver on the vessels remediation fund. In fact, we're continuing to do some analysis. One of the points of analysis that we're doing, given when we originally came up with this idea, is on the fee. What is the fee that had been intended? I think it was two dollars a year, so it would be $10 for a five-year period on a craft.

Given the passage of time, we're now looking to re-examine that and do a bit of an elasticity analysis on whether that would be the appropriate threshold. Obviously, we don't want it to be cost-prohibitive, but we also do want, for a lack of a better term, the juice to be worth the squeeze.

Go ahead, Colin.

[Colin Henein]

This emerges out of some preconditions that needed to be met. We needed to have it implemented in the bill. We needed to have the pleasure craft licensing regulations complete. That's now been done.

With the passage of time, as Paula has said, we do need to reassess whether the amounts that we thought would be significant when we were out consulting in 2021 and 2022 would be useful and make a dent in the problem, while also bearing in mind the need to make sure we don't disincentivize the licensing and registration of vessels at the same time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much, Mr. Weiler.

Thank you to all of the witnesses this afternoon and for all of the times many of you have appeared at committee.

Thank you very much to committee members for a productive session.

Thank you very much to our clerk, who has supported us for a long time and will be switching committees in the fall.

We won't be having a meeting on Thursday, so we will next be convening when the House sits again.

We are now going to adjourn to vote.

Thanks, everybody.