I can en anglais.
Evidence of meeting #45 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tribunal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #45 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tribunal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes. This is trying to tie the way nuclear facilities are built and maintained. There should never be any assumption by the operator, because of a limited liability, that anything changes in the way it builds or operates a facility. Now, the operators will say that this is the case. This is trying to internalize an externalized cost.
We have given a false limit to the insurance that's available. We have said we're going to cap it. We never want this to create the unintended consequence that an operator is able to say, “Well, it's only $650 million; therefore, it affects the way we do our operations.” This is only in the case that negligence is proven—not suspected, but proven out, in either the tribunal or a court.
We're saying that if negligence went on, and particularly if it was known, as we get into these inquiries—and we can sometimes trace back and find out where the negligence occurred—the liability limit shouldn't be afforded a group like that. It shouldn't be afforded an organization that performed negligently that it get the special $650-million-limit privilege We think that's wrong.
So it's only in the case where it's proven, to add further stringency to the way the providers do their business and the way the employees go about doing their work, so that they know that if they're negligent, if they screw up and cause an accident and cause all this damage, the $650-million limit is not going to be there for them, that it's going to be much higher.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you.
I have Mr. Tonks and Mr. Allen on that issue.
Did someone there want to respond?
5 p.m.
Bloc
Paule Brunelle Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
I would like to ask you a question. Why is this amendment in order? Is it because the reinsurance account is not available? Is that why this amendment is in order but the other one was not? It suggests tripling the amount.
5:05 p.m.
An hon. member
I would have thought it was to be chairman.
5:05 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
5:05 p.m.
An hon. member
A coup.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
There seem to be a lot of people who are willing to sacrifice the current chair, mostly my colleagues.
Mr. Tonks, go ahead, please.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Alan Tonks Liberal York South—Weston, ON
I was being facetious, Mr. Chairman.
I only have one response with respect to Mr. Cullen's suggestion that is entrenched in that particular amendment.
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that when you go to court you draw your expert witnesses to establish what's fair, both in a procedural form and in terms of quantitative form and. When we were talking about the $650 million we had the Rothschild report, which was submitted as reasonable grounds to establish the quantum of reparation and also the kinds of checks and balances that are in the legislation with respect to natural justice, the tribunal, and so on.
My fear in going Mr. Cullen's route through that amendment is that it flies in the face of the expert testimony that has been provided through the report we have been given by our witnesses. The risk is that you have then set the stage for an appeal to the legislation on the grounds that the expert testimony that established both the quantum and the content of the bill is suspect. I don't think we want to set the stage for that.
We have good legislation. We have reasonable grounds to defend it. I believe we must avoid the constitutionality or whatever you want to bring into it--and I'm going to use the term “at all costs”.
I would argue against the amendment, and I would use the grounds that have been given through our witnesses that in a Canadian experience--yes, Mr. Cullen has quite rightfully referred to other experience, but on the basis of the experience and the expert draft that we had through that report--the $650 million is sufficient and that the exigency that may occur, to which Mr. Cullen refers indirectly through his amendment, is not consistent with both the reports we had and the way the whole bill has been constructed.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Tonks pointed out two very good things. One was the chair, obviously, and the other concerned the points he made with respect to the evidence we heard.
The other thing I would like to point out... And one could make an argument that this probably shouldn't be in order either, because if you look at it, “operator fails to prove...the liability...in subsection (1) is increased to three times that amount”, so indirectly you are taking your liability up to $1.95 billion, and any insurance company, when it assesses the risk, would probably say that the premiums would therefore increase, and you will see an escalating amount on that as well.
I would say I can't support it based on those two factors.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I have two points. One, I think Mr. Allen is referring to the Magellan report. The Rothschild one is the report the government commissioned around restructuring of AECL.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. I might have that wrong.
The report I'm referencing is the one that the government commissioned. It looked at two reactors around which we had much discussion here. There were three factors. One is, the report is eight years old. That's when this bill was constructed. It was constructed around an eight-year-old report.
Second, the two recommendations that came out of the report—there were only two—said that the government should look at Pickering, a place with a higher density of population, and it should also look at different types of accidents, more severe accidents than the one the examiners studied. They were given a direction to study two more isolated reactors under a limited set of conditions for a design accident, one that was imagined, as opposed to a more severe accident. The nuclear insurance group came before us, and under a question from my colleague, Mr. Rafferty—I'll repeat this, because I think this is important—the question was, “As a lawyer, would you think it would be fair to limit liability to an entity if an accident were to happen because of negligence and incompetence?” That is what we're dealing with here.
The answer from Mr. Walker—this is from the nuclear insurance companies themselves—is that “the classical answer would be no”. I guess there are no countervailing arguments in a nuclear environment. From the insurer's point of view, to Mr. Allen's point, when the concept that's brought up here about proven negligence and given the moment where you can have this limited liability, the insurance said no. They said that when you look at it this way, you shouldn't do this.
Our report is eight years old, and the government ignored the only two recommendations that came out of the report to study what may in fact happen. We're going to a question of proven negligence, in which the insurers themselves said that if you have proven negligence, the special circumstance that Bill C-20 creates should be modified. Our amendment is modifying that circumstance in saying that we're giving you special treatment as an industry because it's so hard to insure you guys flat out--that it can't be done. That was said by the nuclear industry themselves: without this type of legislation, you don't have a nuclear industry, period.
We're saying that's fine to an extent. We've argued already for a higher liability limit. There's disagreement on that. We're now saying that just in a point of proven negligence, should they still be afforded that special privilege of limited liability? We're saying sure, that it still is afforded to them, but charge them more for it, because they were negligent, and it was proven, and the insurance companies themselves who are involved said that would make sense.
Those are the arguments we're making around NDP-5. I think for all the points I raised, it makes sense. We submit ourselves to the vote of the committee.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Paule Brunelle Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Something else in the NDP amendment concerns me. Negligence will have to be proven and that could take a long time before the courts. As I understand it, the principle behind this bill is that, if people are faced with a disaster, we can respond quickly. We want a court that can settle things, and so on. I worry that this could drag on for 10 years while, all that time, people are on their own.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Absolutely.
Just in terms of this being the whole question of expediency, further on in the legislation, as we heard from our witnesses today, the establishment of the tribunal and getting the money out the door is not hindered at all by its intention on NDP-5. The money can still move. The government can make those compensation cheques. With the proving of negligence, the $650 million would still be available with this amendment in the bill.
All that this would suggest is that it would present a question to the court, asking if it should be more. It can't present it to ask if it should be less or slowed down. Not imagined, not intentioned. In terms of moving money quickly out the door for victims after a nuclear accident, absolutely. All this commission would do is to say whether more money should be made available.
That's all. The $650 million and the reinsurance account and all of that is already afforded. That's proven in sections 57, 58, and beyond in the bill. That doesn't get modified by this change at all. All this says is that if they're proven negligent, should the company be more on the hook for more money? We believe they should.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you, Mr. Cullen.
I will call the question on amendment NDP-5.