Thank you, Chair.
As members on the committee know who have dealt with bills before, when you move one amendment, it has an effect on others. Amendment NDP-3 ends up combining with NDP-11 and NDP-16. This is getting at the heart of the matter.
When this bill was at second reading in the House, a number of members stood up to speak around the issue of the total compensation allowed. There was notice by some, particularly in the opposition, that we could effect the limit at committee: if the $650 million were deemed not to be enough, then we would change it at committee. Our concern is now that, in the amendments I'm attempting to move today—in NDP-3, NDP-11, and NDP-16—the attempt to move that limit upward is challenging, given the way the committee process works. The clerk will probably have something to say, or through you, Chair, about whether it's deemed outside the mandate of the bill or not. In my reading, the bill is to set up a liability limit for the nuclear industry; to say that above this limit, government may come in—or at least that the companies will not be on the hook.
From the testimony we heard at committee, the $650 million was thrown into some question, certainly by the international witnesses we had, who described liability limits in other countries that are very much higher. There was some argument made that the Canadian industry is just too small or is of such a scale that $650 million is as high as they can essentially go. But then we also heard from the Canadian insurers that $1 billion was actually foreseeable and manageable.
So through NDP-3, NDP-11, and NDP-16, we're having the combined effect of raising that limit, ensuring something similar to what the U.S. has in store and has designed already.
It seems that in order for the committee to do this work, in order for Parliament to make an informed vote, having $650 million as the prescribed limit is staring into the face of the evidence, which says that limits should be much higher.
As to the relevance of these three motions, which are combined, they seem well within the scope and intention of the bill designed by the government. All we're saying is that your study was too old—this was done up in 2002, based on the Magellan report that we've heard much about—and if you modernize this bill you'll probably end up somewhere around $1 billion or $1.2 billion for compensation as a liability limit.
I'm interested on your ruling on this or what you see, but this is the main sticking point for New Democrats around this legislation: it's eight years old in its design, the world has moved on, and when we compare ourselves with other countries and jurisdictions, we find that they all have higher liability limits. This in a sense makes this bill unsupportable, although we're trying to modify it where we can.