Thank you, and good morning to everyone.
I gather that I have the honour of being the first one to speak. My last stay in this city, our capital, dates back to when I was three years old.
I believe I have seven minutes, so it's a bit difficult to cover the areas I'd like to today. In general, we are active in the oil spill response industry. We're designers and manufacturers of oil spill response equipment and services. In the past we have also provided services for offshore contingency planning for oil spill response from the Bohai in China to the state of Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, etc. Actually, worldwide wherever there's water and there's oil, Aqua-Guard is present.
Generally, I think today I'd just like to say that we're here to see the procedures. I suppose it will be important for our country, as well as others, to actually legislate. Basically, we're responsible for our actions, so first we have to look at what our activity is, and that will determine what we need to have in place. We notice a lot in our work that we have the most difficulty where there is no legislation and everybody does whatever they want. It's important, therefore, in the context of Ottawa to actually understand what's going on in the gulf today. We have a great opportunity to learn now how we can actually hopefully avoid that in our waters.
I remember telling my children, when they were young and they'd go out, to make good choices. I think if we can make good choices, we'll stay on the right road.
We can take what's happening in the gulf today as an example. If the water pipe here breaks when we're turning on the faucet, we go up and shut off the main valve. Basically, that's what happened. It's very simple. What's happening today is happening because there wasn't a good choice made to have the necessary precautions in place. What can we learn from that? We're very busy ourselves with the oil spill. We're supplying equipment and sending a lot down. We can't supply enough, and I think most companies can't either now. That's the situation we're in.
I think what's important is that the governments and the oil spill response companies work together internationally to put together as many members as possible to try to combat the situation, which is actually overwhelming. Before we get there, I think we'd like you to know that we as oil spill response providers of equipment and services can actually offer the expertise, and we hope you will take the next step to actually put that into legislation, which we do have in this country in fact. Canada is very fortunate that we're very well equipped and organized.
We work with the coast guard on the west coast. We're actually not very present in Canada. We started out as a small family business in 1968, and we're still run by the same family. We're everywhere else in the world. It seemed easier for us to have access worldwide, but we're becoming more and more involved in Canada. Of course on the west coast we don't have offshore activity, so we've been more present in other arenas. We are involved in supplying our colleagues on the east coast, but I think there is a wonderful forum now in which we can actually see how we can better act and then react when it's time to react to these kinds of situations.
Those from BP, the entity involved in this spill, are the industrials. I began in 1974 with Gulf Oil and Petro-Canada, and I've spent my whole career in the oil business. It's very difficult for industrials--it seems funny to say--to get what they need, because often the legislation isn't there to help them. They're providing their services. They're specialists in what they do. They're doing the best they can, but obviously they're in over their feet. What I'm saying is we need the industrials to be there. They should be here today. The people in the oil business should be here today with us. They could help us with their expertise. Then, of course, they could give it to you people who could turn that into legislation, regulations, and so on, so we'd all be protected.
I think I have one more minute left. What I want to sum up in this brief talk is that we in the industry are very frustrated only because we've been waiting, since this situation began, for BP to call us with their needs so that we could help. Last week it began with BP--last week.
If BP had had a plan that was a little more developed and very clear in these kinds of cases of worst scenario... Many years ago, when I was head of safety and environment with an oil company in Europe--I spent 20 years in Europe--it was amazing. My boss said to me, “What do we have as far as our precautions? Next meeting, we're going to look at our worst-case scenario.” So we looked at our worst-case scenario and had a report: we weren't prepared. It looked real good, but we weren't prepared.
I think the worst-case scenario is what's happening today in the gulf. If they had been prepared, I think they would be in a much different situation today.
I'm sorry I don't have more time. I think we could go on for a long time here, trying to iron out the wrinkles, but I look forward to any questions when it comes to that time.
Thank you very much for your time.