Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the committee for inviting CELA to speak to you today about Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act.
CELA is a 44-year-old national ENGO, and when we're looking at conventional sources of energy, the areas we're focusing on are usually around things like liability, safety, emergency planning, and environmental health.
Today I'm going to focus on the liability aspects of the bill. You are focused on offshore oil and gas in your study today and on nuclear energy on Thursday, as I understand it.
First I want to look at the bill as a whole, because there's a significant contrast between the approaches in the two sectors of the bill. The areas I'll address are the polluter pays principle, which we've been hearing about this morning, absolute liability, liability for negligence beyond absolute liability, and supplier and contractor liability.
First of all, with respect to the polluter pays principle, CELA too supports this principle and is very pleased to see it included in several oil and gas statutes as part of their purpose statement, so that it will now be part of the purpose of all of those regulatory statutes.
However, the polluter pays principle is not included in Bill C-22 on the nuclear side of the bill. We would submit that it is poor policy that a bill that espouses the polluter pays principle does so only in respect of one type of energy source in the bill, oil and gas, and not in respect of nuclear.
With respect to absolute liability, both sides of the bill, oil and gas and nuclear, require minimum insurance or other demonstration to show that an absolute liability amount could be paid in the event of an incident. We agree with that, although we also agree that $1 billion is not enough in either sector.
The difference is that in the case of oil and gas, licence holders or their suppliers and contractors may be liable beyond the absolute liability in the case of negligence, as you heard described. That may sound obvious, but on the other side of the bill, negligence and liability beyond the absolute liability are not provided for on the nuclear side. On that side, the billion dollars or whatever the phased in amount is, would be the absolute maximum that an operator would ever have to pay for an incident even if it drastically exceeded the liability of the incident.
In the case of the negligence side of the bill with regard to the oil and gas sector, the damages would have to be proven. We recognize there are issues with proof, but nevertheless the fact that claims can be brought for proven damages in cases of negligence even beyond absolute liability is entirely appropriate in our view. We would submit that this should be done as well on the nuclear side of the bill.
A section analogous to clause 19 of part 1, which amends the act by changing section 26 of the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act, should also be included in the nuclear side of the bill.
The other big difference is with respect to supplier and contractor liability. Both aspects of the bill channel supplier and contractor liability to the operator or the licence holder for that absolute liability portion, but only on the oil and gas side is liability ever possible against suppliers and contractors in their negligence. On the nuclear side, that's never possible. The nuclear suppliers to that entire supply chain never have to consider the consequences of the decisions they are making around risk, and on the nuclear side as well as the oil and gas side, decisions are made every day around risk.
The other thing I want to focus on today has to do with the proposed amendments to the bill. In addition to the amendment I suggested, which would insert a section analogous to section 26 of the Oil and Gas Operations Act into the nuclear side, I would also say, with regard to the nuclear side, that in clause 120, proposed section 9 and all of the subsections there that have the words “and no person other than an operator” should all be struck out. Then proposed section 24 should be amended to increase the absolute liability amount similarly on the oil and gas side.
Then a provision like clause 19 of part 1 of Bill C-22, which provides for additional liability beyond the absolute liability in the case of negligence, as I already said, should be included.
To conclude, because I know time is short and you have questions, with respect to this bill, we agree that the amount for the absolute liability portion of the bill is insufficient. We agree that there should be an amount for absolute liability in both sectors. We also agree that there should be liability for negligence beyond the absolute liability. Our submission is that this should apply in both sectors as well.
Thank you.