Sure.
The bill provides first-hand a provision that the National Energy Board could take control of an incident response and compensation of damages to any harmed parties. That provision doesn't exist in the National Energy Board Act today, and it would propose that it would be implemented based on the ability of the Governor in Council to designate a company. A designation would follow a sequence of steps, where a company might suffer an incident, and the company might not respond to the board's orders to clean up the incident or to behave in a certain way, and the board might then make a recommendation to the Minister of Natural Resources to designate the company as unresponsive. The Governor in Council would then consider designating a company as unresponsive, and then the board would be provided the authority to act.
Bill C-46 provides that the Minister of Finance may provide funds from the consolidated revenue fund to the board to pay for the cleanup and the response. In the event that damages are suffered beyond the cleanup and response, a tribunal may be established to provide adjudication and review and assessment of damages and provide compensation for parties that may be harmed. I use the word “may” in a number of choices because there are the possibilities that an incident occurs and there aren't many parties who suffer damage, in which case setting up a tribunal would be fairly extraordinary and heavy-handed and not necessary. It may be that an incident, should it occur, could affect more than one person or several parties, in which case adjudication through a tribunal would be a reasoned response.
The consolidated revenue fund reference is to the government's account, if you will, managed by the Minister of Finance, and would be exercised in that way only when a company would be designated as unresponsive or unwilling.