Thank you, Mr. Chair.
One of the things that caught my interest in the earlier testimony was a bit of the discussion on the common law right to sue. We have a bunch of lawyers at the front of the room here and very few on the committee, so I would be interested in knowing what is normative in situations like this in Canada.
An illustration was given of how it took 20 years with the Exxon Valdez. Giving an American illustration to a bunch of lay people from Canada honestly doesn't mean a whole lot, because we know the Americans have a little bit of an odd system at times, even with the common-law correlation, etc.
Let's say that something did happen under this new legislation and it was actionable, something that would be suable. What sort of activity could you sue for under this current legislation? I know it's just guessing, but give the lay members of this committee some sort of idea of for how long and in what process that would wind through.
We're being asked to vote on legislation that involves legal processes. I'm a geophysicist, and we have a variety of various other skills around the table, so I'll be blunt that I don't totally get what all would be involved in that.
I have a bunch of people who are all leaning forward and saying “we can teach the guy something here”, so who wants to start on this one and upgrade my legal education?